Girl Model$

1.1 This is a companion essay to "Jailbait". Recently, the fashion world has promoted increasingly younger female models. There have been Zippora Seven, a New Zealand beauty of 16 years, Miley Cyrus, modeling at 15, and Miranda Kerr, who first modeled at 14.

1.2 A heated debate has since arisen over the "sexualization of children" in the fashion industry, but as in most heated debates, there are more heat and smoke, than light. Recently the debate has really flared since French Vogue published photographs of Thylane Blondeau, who is 10 years old.

1.3 Now Blondeau is an undeveloped girl, not a filled-out teenager, yet she is shown wearing adult women's styles and makeup. Not only is she posed provocatively; in one shot she is topless except for strings of beads. This is really too much.

1.4 Thylane Blondeau has a beautiful face, but she is a beautiful little girl. She should be modeling little girl clothes and playing with dolls. She has no place wearing adult women's styles or posing provocatively for pedophiles* to drool over.

1.5 Zippora Seven and Miley Cyrus are physically developed enough to be considered young women, and their behavior is very mature. A little stick of a girl like Thylane Blondeau belongs on the playground, playing with bunnies, not acting like a Playboy Bunny.

1.6 Much the same criticism can be leveled at prepubescent beauty pageants, in which little girls are encouraged, often by their mothers, to dress, wear makeup, and pose as if they were mature women. These pageants, like fashion modeling, put the girls out as pedophile bait.

1.7 In fact, such improper presentations of small children make pedophilia seem almost normal. Since the adults involved are so eager to display their daughters' charms, why should anyone complain if a man gets excited?

1.8 Now, what could cause adults to display innocent girls this way? I will assume their parents and the modeling staff are not themselves pedophiles. The answer lies elsewhere, with some other inducement.

1.7 The following episode will shed some light. A few years ago, I had the experience of communicating with a few "underage" girls online. I was merely asking why some girls are attracted to older men. I was not in any way suggesting a relationship between us. I have toured a jail and have no desire to return.

1.8 A few of the young women were helpful, but one in particular called me a "creep" and alerted her mother. This woman treated me to the whole "Momma Bear" routine, full of righteous indignation. She told me that my weblog would be investigated by the police; however, they apparently found nothing illegal. I invite anyone to study my blog or any of my writings.

1.9 This whole situation presents a bizarre and troubling dichotomy. On one hand, adults loudly claim to "protect children against predators", even when the "child" is a sexually mature young woman and the "predator" is an innocent investigator. On the other hand, the same adults are perfectly willing, even eager, to promote their girls as fashion models. What could possibly induce parents to expose their children this way?

2.0 Let us cut to the chase. The only difference between Joe Average online and a modeling agent is that the agent will pay for the privilege. An average man cannot promise a girl much beyond a relationship and some gifts; a modeling agency promises lots of lucre. As the song says, "it must be the money".

2.1 I should not have to say how immoral this is. But since so many parents, especially Moms, loudly claim to protect their girls, and yet are more than willing to expose the same girls to sexual pressures in the fashion industry, I will say it in unmistakable terms: these parents are selling their children.

2.2 As if this were not enough, when the results of teenage (or younger) girls' photo shoots are displayed online, the women who approve of girls modeling defend the practice as beautifying and innocent. Yet if a man makes any sexual reference to the girl model$, they call him "perv" and "predator" and for all I know, threaten legal action. This is a fine way of protecting children.

2.3 I am not sure which is more disturbing: provocatively dressed pre-pubescent girls, or the hypocrisy of parents who claim to protect their children until the fashion agent comes knocking.

2.4 I do want to emphasize that the problem is not the girls' chronological age, but their sexual maturity. Zippora Seven is obviously in a different category from Thylane Blondeau. In any case, the solution is clear: prohibit the use of pre-pubescent girls (or boys) in the adult fashion industry. Period.

*Note: pedophilia is sexual desire for pre-pubescent children. Desire for sexually mature young people is not pedophilia; it is correctly called ephebophilia or nymphophilia. See "Jailbait".