by A. C. Kleinheider

A friend of mine met a girl. She was an attractive, articulate girl so he did what any red-blooded man in his early twenties would do; he started to "hit on her." During his flirtatious small talk he started to ask her about school. As she progressed in her descriptions of her typical school day it became clear that she was not speaking of her graduate studies or even a freshman seminar.. she was talking about high school. Immediately, he downshifted from flirting to polite small talk and got the hell out of that situation.

I was in a similar yet less embarrassing situation at the grocery store. I had the choice of two checkout lines. I chose the longer of the two because at the end was the cutest checkout girl I had ever seen. It occurred to me that I might ask her out but I am too shy for so bold a move. Luckily, I am reticent because minutes later she had to call the manager to her register. She was not yet eighteen and unable to sell me my beer. There I was standing in the grocery checkout line, a dirty old man, at the tender age of 23.

These are probably not an uncommon occurrences. Go to any mall in America and you will see girls ranging in age from 12-20 decked out in the latest skintight bare midriff ensemble. I understand that the physical development of girls into womanhood before the age of 18 is nothing new to the human race. I know that the image of the Lolita has been in literature for some time. But our popular culture and our modern society seem to be speeding up the sexualiation of young girls. We have a problem in our culture and her name is Britney Spears.

When I say "Britney Spears" I mean, of course, all her clones as well, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, etc. All of these girls are either under or hover very close to the age of consent. Whether these girls are in fact nineteen or fifteen is immaterial; those that craft their image quite deliberately paint them with their stuffed animals, pigtails, and school girl uniforms, as "jailbait". These girls are marketed specifically to preteen girls and they are not singing about sugar and spice; they are singing about sex.

"Give it to me / I'm so addicted to the loving that you're feeding me / Ohhh / Can't do without it, this feeling's got me weak in the knees/ Oh, baby / Body's in withdrawal every time you take it away/ Ohhh/."

Maybe I just have a dirty mind but a 15-year-old girl dressed up in sexy clothes singing about sex is unseemly. Pornography has always had images of girls dressed to look like they might not yet be able to vote. That, however, is pornography not mainstream pop culture. What we have now is a mainstream pop culture product that is being marketed to preteen girls with newly disposable income.

These girls are additionally burdened with bodies that are developing into womanhood at a faster rate than ever before. According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of "The Body Project", "Girls are maturing earlier than ever before. Some of it is good -the result of improved nutrition and decline in infectious disease. But we have a lot of 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old girls who are precociously sexual, who are interested in adult, erotic things. If very early on you are encouraged by the culture to be sexual.it changes you.".

Not only does Britney Spears and her acolytes make these early developing teens easy prey for perverts and sickos, it no doubt gives some males the subconscious idea that preying on underage girls may not be as evil as they thought. Because of this cultural phenomenon some males might be less inclined to downshift from flirtation to small talk like my friend did.

Pornography that engages in such imagery retains the stigma of pornography and reinforces the taboo. The use of these kinds of images in pornography is no less wrong, but it does maintain the boundary between fantasy and reality, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Something has gone awry when you have Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in a strapless push-up bra, tight white hot pants, and pumps, in a room strewn with cute little stuffed animals or on MTV in a school uniform telling us, "She's not that innocent." This culture is serving up candy to pedophiles and subtly mainstreaming perversion.

While no government edict will solve our Britney Spears problem, our society and culture does need some boundaries. I know that innocence can't be maintained forever. Eventually the knowledge and responsibilities of adulthood come to us all. Our culture seems to encourage in young people a sort suspended adolescence, in such a hurry to grow up, yet not quite completely. We always hear the expression, "If I knew then what I know now.." Well, there are a lot of things I don't even want to know now much less then.

Sex is the life force, it is what makes us human, and its mysteries are revealed to us sooner or later along with all the fetishes and perversions invented by some of our more imaginative brethren. Adolescence is an important time but there is no need to lengthen its hold on children's lives. Children should be children and adults should be adults and we need to be very careful of how and at what pace the transformation takes place.

June 16, 2000

Copyright © 2001 A. C. Kleinheider