Too hot to handle

As I watched the Malta Junior Eurovision song contest on Saturday night, it struck me, once again, that too many of our little girls have this idea in their head that when they perform they should be “sexy”.

I am not going to single any one out, because these are children we are talking about, and in any case, there was more than one singer doing this. While their outfits were thankfully on the whole age-appropriate (with what seemed like strict instructions for everyone to wear ballet flats), a few of the girls were determined to pour as much va-va-voom into their song interpretation as possible.

It was probably more the choice of songs which took me aback; songs whose lyrics were clearly not meant for this age group (8- 5). I want to emphasize that I am not knocking this contest because it is nice to see young upcoming talent, however, when it comes to song material, there is a vast difference between what is suitable for an 8-year-old little girl and a 15-year-old adolescent. These were cover versions, so the original artists are all women who are perfectly entitled to sing about whatever they want to, but coming from the lips of a tiny girl, some of the lyrics were just…well, wrong.

Even more disturbing, however, were some of the gestures and dance movements. I’m sorry, but I do not want to see children acting like Lolitas, pouting, strutting, shimmying and gyrating in front of the camera. Again I hasten to add, the majority of the girls did not do this, just a few.

And the few examples I’ve mentioned at this contest are just symptomatic of something which has been happening for several years now all around us, which is the early sexualization of girls.

Why are we doing this and when did this all start? Of course, I know why the girls want to look and act grown up; having been one myself I can still remember the tug-of-war of me wanting to look older and my parents determined to keep me reined in and still looking my age. Make-up, nail polish, high heels? Forget it. “You’re not old enough” was the mantra drummed into my head over and over again. Do you all remember that feeling when you positively yearned to grow up to be allowed to do all the things which you were not allowed to do before. I wonder…does that concept even exist any more?

And let’s talk about make-up for a second. Why on earth were some of those young girls at the Junior Eurovision wearing so much make-up? Whatever happened to the fresh-faced look? Obviously the girls themselves must have been over the moon at being allowed to look so “grown up” on stage, but in some cases it was laid on so thick that it was positively disconcerting. (This was in complete contrast to the presenter Elaine Saliba who, I must say, was flawless from head to toe in both of her outfits.)

Girls go through an immensely confusing time as they enter puberty which is at once, exciting, scary, exhilarating and thrilling. But for parents, it’s mostly scary. One minute their little girl is all wide-eyed innocence and then it’s like they blink and she has turned into this little minx who is fully aware of her budding sexuality.  

It’s very easy to blame “the media” (which seems to be blamed for everything these days), and the intrusion of cable TV in our homes where there is no such thing as a 9pm viewing threshold. Switch on MTV at any time of the day and you will see rappers fondling the butt cheeks of their voluptuous dancers whose talent consists solely of thrusting their ample proportions into the camera lens. Not surprising then, that little girls learn to imitate these dance moves. Switch to any other channel and what girls are being fed is a steady stream of how to flirt and gush and wiggle and keep talking in a baby voice even when you are 30-something. And let’s not even get started on all the enhancements which girls are persuaded are a must-have: from fish-trout lips to large implants on an impossibly tiny frame. “This is what men like,” they are being subliminally told, even though, time and time again, research carried out among men proves the opposite.

And of course the biggest bugbear has to be social media with its emphasis on me, me, me and constant requests for approval and validation. Where I went, what I did, this is my new hairstyle, this is my new bikini body and how do you like my toned abs, announced to 200+ of your closest friends. Again, when it’s adults doing it, fine, they are adults, but I see way too many young girls who are absolutely obsessed with looking “hot”. Not pretty, not lovely, not even beautiful, but “hot”. Because hot = sexy. Hot = boys/men want you. Hot = empowerment. Well, sure, maybe.

But when you are jutting your butt out and offering your cleavage to anyone within a two-mile radius, hot can also become too hot to handle. No matter which way you slice it, girls need to mature at a gradual pace, and psychologically prepare themselves for their own sexuality, even when physically, a 13-year-old could easily pass for a 20-year-old.

Lately there has been this wave of articles telling us not to “slut shame” girls for what they wear, but you know what? This is not so much about shaming anyone for what they wear, but for acknowledging that boys (and men) with raging hormones could not care less that feminism these days is telling us that we have taken control of our own sexuality. I don’t care how much we say that a woman has a right to wear whatever she likes (yes, a woman does), but young girls need to be very carefully guided in this department. Obviously, boys have to be guided as well, to respect girls and not treat them like dispensable things, but it is a chain reaction which (as much as we may hate to admit it), does start with girls and whether they value themselves.

As childhood becomes shorter and shorter, there is such a small window of opportunity for girls these days which will determine whether or not they will go down the wrong path: it is during those vulnerable early teenage years when they take stock of their own self-image and decide what they are going to be and how they wish to project themselves to the world, and it is this turning point which is worrying. Boys don’t have to grapple with these thorny issues, at least not until much later. And although it might not seem like it to them when they are growing up, there is going to be plenty of time for girls to embrace their sexuality. A whole lifetime in fact. There’s no hurry, no urgency, the mind and the body will meet in due course, and it will all fall into place when the time is right.

Because the plain truth is that once the innocence is gone, that’s it, you will never get it back.