Blinker our Children

The barmy army are at it again. Seems if we ban overtly sexual advertising outside of schools and have an age certificate on pop-promotion video's suddenly everything is going to be alright. Daft, not just plain daft but idiotically daft. Wake up and look around. Highly charged sexual images, innuendos, provocative gestures and posture, dress fashion, make-up, perfume advertising, the whole kerbang, permeates throughout our society. Like the lettering in the seaside rock, no matter how far down you go there it is, always there, no getting away from it. Sex is potent and powerful and sex sells like nothing else. Unfortunately we have a very puritanical, head in the sand, rather not know or think about sex attitude, which makes a mature response difficult to come by.

Fortunately I really do not think our children have any comprehension of sexuality or can respond in any meaningful way to it, until puberty kicks in and the hormones starting wreaking havoc. However it is these public images which now serve as role models for our young and that they will draw on to inform their own behavior in later adult life. So we do have to be aware, to be very aware and very concerned.

It can as no surprise to us. We know that our young teens are the idolising fans of all the latest pop-stars. We know that they are the market for all the music put out. We know all about the videos that sell and promote the latest pop one day wonder. So why the shock. Do we live two separate entirely compartmentalised distinct lives? One as adults willingly taking in all the blatant raunchiness on offer and then this other detached sweetpie person that is parent and is cooingly concerned about exposing our children to the reality that we , in our other persona , are more than willing to accommodate. Yes of course double standards.

Forget age certificates, forget purity police to monitor what our children are exposed to. Wake up for goodness sake. Our young are more skilled, faster in leaning, passing on information between themselves and unlocking whatever child locks we care to invent. They live comfortably and serenely in this totally connected world and can access sites you never dreamt existed. Putting blinkers on our children to shield them from the adult world they are passing through is nonsense. Our world is their world too and that is the issue we have to grasp.We, the adults have the choices, what kind of world do we want to occupy. We could turn our back on this blatant sexuality, this in your face raunchiness, this promotion of sex just as a means to get what you want. A regressive and fierce-some puritanism is one option. Or we face the world we actually live in and start talking openly. About sex, about copulation and about the deep emotions it generates and how these emotions are the things that tie us together. See also my Self Image Not a wham bang, done that on to the next thing. But perhaps the height of all possible human emotions and therefore something to be revered and given some respect. Lets all grow-up!