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I recently heard about an activity frequently engaged in by girls/young women in our community.

Okay, here goes, apparently it is considered okay or even "cool" for two or three or four young women (14 to 17ish) to attend parties and at some time during the party strip down to their bras and panties. They don't ask for sex, or preform sex acts, they just stand around in their underwear.

I mentioned it to my daughter and she said oh yeah, it happens all the time!

I was shocked speechless, I don't know what to say, other than...."WHAT AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE OKAY."

I know in our society we should be accepting of other people, and I really try to be. I stressed with my daughter that I don't dislike the "girls" doing this, but I really dislike the act. She looked at me and said, "It doesn't mean anything, they are just showing off their bodies, and heck their bathing suits cover less." I said that isn't the point; the point is:

-This is your underwear not a bathing suit.
-This is clearly exploitive (no boys share the behavior)
-Have we learned nothing from the past.
-I don't care if the girls think it is okay, there is just something wrong with this age group if they don't see anything wrong with this.

Okay am I over reacting???

Where are the adults and supervision when they are stripping down to their underwear to just "stand around". Knowing how accepted "friends with benefits" are to people nowadays and knowing how kids start to have sex and oral sex at such a young age, I would be surprised if "nothing" is really going on. Why do the girls NEED to show off their bodies? What is the purpose, If not to attract the boys? And doing that is just asking for trouble from boys who are already struggling with already overactive hormones. It's like teasing a dog with a nice juicy steak. Just not smart. Definitely risky. You're not over-reacting at all. If I heard of stuff like that going on, my children would not be attending those parties or hanging out in those homes.

I personally don't feel you're over reacting and here goes since we can bare our souls here

My daughter came to me when she was 8 (eight) in case it gets lost in translation (sigh). Anyway, she told me after school she got a pass to use the restroom. She was in an after school program. She heard some noise in the far stall. She found two of her classmates taking their clothes off - one male one female. I tried everything to trip this story up in a nonchalant manner, like - maybe someone was helping someone handicapped in the stall...I know lame.

She looked at me with her hands on her hips and said, "I saw ta-ta's mom and a [censored]. After going to the principal the concencus was that she was possibly making the story up or misunderstood something. I've alread gone to the superintendant about this principal.

Although I believe her and as sad as this all is, sex can be a wonderful experience. But my belief is that after generations of parents working and leaving kids to raise themselves or giving into their every want with gadgets and such, that's exactly what we have now finally. Bored kids raising themselves.

Since then I started paying attention to her peers body language and it really is the norm anymore for children to take adult body language and incorporate it - to them it's thrilling.

To me, it is a big deal and though it may involve alientating your child to put boundaries down or explain to them that it is a big deal it gives them an alternate reality than the one everyone else is going with and may give them an extra decade or so of time to find out who they reallly are. That's a gift no money could ever buy and never loses face value - even after it leaves the lot.

After that conversation I bought the movie "16 and Pregnant" and we watched it together. She saw tears and frustration and babies and postponed dreams and what it really will mean to be 16 and pregnant.

______________________________

Elleise
Clairvoyance Editor

Hey guys. My own daughter is sixteen and what I hear from her scares the hell out of me frankly. I have decided it is permissive guilt ridden parenting and to a certain degree, zero violence policies at public schools. My daughter was around 8 or 9 when a little boy pinched her butt at school. She did what I had taught her to do if her space was ever invaded in that way, she turned and knocked the holy hell out of that boy. Knocked him down. NOW, had the school stayed out of it, that boy would have learned to keep his hands to himself (boys are always going to pinch little girls' bottoms) at least where my daughter was concerned. Baby girl defended herself....all was well. NOT SO. They received the same punishment: he for his wandering little paws, her for reacting with violence. School tried to give them detention together. My daughter learned many lessons that day with regards to a variety of issues, most of which had to do with rules and authority. We have "self esteemed" and "politically corrected" ourselves out of common sense. I do think the loss of family rituals, whether worship, dinner together whatever, has definitely contributed to the spookiness of Gen Y. as far as sex, herpes is everywhere at my daughter's school and I had one parent tell me "it's not like it's aids . . . the worry over it is SO eighties." ok. a chronic STD........at sixteen.........no biggie. Oh....and Facebook, MySpace.....I know for certain contribute to the problem.

I actually understand where the school is coming from on this one. Violence in never the answer. I definitely would have yelled at the boy, but if you resort to hitting, you could end up knocking someone down, they hit their head, and bad things can happen. That's just one example of where violence can lead. It's never the answer.

wow, a chronic std is not a big deal?! It's that kind of parental attitude that makes these behaviors ok. Just like the parents who think they are being cool when they provide alcohol or strippers at their kid's parties... I don't get it. When did parents stop being parents and start trying to be friends? I get along great with my kids. They have myspace and facebook. I also get to have their username and passwords and they know this. Some (probably the parents giving their kids beer and thinking herpes is an acceptable std) would say I am infringing on my kid's rights. I say they are my kids, they live in my house, we pay ALL their bills and support costs, so we have the right to monitor them how we see fit. Do we make it obvious and remind them of it constantly? no. But we do have that power and knowledge and information in our hands to at least try to be informed in what is going on if we feel a need. Very VERY rarely is there ever a time when we have one child home alone. When you have 5 kids, them finding a quiet/alone time at home to get into trouble is impossible. We typically don't allow anyone extra in our home when we aren't home, unless it is a special circumstance. I'm just saying, there is plenty that can be done, parents just don't want to do it.

And yes, schools do not take things seriously. Bullying is a huge problem and yet is still happens. The internet does make it easier to bully, but only if you give it the power to do so. Kids spend too much time on the net. Our kids have to ask first and we keep the computer locked down and password protected. We also have software installed that lets us look at keystrokes if we want. And my husband, being the guru he is, can actually see the desktop of the PC from his laptop. Trust me, if I found out my kids were being bullied online, their account would be deleted and they would not be allowed to go there. If the kid being bullied doesn't see it, it kind of loses it power.

Rebekah, I suppose it depends on how you define "violence." To me violence is putting hands on someone to exert will unwelcome by the recipient. I might have told my daughter that when a member of the opposite sex puts hands on her, that she should first try to reason with him, articulate to him precisely how his actions are wrong and how it makes her feel. I suppose she could have whipped out whatever treatises she happened to carry in her backpack on "violence" against women, and attempted to discuss them in some earthy and enlightened way in order to get the young offender thinking about how his volitional act of touching her in a youthful yet sexual way would land him in the penitentiary when he reaches adulthood or worse yet, that he might be shot or killed by some young woman who REALLY wants to defend herself against such assaults and batteries or rape. It's the same way as she liked to stick pencils in light sockets when she was a toddler. She was walking at nine months, much to my dismay and the outlet socket covers, duck tape and everything else we used to try and keep her away from the electricity which would kill her didn't work. She pulled them all away. She did not possess the vocabulary at that age which would have been conducive to a meaningful exchange on the danger of cramming pencils and other small objects into light sockets. I couldn't tell her that I love her with my whole life, that I did not want to put her favorite dress on her for a funeral nor that I could not bear to live without her in any way that she could understand and which would curb the behavior because she wanted to please me. So....I started smacking her on her leg. Hard. Everytime she took something to the outlet...and guess what??? She stopped. I understand some consider this violent behavior. But she's sixteen years old now...operates at the 98th percentile nationwide, is brilliant, beautiful and ALIVE. So, I defend myself. Further, I guarantee that any boy who ever touches my daughter in a sexual way (which is a criminal offense to all you mothers of boys out there) will be lucky to walk. Perhaps, it is the attitude of equalization between behaviors constituting crime and defense to crime that is the reason for young girls walking around at parties in only their underwear. If the boys who touch are punished in the same way as girls who defend....why bother.

I have also trained my children to run like hell and risk taking a bullet in the back before they EVER allow themselves to be forced into the car by a stranger. I told them never get into a car willingly and hoping that whatever happens won't kill you. Run and take the risk. They can recite that rule like a mantra. Of course, my father was a prison warden and I grew up on prison property....so I concede my world view might be a tad different than some. (we were raised with "it's starts in the highchair, not in the electric chair") We grew up with people parents had failed, schools had failed, and "the system" had failed. My father received other people's children and made his life's work attempting to "correct" behavior. He would say a nine year old who received the same punishment as his victim has in fact had his behavior validated....see what he does at twelve, fifteen, twenty.

Toddzgrrl, I have also stopped allowing my daughter to go to certain friend's houses b/c of the extremely liberal ideations of the parents. Parents who have no idea what kind of photos their girls are putting on Facebook, and frankly b/c I don't want to my daughter to think it's ok to be THAT friendly with me. Now, my dad gets on me all the time for having a much more lenient relationship with my kids than he and mother did with us....but times are different and I would much rather hear things I do NOT want to hear than for either of my two to stop talking to me. True, I don't have that beautiful parental ignorant bliss I crave at times, but there is NOTHING those two will not come and tell me. You are so right. It's about oversight and communication i.e. PARENTING. And of course, the willingness the allow them to "hate" you for it if need be.

Forgot to tell you Marge if you haven't gotten from my two cent post....you are SO not over reacting!!! :-)

I also agree that you are not over reacting. I have heard stories of this and how young teenagers are having oral sex becuase they don't really consider it sex and don't think it 'counts'. It is sad to think that girls, or even women, would allow themselves to be objectified like this in order to gain attention, be accepted by their peers, because they think boys will like them, or to just plain show off.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where physical beauty, sex-appleal, material things, etc. is projected to be what is important. As I watch T.V. and I see all of the sex that is being sold to us, it doesn't really surprise me that many of our country's young people do this sort of thing.

And then, of course, is it ever going to get any better or just keep getting worse? One can only hope that young women can learn to value themselves and who they are as a person, rather than their sex appeal, hopfully sooner than later.

You all might be interested in an article my husband sent to me:

The Pornification of a Generation

I know I've posted this somewhere on here before, but when my son was in the 6th grade, there was a b'day party that pretty much the whole 6th grade class was invited to.

The parents that were hosting the party were trying not to be too overt, so instead of staying right on top of the kids the whole time (the party was in the basement) they checked on them every 15 minutes or so.

Now to me, this sounded perfectly reasonable. And these parents are good parents, not neglectful at all. I know when I was a kid, if a parent was checking on me every 10-15 minutes - there was no way I'd try anything.

But, in that short timeframe, 2 of the kids snuck out to the backyard. The parents noticed them missing, went looking for them and found them having oral sex. Party over, all the parents called to come get their kids, and the parents of the guilty couple blaming the host parents. It caused a huge rift in the community for a while.

I felt really bad for the host parents, because I felt like they were trying to be responsible, while at the same time giving the kids a little bit more responsibility - but it just really came back and bit them. I mean, every 15 minutes sounded like a very good compromise to me. But kids these days are just much bigger risk takers. That seems to be part of the game.