Sexy Little Girls

Sexy little girls are hot. Look at the popularity of toddler beauty queens and the pre-pubescent models that strut down run-ways.

Trying to turn back time women remove the hair gained by puberty, diet down the hips and breasts of adulthood.

So why have the pre-sexual become sex symbols? Lost Youth investigates.

• Last Halloween, a five-year-old girl showed up at my doorstep wearing a tube top, miniskirt, platform shoes and eye shadow. The outfit projected a rather tawdry sexuality. “I’m a Bratz!” the tot piped up proudly, a look-alike doll clutched in her chubby fist. I had a dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute I had seen in Cambodia, in a disturbingly similar outfit.

M G Durham writes in the Guardian that Lolita has become slang for a sexually provocative little girl. This jail bait tempts men by being tantalizing forbidden fruit, just out of reach. They are the aggressors and the adult men are merely the victims of their ploys.

However this is an untrue with the literary figure as it is with the real life little girls. Like little boys, who want to grow up to be men, little girls are tying to find out how to become women. They are surrounded with images of overtly sexualized women and see high heels and miniskirts not as a way to attract men, but as a way to be grown-up.

When they hit puberty they begin to learn how to deal with the opposite sex. Trying different ways to attract boys, they often go too far in one direction or another. These adventures teach the girls how to be comfortable with their new, more adult bodies. Unlike women, who arguably know what they are getting into, the thirteen year old girl in the stilettos might be terrified by the cat-calls. The attention from grown men can be exciting, but part of that excitement is fear. Can I stop this from going too far? What is too far?

While these girls are “participants in a public culture of sex,” to some extent, it is important to recognize them for how vulnerable they are. Unsure, easy prey, they require the protection of adults until they learn how to navigate this world. That protection has historically come from the taboo against pedophilia.

Sex crimes against children are always guaranteed to cause a public outcry. When the criminals get to prison, they require protection so that the other maximum security inmates don’t kill them. But is the taboo being eroded?

• Young girls are increasingly posed as sexual objects of the adult gaze, while numerous clothing ads feature women dressed as little girls, sucking on lollipops, kneeling, crouching or lying in positions of subordination. Witness the 20-year-old model Lily Cole, ribbons in her hair, clasping a teddy bear for French Playboy. Childishness is sexy, these messages seem to say. Ergo, children – especially little girls – are sexy.

Durham says part of the reason for this trend is to turn young girls into consumers as early as possible and part of the reason is a backlash against feminism. Women are not longer vulnerable and obliging, but children are.

• Society has been forced to confront women as contenders in the social arena. This has generated resentment from men, as in Michael Noer’s infamous 2006 column in Forbes, “Don’t marry a career woman,” in which he claimed that working women are more likely to cheat on their husbands. Little girls epitomise a patriarchal society’s ideal of compliant, docile sexuality. In the media, girls are reduced to one-dimensional, wholly limited figurines.

I disagree. Different kinds of women turn men on. While some crave a woman they can protect, others pick a sparring partner. A hundred years ago Martha Stewart would have run her kitchen as ruthlessly as she now tuns her empire. Feminism didn’t change women’s characters, just the places in which they can exhibit them. There are still sweet, delicate ladies who seek the protection of a strong man.

• But the motivation is also commercial. Cosmetics and fashion designers are finding ways to capture loyal consumers almost from day one. On the flip side, emphasising girlishness as desirable facilitates the multibillion-dollar sales of anti-aging cosmetics, creams and plastic surgery. Finally, there’s the underground economy of little girls’ sexuality: child sex trafficking and prostitution. According to the UN, sex trafficking is the fastest-growing area of organised crime.

Capitalism respects few moral boundaries, but if that is the reason why aren’t boys being pushing into becoming sexual men? Girls wear Playboy branded t-shirts, but I have yet to see a boy play with a Hustler brand Tonka Truck. Boys are told to man-up, stop crying and be tough, but the sexual side of adulthood is not pushed on them. (Thank God).

While child sex trafficking is a real issue that destroys the safety and happiness of countless little boys and girls, the connection between it and a Lily Cole advert is tangential at best. If anything the sexualization of children is what is driving the trade, not vice versa.

Whatever the reason for this trend, it is clear that it is harmful. Children have the makings of the sexual grown-up inside of them, but they are not adults.

Sex is one of the great treasures of the adult world. Like any good treasure, it starts off buried — untouched and unknown. Slowly it is discovered, piece by piece, until the whole trove is uncovered. It is the slow and awkward journey of discovery that allows people to own their sexuality — to become sexual beings instead of sexual objects.