Leave it to Beaver

There is a horrible dichotomy to being a man and trying to protect your children from the sexualization of everything in our society. I can remember when the most overt sexual exposure I had in my face at nine years old was the Playboy magazines that were stacked neatly in my local barber shop. I did not muster up the courage to open one up until I was a cocky thirteen year old (Sorry).

These days, our children are exposed to every sexual act imaginable before they are of age.

I'm a guy. I have checked out MILFs and (of age) teens in my time, I will admit. I don't do these things around my wife or daughters. I don't turn my head even if she's stacked. I don't ogle women. In my era (I'm only 35) women didn't run around with their underwear (skimpy ass underwear) hanging out, either. How is a man supposed to raise his children (yes boys too) to be chaste in the USA today? We live in a highly sexualized society. Children are sexualized too. Milkshakes are bringing boys to the yard all over these United States.

A report by the American Psychological Association reports that:

"The proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising and media is harming girls' self-image and healthy development."

Duh!

Perhaps more revealing and certainly sadder yet is the press release related to this same report indicating that: "sexualization of girls is linked to common mental health problems in girls, eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression"

The details of this report are stark, bleak and very real for those of us who feel compelled to take the challenge of raising mentally healthy boys and girls. Too often is the focus solely upon girls and societal attempts to sexually objectify them. Almost nonexistent are the affects of psychological damage upon young growing men whose perceptions are manipulated until their sisters, mothers and female classmates become whores.

We have been endlessly told of the importance of teaching children to put condoms on bananas in the name of educating about sex (and the younger the better), but as Michelle Malkin points out... Why isn't this same argument used to support gun safety? We should be teaching children the same basic information about how guns work to "promote safety" just like we desire to give "age appropriate" sexual education for Kindergartners. A reasonable person might even assume from this that the sexualization of our young children is a priority to some in this country.

Children are the victims here. A increasingly common high school graduation gift for girls from their parents is breast augmentation even though breast implant patients are twice as likely to die of brain cancer, three times more likely to die of lung cancer and four to five times more likely to die of suicide than other plastic surgery patients of the same age.

Who would give their children such a "gift"? ABC News reports on a story under their "Beauty and Fashion Secrets" section of their website entitled, "Teen Trend : Breast Enhancement No Big Deal" and subtitled, "Cosmetic Surgery Offers A Quick Fix For Teenage Self Esteem Issues". This ABC "article" from only one month ago reports that girls can "not only boost their cup size, but their confidence".

I have personally been telling my children to raise their confidence through physical activity, competition in the classroom as well as in sports and by engaging in appropriate public speaking. How does one tell a girl to be smart and then sexy will come at the appropriate time in her life when she is currently judged by to what degree men and boys want to have sex with her (at fourteen)?

Sexualization has entered into every segment and layer of our society. Burger commercials have been sexual in nature when starlets known best for the night-vision recordings of sex romps were released on the Internet are seen stuffing messy burgers into their mouths. A new low (Death Valley low) for you Californians! has been achieved in advertising. Introducing the "BK Super Seven Incher (It'll Blow Your Mind Away)"!

The Burger King corporation is truly disgusting and if any of you are capable of shame you should be steeped in it. I have rarely eaten their revolting products in the past, so letting them know that I will now never set foot in one of their establishments has little potential for effect. I would hope that they can perceive the depth of my loathing by letting them know I would rather eat at Arby's than support pornographic marketing of this nature.

Additionally I would like to add:

HAVE IT YOUR WAY® you nauseating, repellent, sleazy, reprehensible scumbags at Burger King!

The media in the United States dove right into the cesspool of sexualized culture. On NBC this week, (during a morning show from a Starbucks in South Beach Florida, no less) the male anchors are chuckling all about the "pearl necklace" they wore during high school. MSNBC takes the proverbial cake regarding disgusting sexual references disguised as news. While putting down American's right to assemble to protest what they perceive as "unfair taxation", David Schuster uses the terms "teabagging", "toothless", "going nuts", "full-throated", tongue-lashing", "licking" and such.

As if to achieve new lows, just this week an ad campaign that featured "Hot Threeway Action" in order to sell jeans was pulled, but not until it had achieved its desired effect. Everyone was talking about Calvin Klein's risque ad. Congratulations you old whore, Calvin!

I would never subject anyone to advertising of this nature, much less their children. Television has followed a decades-long path into degradation. Desperate Housewives has to compete with Sex and the City so they leak footage of a sex scene onto YouTube. Janet Jackson shows her tit to the largest TV audience of the year. Paris Hilton achieves insta-celebrity for homemade porn. We have gone beyond the boundaries of indecency. Sexual content and objectification are the norm now as little girls want to be sluts and sluts want to be little girls.

A television program about a innocent young boy trying to grow up in a small town could never interest America now unless his mom was having lesbian sex with a neighbor, boffing one of his school chums or secretly going to stripper classes after dropping the kids off at school.

Sadly, today you could still name the show Leave It To Beaver. (I feel like I know you well enough to share this little joke with you.) Some say the true measure of a society is the quality and nature of its art. I personally believe that the measure of society is the level of protection afforded its children. The truly inappropriate joke is the seriously advanced state of decay of our morality.