I hate to ever have to agree with Melinda about anything however I too would like to see the fashion industry only use models who clearly have a Body Mass Index greater than 18.
Heroin chic is to die for.

And once the fashion industry starts to portray nourished women rather concentration camp survivors then perhaps retailers will stock clothes that fit Australian women. Clothes that are cut to Australian womens shapes - not the Chinese designers/manufacturers dream figure.

I am far more twitchy about tattoos which are for life, than brazilians that I am unaware of and grow back anyway. I guess brazilians start because bikini and bathers bottoms are cut much smaller than the map of tasmania and women must not be hirsute below the eyebrow. Historically didn't Turkish women remove all body hair

There may be another reason for the blow out in sexulaisation of girls. Since the rise of hysteria about men being pedophiles fueled by sexually abused feminists and the media that has fueled the fear of men's sexuality by condemning porn and linking it to child molestation, men have stopped cuddling and touching children. Touch for a child is the very stuff of nurture and without it babies do not put on weight and fail to thrive. Young girls thrive on climbing all over their fathers and the physical nature of nurture is an essential ingredient in loving relationships. Without the physical contact of men, girls fashions have taken to sexualisation as a means of attraction. Girls dressed like hookers and taking sensual dancing classes have become the norm. Without physical hugging and love we shrink and die inside.
Men have been ostrasized, many children are growing up without fathers and when the fathers are present they are not having enough physical contact. Touch depravation is the cause of much neurosis and this leads to girls acting out to get the attention they need, often for the rest of their lives. This behaviour will only worsen until men are once again secure in being able to cuddle children without the fear of being accused.

Part one

I actually agree with gist of this article. Young girls today are hardly ever given images of what “normal” “successful” women and girls look like. This situation has intensified with the growth of mass media, both the fashion and porn industries. The nub of the problem is that young girls and young women grow up with no realistic reference points in the media as to how they are supposed to look and how they are supposed behave to gain true self worth. They are acculturated throughout childhood and adolescence by the media that is filled with abnormal ideas about what is normal physically & sexually compounded with abnormal ideas of what it means to be successful as a “woman”.

I have a friend with a ten year old daughter. She has taken to dressing in a “slutty” fashion as these are what her and her friends consider to be a normal fashionable way to dress from all the images they is on music clips and in girls magazines. They purchase Girlfriend magazine with their pocket money which contains ample makeup freebies such as lip gloss. They have been waring bralets marketed for their age group from target & Kmart since bing 8 years old which they now stuff, (as think a lack of breasts at their age is abnormal – they have the bra – where’s the breasts?). They also wear short skirts or hitch up their longer ones.

My friend is beside herself having “banned” magazines etc. as to how to stop a behaviour that is perceived by the child to be normal, is rewarded by peers & constantly suggested and re-enforced by the mass media. This girl is sending out sexual messages she is not old enough to understand and is being rewarded by the “wrong” kind of attention by older boys. She is too young understand the implications of the sexual messages her dress and make up sends or the difference between good and bad attention from the opposite sex. Post Part two

Her mother is rightly concerned that this will lead to her daughter to base her self esteem on this kind of attention that re-enforces the slutty look & behaviour and not be given a chance to understand the difference between positive and negative attention and true self worth. And that is what is most concerning about the images and ideas being fed to girls.

Young girls are filled with a desire to be normal and successful but are being guided by what this is and how to achieve it by the images of abnormal bodies and sexual behaviour constantly being displayed in the mass media as normal.