Too Sexy, Too Soon

Coconut and Lemon Facials, Manicures and Bikini Waxing. Sound like normal spa treatments, right? But what if I told you that 11 year olds were getting them? When I heard that salons are now offering these services to kids and tweens, my jaw dropped. Salon Ouidad in New York City says 20% of their customers are kids under 14 years old. The owner says that she has kids as young as 6 and 7 years old coming in for chemical treatments. WHAT? Does anyone else find this disturbing?

This begs the question, are these beauty treatments "grooming" our kids to be too sexy, too soon? Salons, who provide these services to young clients, say it's a matter of "hygiene". But psychologists who have weighed in say that this is sexualizing young girls. They say it's one thing to paint a little girls nails, but the bikini waxing has taken it a bit far.

But when you think about it....look at Miley Cyrus, a star that every young kid is idolizing right now. She's rockin' designer party dresses and stilettos, not to mention heavy makeup, false eyelashes, risque MySpace pictures and the infamous Vanity Fair cover. Remember, she's only 15! And let's not forget Gossip Girl...TV's hottest new show targeting teens. Every episode is filled with underage drinking, drugs and teen sex. There was footage on TMZ.com that showed fans mobbing the stars of the show in NY....screaming "we love you and we love the show!" But this mob of screaming fans were mostly grade school students! Is this a sign of the times?

What's next...7th graders getting together for a girl's night out to catch the new Sex and the City movie? Good luck parents.

AYKM?

If you haven't figured it out, the four letters...AYKM...stand for Are You Kidding Me? I'm still shocked at the racy ads running for CW's Gossip Girl. You've seen them on billboards and in commercials. One of the spots show the characters in a heated sexual moment...and several images continue flashing...leading up to that. During the commercial you see the three letters OMG, which stand for Oh My God. In some magazines, you see this ad with one additional letter - OMFG. I'm sure you can figure out what that stands for. The ads use letters to represent words...something teens often do while texting. Although the 30 second commercial spots are meant to generate buzz around the show(and they have!), are they a little too provocative for their target audience? Sex obviously sells, but when your showing cast members in the throws of passion...and pre-teens are idolizing these actors, I'm not sure it's the most responsible thing to do.

A recent report from the CQ Press discusses which US states have the highest rates of teen pregnancies and STDs. The three states with the highest rates of teen pregnancies are Missississippi, New Mexico and Arizona. As for the highest rates of STDs: Mississippi, South Carolina, Delaware and Alaska. We may not have the highest percentages here in California, but the numbers are still high enough for us to be concerned.
Every year more than 12 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases are reported in the United States. At least 3 million among them are from teenagers. Teens have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases of any age group.

If shows like Gossip Girl choose to run racy ads like this, hopefully they'll incorporate safe sex into their storylines. It would be the responsible thing to do. Before provocative commercials are released for all of the public, young and old, to see...we need to find ways to emphasize to our youth that a pregnancy, or an STD, lasts way longer than a 30 second TV spot.