NRO Takes on Trampy Preschoolers

It's neither Halloween nor V-Day , and yet we've been treated to a raft of articles on the sexualization of young tarts-to-be. The occasion is this APA report, which includes such insights as "Girls use the Internet frequently and for many purposes (D. Roberts et al., 2005)" and "Analyses of photographs from Maxim and Stuff (two popular men's magazines) revealed that 80.5% of the women were depicted as sex objects." Well, Mona Charen is convinced!

When girls barely out of diapers are encouraged to wear make-up, skin-tight mini skirts, and push-up bras, we've left the realm of wanting to look pretty and gone into something sick and tawdry. Whatever we may think of immodesty in grown women, there is little doubt that it is disgusting, demeaning, and depraved in little girls.

What does it even mean for someone "barely out of diapers" to be "immodest"? Your worldview has to be incredibly sex saturated to look at a four-year-old in a skirt and think "whore!" The idea that a piece of clothing (a miniskirt, a belly shirt) signals the exact same thing in every context (a brothel, a daycare) is just obviously absurd… unless you're invested in a narrative of cultural decline. I'm wearing lipstick today; I hear all the cool girls are wearing lipstick to their rainbow parties. I guess we're the same.

It's interesting that this subject, the sexualization of children, is condemned by both the Left and Right.

This is especially interesting if you've been in a coma since the late 70's. Every sex-panic infused topic of the moment (human trafficking, egg trafficking, Britney's lack of underwear) involves a coalition of scolds left and right.