Children are sexy again–overtly so. During The Simpsons there was a Gap Kids commercial featuring these 10 year-old boys doing a saucy Britney-esque group dance to an 80s-style rap version of “You Really Got Me” (reminiscent of Midnight Star) . I’m no chicken hawk–not by a long shot–but just the look in those kids’ eyes…. They were clearly selling sex.
Personally, I think it’s a good sign. Yeah, we’re still a long way from the inter-generational relationships of Ancient Rome, but it’s a start. I welcome anything that moves us away from that “Won’t someone please think of the children?!” rhetoric that assumes those under the age of 18 have no sexual agency–that’s the basis for a lot of homophobia in the West these days. It’s a correlative of that lame, unfounded “recruiting” trope. Like we set up tables and pass out brochures at county fairs in an effort to teach teenagers how to give rimjobs….
Now, that doesn’t mean I think all teens are/should be sexually active, but it’s insulting (or it was to me when I was that age) to say that kids don’t know what they’re doing when they have sex or when they feel love or lust. If I’d made Little Darlings, I would have had ’em all boinking like rabbits instead of wussing out because they realize, “Gosh, sex is a really special thing that only grown-ups should do, and I’m just not ready for that.” Sure, some of ’em would have flaked, but how could you have an entire camp full of girls and not one of them sleeping with a 16 year-old Matt Dillon? Really.
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