Child beauty pageants

There's a bit of a discussion in the Australian press about child beauty pageants. If you're interested, this is a current newspaper article. I'm curious to know how you all feel about child pageants.

Personally, I find them revolting. I think the aspect that bothers me the most is the competitive nature. A baby has no desire to compete with another baby in a pageant. The baby probably isn't even aware that it's being entered or judged in a pageant. It is the parents using their children to compete against each other. And I just hate the idea of parents using kids in that way...it seems so narcissistic.

Maybe with older children it'd be okay...if the kids really wanted to enter. But it seems there are so many pushy parents out there. I feel so sorry for those little girls who are being waxed or given Botox by their parents.

What do you think? Like 'em? Hate 'em? Have you ever been to one?

I find them disturbing. I'm generally turned off (in the non-sexual sense) by any flagrant exhibition of insecurity, and there's no better example than parents desperately trying to atone for their insecurities by flaunting their talentless little children like diminutive prostitutes. Here in the UK there was a documentary on television about a girl called Sasha Bennington, an eleven-year-old girl of questionable looks who wanted to be the next Jordan (a creosoted train-wreck of a woman who earns her living by being a set of silicon tits and parading her trashy life on any channel that will feature her - which, incidentally, is a tremendously successful business model). Or, at least, that's what her mum (also a 'model') wanted her to be. The documentary was clever enough to place plenty of focus on the mum insisting that "no, it's nothing to do with me, it's what she wants", before showing endless scenes of the girl being bossed about and pressured into looking better, working harder, etc. How damaging! And how crushing it will be for the girl if once she grows up and takes a day trip away from her trashy council estate into a nice city like Oxford, London or Cambridge and discovers that there are much better-looking women everywhere...

I find it such a shame. I also think there's a deep-seated irony here - we live in a society that despises paedophilia, and yet there are plenty of parents willing to dress their kids up in ways that send clear sexual signals. As I said somewhere else, we're all animals, and the randy bull is still going to be attracted to the pantomime cow.

I would not be so against them if they were judged on being their age. I walked into a mall a few years ago and seen all these 20 year old heads attached to these 9 year old bodies, I was like what is going on and it turned out they were having beauty pageant for little girls.
I don't know how others feel, but I would rather see a 9 year old looking like a 9 year and the beauty of being that age in a non sexual way.
Let a child be a child and quit trying to rush it along.

I don't like em either, I find them creepy. It is demoralizing for everyone involved, the children who have to be compared to others, the parents who feel like they're time is over, etc. Also the emphasis on a certain "look" being "beautiful" is not the right message to send to kids (so is "beauty doesn't matter" or "youre the most beautiful/ugly"). Contests in general are awful things....
edit: I don't have pedophilia, I just saw the topic and wanted to chime in not realizing the section it was in

Weird, creepy. Not interested at all by the kids, the look they go for makes them look strange and alien, it's like a parody of adult modeling which is itself a pretty terrible world from what I can tell. I don't get what they're about, and I feel bad for some of those kids.

Forcing a child to pretend to be an adult is pretty close to a violation, in my book.

A violation of what? Their 'innocence'? Their inherent 'childishness'? Surely, you can't possibly mean their bodies, that 'dressing up' is the same as being sexually penetrated, because that would be a ridiculous argument - in my book.

But yes, i agree with most that it's a bizarre indulgence on the part of adults/parents, though coming from a pedophile that's probably a bit hypocritical.

tlkproxy wrote:But yes, i agree with most that it's a bizarre indulgence on the part of adults/parents, though coming from a pedophile that's probably a bit hypocritical.

Hmm I wouldn't have considered it hypocrisy. I was interested to hear the opinions of those with paedophilia, because I expected if anything, that they would have a stronger negative reaction to child pageants than the average person.

My assumption was that if a person loves or is sexually attracted to children, they would probably also revere childhood innocence. And that anything that threatens a child's innocence would upset or anger them.

They say we destroy the things we love. Perhaps paedophilic molestation is just one of the easiest to understand examples of this concept. But I don’t think paedophiles are the only ones who want to have their cake and eat it too.

Platypus wrote:Hmm I wouldn't have considered it hypocrisy. I was interested to hear the opinions of those with paedophilia, because I expected if anything, that they would have a stronger negative reaction to child pageants than the average person.

Interesting point. I guess i considered it hypocritial because we're accused of 'sexualising' children, yet child beauty pageants play on adult sexuality to sexualize children so they'll win competitions, so they appear linked to me.

Platypus wrote:My assumption was that if a person loves or is sexually attracted to children, they would probably also revere childhood innocence. And that anything that threatens a child's innocence would upset or anger them.

Yeah, some people (pedophiles too) do seem to suggest this. But what do you mean by innocence though? I'd prefer them to look the way they are but be sexually aware, i.e. not 'innocent' in that sense. So, some pedophiles do say they are attracted to childish 'innocence', but the same question applies to them, what do they mean by it. Just ignorance and a lack of awareness/understanding? Something that could easily be combated with knowledge and experience? or something else??

Platypus wrote:They say we destroy the things we love. Perhaps paedophilic molestation is just one of the easiest to understand examples of this concept. But I don’t think paedophiles are the only ones who want to have their cake and eat it too.

They do! But surely we destroy the things we chase and pursue vehemently, and love (or lust) is an easy example of the motivation behind this pursuit. Does that phrase suggest that the archetype of perfect human love is inherently mutually destructive?

Also, "paedophilic molestation is the easiest to understand" despite the pedophillic attraction being the most difficult thing for people to understand. So, a secondary level of 'understanding' is inherently based upon the root (or primary) concept that is inherently misunderstood? A question of what constitutes 'understanding' could come in here i suppose.

Good points though!

Platypus wrote:My assumption was that if a person loves or is sexually attracted to children, they would probably also revere childhood innocence. And that anything that threatens a child's innocence would upset or anger them.

They say we destroy the things we love. Perhaps paedophilic molestation is just one of the easiest to understand examples of this concept.

Deep, man.

Well I just think it is bizarre. And I think most people agree, regardless of attraction.