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:
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 PMI, 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 PMHere'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.
February 11, 2009 at 5:04 PMYears 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?
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