Way to be dismissive of my entire point. Did you even read what I wrote?

Of course it’s bigger than my friend and her husband. But the fact is you came on to a post about an ADULT woman being talked about as a sex object rather than a remarkable athlete and argued that the real problem was with HER BODY not meeting some nebulous standard of maturity. You took issue not with the fact that these comments reduce a woman to her body, but that they were aimed at the wrong type of body.

“Let me ask you this Missa, would your friend say it’s more important that she shouldn’t have to face judgement based on her looks, than seeing that children aren’t sexually abused or exploited? I doubt she would.”

It’s not an either/or situation. Judging my friend and looking at her husband with suspicion does nothing to protect ACTUAL CHILDREN. As I said earlier, by 13, hell, even by 12, I could “pass” for 21. I was 5’4”, 130ish pounds, sported a full B cup, and had a rather angular face. I may not have looked out of place on a college campus, but I was no less a CHILD than my younger looking friends were. And the man who took advantage of my immaturity, powerlessness, and naiveté to try to force me to sleep with him is no less culpable of child molestation than he would have been if he had targeted a less developed classmate. It’s not a child-like body that makes a person vulnerable, it’s being a child.

It’s true that media images infantilize women and sexualize girls. Some of this *is* undoubtedly due to the idealization of thinness and youthfulness as markers of beauty and desirability. But it also has to do with concepts of women as submissive, innocent, and weak. This is about way more than what a woman “should” look like.

The problem is not that youthful-looking women are sexualized, the problem is that ALL women are sexualized. All women, all the time, no matter what their accomplishments. Unless of course said woman is “too fat” or “too old” in which case, it’s like they’re not actually women in the first place. If all women are viewed as sexual objects, it is inevitable that girls will be viewed with the same lens.

Declaring that certain women aren’t womanly enough to be found attractive helps exactly no one.

No one’s denying that it’s a problem if the underage form is promoted as the ideal, but judging people by appearance alone is still bad, and abusing/exploiting a child is still bad even if that child went through puberty quite early.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with your best friend and her husband. I even saw something on TV, with a person in a similar situation to your friend’s, and she was talking about having exactly the same issues.

I didn’t mean to come across as unsympathetic towards that. However, your friend’s situation in the scheme of things as far as I know, isn’t that common. The prevalence of our society sexualizing women looking like children, is common.

If I knew your friend and her husband, I’d be cool with it. It’s a unique situation however. What I’m discussing is the bigger picture, that there are men being trained by our society that embraces a disturbingly youthful ideal of a woman, to perfer a child’s body over an adult woman’s body.

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m repeating myself, but when you put together that fat on women, which by all means is a natural part of getting older is deemed unattractive. That magazines constantly display sexualized pictures of women who look barely 13 as advertising, as well as similar advertising on television. That no woman over what would seem age 18 is ever shown in a movie. That is breeding a culture of men, who are going to be attracted to what in MOST cases is an ideal of a girl not a woman.

Let me ask you this Missa, would your friend say it’s more important that she shouldn’t have to face judgement based on her looks, than seeing that children aren’t sexually abused or exploited? I doubt she would. If I were her, I’d say to people who showed concern, “I really do appreciate your concern in regards for children who may be being abused or exploited, however I am not a child.” and just leave it at that.

It’s a much bigger issue than your friend and her husband, and I’m sorry if you are unwilling to see that.

Perhaps I’m being overly sensitive, Jackie, but I really have to take issue with your comment.

Firstly, I don’t think the argument has any relevance to this particular situation because Sacramone is not built like a child. I think that is probably why she is getting the bulk of the “I’d hit that” comments–she has more curves than the “typical” gymnast, including breasts that visibly bounce when she runs.

But more importantly, I find your general premise somewhat insulting and body negative. My best friend since childhood is very short, quite thin, not curvy, and sweet-faced. In short, she looks very child-like. Even at 27, she’ll be asked if her parents are home if she answers the front door alone. She has to show ID to get into R-rated movies, and was offered the kiddie menu at restaurants all through high school. She is also a married woman. Her husband, although only a year older than her in age is occasionally mistaken for her father, and is regularly glared at by strangers on the street if they are “caught” displaying any affection.

According to your logic, this man is a pedophile in waiting because he is attracted to his wife, who is sometimes mistaken for a child.

It is not a child’s body shape that makes them “off limits,” it’s their innocence, powerlessness, and immaturity. In contrast to my friend, I was an early bloomer. At 13 I was mistaken for my father’s wife. Was the adult man who tried to trap me into sleeping with him then more or less sick than the man who married my “child-like” friend ten years later?

I’m getting worked up and losing sight of my point. I do understand that there’s a difference between being attracted to a person you know and love and being attracted to a celebrity’s image. I agree that there seems to be a trend toward infatilizing women and sexualizing young girls that is certainly disturbing. But I still think that statements like the one I quoted boil down to “certain bodies are not OK” and “certain people should never be seen as sexual beings.”

I guess in a nutshell: the point is that sexualized comments like the ones in Kate’s post are wrong because they diminish a woman’s accomplishments as less important than her fuckability, NOT because they are aimed at somebody who doesn’t appear “womanly enough.”

Sorry for the length… I guess this hit an open nerve.

Simon “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BOOBIES” Barnes has an equally pathetic colleague at the London Times.

Anyhoo, is it a new development that the media ogles the bodies of underage gymnasts and laments the body hiding of women’s swimsuits, or am I simply more sensitive to it now that I’m older and a feminist?

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of viewers who would prefer to ogle non-child bodies.