My friend Katherine - an awesome parish volunteer youth worker - has posted a piece on her blog which I thought was worth nicking. Here ya go...

Not long ago I posted about the impact fashion magazines play on sexualising teens (you can read it here). There is not a single doubt in my mind that the messages these mags send out to young people is unrealistic and unhealthy with the idea that to be beautiful, to be 'normal' you have to be 'sexy'. Promiscuity is not considered a dangerous thing, dressing and acting in a provocative was is an acceptable thing to do. No one mentions that treating your own body as an object is not just detrimental to the way we see ourselves but also in the way that others behave toward us and we, in turn, to them. If you in your own mind are simply something for others to desire (and conducting yourself in a way that would make them do this) you are selling yourself unbelievably short, degrading your own dignity as a human being into a mere "thing" to be used or disposed of at the whim of yourself or others. And despite people insisting that the view to the contrary, the notion that we should be teaching our young people to respect themselves and others, to treat their bodies as the temples they are, is nonsense and there is no harm in the short skirt, the low-cut top, the tight jeans and t-shirt. But I beg to differ. This casual attitude towards these issues will not simply stay put, not just affect those in their teens but will spread and contaminate children much younger.

Earlier this week I read this story from the Mail Online about a television programme called "Dance Moms" (which up until now I had never heard of) and how in a recent episode the girls, some as young as eight years old, were given nude and tan coloured bikinis to wear and taught to dance burlesque routines. I couldn't quite believe the story when I first read it and it took a few moments for it to fully sink in. And after it did I was simply flabbergasted at what it was I was reading. The teacher, a woman named Abby Lee Miller, announced the routine and told them it was important "the audience should think you are nude", giving them only pink feathers to cover themselves with and told them to dance in a way that clearly said "I'm hot, I mean, you can't have me, you can't afford me". Both the girls and their mothers were shocked by this but their protestations were not string enough to stop the session from going ahead. (If it had been my daughter I'd have grabbed her by the hand and marched from the room in disgust.) The justification from Miller was "Everyone in the industry knows the girls are completely covered and everything is harmless..." Harmless? Encouraging children, pre-teen children, to dance as though a man "can't afford" them is anything but harmless. No one should ever look at any person like that, let alone someone of eight years old. Irrespective of whether they are wearing nude bikinis or not they are being taught to dance, to behave in a way that makes someone desire them sexually. I would say that that is wrong in a person above the age of consent as we are more than mere sex objects, the dignity of a human being is rooted in their creation in the image and likeness of God and each person should be viewed and respected equally, but to have kids do it? That's wrong on so, so many levels. Sexualising children robs them of the innocence that makes them what they are, it forces them, prematurely and grossly under prepared, into an adult world where people are valued on appearance and how 'appealing' they are, pushes them into a world where casual nudity and sexual encounter are the norm, are healthy, are "harmless". No one stops to show them the depth and beauty of their own dignity but leads them straight to the lion's den.