I always took issue with girls that young wearing two pieces. No offense but they haven't developed the curves to fill a bathing suit that small and revealing

o my gosh....i mean theres little girls two peices that are cute and more diaper-accomodating than 1 peices and such and then...well, what the hell is that?! thats less material than i see grown women wearing to the beach! but then again i really dont know of any mother that would look at that and then want to buy it for their kid.

Look, even if it's going to be okay for little girls to wear bikinis, I don't know WHO got the idea that *string bikinis* were appropriate for a small child.

The people who supported this probably thought it would be "cute" to put her in that, obvisously her mother/father doesn't mind her being trotted out in front of cameras and hundreds of people in a string two piece. And if people, i.e. women, were to loudly protest this then that "it's just for fun" card would be pulled out and we'd be labeled spoil sports.

And I don't want to offer any excuse or defense for pedofiles, but I'm starting to see how much easier it is for them to get the images they want of young kids, especially girls, without the worry of the FBI raiding their computer.

elektrodot, you would be amazed at how many little girls I saw at the community pool this year wearing something similar. Most of them had a little more fabric, but not much. Maggie, my 7-year-old, gets mad every year when I won't let her get a bikini (and when he's old enough for a bathing suit, my son will not be getting a "banana hammock"). I'm just one of those wierd moms who thinks that their small child should dress like he or she is in elementary school and not like he or she is enjoying spring break at Miami Beach.

Honestly, just looking at this again now, one of the things that's most striking to me about this image is how similar her body is to that of adult runway models. The lack of breasts and curves. And somehow it makes it easier to believe that the fashion industry would send a 10-year-old down the runway... it's probably much easier to find pre-pubescent girls with the "model" body type.

I am speechless. As a parent of two girls I have no idea what to say. It's just disgusting and gross.

My girls wear bikinis sometimes. But to them it's just a cheap bathing suit. Do people seeing them wear a two piece bathing suit see them as sex objects? This is so disturbing.

Maybe it's because I'm not american, but i don't think a little girl in a bikini is being sexualized. Two piece suits are more comfortable. I used to wear bikini's all the time when I was little, and I only had to start wearing one pieces when I was older. I think that focusing on what's "appropriate" for little girls actually serves to sexualize them even more that just letting them run around. We're falling into the trap about women's fashion choices signifying something about their morals when we put too much emphasis on what little girls wear

This girl is not "just running around." She's on a runway. Displaying an item from a collection apparently aimed at "exuding sexuality."

I think that environment is readily distinguishable from the neighborhood pool.

I gotta agree. If a kid were wearing this at the neighborhood pool, it wouldn't really bother me--but on a runway in front of a bunch of adults, exhibiting her body along with those of the fully developed women in front of and behind her, it's damned creepy.

Cheers,

TH

Not to belabor the point but, again, this isn't any old 10-year-old's bikini. This is a *STRING* bikini. Running around at a pool or wherever, string bikinis are not meant for 10-year-olds. What possible reason could we have for giving a 10-year-old a string bikini? Having worn many bikinis myself, I can *promise* you they're not more comfortable than regular bikinis. I cannot see any possible reason for a CHILD wearing a string bikini -- that is, any possible reason I want even creeping into my brain.

Having coached swimming, and therefore having a good idea of what is a "useful" swimsuit for a child of ten, I can say that there is no usefulness to that "swim"suit (and I use the word swim in its most non-swimming sense). Kids jump. They splash. They throw each other in the water. A suit like that will fall off of a young girl if she actually swims in it, period. She doesn't have the curves to hold it up.

Utilitarian arguments aside (when is fashion ever utilitarian, after all?), the use of a ten year-old in a "sexiness" show is atrocious. To whom is a ten year-old sexy, and do we really want to be encouraging those people? Want to design swimwear for kids? Great! Kids deserve attractive clothing, too. But don't bill it as "sexy." True, some children are developing a sexual self at that age, but they are far from sexually mature, and are not truly capable of accepting the terms of their exposure as "sexual."

I wore two-pieces as a kid, since I was long-torso-ed and one-pieces in my width-size often dug into my shoulders and crotch. The issue to me is not the swimsuit (although I find it a bit skimpy for my tastes), but the sexualization of such a young child.

I can think of one reason: The child wanting to emulate adults wearing string bikinis.

A child wearing a string bikini at a public pool while playing with other kids would be making or given a poor swimswear choice, but I wouldn't find it all that disturbing. A child wearing a string bikini on a runway, to be ogled by a crowd of adults, is being sexually exploited. I do see a huge difference between the two.

Cheers,

TH

Check the stats--she's only a few years off from professional runway or print modeling--didn't Milla Jovovich start at 12 or 13? Brooke Shields? Most of those young women walking the runways are not even 18.

what gets ME is that it's not only a string bikini, but there is really NOTHING to that triangle at her crotch. i can see the argument that young girls might want bikinis (string or otherwise) to emulate older ladies, but
(a) that doesn't mean it's appropriate (some prepubescent girls want breast implants)
or (b) that there needs to be quite so much real estate between where her tan line ends and her bikini bottom begins. i mean really. yikes.

i remember reading an article once wherein a stripper said that her tan lines are purposeful to help customers feel like they're really seeing something secret, something private.
i think it's interesting that this runway baby (and i mean wah wah baby here) was chosen to model this particular bikini even with such an apparent tan line.

I was actually at the Ashley Paige show yesterday, and the crowd (or at least the section I was in--it was a huge space) responded to this little girl with applause and cheers. The little girl in the photo walked out with a pre-teen, and they were both poised and professional.

There were a lot of things on the runway that weren't at all suitable for real life, but the two little girls in string bikinis were by far the most unsettling example.

I hadn't noticed that, and it definitely adds another creepy dimension to this.

The whole dynamic is creepy, really. I mean, here again, public pools, playing with other prepubescent peers (getting alliterative today, aren't I?), is one thing. Out on the runway exhibiting and getting ogled by perverts is another.

I don't even really like child beauty pageants, and this is much worse than that. If it were part of a children's swimwear show, I guess it would be different--weird, but not as creepy. But to stick her in there with a bunch of adults, wearing a very adult swimsuit... That's pretty disturbing, and what's more disturbing is that someone (no doubt multiple someones) thought it was a good idea.

Cheers,

TH

What annoys me about two-pieces on pre-pubescent girls is the tacit statement that, even before they have breasts, female breasts are sexual. There's no physical difference between a ten y.o. girl's and a ten y.o. boy's nipples, yet, since she is female, hers count as titillating and should therefore be covered. It's sick.

Alecto, I was thinking that same thing. When I was a prepubesent kid I got to run around topless with my brother all the time but once I started developing breasts then my mom made me cover up around older men. The fact that she's got to cover up nipples that are barely even there is disturbing.

ugh...

I'm of the camp that young children (7 or 8 and younger) should be perfectly free to swim, run around naked, etc, without it raising eyebrows or interests.

Unfortunately, we don't live in that sort of society. It's too bad that a)someone would put this kind of hypersexual garment on a significantly prepubescent girl, and b)this is considered "cute."

It's alright for little girls to get into their mothers' makeup cases, but not to parade around in public in her lingerie.

Maybe instead of placing the blame for online sexual predation squarely on myspace and similar sites, we should be examining a culture that thinks encouraging small girls to waggle their nearly-naked hips on fashion runways is a healthy extracurricular activity.

when did this become ok? in what universe is it ok to SEXUALLY objectify a 10 year old CHILD?

i have 2 young daughters (2.5 & 4.5). yes, they wear 2 piece swim suits because it makes going to the bathroom easier while swimming. no p in ool.

and i know that there are perverts that would see their ordinary swimsuits as being as pronographic. but they're fkd in the head... their vision is screwed up to begin with. but there is no mistaking the vision intended in the picture above. it's outright pronographic to anyone's view, screwed up or not.

i just want my daughters to dress like children while they're children. when they're teens, they can wear whatever is the silly outrageous fashon of their day... i know i sure did :)

but i went shopping for my 4.5 yro last week. jeans--all they had were low-riders, what i'd've called hip-huggers. for four year olds. she needed some more underwear. i had a devil of a time finding briefs and not bikinis. and don't even get me started on how hard it is to find a shirt that actually will cover her tummy while she's playing. only 4 and she's caught in the double bind of teachers telling her to not expose herself and wanting to play "like a boy" (i.e. like any kid). so i bought her boy jeans and a spider-man t-shirt that she loves. and she's stuck with plain white panties instead of cutsie ones but at least they cover her butt.

back on track from the personal to the point here... seeing that picture makes me want to vomit. whoever designed this display is nothing short of a child pronographer and should be prociuted.... or at least wind up in a dark alley with a few big strong moms and dads to explain to him/her the errors of his/her ways.

the catholic priest scandals aside, I don't see anything of the sort attached to boys of this age.

Shopping for clothes for my nieces (3, 9, 15) who are being raised in a household that values kids being kids, it becomes clear that if we're not preparing the girls for a life of sexual objectification, we are reconciling them to a primary and secondary school career of social ostracism.

Even when you're 9, apparently it's cool to be sexy.

I wore a string bikini when I was about 5... my grandparents i think brought it back with them from Europe...

But the bottom actually covered something. You can see this girl's tan lines from her REAL swimsuit... yes, this is a bit creepy...

Did anyone see the site with the 'sexy nurse' Halloween costume for sizes 12-14 and 14-16 (that's girls, not women's) ??? eek.... http://www.halloweenmart.com/wecs.php?store=halloweenmar&action=display&target=HW91439

Dear god, it's AbFab coming true. Patsy Stone once said if models got any younger they'd be chucking fetuses down the catwalk.

There's been some fuss about this lately in Australia with the release of a thinktank report titled "Corporate Paedophilia" (a title cleverly chosen to provoke media attention). [link]

The reaction has been about equally divided between those saying "yes, finally, that's exactly what it is" and those saying "you complainers have got dirty minds, it's just dress-up fun".

I started wearing a "banana hammock" when i was about 7 years old, and prefered the speedo from that point on. its just better to swim in!! The fact is, many people who are not as freaked out by nudity don't mind little kids running around nude at the beach.. it is only our sick culture that sees thomething wierd or wrong with that. The problem with the bikini is not that the kid is exposed, but the well known fact that the STYLE of it is the same as sexualized swimwear worn by mature women. THe bizarre fear of nudity is sad. kids don't think that way. hey, when i wasn't wearing my speedo as a kid, i was swimming in nude in the family pool. no one seemed to care and I found it to be a good time.

Pickleberry--

boys this age get a different subset of fuckedupedness--everything is hyperviolent and aggressive. Guns and tanks and bombs, etc. Even the damn 'boys' Legos are spaceships with lasers.

Why isn't someone concerned about skin-cancer ... Ok so you people don't suffer the same ozone depletion we do. But hell, you still have melanoma, don't people learn. Tantamount to child abuse if you ask me.

Anyway, at her age she should be able to be nude and nobody should blink an eye. As someone said, it is because it's on a runway showcasing adult lines as well, the designer's comments referred to "woman" not girl, probably taken out of context. She still poses just like a little girl, nothing about her looks remotely like she is being sexualised. Some people just have nasty minds.

JesusJonesSuperstar: ere, ere, wholeheartedly concur. Very weird society you lot have. You can blow people to smithereens, show blood, guts and gore of some poor person's violent demise but you can't display nipples (black dots ... soooo funny)

I do think that the sexualization of young girls is just preping them for gender isolation and victimization later in life, which is never good . . .

But I still think the idea that violence is more acceptable than sex in the media is ridiculous. Here's the thing: violence in the media shows people that it's okay to bloody someone up. Expecially with boys - the "Give 'em Hell" ideal is reinforced. Men are numbed to violence, so the unhealthy standards of masculinity are just enforced.

Sex, however . . . Oh dear, how terrible! We don't want to plant bad ideas in the minds of our children . . . *sound of guns firing and bombs exploding on the tele* . . . Let's censor it so they don't lose their innocence . . . *meanwhile, twelve-year-old boy rejoices because he just blew someone's head off in a video game*

Oh, I'm sorry . . . was I on a tangent? :-)

Still, this picture is totally creepy. I hate to see someone my little sister's age being put in the position to be gawked at while wearing obviously sexual clothes. I'm getting JonBenet flashbacks . . .

Also, did anyone yet mention the "skinny issue" with modeling nowadays? It's bad enough that women are being bombarded with these standards and images . . . now children too?

*sigh*