Censorship: Yea or Nay?

Sunday, February 8, 2009

So, my mom brought over a gift for my daughter - the Simplicity Patterns Halloween catalog from last fall. I remember that when I was little, Mom used to get the outdated pattern catalogs at the fabric store for about a buck, and I adored them. I would pore over them, looking at the pictures and loving the fact that I had in my possession this book that you usually could only see at the store. It was cool and unbelievably special to have one of these catalogs, so I totally get why my daughter loves the thing.

Here's the deal, though. 
I'm thinking about tearing out one of the pages. 
And my liberal, don't-shelter-your-child-from-reality panic alarm is blaring away at my sudden desire to commit censorship. 

The page in question features a collection of "adult" costumes they call "Short and Sassy". To their credit, the folks at Simplicity (all of whom I picture as sweet, elderly women in embroidered sweatshirts, by the way, which makes this all even more disturbing) do stop short of printing "Costumes for Coitus" or "Fornicatin' Fun" at the top of the page, but that's so obviously what these get-ups are. They're designed to either spice up the doldrums in a relationship that's cooled or to ensure a hot one-nighter with a complete stranger you meet at a party and on whose website you show up in a sex tape wearing said costume. Or portions of it, at least.


Is is wrong of me to want to censor this little bit of Frederick's of Hollywood that has shown up among the toddler teddy bear and fairy princess costumes? My daughter has her whole life ahead her, filled with media images like this to try to reconcile with her own feelings about what it means to be beautiful. Can I just spare her from this one page?

3 comments:

City Dweller Suburban Drone said...

It has taken me two days to respond because this is a sticky situation. I am normally against any censorship just as a rule but I also hate the images that young girls see and feel the need to compare themselves to. Wynn will have stereotypes to deal with as a beautiful Asian girl that we don't even need to get into here, so why not spare her these sluty blond images. For the first time in my life I say Censorship: Yea.

February 10, 2009 at 7:15 PM
Anonymous said...

I, too, had to take a couple of days to think about this. On my drive home today, I reached the same conclusion CDSD did. Until she's at an age where you can somehow explain it to her, I say take 'em out.

February 10, 2009 at 8:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Here's another side of the coin. When Jake was in first or second grade or so, he discovered bra ads in the newspaper. My mom would catch him and he would pretend to go on to another page, but she'd see his little finger holding the page with the ads.

Years later, he and his friend were running loose in May Co. (an old department store in CA for those who don't know) and they were "tweaking" the nipples on the mannequins.

How does one censor those?

Dare I say I'm the proud mama of a boob man?

February 11, 2009 at 5:04 PM
 

2009 ·what now? by TNB