sale
away
big
bang
tail
lights
moving
constellations
nothing
so fashionable
pleasant children
please
constable
what,
no tea?
day
of hope
pleasant children
Pleasant children, pretty children, very pretty children. Oops sorry, I'm not allowed to say that now am I?
I'm not supposed to notice how children are increasingly encouraged to emulate the overtly sexual
fashions of adulthood or how adult fashions continually idealise the adolescent form. Even though
the boundaries are becoming blurred we're still supposed to know where to draw the line.
Children develop an awareness of sexual behaviour at an increasingly early age as a by product of
adults' persistent exposure to it. Through recurrent innuendo it's there on the front pages every day,
on the television, radio, magazines and songs. It's unnecessarily implied in all manner of superficial
entertainment because we're so inundated with sexual inference that life would seem bland without it.
Like taking tea without sugar or chips without salt.
By over indulging in a prurient diet of sex, titillation and gossip we are weaving a schizophrenogenic
web for the unwary to get caught in. It appears to be acceptable on the
one hand to encourage a
moral climate which fosters a precocious awareness of sexuality amongst children whilst at the
same time vilifying anyone who is unfortunate enough to find them attractive? Have children
hooked the fish out of season or been hooked themselves?
Blaming the fish for getting caught is a great way of ignoring our own culpability. We know things
aren't quite right but as we can't bring ourselves to consider that our own fascinations might be
at fault, we have to look elsewhere to find a cause. It's unthinkable that we're responsible for this
situation so there must be someone among us, some hidden element of our society that is taking
our pretty little innocent children and corrupting them. "It's nothing to do with us, they're nothing
to do with us. We'll prove they're nothing to do with us, not like us, not liked by us,
then that will prove it's not our fault."