Best of spam, or, nine out of ten people agree: This is the most overlooked story of the year

Tim Cavanaugh | August 23, 2006

Best recent item from my junk mail folder: this column from litigious cab driver Burton H. Wolfe, revealing "The Undiscussed Factor in the JonBenet Story"...

She was only six years old. Her face was painted with mascara, lipstick, and other makeup. She was dressed in clothing designed to expose a substantial portion of her little body. She was taught to effect hula hoop pelvis swaying and burlesque type dance movements that were sexually provocative. With those as assets arranged to provide a perceived advantage for her, she was entered by her parents in "beauty contests."

While I am the opposite of a prude...I cannot help finding it a morally and ethically reprehensible act to indulge in sex exploitation of children. When I look at videos of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey made up and dressed to be sexy and gyrating her body in ways widely recognized as those used to incite and to effect sex, I find myself reacting much like a "Christian fundamentalist," and I want to know why the media is eliminating a discussion of the sex factor in the JonBenet story.

And it's true: If you take the wayback machine to Old '97 or so, you just won't find any books, magazines, papers, or TV newsmags wringing their hands about juvenile beauty pageants and the sexualization of children. It's like a total conspiracy of silence on this issue.

Of course, horror and outrage at these weirdo beauty pageants and their perverse dollmaking was the constant handmaiden of all JonBenet coverage, an attitude best summed up by my pal Mr. Cutlets, who dismissed John and Patsey Ramsey ("an affront to every tabloid-buying American") with the observation: "The mere fact that they entered their daughter in those sinister pageants is reason enough to despise the Ramseys, and the human race in general."

By the way, whatever happened to East Brunswick's own Hallie Kate Eisenberg, the anti-JonBenet who looked for a while like she might be bringing preteen feminism into a bold new millennium?

Comments

|8.23.06 @ 3:07PM|#

I thought sex was the very reason this case was back in the news. Girls go missing all the time, most of em aint as hot as JonBenet.

|8.23.06 @ 3:11PM|#

Without those gyrating videos, this is a non-story. "The views make the news."

|8.23.06 @ 3:12PM|#

JonBenet Ramsey? I'd tap that. If she weren't dead, I mean. I'm not into anything sick like necrophilia or nothing.

|8.23.06 @ 3:26PM|#

Well, I've always suspected that perhaps the subject of race performed some function in the OJ trial...

|8.23.06 @ 3:34PM|#

On this topic, everyone should go see Little MIss Sunshine. It really is quite good.

|8.23.06 @ 3:51PM|#

I must be out of the loop. Who is this Jon Benet Ramsey guy again?

|8.23.06 @ 3:54PM|#

It seems to me that child beauty pageants with all the make up, etc. should be expected given our media and political obsession with children. I find myself wondering why no sick soul has seen fit to put child beauty shows on television at primetime.

Also, I would argue that child beauty is a cultural thing. I think the first time I saw babies with make up and pierced ears was when I was a kid at Disneyland back in the '70s. It seemed to be the thing to do among some Latinos at the time. It seemed inhuman to me.

I assume they look at us and think, "What kind of weird, puritanical culture projects sexuality on to made up children?"

|8.23.06 @ 3:58PM|#

"By the way, whatever happened to East Brunswick's own Hallie Kate Eisenberg"

You may have heard of this site called IMDB.

|8.23.06 @ 4:39PM|#

Sure, the kiddy beauty pageants are creepy. But 'entering your 6yo child in beauty pageants' and 'murdering your 6yo child' are very different calibers of evil. The former warrants a sneering tsktsk, the latter warrants 25 to life.

|8.23.06 @ 4:40PM|#

Sure, the kiddy beauty pageants are creepy. But 'entering your 6yo child in beauty pageants' and 'murdering your 6yo child' are very different calibers of evil. The former warrants a sneering tsktsk, the latter warrants 25 to life.

|8.23.06 @ 4:52PM|#

And for the record -- I still think Patsy Ramsey is guilty, guilty, guilty. And the husband is guilty of helping her cover up. Like OJ, they could afford to pay an excellent legal team for several years, and they beat the rap.

|8.23.06 @ 5:06PM|#

Daze,
And for the record, your evidence is....????

|8.23.06 @ 6:14PM|#

If you're interested in the case, read Steve Thomas's book "JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation". He was one of the primary detectives working the case from Dec 96 to Jun 98, and he makes a very convincing case for Patsy as the murderer. Convinced me at least.

Put it this way -- the evidence against Patsy Ramsey is far more damning than the evidence against Scott Peterson.

Stormy Dragon|8.23.06 @ 6:31PM|#

And could you perhaps summarize that case here?

Or is your evidence "because Steve Thomas says so"?

|8.23.06 @ 6:48PM|#

Why should I summarize stuff you're not willing to look up & read yourself?

|8.23.06 @ 7:32PM|#

Now, now, children, play nice and let's share.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312978618/reasonmagazineA/

Windypundit|8.23.06 @ 8:02PM|#

I've never actually seen the JonBenet pageant video for more than a few seconds, so maybe I'm missing something, but these pageants have been around forever. Harlan Ellison was complaining about them back in 1970.

Just as parents sometimes take little league way too seriously, it sounds as if parents have created a way-too-serious competitive enterprise out of little girls playing dress-up.

I will now sit back and wait for Harlan Ellison to sue me for mentioning something he wrote without paying him for it.

|8.23.06 @ 11:52PM|#

Little Children should not dance

|8.24.06 @ 1:05AM|#

If you ever have the chance, tune into Univision during various dayparts. You'll see little girls tramped up in sexy outfits, adult women women heroically filling out sexy outfits, but all teen girls are clad in baggy tomboyish clothes.

What kind of message is that sending?
Priorities, amigoes.

Stormy Dragon|8.24.06 @ 3:10PM|#

>Why should I summarize stuff you're not willing
>to look up & read yourself?

Because it makes more sense than expecting people to waste time and money rsearching and argument that even you don't seem to consider worth the time to explain.