| The Real Wizard 18.10.2012 21:43 |
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/sext-up-kids.html This is the reality for a very large portion of Canadian and American kids today. A very slippery slope we're heading down, to say the least. My question for everyone here - what's it like in your part of the world? Better, worse? |
| thomasquinn 32989 19.10.2012 04:15 |
I work as an educator at a museum, and on a yearly basis, I receive about 1500 schoolchildren, mostly between the ages of 10 and 14. From what I've seen, it's not nearly like this in the Netherlands. One thing I do notice, however, is that pre-teen girls often wear clothes that would've been considered very provocative on an 18-year old not fifteen years ago. Most striking is that it is usually their mothers who pick said clothes out for them. However, I don't get the impression that the girls themselves perceive such clothing in a sexualized manner, and the boys don't either (at 10-12, they mostly still think girls are a nuisance). As for the remarks about easy access to pornography: that's nothing new. Teen boys can find porn on the internet nowadays, but twenty years ago they stole videos from their parents, or got them from older friends/brothers/etc. Fifty years ago, they had pornographic magazines you could get from the crooked newspaper vendor, or, again, nick from your old man or whatnot. I'm really not too worried: I live in a country where sex isn't a huge taboo, so children get SexEd at appropriate ages, and mostly they can discuss sexuality with their parents and teachers. One thing I *do* notice that disturbs me is that the children, especially girls, from orthodox Christian schools (and not regular Christian schools) are waaaaaay more sexualized than other children, to the point that I occasionally get a class with some 11-year-old that's actually trying to flirt with me or my colleagues. |
| pittrek 19.10.2012 13:39 |
Aaah, Catholic schools. Our office building is next to a catholic school. I learn new swearwords every day :-) Also it's normal that the guys drink at school, they're usually heavily drunk in the afternoon. Marijuana is also very popular there. Regarding the things that little girls do wear - I can't understand it either. Why do they want to look like old whores ? Why don't their parents forbid it ? |
| thomasquinn 32989 20.10.2012 06:37 |
I don't know what it's like where you're from, but over here, Catholic schools are pretty moderate. It's orthodox protestant schools that are the source of such bizarre scenes as you describe here in the Netherlands. Just an addition to my original post: I should add that I live in a region of The Netherlands where the cities are fairly small (ca. 50 000 people) compared to the north-west of my country (500 000+). It might be that the situation referred to by Bob is more closely approximated in those large cities. |
| john bodega 20.10.2012 12:09 |
"Regarding the things that little girls do wear - I can't understand it either. Why do they want to look like old whores ? Why don't their parents forbid it ?" Because the world NEEDS those outfits. I need them. They rock. Wait. That makes it sound like I wear them... |
| catqueen 20.10.2012 14:48 |
I have some young relatives (pre - early teen) who have extremely provocative stuff on facebook, and their parents are also on facebook, so i am assuming they don't have a problem with it. Like as in, pictures of young girls pretty much licking each other's faces in tiny amounts of clothing while on holidays. When i found those pictures, it made me so sick -- they're so young, and if those are what they aren't afraid to post publicly (so their mom can see) what must be in their private inbox messages. :/ I know it varies a lot, and a lot depends on home life and what the parents allow (i'm not blaming parents, but in many cases the parents could have put a stop to some stuff -- for example, the mother of the girls i mentioned told me that she tells them to wear longer outfits over their tiny miniskirts so their dad won't find out what they're wearing). Kids are way way more sexualised now then they used to be, and wearing a heck of a lot less then used to be acceptable for a 10 year old child. And even if the 10 year old boys aren't aware of it, the 20 and 30 and 40 year olds are, which is quite worrying. |
| john bodega 21.10.2012 03:37 |
It's just an unpleasant topic. Actually it made me very conflicted when I was myself a teenager. It was remarkably weird to be there fancying the girls in my class and then (even though I was the same bloody age!) be thinking "eeeerrrgh gross, they're too young". As older persons, all we can really do is make sure that none of our brood goes and does anything irresponsible or dangerous. But the fact is that it's pretty well normal for young 'uns to be figuring out the ropes at these ages. Within a given value of 'normal', we have to accept that they'll do some things that seem pretty inappropriate. (Although people who run fashion labels that sell skanky clothing to 10 year olds - these people should die in a fire, and I'm actually not kidding). |
| catqueen 21.10.2012 16:13 |
Zebonka12 wrote: It's just an unpleasant topic. Actually it made me very conflicted when I was myself a teenager. It was remarkably weird to be there fancying the girls in my class and then (even though I was the same bloody age!) be thinking "eeeerrrgh gross, they're too young". As older persons, all we can really do is make sure that none of our brood goes and does anything irresponsible or dangerous. But the fact is that it's pretty well normal for young 'uns to be figuring out the ropes at these ages. Within a given value of 'normal', we have to accept that they'll do some things that seem pretty inappropriate. (Although people who run fashion labels that sell skanky clothing to 10 year olds - these people should die in a fire, and I'm actually not kidding).I see what you're saying, and yeah, obviously kids experiment and push boundaries, but as a society, we are encouraging extremely damaging behaviours. A lot of music videos are (imo, and don't kill me for saying it) essentially soft porn -- or at least 15 years ago they would have been considered porn. Our movies and tv have a lot more sex in them and are watched more frequently and at a younger age then tv programmes 15 or 20 years ago. Ads are really sexualised -- anyone see that club orange ad that was out a while ago? But all of that is stuff that society is pushing onto them, it's not coming from the kids themselves, its coming from us, the adults. I don't have any solutions though. :/ |
| pittrek 22.10.2012 07:26 |
catqueen wrote: I have some young relatives (pre - early teen) who have extremely provocative stuff on facebook, and their parents are also on facebook, so i am assuming they don't have a problem with it. Like as in, pictures of young girls pretty much licking each other's faces in tiny amounts of clothing while on holidays.I don't feel very comfortable right now :-) |
| thomasquinn 32989 22.10.2012 07:48 |
Where I'm from, that would probably count as child pornography. Which, IMHO, is crazy in exactly the opposite direction. |
| catqueen 22.10.2012 14:44 |
thomasquinn 32989 wrote: Where I'm from, that would probably count as child pornography. Which, IMHO, is crazy in exactly the opposite direction.Really? Like enough so to be convicted? I know there's the scale for child porn and the lowest on the scale is normal pictures of kids, but it's classed as porn because of the volume, nature or arrangement of the collection (or something like that). So like if someone has 10 folders of porn and a folder of 'normal' kid pictures in the middle of it, with a huge amount of pictures of kids and it's obvious that there's a connection, or its organised so that it's obviously for something dodgy, then it counts as porn anywhere (as far as i know). But it's nearly impossible to get a conviction, because proving that that's why it's there is extremely difficult. The pics that i was talking about would definately not count as porn in the general definition of it, cos you can't 'see' anything and it's suggestive, not actually sexual. But i'd be freaked out if i found them on someone's computor for no reason. I'm probably over-reacting a bit cos they're related to me and i hate seeing it cos i know it's not good for them, maybe if it wasn't my family i wouldn't have been as upset or thought it was as bad. But my kids ain't gonna be let near a camera if i ever find suggestive pictures of them on facebook. |
| catqueen 22.10.2012 14:45 |
pittrek wrote:Sorry :/ I didn't either when i saw them :(catqueen wrote: I have some young relatives (pre - early teen) who have extremely provocative stuff on facebook, and their parents are also on facebook, so i am assuming they don't have a problem with it. Like as in, pictures of young girls pretty much licking each other's faces in tiny amounts of clothing while on holidays.I don't feel very comfortable right now :-) |
| john bodega 22.10.2012 15:10 |
Just requires a bit of vigilance and thought. When I was 7 I made this paper plane in class, and I called it "The Sex Plane". I did a lot of very detailed pictures of people screwing on the side of it. The teacher found it and made me throw it in the bin. I only did it because I thought it was fucking hilarious. I wasn't a damaged kid or anything. I didn't even remotely appreciate what I was drawing. It was just a larf. I think you've got to keep an eye out on your kids to make sure nothing happens because that becomes your *ACTUAL* purpose on life once you have kids (people forget this sometimes). But, not every little thing that happens is a disaster. It's our reactions to the stuff that crosses the line which can define their further growth. One can do more harm than good with panic. |
| waunakonor 01.05.2013 16:55 |
That's pretty awful. |