The Slutty Selfies Mom is Right: sexually aggressive teenage girls posting provocative pictures on boy’s social media feeds need to be shut down before those girls make a mistake and blame it on someone else. Guess who that will be?

12 Sep

Kimberley Hall has come under some fire recently for daring to inform girls who post pictures of themselves pouting and braless in their bedrooms on her sons’ Facebook wall that they WILL be blocked for those actions.

We have teenage sons, and so naturally there are quite a few pictures of you lovely ladies to wade through. Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your skimpy pj’s this summer!  Your bedrooms are so cute! Our eight-year-old daughter brought this to our attention, because with three older brothers who have rooms that smell like stinky cheese, she notices girly details like that.

I think the boys notice other things. For one, it appears that you are not wearing a bra.

I get it – you’re in your room, so you’re heading to bed, right? But then I can’t help but notice the red carpet pose, the extra-arched back, and the sultry pout.  What’s up? None of these positions is one I naturally assume before sleep, this I know.

If you post a sexy selfie (we all know the kind), or an inappropriate YouTube video – even once – it’s curtains.

http://givenbreath.com/2013/09/03/fyi-if-youre-a-teenage-girl/

I know!  What a slut-shaming killjoy, huh?

no fun

Kimberley is a Christian, so she frames the debate in terms of modesty, which makes me blanche a bit.  And it makes me feel like we have a lot of work to do, if Kimberley is worried about the social impropriety of flashing some cleavage, which is inappropriate to be sure, but not even close to representing the real danger boys face from the sexy selfie girls.

We’ll get to those dangers in a bit, but first I want to look at two reactions from feminist media.  The first is from Jezebel.  They have two main critiques of what they deem “Biblical Sexism”.

The first is straight up idiotic, as we have come to expect from Jezebel.

Kimberley’s stance is hypocritical because she herself posted TOPLESS pictures of her sons!  Flexing their MUSCLES!  Carrying their little sister on big manly shoulders!  Goofing off in a way totally designed provoke a sexual reaction!

boys 1

They were at the beach, wearing normal bathing trunks and doing the normal things boys do at the beach, which everyone knows is EXACTLY THE SAME as arching your back with a pouty expression half-clad on your bed, right?

This:

boys 2

Is totally the same as this:

girl

Or this:

girl 2

These are not images, as far as I know, that appeared on the Hall’s Facebook wall, but I googled “teenage girls sexy selfie pajamas” and there was no shortage of pictures to choose from, and from the mother’s description, they look about right.

It is completely ridiculous to equate boys goofing off at beach with their little sister with sexy selfies.

Jezebel’s second critique is that Christianity seems to take a poor view of girls acting slutty, and since sluts are awesome and girls will inevitably find meaning and fulfilment in sluthood, that’s unacceptable.

Instead of addressing a letter to unnamed teenage girls, Hall could’ve had a (shirt-optional) chat with her sons called “FYI (If you’ve been brainwashed by Biblical sexism).”

“Respect everyone regardless of their gender/sexuality/appearance,” she might’ve said. “Don’t worry! It’s okay if you have sexual feelings! You’re a sexual being! Girls are too. That doesn’t mean you can treat them like objects. You and you alone are responsible for your thoughts and actions. Get over this Madonna-whore complex while you still can.”

http://jezebel.com/concerned-mom-slutty-girls-selfies-are-tempting-my-pe-1251831479

Same old, same old.  Girls can act in any way they deem fit, and boys are the ones held responsible for that.  Boys, you and you alone are responsible for your thoughts and actions.  Girls, carry on being sexy.

Nothing to see here.  No double standards at all.  Move along.

flag

It’s beyond hypocritical that the same website WILL hold girls responsible for the reactions they provoke in other when it comes to wearing racist t-shirts, but give girls a pass when it comes to provoking others by wearing skimpy t-shirts.

The claim that Confederate flags are just innocent symbols of “Southern heritage” is a common one, but the fact is that for many people, they represent slavery. Students and staff should be able to attend school without having a graphical reminder of the mass subjugation of human beings thrown in their faces, and if West thinks her daughter’s right to show Virginia pride trumps that, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her position.

http://jezebel.com/5860455/mom-defends-daughters-inalienable-right-to-wear-racist-shirt-to-school

Provoke racist thoughts = no sympathy

Provoke sexual thoughts = fuck you boys, you’re responsible for your own reactions so deal with it

And here is how that contradictory message gets processed by teenage girls.  Tuesday Cain is 14 years old and lives in Texas, too.

Almost every other picture on Facebook is some girl doing “duckface.” I do it in the picture for this post because someone told me to do it because it would be funny. It’s on my Facebook. So far it hasn’t hurt anyone.

1tuesdaycain

I actually agree parents should censor things that might somehow be taboo, but what you are describing is not taboo.

I’m constantly hearing messages — like what you wrote — that parts of my body are not to be seen in public because it is not socially accepted. Women are expected to cover up more than men. People try to make us feel bad. That we are “asking for it” or that we have somehow lost our character because we took a picture with our lips pursed? That’s crazy and rude.

http://www.xojane.com/issues/tuesday-cain-open-letter-to-the-mom-who-posted-rules-for-teenage-girls-on-facebook

This poor little girl.  Where are her parents?

Oh, wait.  They’re helping her hold up provocative signs outside the Texas legislature and then boo-hooing their way across social media when cupcake gets the reaction she intended.  Good job!

dick

http://www.xojane.com/issues/billy-cain-tuesday-cain-jesus-isnt-a-dick-so-keep-him-out-of-my-vagina

The pouty selfie she posted isn’t all that bad, but it exists on a continuum that gets bad very, very fast.  She seems to have zero awareness what the half-open mouth and lowered gaze signals. The fact that lips signal sexual attraction seems to have by-passed her altogether.  Instead, she succumbed to peer pressure because someone thought it would be funny.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1332709/Men-drawn-womans-lips-facial-feature.html

Tuesday thinks 14 year olds signalling their sexuality with pouty shots posted on the Internet is not taboo, and shouldn’t be.

I’m guessing that is because Tuesday has no real awareness of the fact that she is using her face and her mouth and her expression to signal her sexuality, and she has no real comprehension of what that means.  And obviously, no one willing to explain it to her.

mouth

She absolutely believes that she should be able to provoke any reaction she likes, face no consequences for that, and ultimately blame others for how they react.

Message received, Houston.

The bodies of young girls are not dangerous.

But you know what is? Teaching young women they should be ashamed of their bodies.

Here is where the story gets interesting.  First of all, deploying your sexuality with some measure of accountability and some regard for those around you is not “shaming”, Tuesday.  It’s basic civility.  Manners.  Dignity.

And secondly, the bodies of young girls most certainly ARE dangerous, although that is because your older sisters have created a culture and influenced the law to back that culture up, in which girls CAN visit real harm on boys.

The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can be used to criminalize consensual sexual activity if the man is X years of age.

http://judgybitch.com/2013/05/09/should-13-year-olds-be-having-sex-probably-not-they-shouldnt-be-fame-whores-either/

The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can be used to enforce fatherhood on boys.

http://judgybitch.com/2013/07/10/legal-parental-surrender-is-not-morally-equivalent-to-an-abortion-and-no-amount-of-bitchy-sarcasm-will-make-it-so-yeah-amanda-marcotte-im-talking-to-you/

The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can ingest any amount of intoxicants, participate in any activity and then still hold their male partners legally liable, no matter how enthusiastically consent was given at the time.

http://judgybitch.com/2013/08/21/drunk-sex-is-not-rape/

There is nothing inherently wrong with anyone’s sexuality, but the sexuality of women, and only women, has been harnessed to some very real consequences.

That only men face.

Only men are rapists.

Only men can be forced into parenthood.

Only men can be held legally responsible for sex while intoxicated.

Kimberley is right to ban sexy selfies from her sons’ social media.  It’s the first step towards making them understand just how vulnerable they are.  If Kimberley does nothing but ban the selfies, and never takes the conversation any further, she hasn’t achieved much in terms of keeping her sons safe.

shots

It’s the opening salvo in a conversation that I suspect is about to get very intense in our culture.

The sooner, the better, if you ask me.

Lots of love,

JB

41 Responses to “The Slutty Selfies Mom is Right: sexually aggressive teenage girls posting provocative pictures on boy’s social media feeds need to be shut down before those girls make a mistake and blame it on someone else. Guess who that will be?”

  1. Alex September 12, 2013 at 17:17 #

    At least they can’t really be hounded for kiddie porn or something like that in case one of the girls gets busted for the selfies and she happens to try blaming him

    Like

  2. Goober September 12, 2013 at 17:26 #

    Maybe I missed it in my quick read-through of this article, but there is another pretty serious threat that young men face when these young women post this stuff to the boy’s facebook, and that threat is that the boy could get his ass locked up for having kiddie porn (depending on severity, and believe you me, after talking with my buddy’s 17 year old son, he has some pics of a couple of 16 year old girls on his phone that could easily get him locked up. I refused to look for that same reason).

    Generally, the girl gets a pass, even though she’s the one that created it. But if she’s underage, even if she sends the pic to another underage youth, he could technically be held criminally liable for having that image.

    I disagree with what the mom did here. She needed to talk with her sons, not the girls sending the pictures. She needed to explain to them the risks of such things, and the ways in which some women will react to overt displays of male sexuality, even when it is in response to an overt display that she sent to him, first.

    She sends you a sexy pic, life is good. You respond in some way, and your ass is in a sling if she doesn’t like the way you responded. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way the world currently works.

    Most of these girls don’t really understand what they are doing when they do things like this. The crime here is that despite that, feminists encourage them to keep doing it, even though the girls don’t quite grok what they are doing. It’s like telling someone to fly a plane because flying planes is awesome, and then ignoring the fact that they haven’t the foggiest fucking clue how to fly a plane.

    The first thing I’m going to teach my daughter is that striking sexy poses is for times when you’re not in front of a camera. Boys love the sexy poses, and a woman that wants to be valued by a man should know how to strike them like a boss, but pixels are forever. Never do or say anything on video that you wouldn’t want put up on a billboard on main street in your home town, because in this day and age, it will probably be disseminated even more widely than that. If you don’t want Grandma to see it, then don’t record it.

    One wonders how these young women will explain these photos, among others, when their next prospective employer reviews their facebook feed.

    Like

  3. LostSailor September 12, 2013 at 17:41 #

    You’re a sexual being! Girls are too. That doesn’t mean you can treat them like objects.

    Indeed, they can treat themselves as objects, portray themselves as object and disseminate those portrayals widely, but don’t you dare objectify them.

    I say, I’m only following their lead…

    The bodies of young girls are not dangerous. But you know what is? Teaching young women they should be ashamed of their bodies.

    It seems to me that feminists have really gotten this whole “shame” thing really wrong. I’m not surprised, mind you. Feminism thrives by redefining language to distort meaning and thereby both forward an agenda and derail any form of criticism (or responsibility, ‘natch).

    “Rape” has been expanded to include having regrets after the fact. The goal is to make the definition so broad that it can cover pretty much whatever women want it to. Couple this with the requirement that a woman’s claim of rape must always be believed, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and they’ve effectively destroyed any meaningful definition of the word. Case in point: last year here in NYC, a copy was convicted of sexual assault, but not of rape. The jury had both charges available, but dead locked on a verdict on the charge of rape. The victim and feminists were outraged. “How could the jury not believe I was raped?” the victim tearfully cried. A miscarriage of justice, certainly. Except NY law defines rape fairly specifically and distinguishes it from sexual assault. They’re both Class D felonies and carry the same sentence, so for justice it didn’t really matter whether the verdict was one or the other, same result. But that didn’t matter. The jury didn’t label her assault as “rape” so she was “silenced” and her “lived experience” “erased.” Now there is legislation under way to lump all sexual assault in with the charge of “rape.”

    “Survivor” is another word that has been stretched and stretched. To survive an experience or event means that you lived through it and continued to exist in spite of the event. But this necessarily implies that events to which this word is applied are events where you faced the likelihood of death. So, properly speaking, calling someone a “rape survivor” should imply that the rape was one in which there was violence and perhaps weapons and threats of death involved. In case of such a rape, I’m fine with using the word. But since “rape” has been expanded to include situations where a woman was however slighly intoxicated and while may have consented, decides (or, more likely, is convinced by others) later that she couldn’t have consented, she is now a “survivor” of drunken sex that included little to no risk of killing her. By that token, I came through my last root canal alive, so I’m going to get a shirt that says “Root Canal Survivor!” and maybe picket the doctors office with a sign that reads “Dentist!!” (which I note sort of rhymes with “rapist” so there’s that).

    “Domestic violence” has been expanded to include “verbal abuse” (he yelled at me: Restraining order), “emotional abuse” (he watched the game instead of listen to me prattle on about my feelings over Edward and Bella!), and “financial abuse” (he refused to buy me those Manolo Blahnik’s and Coach bag! Arrest and wage garnishment!).

    I could obviously go on, but I want to get back to “shame.” The feminist insist that women and girls should be able to dress as they wish and flaunt it in public and online and should not be “made to feel ashamed” of their bodies. It seems that the feminists have gotten the word “shame” mixed up with the word “respect” How about that girls should be taught to respect their bodies. One does not preclude the other, except in feminist eyes. It’s not about being ashamed of one’s body, it’s about not respecting one’s body and self by shameful behavior.

    George Orwell wept…

    Like

  4. judgybitch September 12, 2013 at 17:42 #

    Dignity.

    Where the hell did that concept go?

    Like

  5. freetofish September 12, 2013 at 18:24 #

    Surprisingly I somewhat agree with the loonies this time. It is not this women’s concern what other peoples children to or don’t do. Her and her husbands job is to raise their kids. That should include a serious talk with her sons about the dangers of unplanned pregnacny, how to select an appropriate mate etc etc. They should have passwords to every one of their kids social media pages and be reviewing and banning as they see fit until their ago of majority.

    Like

  6. feeriker September 12, 2013 at 18:50 #

    Let me offer here a simple potential solution to the question of what should constitute “kiddie porn”, to those who are obsessed with the issue:

    If the “object of lust and desire” in question displays a physical maturity that could easily have someone confuse them with an adult (IOW, they’ve clearly reached and surpassed PUBERTY, then they are no longer “kids.” OTOH, if they’re still in diapers or training pants, or ig they’ve OBVIOUSLY yet to “develop,” then they are still OBVIOUSLY kids and anyone caught “objectifying” them in a seriously sexual way probably deserves chemical castration, at a minimum.

    Crude and unrefined (not to mention objectionable in some quarters) as my suggested criteria might be, I can’t think of any other practical criteria by which to filter out the “real” “perverts” from the “normative sexual attraction” (for lack of a less clumsy term) crowd in a way that will confine the whole “kiddie porn” hysteria within reasonable bounds to a point that it’s no longer a “wolf cry” that leads to all sorts of destructive unpleasantness. I’m certainly open to suggestions…

    Like

  7. Ric September 12, 2013 at 18:51 #

    I wonder if the continued sexism agaisnt men and boys will eventually get to the point that boys looking at girls their age will be considered statutory rape.

    Like

  8. feeriker September 12, 2013 at 18:55 #

    Really, the only practical lesson to teach your teenage sons nowadays is: girls = danger.

    Most of them have probably already figured this out on their own without Mom and Dad’s help.

    Like

  9. LostSailor September 12, 2013 at 19:25 #

    Dignity is now a slutwalk…

    Like

  10. LostSailor September 12, 2013 at 19:25 #

    Let’s not give them any ideas…

    Like

  11. feeriker September 12, 2013 at 19:28 #

    Oh, dignity still exists; it has just been redefined as an acronym that’s more fitting for the modern era:

    Do I Get Naked If Tingles Yearn?

    Like

  12. Black Poison Soul September 12, 2013 at 19:35 #

    Duckface aka blowjob lips.

    Facebook: specially made for entitled sluts-in-training.

    Here’s something to burst your bubble JB: most girls in NZ (where I am) start off experimenting very young. Like, eleven to twelve. Little miss 14-year teenager there has probably already blown a couple of guys and knows *exactly* what she is doing from a sexual advertising point of view.

    But then, the media has sexualised children for the last three-plus decades.

    Twisted isn’t it.

    Like

  13. Tunga September 12, 2013 at 20:41 #

    Oh I thought all the kids believed D.I.G.N.I.T,Y to mean:

    Daringly Inviting Gratuitous Nudity Is Terrific, YOLO

    It’s a shame so many learn too late that the internet never forgets. That even as adults they’ll be trying to live down the consequences of these “youthful indiscretions.”

    Like

  14. The Deuce September 12, 2013 at 20:43 #

    Of course, the Jezebel sluts know full well that sexual poses elicit sexual response, and that they are calculated to do so. It’s just that they *only* want a sexual response from men they want to have sex with, and they think it’s “unfair” and “disrespectful” if men they don’t want to have sex with see them sexually as a result.

    Like

  15. feeriker September 12, 2013 at 20:47 #

    Oh yeah, that’s an excellent alternative acronym (one that says pretty much the same thing).

    And YES, “the internet NEVER forgets!” is a lesson that not only should parents be REQUIRED to drill into the heads of their impulsive adolescent offspring, but remind themselves of periodically as well.

    Like

  16. feeriker September 12, 2013 at 20:50 #

    Here’s something to burst your bubble JB: most girls in NZ (where I am) start off experimenting very young. Like, eleven to twelve. Little miss 14-year teenager there has probably already blown a couple of guys and knows *exactly* what she is doing from a sexual advertising point of view.

    Trust me, things are no different up here in Norte Amerika.

    Like

  17. Jacob Ian Stalk September 12, 2013 at 21:56 #

    OK, so you’re starting to understand the inherent danger in gynocentrism…and your blog is filled with intelligent realism. But the honey-coated anger is tinged with guilt. Where were you and what were you doing when the beast was in its ascendancy? In a moral vacuum?

    If so, it’s that problem that needs widespread correction, not the symptoms.

    Like

  18. Jennifer K September 12, 2013 at 22:09 #

    I’m going to leave this right here:
    http://jezebel.com/selfie-hating-church-lady-swoons-over-shirtless-hubby-i-1278730947

    Like

  19. judgybitch September 12, 2013 at 22:10 #

    Uhm….hello!

    They were adults!!!!!

    And they got married!

    Is this kind of dumbassery supposed to prove something?

    Fail.

    Like

  20. Oscar Calme September 12, 2013 at 22:53 #

    They can in Scotland where the crime is possession of kiddie porn which includes selfies of underage girls I believe. Coming to an Anglo culture near you soon

    Like

  21. Alex September 12, 2013 at 22:57 #

    When the source is Facebook? That’s an implausible amount of people to try to jail

    Like

  22. Tunga September 12, 2013 at 23:06 #

    I think your criteria seem pretty clear cut, making the distinction between post-pubescent youths, and pubescent/pre-pubescent youths.

    I do have to respectfully disagree with your suggested “deserved” remedy. Which is no remedy at all. Chemical castration doesn’t prevent offenders from offending. It in fact increases the likelihood of self-harm or suicide of the castrated individual, and/or that they will offend in other ways as it does nothing to treat the underlying problem. Case in point, Alan Turing, he was chemically castrated (for being homosexual) and it turned a man who was arguably as brilliant as Einstein into a non-functional wreck. He couldn’t think because the drugs disrupted his genius, and he eventually took is own life out of misery.

    Only treatment, therapy, has shown any promise in actually curbing future offenses. I’m talking real therapy mind you, like you get in an asylum rather than “rehabilitation” to be had in prison. In my mind, it’s the difference between actually trying to solve a problem, prevent future victims, and avenging our collective selves on “perverts.”

    Like

  23. Marlo Rocci September 13, 2013 at 02:05 #

    For me the question of teenage selfies revolves around two things:
    1. It’s child porn, or a watered down attempt at it.
    2. It’s hard enough for an adult woman to take responsibility for her actions, it’s impossible for a teen girl. She’s sending that selfie to OWN the boy she’s sending it to. It’s not a gift, it’s a collar. Once she’s sent that selfie, she expects him to do all her bidding. And so help him if he falls short, because then it’s rape.

    Like

  24. A sad, sad man September 13, 2013 at 02:07 #

    These idiots really don’t see any difference between children doing a thing and adults doing a thing?

    We’re all fucked. FUCKED. Or raaaaaped. Depending on how the hangover makes you feel.

    Like

  25. Goober September 13, 2013 at 03:52 #

    Let me clarify one thing since I may not have been clear:

    17 year olds are sexual beings. There is nothing there to been ashamed of. If one of those girls is screwing one of this woman’s boys, I’m perfectly fine with that because it’s perfectly, well, fine.

    I have no illusions that chances are pretty good that my daughter won’t be a virgin on her 17th birthday.

    But I’ll be terribly disappointed in her if she shows the lack of foresight and respect for herself necessary to publish her sexuality on a public forum.

    That’s my only issue here.

    I’d say the same thing for any person, of any age or gender doing the same thing. It just isn’t a good way to get the world to take you seriously.

    Look at the ‘sexy pics’ that the Jersey shore guys post of themselves. They look fucking ridiculous. Never mind that their homophobic asses would probably be horrified at the idea of a gay man rubbing one out to their pics, which is almost certainly happening. But that’s the point : once you give these to the public, you lose control over what the public does with them.

    How creeped out would these girls be if they were able to see some old dude pleasuring himself to her pics?

    Also almost certainly happening…

    Like

  26. Jeremy September 13, 2013 at 05:03 #

    The only reason for a woman to post sexy pictures of herself on the internet is vanity.

    Women:
    No one needs to see what you look like. You want people to see what you look like, because you want feedback on your sexual market value. You are hardwired to want this. The internet means you can instantly get thousands, even hundreds of thousands or millions of people looking at your sexy pics within minutes of taking it.

    I can’t imagine any women who has a reasonably feminine shape not being tempted by that, just as I can’t imagine any man not being tempted by all the freely available porn on the internet.

    Like

  27. Ulf T September 13, 2013 at 06:49 #

    Women are expected to cover up more than men.

    I often wonder whether women actually see a different reality than I do. When I find myself in crowds, I tend to entertain myself by comparing how much skin women expose compared to me. I always find that women expose more skin: shorter shorts, more cleavage, etc.

    If women “are expected to cover up more than men”, they are failing miserably.

    Also, after a discussion with my wife, when she noted that men can dress provocatively too, I decided to check as we were in a big city on a warm Summer’s day. There was no shortage of women dressing provocatively – finding them was no challenge, as they were pretty much ‘in your face’ with the whole entourage of sex-enhancing attributes.

    So I devoted one hour to counting how many men dressed provocatively: exactly zero!* It became a study in exactly how un-exciting men’s dressing habits are.

    * Well, there was one very fit man on a race bike, in competitive biking attire. I gave him a pass, since his outfit was entirely functional, and his main concern with the rest of us was to not run us over.

    Like

  28. Nicky September 13, 2013 at 07:49 #

    Everyone seems to be missing the main point behind Mrs Hall’s talk. Which is NOT, ‘bad slut, you are tempting my innocent boys!’. It’s summed up here this: “That post doesn’t reflect who you are at all! We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart.” It’s not about protecting her boys from the girls (she can, and does, do that herself).

    The point she is making is – you are better than that. Why objectify yourself, and encourage others to objectify you, like that?

    But Jezebel et al miss this part entirely in their haste to…what? Tell the teenage girls they AREN’T worth more than – or even as much as – that? That when they deliberately portray themseves as sexy, boys should disagree that they are sexy?

    And what was Mrs Hall’s response to the criticism? She listened, responded and THANKED the commentators for helping her realise her mistake. (And it WAS a mistake. Those pictures aren’t only – or even mainly – about her boys sex-appeal, but yeah, I could imagine a teenage girl being inspired to send one of those boys a selfie after seeing them!)

    A girl goes to the bathroom with two of her friends – Mrs Hall and Jezebel – on a night out. Mrs Hall says ‘Hey, your skirt is tucked into your knickers! You should fix that so you don’t get embarrassed.’ Jezebel is the ‘friend’ who tucked her skirt into the knickers in the first place.

    Like

  29. Master Beta September 13, 2013 at 09:07 #

    The problem as I see it, here in Britain at least, is that I would go to jail for having those pictures on my pc. I would especially go to jail for uploading those pictures onto a website. Yet these girls are allowed to do it willy nilly? I suppose they are allowed to because they have consented? But I thought under-age girls weren’t able to consent?

    It’s all very silly because facebook is most definitely a child pornography site at the moment (full of sexually suggestive pictures of under-age children) – and it’s the biggest website in the world.

    Like

  30. Liz September 13, 2013 at 13:32 #

    None of my sons are going to have a facebook account while they live in my home. The end. Pugilist Mom and Keeper of the Hearth has spoken.

    Like

  31. Feminism Is A Lie September 13, 2013 at 13:42 #

    All of this just goes hand-in-hand with female sexual “empowerment” without any responsibility. It’s all about being able to do anything you want, because grrrl, you’re entitled to everything you want and if anyone reacts to your provocations in a manner you dislike, then they’re wrong and they’re going to be held responsible for everything. (I can objectify myself because empowerment, but how dare YOU, you evil man, objectify me? Call the police!) Gosh, how could we expect women to act like adults and own their shit, that’s too much for our feeble mind. Understanding our sexuality and using it responsibly and understanding we can’t control how others react to it? Nah that’s some complicated sciency thing, we can’t do that! And that would also involve considering what females can offer to men other than a pass to their vagina or a peak at some cleavage, but that’s hard work and hard work is for losers, right?

    Like

  32. viredaeViredae September 13, 2013 at 14:44 #

    So let me get this straight:

    Media using sexual imagery in shows and ads etc. = bad and spreads rape culture

    posting sexualized images of yourself on social media = very justified and completely harmless

    That’s some incredibly selective memory right there…

    Like

  33. avadenticals September 13, 2013 at 15:51 #

    Why are only sexually agressive girls the topic of this discussion? Boys are as aware of their (sexual) appearance as girls. See for instance this (mild) example from my website about identical twitter avatars: http://www.avadenticals.org/categories/40.-reclining-romeo

    Like

  34. judgybitch September 13, 2013 at 16:17 #

    Probably because Mrs. Hall has sons? If she had daughters I’m guessing she would be banning Romeo, too.

    And how many teenage boys do you know that pose sexually suggestive shots of themselves and then complain that girls see them as objects of sexual desire?

    Like

  35. William September 13, 2013 at 16:32 #

    In my junior high school there were a couple of freshman girls who’d give oral sex to the boys on the stairwell.
    While the teachers didn’t know about it they knew by the girls interactions with the older boys that they were wild.

    I think woman can spot it better then men

    Like

  36. Disgruntled Old White Guy September 13, 2013 at 16:37 #

    Why in the world would framing her argument in terms of modesty make you “blanch”? What is wrong with modesty? Quite frankly, the world could use a lot more modesty, in all its aspects – dress, behavior, speech, etc.

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  37. judgybitch September 13, 2013 at 16:43 #

    To me, modesty is a loaded term that implies some sort of shame or wilting violet characteristic. It carries a sense of prudishness that I think misses the point.

    I much prefer dignity.

    You can be the most outgoing, confident, sexually self-assured person in the world and still value dignity, and keep your breasts in your shirt.

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  38. Anonymous age 71 September 14, 2013 at 19:48 #

    The complaints about the pictures of the woman’s sons had nothing to do with modesty by men. It was just more EKWALATEE! If my daughter has to put on her clothes, so does your son, damn it!

    When the first man walks into the local police station, sobbing his sweet, little heart out, “She touched my chest.” It will be time for men to put on their shirts.

    Women insisted that to touch certain parts of their body should be a crime. As a result, women are told to cover up those body parts. There,wasn’t that simple? When women are routinely arrested and sent to prison for years for touching male body parts, it will be time to make it a crime to expose those male body parts. Until then, pure Bravo Sierra for complaints about her showing her son’s bare upper body.

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  39. Toffee Hammer October 4, 2013 at 16:10 #

    Wait until this mom discovers the horrors of Snapchat. An (underaged, male) friend of mine regularly gets propositioned by an insane (albeit attractive) early-20s female who keeps sending topless, or worse, photos of herself to people within her social circle on Snapchat.

    (Snapchat is an app for mobile phones where you can send a picture or video up to 6 seconds long to friends. They can view the photo/video once, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. It is difficult to take screenshots or otherwise save the photos.)

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  40. pépère the cat October 14, 2013 at 19:48 #

    I’m enjoying your blog and think you make some good arguments, but I’m not sure that Tuesday Cain is the best target for criticism here. The selfie she posted is really not very provocative compared to most of the ones you see posted by teenage girls (ok, it might be a teeny tiny bit, but very barely) and in the letter you linked to I think she comes across as intelligent and articulate. She’s clearly still got a lot to learn and is very naive in some ways, but come on. She’s 14.

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  1. Persist (do not go your own way). | - Dark Brightness - September 13, 2013

    […] imperfect witness, yes. But to quote JB — who critiqued the Christian parents for using modesty as a reason to ban selfies — (Dear Judgy, I have edited this down a a […]

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