Health & Science
I'm Too Sexy for My Onesie
The raunch culture that’s inundating our boys from babyhood.
It’s not enough that boys act out mature situations or wear macho clothing; they’re also supposed to exude manly pheromones. Boys still in grammar school are targeted as fragrance consumers by the likes of Disney (Cars, Buzz Lightyear, or Pirates of the Caribbean cologne) and Marvel Comics (Hulk Eau De Toilette Spray). Axe body spray has been hugely successful with teens and tweens, marketing its cologne with wink-wink naughty humor that shows packs of hot chicks sniffing out and hunting down Axe-wearing guys. In its defense, Axe, like fellow body spray manufacturer Gillette and celebrities such as David Beckham and P. Diddy who have signature scents, claims that its fragrance isn’t meant for teens. But as any woman who read Seventeen magazine while still in junior high will tell you, there is nothing more alluring than something that’s supposed to be too mature for your age level.
“How are boys expected to deal with all the messages about being out of control, having body parts that seem disconnected or out of their control, having desire that they are told is boundless, and having smells that offend?” the authors ask. Boys are told to take control by becoming tiny ladies’ men, who, even while still in diapers, have sex on the brain.
The authors take the realistic view that children can’t live in a vacuum. They assign most of the responsibility to parents, who they say should familiarize themselves with the products and media their kids consume and listen to why they like it. Media literacy is an ongoing education, and one that Brown, Lamb, and Tappan believe should start as early as possible. Their advice: “As soon as he’s old enough to be sorting out gender and asking what makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl,” you can introduce a new word to his vocabulary. That would be stereotype.
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Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
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Comments
tshirts with death & mayhem
By: heid_pe | Wed, 11/18/2009 - 20:57
punkteacher - that is so true
it also annoys me that it is constantly put back on the parents. i mean where the hell am i going to find the time (or skills for that matter!) to make my kids clothing
am really upset about this
By: heid_pe | Wed, 11/18/2009 - 20:53
am really upset about this because i can see how true it is from the way my boys from the age of 3 talk about 'sexy girls', or say 'i'm naked like a girl', & think they are cool if they have a girlfriend. yes i constantly talk to them about stereotypes, etc but pop culture hits them at the subconscious level & short of turning amish i don't see how i can block it out
One of the most common
By: Mizz.Givens | Fri, 11/13/2009 - 23:23
One of the most common suggestion at the school where I work is for the male students to say (mostly to female staff), "suck my balls," and variations thereof. Some of them surely have never even had any sexual experiences; in fact, one of the students described "butt sex" as "two people rubbing their butts together." The lack of information combined with hypersexualized society is just revolting.
My beef
By: Abby Normal | Fri, 11/13/2009 - 13:20
I know this is a trend that's been around a lot longer than pimp shirts for little boys, but what bugged me when my son was born was how practically everything for little boys is sports related. I had a hard time just finding shirts for him that didn't say "Daddy's Little MVP" on it.
I know, it's fairly innocuous by comparison, but all the sports stuff got on my nerves because in just reinforced a stereotype that none of the men in my life fit. My husband is a soft-spoken sci-fi nerd who only knows what day Superbowl sunday is if somebody reminds him--it seemed ridiculous that his child wear stuff that proclaims him to be a future Heisman trophy winner.
Not the worst problem out there for boys' clothing
By: punkteacher | Thu, 11/12/2009 - 21:32
I agree that overt sexuality in children's clothing has been a problem. I see another one equally or more unfortunate for boys. I have a toddler son who has always been big for his age. Now he is 3 years old and wears size 5/6. When he left "toddler" sizes (generally these end at size 4T or 5T), for me the real problem became finding boys' clothes that had nothing to do with death, destruction or mayhem. While little girls are made to look like whores, little boys are made to look like killers or criminals. The sexed-up/violent clothing situation is also far worse at lower price-point stores. If you can afford to buy more expensive clothes, or have the free time to shop around, you can purchase clothes without villains, skulls or military camouflage, as I am sure you can find girls' clothing that is stylish and youthful and modest. People with less time and money are left with fewer options, as usual, and their children are being pushed into stereotypical roles with great force. It also gives people who can find higher-quality clothing another mechanism with which to judge those who can't due to lack of time or funds.
Yes
By: feministworkingmom | Thu, 11/12/2009 - 11:13
A culture that sexualizes children and creates rigid gender divides is just as damaging to boys as it is to girls. I've been saying for a long time--patriarchy hurts men as well as women, just in different ways. Perpetuating male (sexual) domination as a cultural value and norm through gendered products, advertising, and expectations actually forms men into the oppressors that women despise. It is vitally important that we raise our sons to reject sexist ideas, to view women as their equals in every way, to act with the assumption of RESPECT and DIGNITY in their relationships with all human beings regardless of race, gender, economic status, religion, sexual identity/orientation, etc.
Not the case, Duckie. The
By: donaldsg | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 17:59
Not the case, Duckie. The sexualization of children affects how they see others and themselves. Little girls also learn to think of themselves as sex objects and boys learn to see girls and women as sex objects.
Alarmist research gets the buzz!
By: TheMrLee | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 13:57
When an author—even a professor!—lets something as stupid as this into their article, it makes me find a new article. This is an interesting concept, but if the people researching it can't sort out that a writer can write for different audience, why should anyone believe they can sort out anything else? If J.K. Rowling wrote an unpublished erotica novel 10 years before Harry Potter, would that suddenly make Harry Potter full of inappropriate sexual overtones? Of course not. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that a guy who writes for Zack and Cody is not the most thoughtful and gifted writer out there. I might even suspect he was a hack. So the fact that he wrote a terrible, thoughtless episode doesn't mean that the show routinely espouses the idea that women just need to loosen up a bit (via beverage consumption). Did the researchers investigate the content of the show with as much vigor as they did the background of the writers? If so, the article neglects to mention it.
I remember when I was a boy, maybe 4th grade. I was with some older boys who had some Playboy magazines. To go along, I looked at them, but couldn't figure out why anyone would want to. A year or two later, I figured it out. Things like onesies with "Playground Pimp" on it might reflect parental attitudes that will later be reflected in their boys. But the babies themselves—who can't read yet—won't be impacted by whatever ironic, crude or moronic things their parents opt to adorn them with.
With a bit more thought than brought to the average episode of Zack and Cody, this could have been engaging. Instead, we get what is functionally a press release for an alarmist book.
early differences
By: duckiedumonde | Wed, 11/11/2009 - 12:37
Onesies that say "Playground pimp" are dumb and reflect poorly on the parents who dress their toddlers in them. But I think encouraging 10-year-olds to buy Axe body spray is far more insidious--it encourages children (whose man-funk issues exist only in their own minds) to make a choice about their own sexualization at a very young age.
That said, it's different, I think, than thongs for 6 year olds, which parents also buy, because it sexualizes little girls in a way that a tee shirt on a little boy doesn't.
Which brings up an interesting distinction. The sexualization of little girls in this comparison affects the way others think about them, and the sexualization of little boys affects the way they think about themselves.