America's Burqa, pt 2

I recently wrote a post here called "A Question." I am re-posting it now:

"SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2023

A Question

I was standing in a Walmart, talking to a friend recently. We were next to the "Baby girl," "Toddler girl," clothing department. Something spoken of in the new documentary, "Pretty Baby," hit me. I turned to my friend, pointed at a shelf full of clothing that once would have only been sold in places like Victoria's Secret, for all us adults to enjoy, and asked, "Why isn't this type of clothing mass marketed to little boys?" Her response was immediate, and the look of disgust on her face was clear.

"Oh my God, that would make adult men see little boys as sexual."

Quite an answer. The saddest thing to me? She still doesn't realize what her answer said, what it means she and society view as an acceptable way to let others view cis girl babies and toddlers.

Judy S. Lentz at 6:32 AM"

Since this post, I have discovered there are more stores offering "gender neutral" clothing, as well as the traditional "boys" and "girls" clothing departments. Care to guess which of the "boy" and "girl" departments that the "gender neutral" clothing more closely resembles? Doesn't take much thought, does it. Children's clothing departments might as well be labeled as "sexualized" and "non-sexualized."  That has been the two choices for the last few decades.  Which of those choices more resembles gender neutral clothing?  You got it, turns out, gender-neutral is simply non-sexualized. 

The Pretty Baby documentary made something clear that I hadn't heard mentioned before. An interesting change in marketing that coincided with another change years ago.  I don't know if it was necessarily on purpose, but when women started the first wave or two of feminism, something really fucked up started to happen about that same time, all in the name of "clothing choice," I guess? Little girls started to be more blatantly sexualized by the clothing being marketed for them. Cis female babies were endangered by a new, and growing threat in this country. A new kind of Americanized "burqa," a way of presenting little female children as more and more sexual, a clothing change that was eventually marketed for cis female children still in diapers. The idea of beauty was taken away from fully grown adult women, whose shapes and ages were once portrayed on screen by fully grown adult females with fully mature bodies, and replaced by younger prepubescent-looking girls.  The Pretty Baby documentary mentioned all of this.  Whether on purpose, or not, the results of this sexualization has been a continuing nightmare for younger and younger females.  Little girls, while still toddlers, got desensitized to the leering looks of adult men, while more and more adult men started seeing younger and younger girls as sexual.  When these girls got old enough to choose their own clothing, they simply went with what they knew, after already being taught that their worth was tied up with the sick sexual leers that passed as male attention in their lives.  Then they were told their continued wearing of sexualized clothing was their own "choice."  Instead of being handed the apple by the snake while an adult, female children grew up carrying apples already velcroed onto their child bodies.  They still end up being blamed for that goddam apple.  

And predatory men walk away blame free.

Where the fuck is Lilith when we need her...  

We need to start dressing all children in non-sexualized clothes.  Let them truly grow into their own sexuality, along with their peers, at a reasonable, natural pace. With their peers. Their goddam peers. No gross-ass old predator involvement at all.  And before anyone says little girls fucking old men is natural, that bullshit is straight from the bible of patriarchy.  It has nothing to do with nature.

My next post will focus on the two times in my life where I actually experienced momentary age appropriate sexuality, by my own choice, once as an eleven yr-old,  and again at nineteen.  (My post about my first kiss is one of the experiences I will expand on, and can be found by following this link: My first kiss )

Before anyone tries to label me as some sorta prude-ass churchy person, let me mention a well-known fact about my "godless" parenting style.  My kids had information from me, and access to condoms, from the time my oldest child was twelve.  Humans are sexual.  No prude bullshit is ever going to come out of my mouth.  As kids mature, they need to interact with their peers in a manner that helps them all become fully functioning responsible adults.  The operative words in my last sentence?  "Their peers."  Not old-ass predators.  I am quite comfortable in saying that making sure our children are protected from molesters and the predators who will pull trains on molested children for many years to come, will go a long way in slowing this current increase in self-harming and suicides in teen girls.

Children being assaulted and raped this second, do not need any goddam Marc Maron's in their futures.  And we gotta stop sexualizing cis female children.  That is not a fucking choice any child is making.