Eight readers — Christine B., Hermes, Yvette, Hope H., Tyler D., Pris S., John G., and Dmitrity T.M. — alerted us to a photo spread in the December issue of French Vogue. The series of photographs is another piece of evidence of the adultification of young girls, an adultification that looks suspiciously like child porn, given the sexualization of adult women. New York Magazine reports that the girls are 6 years old. Don’t miss the lipstick, high heels, and disinterested pouts.
The thing is: the adultification/sexualization of young girls is paralleled by a infantilization of adult women. This adds up to a conflation of women and children which serves to uphold prejudice against adult women and the exploitation of girls.
More at Gawker.
For more on the infantilization of adult women, see our posts on lady spanking, Glee, this collection of examples, a vintage example, and the Halloween edition.
For more on the adultification/sexualization of young girls, see our posts on sexually suggestive teen brands, adultifying children of color, “trucker girl” baby booties, “future trophy wife” kids’ tee, House of Dereón’s girls’ collection, “is modesty making a comeback?“, more sexualized clothes and toys, sexist kids’ tees, a trifecta of sexualizing girls, a zebra-striped string bikini for infants, a nipple tassle t-shirt, even more icky kids’ t-shirts, “are you tighter than a 5th grader?” t-shirt, the totally gross “I’m tight like spandex” girls’ t-shirt, a Halloween costume post, and girls in the World of Dance tour.
And, yes, it happens to boys too. For examples of the sexualization of young boys, see our posts on Lil’ Wayne’s virginity loss, the depiction of a 13-year-old boy having a relationship with his teacher, the sexy marketing of both Jaden Smith and Justin Bieber, with a follow up here.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 69
K — January 8, 2011
Eww...
dana — January 8, 2011
look how even the smallest shoe size is way too big for them....i can only agree with "K": EWW!!!
Lia — January 8, 2011
I think what creeps me out the most is the brand or whatever-- "Cadeaux", which means "gifts."
Robin — January 8, 2011
I think you guys are taking this spread way too literally. Check out this Jezebel article - http://jezebel.com/5725707/french-vogues-sexy-kiddie-spread-is-misunderstood/gallery/ - which provides an interesting analysis of the spread. Apparently, it's actually a critique of the use of young models. That said, I'm not sure how successful the critique is but it's silly to approach it as if it's message is "Look how hot these six year olds are."
T — January 8, 2011
Relatively speaking, this is not creepy at all... have you seen children/toddler beauty pageants? Serious freaky.
Beau Weston — January 8, 2011
Not to mention the sexualization of bunnies.
andie — January 8, 2011
The hair.. the clothes.. the makeup.. none of it is as disturbing as the poses. I'm in agreement with one of the posters at Jezebel that said the 'commentary' would probably be more effective and less creepy if it showed these little girls, dressed up, and playing and acting like 6-year-olds.. running, laughing.. stuff like that.
Makropoulos — January 8, 2011
Wow -- this is really bizarre, and I utterly agree with your assessment: it maintains the ideal of the childish woman who does not think for herself, but instead responds to the desiring gaze of the possessing man. . . icky icky icky
Emma Apple — January 8, 2011
Anyone notice in the Jezebel article the little girl with a toothbrush in her mouth? Connotations?
Natalie — January 8, 2011
I've been in law enforcement for 23+ years and this is what those animals get off on. This is sick. Their parents are insane for allowing this type of exposure.
Kelly — January 8, 2011
What's additionally sad for me is any discussion of this usually quickly devolves into strident mommy-shaming (of the children in question) and even the shaming of the little girls themselves (calling them hookers and "prostitots" and other unimaginative crap). Misogyny, ouroboros.
@Christine B. who wrote:
"Just because the industry has questionable practices doesn’t mean we should label something like a highly sexualized shoot like this as “misunderstood” — especially when there’s nearly nothing in these photos that is so ridiculous, so over-the-top, that we might get an inkling that these children being used in a satirical way."
Exactly.
DCM — January 8, 2011
None of the links seem to be working.
sunskimmer — January 8, 2011
If they really wanted to make a point about how ridiculously young many fashion models are (particularly when they start out) they could have used much older models. Why not use women who are 50+, or 50+ along-side the typical model? I feel like that would highlight the difference much better and would avoid exploiting young girls any further.
Syd — January 8, 2011
Interesting. Everyone indeed finds 6 year olds made up to look like rich adult women creepy. So that half of the criticism did not go unnoticed; however, the fact that the vast majority of fashion models are children themselves apparently did. I should amend my second sentence: these are not 6 year olds made up to look like rich adult women. These are 6 year olds made up to look like 14 year olds who are being presented as the ideal for rich adult women to strive towards. The models we use as examples of 'adults' are almost UNIVERSALLY under the age of 18, and usually start at about 12. A model for this type of work is washed up and 'old' by the time she's 21 or 22. A few models continue to work after that, but it's harder, and they have to be a big name; even Tyra Banks had to drastically change her career path once she hit her late teens/early 20s. The images in magazines are often criticized for presenting an unrealistic image of women. Well, DUH. That's what happens when a lanky, prepubescent child is presented as the ideal woman.
Mubarak — January 9, 2011
The only one that did not creepy me out was number four. All it made me feel like was getting a gender change, male-to-female, so I can adopt her as my granddaughter and shower her with grandmotherly love...yeah. I'm going to need to shower in acid in hopes of getting the adorable off of me.
Boner Killer — January 9, 2011
This boggles my mind. Who the hell lets their 6 year old dress up in expensive dresses, painful high heels and a wear a pallet of makeup? It disgusts me that these children are being shown this way.
$o-craTTTe$$$$$$ — January 10, 2011
A few comments have dealt with the moral issues surrounding pedophilia. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that pedophilia is either a genetic condition or the result of some sort of early trauma, but either way it is not a choice. Some people simply are pedophiles and there is not much they can do about it. Recidivism rates of child sex offenders suggest that this is not a condition that responds well to therapy. Furthermore, it would seem obvious that most sane people would not actively choose to be attracted to children, given the incredibly heavy criminal penalties, immense social outrage etc. associated with the behavior. Pedophiles are people who simply have a desire to have sexual contact with children and there is not a whole lot they can do about the desire, though they can exercise self-control in not acting on that desire. Therefore, you could be a pedophile (someone who fantasizes about sex with children) but still not act on that behavior outside the confines of your own mind.
There is a current debate surrounding the acceptability of synthetic child pornography. This is pornography that does not feature any real children or people of any kind; it is purely imaginary, taking the form of drawings, works of prose fiction and computer generated images. In the USA most of these mediums are protected to varying degrees by the 1st amendment, with fiction being legal and synthetic images being to a greater or lesser degree illegal, occupying a sort of legal gray zone.
The argument made against allowing these kinds of images/works of fiction to be distributed is that it will likely cause people who view the images to engage in actual sex acts with children. I.e. the synthetic pornography will whet the appetite of the offender for the real thing.
The counter argument is that these images provide the potential child sex offender with an alternative to acting out their fantasies in real life. Thus the idea is that these materials, which don't involve any real children, provide a harmless outlet for those who suffer from pedophilia and reduce the likelihood that real children will be harmed.
My question here is this: If a man or woman is aroused by children, owing to not fault of his own, he/she does not will this desire into his heart (what kind of nut would?), and views these synthetic materials that involve no real children, has he/she done something morally wrong? There is no actual child victim here, just adults producing fantasy in written or visual form. Furthermore, what if we go one step further, and have a different scenario in mind. Is a pedophile a morally disgusting person even if they do not view the synthetic material? The idea being that there are people out there that are highly interested in this kind of sexual material, perhaps to the exclusion of all other sexuality, but simply do not act on it in any way, they simply think it. Are those people morally repugnant?
I have no answers to these questions.
Also, please feel free to weigh in on the discussion on whether synthetic materials should be legal in the US, it's an interesting topic of debate and something that should be debated because the wrong legal conclusion here could results in thousands more children being victimized every year.
Melanie S. — January 11, 2011
Many of the links in the second-to-last paragraph are broken (missing either the /socimages part of the URL, or beginning http://thesocietypages.org/www.thesocietypages.org/socimages/). This is actually a pretty common occurrence in the similar articles links on your pages. I can fix it myself when the links don't work, but I'd prefer not having to (as I find the content of this blog really interesting, and I always want to read more!).
Alexandra — January 12, 2011
What is Cadeaux? What does it sell? Is that the name of French Vogue?
Because, in French, Cadeaux means gifts.
Even creepier. "I'm giving you a sexy child as a sexy French gift. Enjoy! Bon anniversaire!"
Anonymous — January 28, 2011
This is wrong what is the motavation for this
britt — February 19, 2011
well im 17 and there is more pictures to this magazine and i also believe that there is some boys in this ad to not only little girls little boys that are glamed up looking like little girls these arent all the pictures but how gross how disturbing
to me this is child pornography just horrible disgusting
Pascal Bourgeois — February 24, 2011
l' ART de créer un stimuli psychologique " d'envie " qui se développera pendant
la croissance de l'enfant afin de le transformer en consommateur irréfléchit .
De même, ces images montrent le mépris avec lequel un magazine "expose" le visage
de l'enfance . Le fond de cette exécrable mascarade s'appel L' ARGENT !
Pascal
SCELLES — March 4, 2011
Le Cofrade a raison d'attirer l'attention sur ces présentations de l'enfant ambigues et racoleuses.
L'enfant est associé aux cadeaux et les auteurs jouent sur deux registres.
D'une part, ces photos incitent les enfants à acheter des objets qui les font ressembler à des adultes.
D'autre part, du fait des positions racoleuses des enfants photographies elles incitent les adultes à racoler ces enfants pour des relations sexuelles. Le cadeaux dans ce cas est l'enfant traité comme un objet.
Il faut bien sûr réagir contre une telle marchandisation du corps.
Salutations
Yves
Miomi — April 16, 2011
I have been bothered by other (French) Vogue editorials featuring little girls (see last November issue for instance). This one is just the worst ever.
Gina — March 14, 2014
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