That was a lot of reading!
OK, here is my "non-PC" opinion. Alot of what has been said so far is true and to the point. The claims that "it was the same when we were kids" is false. It is getting worse. I have an old high school science teacher that I meet around town and I used to bust his chops (give him a hard time in class), but he and I both knew it was all in fun. When he retired last year, he told me the kids are meaner. We used to play around, the kids today are out to hurt and injure. When I went to high school (circa 1986), girls did not walk around with thongs hanging out of the back of lowrider jeans. If they did, I would never get any work done. The female body is destracting to heterosexual males. We cannot help it. It is the way we were made. It preserves the circle of life if you will. Girls did not have tattoos in their pubic area (at least that I saw) and wear low rider pants so that you can see them. The truth about this is that if a girl (or a guy) has a tattoo on her crotch, she wants you to see it. She does not put it there so she can look at it in the mirror alone. It draws attention to that part of her body, which gets mens (and especially boys) motors running. The same goes for the tattoos on the lower back, whether you can get someone to admidt the reason or not - men look, notice female body, get excited - fact.
Now, why does this go on? Parents and society are to blame.
#1- most of the time parents are not even around. They are too busy earning 2 incomes to pay for the big house in "the right neighbourhood" and to afford to drive a new car for every family member over 16. So what happens? TV, the internet and their peers become the baby sitter (even if they are not babies anymore).
#2- Media is telling the children that sex sells. If you want that cool guy, use your sexuality. Parents real life behaviour adds confirmation to the sales pitch. Dad, do your girls see you enjoying porn? If so, if they want to get their guy, they will have to dress, look and act like the girls that daddy likes to get the guy who is like dad. Think about this: Is CNN really the most trusted name in news or do they just keep telling us they are?......... Is dressing like a tramp really the way to a happy life, or does MTV and Much Music keep showing us videos of a happy Britney, Christina and the "Gangsta rapper" of the week sporting money, cars, "bling" and "hoes"?
#3- What if mommy and daddy do not live together anymore? A preteen girl sees daddy leave mom for a 20 something, thong wearing, silicone enhanced "Barbie" and therefore equates that "if I want to be happy, I need to look and act like a slut to keep my man happy, because mom didn't" (not the way I feel - just what I see)
#4- Single moms, what are you portraying to your daughters? That you need to "put out" on the first date to get a guy? Do your children regularly see you coming home (or going home) with different men just so you do not have to be alone? Your children will think that you do not feel like they are companions (therefore you feel alone). They will also feel that sleeping around is acceptable behaviour and they need to be the most attractive lure to catch the best fish.
#5- Fathers, how do you treat women? If your sons and daughters see you treating them as sex purveyors (strippers, porn), they will assume that it is acceptable behaviour to act in a similar manner. Sons being disrespectful to women and women disrespecting themselves.
Things have gotten worse, and as many of you have pointed out -lingere for kids? What is up with that? Purchasing it only encourages it. How many fathers that only get to see "their little princess" every other weekend want to say no to them when they want to buy what "every other girl in school is wearing"? Too many fathers will give in out of guilt for the lack of time spent with them. Mothers counteract by not wanting to be "too restrictive" so that little "Suzie" will not go and live with their "deadbeat dad".
Parents need to say no! Turn off the MTV. Play a game of Monopoly. Streetproof their children. Take a role in being an educator of their own children and stop blaming others and saying "nothing has changed" (Denial is not a river in Egypt). Teach your children morality. They do not need to learn their own lessons from their own mistakes. Would it be loving to let a child learn that a stove is hot by putting (or allowing them to put) their hands on a hot stove? Or to learn that playing in the middle of the street was dangerous by letting them learn on their own? So why give them a powerful tool as sexuality to learn on their own? Why allow them to learn about parenthood from a young age because "they have to learn from their own mistakes"? Now they have a new life involved. Why learn about STDs (Sexually Transmitted Disease) on their own? Why should they learn about the guilt of abortion on their own?
Media teaches kids that sex sells, most parents reinforce it. Very few teach about the dangers that go along with that sell. Most will speak of the pleasures, but the are pains are never associated. Sexual relations are great, but if not shared with those who love back - they are empty. Teaching and allowing our daughters to be sexual can only bring about pain. Theirs, their children and ours from seeing them in pain.
Sorry for the rant.