Date: September 17, 2019
Thanks to Kamil!
01) Breckynn Willis and our fear of pretty tough girls
“Such was even more solidified to me when I showed a young girl in a rather provocative bikini and asked my students what they thought about the image. A student from Nigeria told me, “Oh, no, she cannot wear that.” I asked her why. She said, “She cannot wear that because the bikini makes her look sexy, and she is too young to look that sexy.”
What I valued in that comment was that it’s nothing an American would have said about a 9-year old girl. We would have said the image was “sick” and should be illegal (it is not, by the way), and that only pedophiles or old sick men would like it. But that is not the truth because such imagery is way too popular across much of the world for it to appeal to only 2%.
We want to control girls because we fear them. We mistake normal development with bad behavior and we fail to distinguish sexuality from over sexualization: from the time they can walk and talk, kids play at being adult.
This includes kids trying to look like adults. It includes them exploring their bodies, what looks good on them, and, yes, defying those darn ghostly Puritan ideals and those adults that treat them inappropriately.
Let Kids Play Adult in Safe Spaces
I think recognizing that young girls or boys can be pretty or even attractive is not a crime or a disorder. It is human nature. This culture has always denied nature in favor of an artificial reality that may appear safer but is far more dangerous.
Youth can be beautiful, but many are terrified and conflate this with child abuse. There is a difference in acknowledging a person’s qualities, whether physical or psychological and over sexualizing them.”
