In a recent blog, I mistakenly suggested that the next one I wrote was going to be about the inappropriate sexualisation of children (See Sublime and Ridiculous). You see the world of sex is so fascinating and so diverse that my mind got diverted to another couple of subjects. So the comment on children went from my mind.
But it shouldn’t have done so because it is an incredibly important subject, and one that really illustrates our weird, confused and dishonest relationship with sex.
This is a subject that was discussed during the General Election and was reiterated a couple of weeks ago in the national press. To be fair to the Prime Minister, he has consistently advocated this as a serious issue and has prompted interventions with retailers to try and legislate against the inappropriate clothing that is sold to young girls.
I do not want to see overtly sexual clothing on children. I find it utterly offensive and unsuitable. Girls wearing T-shirts saying “Future Porn Star” is simply not on. It should be banned.
Now, regular readers of this blog will know that I am not averse to viewing porn. But I am a middle aged woman with a mind of her own who has developed her sense of sexuality over many years. Viewing pornography is a choice that I have made. It is a choice that I have come to through considerable deliberation with my views on sexuality, feminism, exploitation to name but a few. I am not anti-porn but I am very much against young girls wearing these allegedly aspirational T-shirts about something they have no right to know anything about.
It doesn’t stop there. There are shoes in the shops that, apart from being over-sexual, will also deform a growing foot if worn regularly. There are padded bikini tops for six year olds! There are mini-skirts and thongs for those still in infant school. The list is endless, and it is not restricted to the alleged lower end of the market in the high street. It is everywhere.
I want this stopped but I think it is important for us to consider the underlying messages behind this issue.
For instance, why would anyone think this is appropriate?
Obviously, the retailers have done their market research before putting these clothes out there and they know that they will sell. In some ways they are not the ones with the problem other than their overt and abusive capitalist tendencies, which is always a problem.
The real problem lies with the people who are prepared to buy these products, and again, it is not necessarily their fault that consumerism has obliterated common sense. Marketing and advertising is a cruel and ruthless world that strips us of rationality. But it does make me wonder whether these people have ever considered what they are doing, and is their willingness to buy these items down to their own lack of understanding about the whole subject of sexuality?
I have said it before and it is worth reiterating once more. Sex is such a vital and important ingredient in life that it should not be trivialised, ignored and misinterpreted.
I love sex. I love the passion and the force of it. I love the sensation of sex, both before, during and after the actual penetration.
I feel so passionate about sex and am frankly appalled at the lack of respect in sex that leads retailers to even consider using it to sell products to children. Indeed, I am so passionate about sex, I’m not sure that retailers should use it to sell products to anyone (but I am not that naive).
But it isn’t just the lack of respect of retailers. It is the buyers who also have a lack of respect for sex. If they valued, understood and appreciated sex more, they would understand the inappropriateness of shoving it in the faces of young people.
Sex is not for young people. It is so vital and it is something that is so personal that it should take years of growth and understanding to finally get to a true understanding of one’s own sexuality and the sexuality of others.
But it is even more than this. Once more, because of our appallingly unenlightened sex education in this country, and because of our prudish inability to discuss sex, we cannot have a debate about the inappropriateness of sexualised clothing because we still, as a society, cannot even mention the “S” word without acute discomfort. This, in itself, enables the capitalist retailers to do what they do best – exploit.
They exploit our inability to cope with sex and we, in turn, think that by buying these products are showing a liberated view of sex. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
There is nothing liberating about dressing young girls up in high heels, ra-ra skirts, thongs and padded bras. It is downright wrong in every sense.
We should be actively encouraging people NOT to buy these senseless products. We should be having national debates about sex regularly; organised and informal so that people will see for themselves the hopeless abuse of having such items of clothing in our shops.
We need to wake up to what is appropriate and inappropriate and we need to learn to love sex so much that it is instinctively inappropriate for it to be something that children should be involved in.
It should be instinctive anyway!
We need to protect children from sex not because it is a dirty and horrible activity but because it is a precious perfection that should only be entered into when the mind, body and soul is mature enough to deal with it.
So if people think that I am sounding contradictory, I would implore you to think about sex and what it means to you.
I want my children to embrace their sexuality and hold it so dear that they will not want it abused. I want them to know how this essence in life is so important that it should not be entered into without serious and careful consideration.
Shoving them into inappropriate clothing before their minds have even accounted for what they are wearing is not the way to do it, folks.
And here comes another issue that others might consider contradictory but I think completes the argument.
I have no problem at all in people of a certain age wanting to enjoy their sexuality through clothing.
This is an article about cleavages and whether it is appropriate to use a healthy cleavage for career or any other advancement. More on this in a short while.
On the same day, and in the same newspaper there was an article about UBS bank informing their employees of what they should and should not wear to work. For those versed in the beautiful French language, please see attached pdf if full.
Oh dear! More evidence of our inadvertent misunderstanding of all things sexual!
I think that everyone over a certain age should thoroughly enjoy their sexuality and if this means wearing clothes that accentuate their cleavage, showing off their very beautiful assets then why the hell not?
Of course, sometimes, it is far from inappropriate and once more, I do think sex is so vital that it should not be abused and exploited in any form, including using your tits to get ahead.
So here is an important differentiation. If a woman is wearing certain clothes and revealing her cleavage or a small amount of it because it makes her feel good about herself, then that, in my opinion is fine, as long as it remains within the boundaries of the professional.
However, if she is deliberately flaunting herself with a view to using her sexuality for advancement in a career, then I am not sure I like that.
Sex is precious and if we respected that it would not be abused in any form.
However, having said all of the above, I can appreciate the need, in a misogynistic world, for women to use every asset available to them if they feel that traditional meritocracy has not worked.
Women in the work force still earn considerably less than their male counterparts. Despite being allegedly more successful through academic attainment, the amount of women in top jobs is still disproportionate to men. Sometimes, using a bit of female ingenuity and a flash of tits is the only way forward.
There is also a need to differentiate between using clothing in a sexual way for career advancement and a healthy amount of natural flirting.
The world would be a terribly tedious place if there was no flirting, if there was no chemistry between people be it fleeting or something more serious.
Sexual attraction is also a vital component of life, and even if you have no intention of ever acting on it, a little flirtation is not a bad thing.
I told you that this sex malarkey was complex!
The final remark that I want to make goes back to the first contributor in the Daily Mail cleavage article. She says that she was so fed up with people thinking that she was using her tits for career advancement that she had them reduced.
Bloody hell! That is somewhat drastic. I have heard of people having their hair cut off because they were harassed by continual taunts from sexual predators but this is something completely different.
The point is that we should be much more respectful of individuality. Big tits, small tits, provocative clothing, baggy sacks! People should be allowed to be who they are. Those who feel comfortable in tight skirts should, within reason, be allowed to wear them. Fuck me shoes should be worn by people who like wearing high heels, not because others make assumptions about what these shoes could mean.
In this society we are sexualising the wrong things and ignoring the most important ways to convey sexuality. We have a hopelessly dishonest relationship with sexuality that is shown through our inability to understand how we dress, why we dress and how we should be dressing our young.
Confusion will continue if people cannot come to terms with the joy, the preciousness and the individuality of sex.
Or maybe because sex involves more than one person, it is always going to be a subject that is open to a myriad of interpretations.
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