Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies

Lets see if I can get this out properly....

I feel like today's society is over-sexualized. I also believe that this comes in conjunction with a negative gender role reinforcement. Let me attempt to state my case.

On facebook I am friends with some of my little brother's friends. Before you judge me, let me say that I used to oversee (babysit) them before they were old enough to obtain facebook accounts. Apparently I am a pretty cool overseer and they added me as friends. Anyway, as I look at these children growing up, I see them become more sexually aware than I, or any of my friends were. (That may not be totally true...I had friends "on the internet" by 8th grade...) Call me an old man, but things were different in my day. Let me cite the example of one girls profile picture. She is wearing a rather *ahem* suggestive shirt and kissing towards the camera. The overall effect of this picture seems somewhat of a generalized invitation. It is not, of course, but the fact that she even took this picture says something. I am not even sure if she knows exactly what it suggests, but here she is posing like that. Which brings me to my next point. Why does the little girls bikini swimsuit even exist? It is actually easier for the parent to put their child in a onsie (essentially like dumping her in a bag) than to fit two pieces on. I don't think anyone could really even answer that question, save to say that it does, in fact, exist. I would put it as just one more factor in the over-sexualization of an entire generation of children. Let me move to my next issue.

Remember all those great movies we watched as children? Fern Gully, Lion King, Lady and the Tramp...great movies. If you are to cast your mind back on all of your childhood movies, I would ask you to think about their romantic aspects. If I recall correctly (and I often do), it seems to me that any romance depicted was between adults. "But what about Lion King, Dan? There was definitely some tension between Nala and Simba..." Yes, but nothing came to fruition until they had reached adulthood. Any and all romance depicted in the cinematography of my childhood was twixt adults. In contrast, I know for a fact I have seen romantic what-have-yous in television and movies directed at the current generation of children. As they did not really stick in my mind as beloved, I cannot think of any at the moment, which is unfortunate.... I cite this as another example of encouraging more mature behavior in younger audiences. The subconscious message is being sent: look cute for the boys, and dudes...go in for the kiss. This is not healthy.

Gender roles: Men are inherently different from women. They are built with more natural strength and physical prowess. Women are more naturally nurturing than men. Men and women have such naturally different thought processes, inter-gender communication is practically impossible. So I do believe in differing gender roles. They are both healthy and natural. (However, I will not even attempt to broach this topic here any further.) But the gender role being propagated by modern media is shameful. Allow me to cite a lyric:

I need you to get up up on the dance floor
Give that man what he askin for (oh)
Cuz I feel like bustin loose and I feel like touchin you (ah, ah)
And cant nobody stop the juice so baby tell me whats the use

Do I really have to explain this to you? Women are shamelessly being encouraged to satisfy man's desires, while men are being taught to desire that which is less than virtuous. In a music video I watched recently, people were holding up little cards with their "dirty secrets." One of the embarrassing secrets presented said "I'm a virgin." How on earth did that become an embarrassing secret? Go ahead and watch pretty much any current t.v. show or movie, and you will find it encouraging, glorifying or trivializing extra-marital sexual relations. It literally surrounds us. With all these factors influencing children, how can they not become over-sexualized?

At this stage of my life, I am essentially an observer of society. I watch and I learn in preparation for the day when I raise a family of my own. When (if) this occurs I hope that I can somehow hinder this process. I hope that my children will grow up in an environment promoting healthy and timely development of social understandings. If there are any parents who read this, I would ask you to consider it honestly and seriously.