Love Your Thighs, Save a Prostitot!

In Saturday's New York Times, Judith Warner wins the prize ($) for weirdest take on the American Psychological Association's toddlers-in-thongs report: 

Our girls see right through all our righteousness. And they hear the hypocrisy, too, when we dish   out all kinds of pabulum about a ''positive body image,'' then go on to trash our own thighs.

Maybe it's time to take a break from bashing the media and start to take a long, hard look instead at the issue of mothers' sexuality, which is, apparently, after a long and well-documented dormancy, enjoying a kind of rebirth -- thanks, it is said, to things like pole dancing classes and sports club stripteases. These new evening antics of the erstwhile book club set are supposed to be fabulous because they give sexless moms a new kind of erotic identity. But what a disaster they really are: an admission that we've failed utterly, as adult women, to figure out what it means to look and feel sexy with dignity.

Got that? Small girls are baring more skin because they hate their bodies. They hate their bodies because they sense that adult women, as a unit, are insecure. We know that all women are insecure, because a lot of them hate their thighs, and some of them are learning to pole dance. The solution? Love yourself!

This is what happens when your worldview is entirely framed by random New York Times trend stories. 

Comments

steveintheknow | March 19, 2007, 9:52am | #

Mental model: Cottage cheese on a stick.

Pi Guy | March 19, 2007, 9:55am | #

SitK:

Egads! How am I supposed to work with that on the brain??

M | March 19, 2007, 9:56am | #

An authorial dame, Judith Warner,
Deduces that mothers are porner-
Graphizing young molls
Cuz they dance at the polls
Not to vote, but to try them for thighs.

steveintheknow | March 19, 2007, 9:57am | #

-Pi

Love yourself. :)

d | March 19, 2007, 9:58am | #

Does this mean my wife won't give me any more lap dances?

FinFangFoom | March 19, 2007, 9:58am | #

Women need to be kept in Mom Jeans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTl6aJDlDiY.

Dan T. | March 19, 2007, 10:14am | #

Kerry's not giving up on the "it's okay to dress your little girl like a prostitute" theme, is she?

brotherben | March 19, 2007, 10:33am | #

Saw a woman the other day in lycra shorts. She had cellulite on her camel toes. Where was she when they handed out the "looking sexy with dignity" memo...

Warren | March 19, 2007, 10:38am | #

I thought Madonna solved this whole thing back in the 90's. Girls are suppose to embrace their inner slut. Empowerment through porn. Isn't that what suicide girls is all about. Or did motherhood "change everything"? Or was it Kabbalah? Or was it England?

Fluffy | March 19, 2007, 11:05am | #

The thing about Reason's ongoing pro-prostitot crusade is that this isn't about freedom.

OF COURSE you have the freedom to put your kids in any ridiculous outfit you want.

The issue is primarily one of taste, which is theoretically entirely subjective and therefore not open to critical judgment, but we all know that if you dress your kid like this you're an idiot and probably a skank yourself. There's no causation here, but the correlation is nearly 100% nonetheless.

VM | March 19, 2007, 11:29am | #

FFF: thanks for the vid!


Brotherben:

probably cuz of him

R C Dean | March 19, 2007, 11:39am | #

take a long, hard look instead at the issue of mothers' sexuality

Aren't there websites for that?

Oh, and props for the "prostitot" neologism. I can hardly wait to work that into casual conversation at the office.

Jennifer | March 19, 2007, 11:43am | #

But what a disaster they really are: an admission that we've failed utterly, as adult women, to figure out what it means to look and feel sexy with dignity.

Speak for yourself, O Insecure One.

thoreau | March 19, 2007, 11:43am | #

...this isn't about freedom.
...
The issue is primarily one of taste...

I agree. And there's nothing wrong with commenting on matters of taste and even issuing strong criticism, as long as we promise to never call for coercion based on taste, yadda yadda yadda, insert all due disclaimers here, void where prohibited, blah blah blah.

Drink!

Your Good Buddy Johnny Clarke | March 19, 2007, 11:50am | #

Spandex: it's a privilege, not a right.
-Cereal Killer-

Number 6 | March 19, 2007, 11:52am | #

The issue is primarily one of taste, which is theoretically entirely subjective and therefore not open to critical judgment,
Taste, by definition, is about critical judgment.

Lamar | March 19, 2007, 11:54am | #

There's is absolutely nothing wrong with women dressing themselves or their daughters like prostitutes. Just don't be surprised when I treat you like one.

Ironchef | March 19, 2007, 12:25pm | #

The trend of older=hotter began with Title 9 in the 70's, continued through Jane Fonda in the 80's, Buns of Steel in the 90's, better nutrition, attraction to an athletic physique (rather than just the 12-inch waist), affordable plastic surgery, Stiffler's Mom , and now Desperate Housewives, is a good thing. Now older women are holding their own against youth - and she implies this is a bad thing.

She jus' jealous, that's all.

Fluffy | March 19, 2007, 1:46pm | #

Number 6:

It's not open to moral critical judgment.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. When I have my political philosophy beanie on it doesn't occur to me to include connoisseurship in the realm of critical judgment. Naturally though that is also a type of "criticism".

Fluffy | March 19, 2007, 1:47pm | #

Ironchef:

No, age is not holding the line against youth anywhere but in its own mind and in the wallets of plastic surgeons as they create Michael Jackson type monsters to roam the Earth, spreading fear.

D.A. Ridgely | March 19, 2007, 2:19pm | #

I dunno. Many are the time I've strolled the boardwalk wishing there were such a thing as an "Intentional Infliction of Aesthetic Distress" tort and realizing, once again, that most of us look much better with more rather than fewer clothes on.

Warren | March 19, 2007, 2:21pm | #

Fluffy,
Let me guess, you're in your mid twenties. Younger?

Fluffy | March 19, 2007, 4:11pm | #

Nope, 38.

And I can see it. My face is strange colors when I get close to the mirror. And my eyes look a little less piercing than they may once have been.

This isn't an age thing. It's a coastal thing. I've a BOS NY WASH person and when I go to California I feel like I've entered a monster movie. We've got more "genetically" ugly people here, but the number of man-made disasters out there is truly awe-inspiring.

BOTOX DOESN'T MAKE YOU LOOK BETTER, IT MAKES YOU LOOK WORSE. This has been a public service announcement brought to you by Fluffy.

Sally Kellerman | March 20, 2007, 2:23am | #

You’re beautiful. All of you. You make me hate my hips! I hate—I hate my hips!

Sally Kellerman | March 20, 2007, 2:30am | #

I don't like your friends. Are there any nice people left in the world? Maybe the whole bunch of you is sick. You booze, you dope, you sleep with whomever. You look like kids, but you don't act like them. You're short 40 year olds--and you're tough ones. Just because they fit you for a diaphragm doesn't make you a woman."