Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

Dove Commercial

Dear Dove,

This commercial sucks.

I know you think you’re all cool and whatever because you’re supposed to be standing up for girls, but you’ve missed the boat here by a wide margin. In fact, rather than supporting girls’ movement towards “Real Beauty,” you’ve gone in the exact opposite direction.

And what makes this so surprising and somewhat shameful (for you, that is), is that you’ve gone to some lengths to inform people - like me - of this crappy commercial. Two weeks ago I got an e-mail from someone in your organization that said this: “As a key partner in our efforts to widen society’s stereotypical view of beauty, we wanted you to be the first to learn of the new self-esteem building programming we plan to roll out later this year…Last week, a new Dove ad, titled “Under Pressure,” will help kick off the next phase of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.” So apparently you think this is actually a good commercial! You’re proud of it! It’s not just something to mindlessly fill the airwaves with, but something you hope will…what, go viral?

So because I never want it to be said that I mindlessly slam something without a critical analysis, I’m going to take the time to say why this commercial shouldn’t be connected with anything related to improving girls’ self esteem:

1. Common, the redhead is stereotypically beautiful. Sure, she’s not professionally made-up in the same way that the blonde is, but she’s skinny, she’s got great hair and clear skin. Give me a break!

2. The phrase “But she’s just as beautiful…” is degrading and feeds directly into the self-image problem that girls have. If Dove had left out the words “But” and “just as” they might have had a decent sentence: “She is beautiful.”

3. I’m confused about what this commercial is supposed to be selling. Because what on earth does “Cream Oil Body Wash” have to do with anything else in this video? Does the redhead use it or the blonde? Can anyone even explain this to me??

Now, one small kudos - I like the lesbians. True, they’re an outrageously stereotypical, male-oriented image of lesbians, but nevertheless. It’s good to see female couples in mass media.

So, to sum it up, Dove, you’ve missed the ballpark here. You need to either suck it up and acknowledge that you’re just another company looking to sell body products, or you need to actually walk your talk. Make a decision. Because right now your hypocrisy is just pissing me off.

Love,
Dr. Karen

Unlike Phoebe’s Smelly Cat, the Skinny Cat goes beyond noxious and strays into the problematic.

This weekend we were hanging out with my daughter’s 6-year-old friend, who we’ll call Jane because that’s shorter and faster to type than her actual name.  We’re close to Jane’s whole family, and always have a lovely time together.  This weekend, Jane had a little stuffed cat with her.  She ran around with the cat tucked under her arm, nothing special or unusual.  I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the damn cat except as we were leaving:

Jane (squeezes the cat’s middle section as tightly as she can): Look!  My cat is skinny and pretty.

Robert: Hmm.  Looks more like the cat is hurting.

Jane (sucks her tummy way in and squeezes her hands around her tummy): Look!  Now I’m skinny and pretty too!

Hence the entrance of Skinny Cat into our lives and into my psyche.   So what’s the deal here?  Jane clearly has the impression that skinny is better than normal - even if you have to stop breathing to achieve it.

My immediate reaction?  Let’s play the Blame Game!  Here are some prime suspects on my list:

• Jane’s mother
• Jane’s father
• Jane’s brother
• Jane’s grandparents
• Jane’s friends
• Jane’s friends’ parents
• Jane’s culture
• Jane’s dog
• oh, wait, Jane doesn’t have a dog any more.

And then I remember: Oh, wait, I don’t care who’s to blame.  But I do care, and very deeply because of my personal relationship with Jane, what each of those people is doing about Jane’s compulsion for…Skinny Cat.  (Followed shortly by Skinny Jane.)

I’m a vocal creature when it comes to talking about thinks like body image and sex.  (HA!  Who’d have thought, yes?)  But everyone else needs to be too.  I can only be in so many places at a time, but I am needed in so many, many more!  Like, for example, each and every time a 6-year-old turns another stuffed cat towards anorexia.  Nervously shuffling your feet and not responding to the child, not opening up a conversation about body image and body type and beauty is what keeps these stereotypes going.  Hoping it’s just a phase, that the child will outgrow it, is to ignore the heavy weight of this thinness-obsessed culture that we live in.

So here are the people you should be talking with about body image every time there is an opening:

• Your parents, your children
• Your brothers and sisters
• Your nieces and nephews
• Your grandparents, your grandchildren
• Your friends, your friends children
• Your culture
• Your dog.  Yes, especially your dog.

Because it is through conversation and critique and openness that our society can kick our addition to Thin and Young firmly to the curb.

Ah, good ole Texas. Always a great place for scandals like this one. So here’s what happened: A senior named Marche Taylor wore a really skimpy dress and was denied entrance to her prom based on it. And yes, it is really, really skimpy. So I get where the prom sponsor was coming from when she told Marche that her dress was too skimpy. But Marche offered to wind her train up and around her torso - and that really should have made it okay. Instead, “voices were raised” and the cops were called and escorted this loud, scantily clad girl off the Sugarland Marriott premises. Honestly, I don’t see what the big freaking deal is.

So here’s where the conversation about this one random girl near Houston, the stinky armpit of Texas, turns into a conversation about the state of our country’s obsession with adolescent bodies and adolescent sexuality. In fact, I wonder if this is even news worthy just because of the recent Miley Cyrus fiasco? Or maybe it’s because silly things like this suddenly go viral on the Internet and out of nowhere everyone knows who Marche Taylor is and that her prom sponsor accused her of not wearing underwear to her prom (Marche says she was).

But really, I think people pay attention to things like this because they get to look at a teenage girl’s body. We are, as a culture, both obsessed and repelled by teenage girls ‘bodies. We want them to be shown off and considered sexy in the right ways (like your standard prom dress or a bikini on the beach) but not in the wrong ways (like Marche or Miley). But teenage girls are never really given a good, solid list of guidelines and what’s appropriate can change far too quickly for the average teenage girl to be expected to keep up.

Let’s get back to that liking to look at teenage girls’ bodies. When we see a news show, or read a blog post (unless it’s this one), or read a newspaper article about a scantily clad 17 year old, the man - the publisher - knows that eyeballs will be had in great droves because people like to look at 17 year old’s bodies. And I’m fed up with it.

As a society, we honor and love youth - particularly the fabulous body part of youth.

But then at the same time we slam (a) a teenager’s too-sexy choice in photo arrangements or (b) a teenager’s too-sexy choice in prom dress.

We can’t do both, folks. It just screws with girl’s minds and makes them obsess at a highly unhealthy level about their body - because they’ll either be considered stodgy and not sexy enough or too slutty and too sexy. The middle ground is a very, very narrow tightrope. So let’s all just breathe. And stop it with the obsession about teenager’s bodies.

The Body Project is a great book to give you a historical understanding of how American society developed to the point where girls are obsessed with their bodies.

The story begins with how the time-line of reproductive development has changed over many years from the mid-teens to late-childhood.

The Body Project goes on to discuss menstruation, and how it was originally an extremely intimate experience that girls did not talk about. Ideally, however, 150 years ago menstruation was part of an intimate mother-daughter experience and something of a coming-of-age experience in the mid-to-late-teens. Over the years, as diets and lifestyles became healthier and women had fewer children, girls began menstruating earlier and more often (because they were not sick or pregnant as often) and male doctors became involved in the process. As doctors took over, they encouraged girls to use the new, and “cleaner” commercially sold pads rather than the rags their mothers and grandmothers used. Over time, menstruation became something that was talked about comparatively easily in the public square, or at least among girl friends, and is highly commercialized, where the majority of the conversation is about what products girls use - “What brand of pad, tampon, and cramps alever do you use?”

The book goes on to chronicle other body obsessions, including the search for perfect skin and the barbed issues around appropriate public sexuality, lack of sexual activity, and virginity. It’s a great read - and particularly poignant and meaningful for parents of daughters who are about to make the transition into puberty.

As long as we’re talking about the line between appropriate and inappropriate adolescent sexuality, I thought I would bring up Jock Sturges. There is much controversy about Jock Sturges‘ photography. Mr. Sturges primarily takes pictures of nude adolescent girls on nude beaches.

The contention is whether or not Mr. Sturges’ pictures are nude art or under age pornography.

The answer, of course, may lie in whether you’re French or American - that is, what kind of cultural and sexual understanding you have of the human body. This is really so similar to how people understand the FLDS debacle - so much is based on how you see girls between the ages of 12 and 16. (And yes, it is absolutely a tragedy and a debacle, regardless of which “side” you’re on.)

Me? I think that girls between the ages of 12 and 16 should be free to find their own sexuality - but should not be the objects of adults’ sexual desires. Basically, I think the FLDS folks shouldn’t allow their daughters to marry under age 18, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for Jock Sturges to publish images of girls under 18 naked.

Mr. Sturges talks at length about the quality of his relationship with the girls he photographs and their parents. And I commend him for that - or, rather, I don’t condemn him as I would if he didn’t make it crystal clear that he has a great relationship with them. Nevertheless, it’s hard enough for young teenage girls to make sense of their developing sexuality without their naked images being published online and in books.

Give teenage girls time and space to develop sexually and romantically. There is plenty of time - plenty! - for them to get married and pump out babies if that’s what they want or to pose naked for photographers if that’s what they want. I just don’t think that a 13 year old is ready enough to make those decisions - and I certainly don’t think her parents should be making them for her.

And to stave off the comments I already see in the rear view mirror: No, I’m not sure an 18 year old or even a 24 year old is always fully ready to make those decisions either. But I am absolutely confident that a post-adolescent woman of 18 is more capable of making decisions than a pre-adolescent girl of 13.

I am not including any of Mr. Sturges’ pictures in this blog post on purpose, but you can find plenty here and in the links above.

Ready to be appalled?

The big story that’s been making the rounds on lots of blogs this week is about a new book coming out that explains mom’s upcoming plastic surgery to kids in much the same way that other books explain going to the dentist or non-standard family organization. You can find more about the book here.

There are so many things that are wrong with this book it’s hard for me to know where to begin.

Let’s start with women’s poor self-esteem that they feel their bodies must look pre-children even post-children. Our bodies change with the birth of our children, often irrevocably. But women feel that they have to stay “young” and “attractive” within a very narrow definition, and so they have plastic surgery. This is a dreadful psychological game to play, and can have serious side effects (up-to-and-including death, because plastic surgery can be a serious operation).

Let’s move on to the permanent distortion of a child’s self-image and understanding of beauty that comes with deciding to (for example, as the book explains) re-shape your body to fit into your clothes rather than get new clothes to shape your body. Or let’s take the phrase “Not just different - prettier!” that describes what the mother will look like after a tummy tuck, a nose job, and breast implants. The body image issues that this book plants deep inside young girls’ heads are outrageous!
One person Newsweek interviewed suggested that rather than basing the surgery on the need to augment the mother’s physical beauty, the storybook mama should have said something along the lines of “It’s silly, but I want to do it anyway, so I’m going to.” At least that’s slightly more honest.

Because what I am working always to teach children and teenager is that one can have a tummy bulge and saggy breasts and still be beautiful. Expanding our culture’s image of beauty is where our focus with our children needs to be - not justifying the lack of balance and understanding.

So while I have not actually read the entirety of My Beautiful Mommy by Dr. Michael Salzhauer (just the excerpts from the Newsweek website), I feel absolutely confident in saying it’s a book that should never be read to actual children.

Of course, I wish that there were no children who had need to know why their mothers are going in for surgery and will look different (maybe prettier, maybe not) afterwards. But when mothers give up on their own, natural physical beauty and buy into the customized, unified, stereotypical version and get plastic surgery, I’m with Elizabeth Berger, the child psychiatrist who suggests that mothers just own up to wanting something silly and presenting it to their children in such a light.

I am going to the Vagina Monologues in Austin this evening, and I am very excited about it!  This will be the first time for me to see the play, although I have wanted to for some time.  There are still tickets available, and at $15 they’re a great deal!  Eve Ensler will be there as well.  Fabulous!

And speaking of fabulous Friday fun, I like the Virtual Orgasm Simulator.  Hooray!

Last week, the New York Times posted two stories I think are interesting enough to share with you.

The first: You’re 16, You’re Beautiful and You’re a Voter is about the enfranchisement of teenagers. The basic gist is that teenagers do better when their rights and privileges are gained slowly over time. This has, for example, well with drivers’ licenses in many places. The author is suggesting we do something similar with other rights, primarily with voting. Those younger than 18 would be able to gain the right to vote by completing a course in civics - while maintaining the principle that anyone older than 18 could vote. I like the idea. I like stair-stepping rights and privileges, and I like the idea of enfranchising young people earlier, as they show they are ready and able.

The second: The Vanishing Point is about a recent trend - say the last 5 years? - in male models going from a grown 6 foot man packing some good muscles to a relative waif with absolutely no fat and essentially no body tone. These male models now look far more like their female counterparts - they look like a thin veneer of skin hanging on a bone frame. These male models are now starving themselves, actively loosing muscle, in the same way that female models have done for many years. I find the perspective in the article repugnant - that male models are just going where female models have been for some time now (to the androgynous rail) and that there’s just not much to be done about it.

This seems to be a book-centered week, so I’m giving into the flow and review another book (or a series of books, actually) that I really like and use often. Greg Friedler is a photographer who created these three books. He has two pictures of each person in his books: one fully clothed in street clothes, the other fully naked. The person’s age and their career are the only personal information provided. This is a really stunning series, and provides huge insights into bodies. I highly recommend it for teenagers and pre-teenagers who are curious about naked bodies. (You can see some of the pictures from the series on Friedler’s website.)

In the introduction to Naked New York, Friedler says:

I am often asked why people participated in this project. This is a valid question in a project where the participants show up with the knowledge that they are going to take off their clothes and be photographed by a complete stranger without receiving any monetary compensation. I believe they participate for a number of reasons. I think that a lot of people in New York (and elsewhere) are starving for attention. The people in this project enjoy the fact that they have my full attention and that I am attempting to connect with them on some level.

I really like the books partially because I feel like I am connecting with the people Friedler photographed. Seeing someone naked is intensely personal, and being able to spend some time noticing the little differences between how people hold themselves clothed and naked is an intriguing way to spend an afternoon.

All of the teenagers who I have shown this book have been fascinated by it. They have serious questions about what people look like naked - both of their own gender and the other gender. There are not many places where these serious questions can find serious answers that are not too arty (that can put teenagers off) and are not too sexual (that’s not the point of their questions, generally). The people in these pages have a wide variety of body types, are of all different ages, and many walks of life. It’s just perfect for the purpose.

I have found that these books are really must-haves for sexuality education classes. I think they should be must-haves for homes with pre-teens and teenagers as well.

Dove has launched a major self-esteem campaign, aimed at reaching 5 million young women by 2010. I’ve posted two of the commercials created by this campaign (Evolution and Onslaught).

The goals of Dove’s campaign are good:

The Dove Self-Esteem Fund (DSEF) was established to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day. The DSEF is part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, a global effort designed to widen today’s stereotypical view of beauty. A global project, the Fund consists of a network of local country initiatives linked in strategy and direction by a global steering group. In each country, the DSEF supports a specific charitable organization to help foster self-esteem.

There are parts of the campaign that I really like, like the commercials. They also have a series called the Dove Reality Diaries. This is a series of videos and blog posts by four teenage girls about the issues they face - mostly focusing on body-image-related issues. These diary entries (written and video) are real and realistic.

I am, mostly, supportive of what Dove is trying to do here. I think these videos and diaries have the potential to really touch many parents and teenage girls. The on-line tools for parents and for teenagers are interesting, and has some good parts to it. (I do wonder about the “cool” factor of the site for teenagers. I mean, how many girls who actually have self-esteem issues go looking for a site that will help boost it?)

But I have one huge, major, ginormous issue with every bit of the website itself. There are no images of teenage girls who are not skinny, clear-skinned beauties. The pictures of mothers are generally of real women. So where are the real teenage girls? I’m not suggesting that the girls in the pictures aren’t actually real, or that their stories are not true. Only that they don’t match up with the majority of teenage girls or the majority of teenage girls’ stories.

(I mean, common. One of the girls in the Diaries site is trying to fend off her mother from making her get a nose job for graduation. Another just moved to further her modeling career, and is morning her loss of friends. A third spends a full hour doing her make-up before she leaves the house every single day. She agonizes over her friends’ boyfriends liking her more than them. While these are all true stories, they are not true for the majority of teenage girls.)

So I hope that Dove continues with it’s campaign. And I hope that, with time, they bring far more realism into their stories and images.