Little girls gone wild

Now companies sell padded bras to 6-year-olds. Isn't it time to stop marketing grown-up sexuality to little kids?

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Read more: Marketing, Sex, Girls, Teenagers, Adolescence, Katharine Mieszkowski, Life, Salon Conversations

May 20, 2008 |

Last Halloween, a 5-year-old girl dressed as a Bratz doll showed up at Gigi Durham's front door. Wearing a gauzy miniskirt and a tube top, the child tottered on platform shoes while carrying the doll that had inspired her racy get-up. "I had an instant dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute I had seen in Cambodia, dressed in a disturbingly similar outfit," Durham, a professor at the University of Iowa, writes in her new book, "The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It."

Playing dress-up is a normal part of childhood. But simply test-driving mommy's high heels now has to compete with sexually suggestive pint-size products from pole-dancing kits sold in the toy section to "Hooters Girl (in training)" T-shirts for toddlers to padded bras for 6-year-olds. And that's all long before the tweens and teens, where girls face the dizzying contradictions of a popular culture that salivates over youth and tells them "if you've got it, flaunt it," while sexual education in school, if it exists at all, too often consists of preaching "abstinence only."

In her new book, M. Gigi Durham, who heads the Iowa Center for Communication Study at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, critiques the many ways that young girls' sexuality is shaped and exploited by a marketplace where younger is better and the line between child porn and art gets ever blurrier. Durham, a self-described pro-sex feminist, also leads workshops in media literacy in schools, aiming to give kids the tools to critique the sexual images and myths that are being promoted to them.

Salon spoke with Durham, who is the mother of two daughters, ages 7 and 10, by phone at her office at the University of Iowa. Listen to the interview here.

Why is grown-up sexuality being marketed to younger and younger girls?

I don't think that anybody can pinpoint the single reason, but I think there are a number of trends that can give us some clues about it. The '90s were prosperous. In the mid-'90s there was a lot of disposable income floating around and tweens became a very important niche market for a number of industries. One research firm Euromonitor posits tweens spending $170 billion in 2006. So, this is a wealthy little group of people.

Marketers realized they could create cradle-to-grave consumers by marketing products to kids very early. Then, they would develop brand loyalties, and consumer practices that they would sustain throughout their lifetimes. It was very profitable to start marketing these products to very young kids.

Also, as women have made tremendous gains politically and in the workforce, grown women are moving away from this traditional model of femininity where women are supposed to be docile and passive. And little girls still conform to that very traditional ideal of femininity. So I think that increasing attention is being focused on little girls as embodying ideal femininity.

But 6-year-olds obviously don't have money to buy padded bras. Adults have to be buying them for them. You can criticize companies for bringing out these sleazy products for kids, but if parents reject them won't the products just go away?

It should be that way. There is some collusion on the part of the adults who are allowing, or maybe even encouraging, children to respond to these marketing practices so openly and uncritically.

You were disturbed when a 5-year-old showed up at your doorstep last Halloween dressed up in a titillating costume as a Bratz doll. Why?

Some clothes project sexual symbols. And we know what they are: fishnet hose and stilettos and corsets. They're almost clichés of sexuality. But when you see them on a very young child, there's that sexual overtone that to me is not appropriate. It's not a legitimate way for a child to present herself to the world.

Everyone is sexual, and we develop sexually throughout our lives. I'm not at all insisting that children have to be innocent and sex-free or anything like that. But I think that the kinds of clothing that they're being encouraged to wear are really associated with sex work, in particular. And that to me is a very troubling tendency.

What did you make of the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photos fracas?

The way that it's being constructed in the media is parents are outraged because Miley Cyrus -- Hannah Montana -- is supposed to be such a pure, innocent child. She's a role model for 6-year-olds. Then, on the other hand, the argument is: "Oh, it's great, this is sexuality, and she has a right to do this." I think that the reality is way more complicated than that.

She is 15, and she is in this transitional period where her body is changing, and she should be exploring and recognizing her sexuality. She's moving into womanhood. To me, the big issue is not that she should be pure and innocent and chaste, but rather should her body be put on display?

A 15-year-old child's body, should that be put on display as a sexual object, and aren't there other ways for us to think about female sexuality rather than just this exhibitionist mode? At the same time, I really do think the pictures are aesthetically very appealing, but there is a question to be raised, because she is only 15.

Can you imagine an image of Miley Cyrus embracing her youthful sexuality that you would condone?

My position is just: Do we need to? Do we need to put it out there? Can't she just grow into womanhood in kind of private and safe ways? Does it have to be exploited for commercial purposes?

What do you think is the relationship between the sexualization of young girls in pop culture, and the actual sexual exploitation of children?

I think it's quite troubling that many of the highly sexualized images we see in fashion and beauty magazines use bodies of 12-, 13-, 14-year-old girls. Maddison Gabriel and a lot of the models are very, very young. [Last fall, there was an international furor when Gabriel, who was then 12 years old, was chosen to be the official ambassador for Gold Coast Fashion Week in Australia.]

I think in a way this mainstreaming of very young girls as sexually desirable objects is one side of the more illegitimate child pornography industry. I almost think that it tacitly condones it. Children are now being trafficked in large numbers for sexual purposes. I do think that there is a connection there, and I think we ought to be disturbed by this.

Are you advocating censorship of sexually provocative media images of young girls?

I am absolutely opposed to any form of censorship. I recognize the immense value of the First Amendment, and I support free speech. It's possible "The Lolita Effect" would be subject to censorship because of its content and focus. So, no, censorship is not something I advocate.

On the contrary, what I call for is the opposite of censorship: I'd like to see more discussion, more public debate, and more discourse around issues of sexuality. What I'm trying to do is increase consumer consciousness so that people -- including kids -- can better understand and control their media environments.

Next page: Men become "the arbiters of girls' sexuality, and the ones who can make the sexual decisions"