Be Obscene, Baby, and Not Heard

Fashion matters. Oh, yes, it does. Because it can tell us interesting and often disturbing things about our culture and society.

Take, for instance, the rise of something I like to call Porno Chic. How can you tell if you’re buying into the trend? Parents, take a look at your young daughters. Do you see:

A. Hoo-ha grazing shorty skirts?
B. Belly revealing tube tops?
C. Sucky-sealed blue jeans slung way down low to six-shooter level?

Next, have you yourself become convinced that a new pair of D-cup tits is exactly what your young miss needs to boost her self esteem for her Sweet 16th?

Answer yes to any or all of those questions and you’ve become pornofied, my friend. Corralled out of guilt or ignorance or just downright pure and simple laziness into molding your daughters into commodities for consumption and your sons into their tongue-lolling consumers.

You don’t think that’s happening?

Hmmm. Consider über porn queen Jenna Jameson. This is a woman whose self esteem is so smashed to bits she has dedicated her life to allowing the penetration of every orifice of her body by all manner of objects animate and inanimate. For public viewing. In a recent US Weekly interview Jameson asserted that her recent weight loss to near skeletal levels isn't due to an eating disorder because, you know, like, as a role model for young women she's all about promoting a healthy body image. The interviewer didn’t bat an eyelash. Which leads me to believe that it’s not just Jameson’s self esteem that’s smashed. There, right there, on the floor. Somewhere among those million little pieces are our values, people.

Parents, please. Don’t buy into the trend. Tell your sons and daughters that porn is really all about consumption, and not really at all about sex. That, like McDonald’s, it’s big, big business, elevated to a level of 50 Billion Sold simply because it works as a quick, greasy fix when both money and time is tight. For adults. Not for growing minds and bodies.

Because if you don't help nip this trashy trend in the bud, I can tell you it will not bode well for any of us. Already the ready-to-wear industry seems poised to divide itself into two warring camps: the Kinder-Whore chic of Wet Seal and Charlotte Russe on the one side, and its dumpified, red-headed stepchild backlash on the other:


Shudder.