Number one, frankly, I am terrified of the power I, and this keyboard, in combination, have.
It's kind of a good terror, though: it's a tense balance between fear and... something else I've never really named.
I don't know what this has to do with anything. Maybe it's my way of justifying not writing what I'd LIKE to be writing right now. We'll talk about that another time.
Moving right along... In quasi-dull news, my stupid email server is down, fucken AGAIN. At least this one is scheduled maintenance. Thus, you will not be able to reach me through my Angelfire account until at least Monday afternoon. Go ahead and send me emails anyway, because I'll get them eventually, but if it's urgent, post in my guestbook, or email to: jupiterrrr@hotmail.com -- I get a buttload of spam here though, so please make sure the subject heading is something like "HELENA HELENA HELENA!!!" (Or whatever it is you usually call me...)
Okay, now let's all sit down and have a nice entry, shall we?
Two days ago, as I was closing at work, my boos called me up and asked if I wanted more hours. Sure! Of course I want more hours! I'm very hungry and I like to have money which enables me to eat, and am regrettably willing to sell parts of my soul for the privilege. Yes, I want more hours! He said: "Okay then! I've signed you up to work tomorrow at seven... in the morning."
Gr.
Got up, got dressed, stood there thinking for a minute, got back undressed, took a shower, got dressed again, and, smelling decidedly good, walked to work before the freakin' sun was up. I hate mornings. My hatred of mornings cannot be quantified. It's a mortal hatred. I think I really am a vampire. Or something.
I got to work -- just eight hours after I'd LEFT work -- for my five-hour shift, and was informed that I would be working in the children's department, "recovering." (In non-retail, layman's terms, that means picking shit up, and straightening shit out...)
So, today, I would like to talk about the children's department.
(By the way, no mention has been made of the name of my place of business, and no mention will be made. I'm NOT going to get fired AGAIN for talking shit about a job. All you need to know is that I work in a retail stores with more than one department, and I usually make my living pushing shoes, and occasionally other stupid pieces of useless plastic, at middle-aged women and their whining brats.)
The children's department.
Upon first glance, it's very cute. They put me in the little boys' section first. I declared loudly that I couldn't wait to be an auntie so I could buy cute little outfits for cute little kids. Kids' clothing IS adorable. There is, for example, a pair of MaryJane style shoes in the shoe department that looks EXACTLY like the Doc Martens I've had for a few years now. Ohhh, do I want to be an auntie!
In some cultures, including, to some extent, American culture, people dress their children in smaller versions of what adults wear. For example, the Pennsylvania Deutsch, if I remember correctly. Little boys wear exactly the same outfits as Daddy, and little girls wear exactly the same outfit as Mommy -- just smaller. I can only imagine little kids dressing like me, and my friends. How fucken cute. Imagine a little kid in ratty jeans, a big blue thermal, and a t-shirt over it. A t'shirt with the name of a coffeehouse, or a creepy indie-film ad on it. Heh! Oh, and little tiny Converse sneakers. Aw!
Why is it that tiny things are cute, anyway? Admittedly, I am a sucker for things that are small and cute. For example, dogs. And kids. Usually, I end up wanting to give the dog or the kid BACK to its owner. Probably a good sign that I'm not going to end up as one of those women who thinks all babies are cute, and hangs an Anne Geddes poster on her wall. Ew.
Okay, so, in the boys' department:
We have shirts with action-figures on them, shirts with superheroes (Spiderman, mostly), shirts with trucks and airplanes, shirts with patriotic slogans, and very bland shirts in various shades of blue, dull red, grey, and tan/khaki. I did like the truck and airplane shirts. I would have worn those. Frighteningly enough, the extra-large sizes of the truck and airplane shirts would have fit me... Yes, I am the size of a large ten-year-old boy. Depressing, ain't it?
All boys' jeans are the same. EXACTLY the same. I swear this and will testify to it in any court of law.
Okay, so I picked up the boy's department, and moved on to the girls' department... This was where everything went to shit...
It's okay for a ten-year-old boy to wear a white t'shirt, a bland overshirt, and a pair of jeans. It's even okay to put that ten-year-old into a pair of Jnco's: big, baggy skaterpants. Thus, the ten-year-old boy ends up looking like either a very small frat-boy, a very small man on a Casual Friday In The Office, or a very small skaterpunk kid.
No matter what a ten-year-old girl might choose to wear from the girls' department, she had only one option: she was going to look like a miniature prostitute.
It's absolutely fucking disgusting, people. I urge you to write to your local newspapers. Write your congress-people. Write to the fucking PTA of your local elementary schools and junior high schools. This is gross. I couldn't believe what I was seeing yesterday morning. Check out a kids' department in a department store next time you're in a mall or a strip mall; go to the girls' section and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Long-sleeved, baggy-armed shirts that tie in the back (accentuating breasts, supposing a fucking TEN-year-old has breasts), and that are LACED in the front and expose the child's midriff from approximately the sternum down to the pants-line. Miniature versions of the ballerina-shirts I like to wear: the kind that sort of have a pocket for each breast? The miniature versions don't exactly have those pockets; they just imitate the idea. EVERYTHING in spandex, clinging. Everything sheer. Shirts with slogans like "Princess," or "Totally adorable," or "I love boys." Impossibly short skirts: the kind of short I wouldn't dare to wear NOW. Jeans with fade-patterns to accentuate little asses and little thighs. To say nothing of the high-heeled boots in the little girls' shoe department.
I've heard rumors that Abercrombie and Fitch markets a miniature thong for pre-teen sized girls. (According to Aaron's journal entry yesterday, that is...) Dude, that is SO fucked up.
Thing is, yeah, sure it's cute to dress up little kids like yourself. The boys' clothing department is adorable, for the most part. I guess I could live without the superheroes and action figures, but I've got nothing against a little boy wearing khakis, t'shirts, and those boring-as-shit overshirts. Yeah, they look like mini casual businessmen, but it's kind of cute. HOWEVER... Why do little boys get to look like businessmen, and girls look like streetwalkers?
Adult women don't dress this way. I mean, most adult women don't. Why are we abandonning girl-children and teenagers to this Nowhere Land of promiscuity?
Don't get me wrong; I'm no prude. I own plenty of low-cut things, tank tops, etc. But then again, I'm NOT TEN.
When I was eleven, I had my first "boyfriend." He wrote me a note that said, "Will you go out with me, circle one: yes, or no." I never really saw him; we just passed notes via our friends. Once, we went roller-skating and he held my hand. One day, it was arranged that we should meet under a picnic table and kiss, but I chickened out. THAT was the extent of MY sexual experience in those days.
I wore a bra when I was twelve. Aaron snapped it once. I was scandalized, so I stopped wearing it. Aaron tried to snap it again, was scandalized that I wasn't wearing one, announced his discovery to the entire cafeteria, and left ME scandalized all over again. The thing was though, Aaron was, even then, at thirteen, known as a sex-machine. This fascinated and terrified me. Such a thing as bra-snapping WAS obscene. It WAS inappropriate, at least in a junior high school cafeteria. It was interesting, but it was traumatizing; how the hell do you think I remember this dumb crap if I wasn't hurt by it, and kind of scared.
If wearing a bra makes a twelve-year-old girl fair game for bra-snapping in the cafeteria, what the hell is the message sent by a breast-exposing lace-up shirt that exposes a girl's entire stomach?
Okay, so I was a naïve twelve-year-old. I was scandalized easily. For example, I was scandalized when somebody told me that the B-52's had songs about sex. Yeah, yeah, okay, I was REALLY naïve. On my twelfth birthday, I read, from cover to cover, a book explaining all the ins and outs (heh...) of sex. Before that, I thought sex meant a man and a woman getting in bed and cuddling. Naïve. Whatever.
But at least my mother didn't dress me like a whore and send me off to fifth grade. At least all I had to worry about was Aaron-the-sex-machine snapping my bra. I didn't have to worry about boyfriends, heavy petting, or boys touching my bare midriff in the cafeteria.
So now the trend is to dress your little girl like a tramp and send her out into the world before she's got boobs or her first period. Fucking great.
WHO is this for, anyway? Why the flashiness? Why the flirtiness? Why dress your kid up to attract a mate? WHAT mate? A ten-year-old boy? Please! And if *I* can't even figure out a reason to sexualize a little girl, how the fuck is the little girl supposed to understand?
This is all a pedophile's wet dream: pre-pubescent girls wearing high-heeled boots, short skirts, and slutty tops. And maybe thongs.
I repeat: if I cannot imagine, in my wildest dreams, a halfway sane reason for sexualizing little girls, how is the little girl supposed to figure out why she's dressed like that? I propose: SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. Okay, so maybe I AM a prude, but is it really so prudish to think a ten, eleven, or twelve-year-old girl should still be riding her bike, passing notes, playing in mud, and developing a first crush or two? A crush, that is, in which holding hands sounds like the most glorious, beautiful, exciting thing in the world? Little girls shouldn't be dressed as if they're expecting -- and anticipating -- to be groped in the lunch room. Little girls shouldn't look like they're prepared to give blowjobs on the bus ride home at four. Little girls should be a little scared about sex. Overwhelmingly curious, but still scared. That way, holding hands for the first time will be joyful. That way, a first kiss will practically render one unconscious with happiness. How can there be any joy in holding hands, when, at ten, you're wearing a shirt that shows off your non-tits?
What ever happened to the thrill of discovery?
Why do I feel like I'm being so monstrously prudish?
If I ever have a daughter, she will not wear clothing that makes her look like a piece of meat at ten years old. I won't lock her in a closet or anything, but I'll make damn sure she's shielded from the world enough so that being allowed to wear lipstick for the first time is a big important deal, and having her first kiss is beautiful, and not just a prelude to somebody feeling up her skirt so short you can see panties.
How is it that this stupid country, this stupid culture, these stupid corporations, manage to take the innocence and excitement out of FUCKEN EVERYTHING, even CHILDHOOD?
I want to cry...
~Helena*