If a 6-Year-Old Wants to Be Sexy, Whose Fault Is That? (Really?!?)

Whew…

This morning, I read an article entitled, “Why 6-Year-Old Girls Want to Be Sexy“. Yeah, that should be alarming enough.

Anyway, as I read deeper into the piece, there was a recent study conducted in which girls between the ages of 6-9 were shown to paper dolls. One was “sexy” (a sexy paper doll?!?-SMH) and another was dressed in a trendy manner. The girls, by far, favored the paper doll with a halter top, stomach exposed and itty-bitty skirt. More specifically, “Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with. Across-the-board, girls chose the ‘sexy’ doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.”

And then I revisted a video that came on a couple of years ago centering around the topic of tweens becoming “too sexy too soon” thanks to the media and the term that I actually dig *a lot*: “Corporate Pedophilia”:

 

There were a few things that came to mind as I watched it. One thing was how it said that tweens have “$43 billion dollars in spending power”, when the reality is that most of them aren’t even old enough to get a job, which means the *buying power* is coming from their parents. I also thought it was humorous to hear someone at Seventeen say that, “Teenagers are very aware of who they are.” It’s been a while since I was a teenager, but I mentor them. “Awareness” is not their strong suit. Matter of fact, if you’re persuasive and cunning enough, you can pretty much talk them into your opinion or out of a large majority of their own in one 15-minute conversation.

And then I thought about the Lupe Fiasco quote up top. I mean, if our kids are dressing like sexy women while they are still in puberty, why are we acting like we have no signficant influence in the situation? I grew up trying to sneak outfits on and guess what? My mother had no problem popping up at my school (with no warning), throwing out the clothes that I borrowed from “a friend” and sitting with me to watch television and screen (literally) the music that I listened to. I mean, for two 12-year-olds (in the clip) to be singing a Katy Perry song in which the video has her naked in it…it just seems like parents/teachers/mentors are letting themselves off the hook to simply blame it on the media and “the last days”. When the Word says, “Train a child up in the way that s/he should go” (Proverbs 22:6), that wasn’t speaking to musicians and actors. That was a shout-out to the parents.

However, my questions for today are these. Personally, I agree with the Lupe quote and while I personally think that sexy can actually go down a couple of more notches under things like intellect, humor, spiritual maturity and academic excellence, I get his point. It’s not just “worldly girls” who are out here with nothing on just like it’s not just “worldly girls” who are having sex, getting pregnant/having abortions and compromising their value. And that said, why is it that so many girls want to be sexy, and not just “too soon” but *period* (is pretty not cool anymore)? When’s the last time we’ve seen a girl with “her stuff” (her *good stuff* that’s meant for *her husband*) hanging out and we haven’t asked her why she feels compelled to dress that way or even better, complimented her on something that has *absolutely nothing to do* with how she looks? Why don’t we realize that some of the most alarming sexual advertisements right now are our girls; the human moving “billboards” for sex and sexuality before most of them can even tell us what their reproductive organs are?

There’s something *really wrong* when a child wants to be sexy before she can even tell you what sex is and definitely what it’s for. And we oftentimes send a really confusing message by telling them that their “not old enough” to be sized up for their sex appeal rather than simply reminding them that they’re beautiful and sex doesn’t have to have anything to do with it. At 6, 12 or 25.

They’re “drinking the Kool-Aid” young and younger, y’all and so something we’re doing (or not doing) isn’t working and we all know the saying: “If we’re not apart of the solution, we’re a part of the problem.” A sexy child is a BIG problem.

What are your thoughts on how we can exchange sexiness for self-respect with our girls?

And what are your views on if we are lacking in properly modeling self-respect over sexiness because we are lacking in the very same area? Hmph.

Sound off…