InsaneJournal

Why Big Breasts in Comic Books Did Not Turn Your Daughter Into A Slut
You know, normally I don't make posts like this, but gah, this annoyed the hell out of me.

I just read something dealing with the issues of sex in teen role models and honestly? I'm trying to think of a single time I've seen this addressed from the point of view of someone who's not that far out of their teens themselves, and I can't think of any. It seems every time I'm hearing about it, it's from the point of view of adults who are busily trying to make sure that their children don't get ideas into their heads.

Example: that episode of SVU that was dealing with Shock Jocks, and had Lewis Black in the role? Started out with the rape of a sixteen-year-old who played the lead in a television show about a girl who deliberately lured sexual predators by wearing skimpy clothes and then busted them for it. The anti-smut brigade went on a crusade, saying that she shouldn't be showing herself like that, it's a bad influence on the children, what if they start wanting to have sex? Stabler, naturally, agreed with this woman, and there wasn't much argument from the other cops, who can usually be relied upon to play devil's advocate. The alternate argument, that the character was supposed to be a strong female role model who stopped perverts and was "taking charge of her sexuality," came from the director of the show, a forty-year-old guy who happened to be sleeping with the teenage star. In essence: the alternate argument came from a *complete sleezeball* who should have been in jail, thus sermonizing that teens shouldn't show themselves or be sexualized to that extent on television. It's bad for the children.

Now, I'm twenty years old, and I have to admit, it's not exactly a traditionally responsible age. But I'm not a party girl. I barely ever drink even now, when everyone I know, including my parents, seem to think that I should. I've never done any form of drugs, including heavy prescription medication, with the exception of surgery. I've never had indiscriminate sexual activity, I've never even smoked a cigarette. I was in one of the most academically challenging programs our public school could offer- and for the record, I went to an excellent public school- I'm currently doing a bachelors in history and a masters in education simultaneously. None of which I say to brag, because it's really not all that much of an accomplishment, but which I say because I want to give you a frame of reference. I was never one of "those girls" that parents worried about. I was left alone at home all the time, I could go to parties as long as it wasn't a school night, and I had no curfew except the state law about driving between midnight and four. I was a responsible child, or as much as any teenager could be. I was the kind of child that the Morality Police worry would be corrupted.

And I have this to say: it was too late.

You can't take the issue of sex out of teenager-hood. You just can't. Saying that a highly sexualized female character makes for a bad role model is like saying that a strong, bad-tempered male character is a bad role model, and boy howdy, do you see *those* on tv all the time. Teenagers *are* sexualized. It's a biological fact. And you can't just turn back the clock to the days where abstinence-only was a valid sexual education choice, because we are way, way past that.

Teens have sex. I know this may be shocking to some, but it's the truth. I laugh every time someone says that a female teen character wearing skimpy clothes is a bad role model, because honestly, has anyone actually *been* to a high school recently? Girls wear skimpy clothes. Now, you may think that that's a bad thing, and that's within your right. I don't really want to see the asscheeks of a sixteen-year-old girl when her miniskirt flips up and her thong is miniscule, but at least I don't blame it on tv. That girl did not dress that way because of some girl on television. That girl dressed that way because it's cool. Maybe television is to blame for the fact that dressing that way nowadays is cool, but it's only to blame in the sense that popular culture is to blame. If you manage to get rid of that one teenager character in a tv show, movie, comic book, what have you, it's not going to make your little girl stop dressing like a slut. (No, I don't like super-skimpy clothing, I think it makes you look like you're advertising for it. Unless you're talking about the dance floor of a private club, which is a *totally different matter.* Not that I've ever been anywhere like that, or anything.) Teens, and yes, teenage *girls,* are already hyper-sexualized. You can't blame that on any particular character on a show and say that they're a bad role model.

It isn't television's job to be a role model for your child. That's *your* job. All tv is supposed to do is entertain. And yes, plenty of shows have a moral lesson to impart, and the moral leanings of the writers in question will always come through, and some shows are deliberately violent and sexual and shocking, but that's not the fault of the show. If you think your child is being corrupted and a bad person because of a particular form of media, restrict access to that media. But first, please consider the fact that it might just be puberty.

And one last thing: parents, girls have sex. Girls have sex just as much as guys do. In fact, statistically speaking the vast, vast, vast majority of sexual *crimes* are committed by males, so perhaps we should stop worrying about the sexual morals of the girls, and start worrying about the sexual morals of the boys? I'm not saying that there aren't girls out there who are sleeping with the whole football team and could probably use a good wake-up call, or that there aren't perfectly nice guys, but for the most part, teenage boys are *horndogs.* Trust me, I was there. Am still there. College boys really aren't that much better, they just have more access to alcohol. And the real trouble here isn't the girls in skimpy clothes on television. The real trouble is the inevitable age gap between parent and child, and the seemingly near-impossibility of communication between the two levels, of *understanding* the culture gap between Then and Now. The times have changed, and the rules are different. Parents, please, please remember this, and act accordingly.

My parents managed it perfectly well, for which I am eternally grateful, and so I know it can be done. I think that if more parents made that effort, they'd find that things would be a lot simpler all around.