Am I becoming a prude?

Ooh. Three t shirts!

'Prude & Proud' am really tempted to get one made!

nfk

Nelliemoser. I agree [like emoticon]. Going to have a t shirt made - 'proud to be a prude'. I can wear it when the 'proud to be a pleb' is in the wash.

Anybody who knows me would be very amused at the thought of my becoming prudish. I have done my share of embarrassing disco dancing in my early 40s when I should have known better but I blame the demon drink. In my own defence I must say there were no children present. As a teenager in the 1950's, I dressed very modestly and it didn't seem to stop me getting plenty of boy friends. I didn't like it when mini skirts came into fashion, as my thighs were never the best parts of my legs. With maturity, I came to realise that what a woman hints at is much more alluring than what she puts on display.

I agree with everything that has been said about the early sexualisation of children and I particularly dislike that American circus of Beauty Pageants,where girls as young as four are taught to gyrate their hips in suggestive dances, whilst plastered in make-up and singing adult songs.

Now that she has escaped from Tom Cruise, I hope Katie Holmes will stop allowing Suri to dress so inappropriately - those shoes are no good for young feet!

I have nothing against seductive dancing in an adult disco - I've done a bit of it myself. It is when young girls and boys do it that I find it offensive - not appropriate for little ones.

I so agree about the clothing for young girls (and indeed boys) - so much of it is inappropriate and some of the things written are indeed also so.

But the parents buy the stuff!!

I think I vere towards "prudity". and the following rant will prove that.

I am particularly concerned about the clothing for young girls. I think mumsnet has tried to challenge this with concerns about bras for very young girls and rather "saucy" almost sexualised messages on clothing for that group.

I think these products are potentially very damaging as they very subtly push the image of young girls as being more sexually available, to well below the age of puberty.

If the mums who buy this stuff thought about the images this clothing was presenting and started complaining I suspect manufacturers would soon have to stop making it. The problem is perhaps, that these young mums have been brought up in a world much more open to sexually explicit images etc, than we ever were and maybe no longer see these potential dangers for their younger daughters.

I do not go with the makers line that "they provide it because people want it."
Their designers thought it up in the first place and promote it in their shops as desirable, after which a degree of peer pressure to buy it takes over.

Sexual liberation is one thing encouraging ever younger children to these ideas seems wrong. Is it perhaps just a little way down the slippery slope of exposing children to pornograpy?
Proudly a bit of a prude!

I do think that some folk have confused 'standards' regarding sex/sexualised behaviours.

I have met many parents who dress their children in what I would consider inappropriate adult style clothes for primary aged children but these same parents are quick to complain that their 6 year olds are changing into PE tops/shorts in a mixed classroom area! Little children generally just get on with changing at this age and think nothing of it! I think it is only as children move into pre-adolescence that they need to be segregated for changing to afford appropriate privacy

Children tend not to be aware of 'sex' unless someone has commented to them about it. Sometimes it is an older sibling but more often they see it on the TV with parents sitting in the same room with them. If parents do not manage what kids watch , talk about what they are seeing or teach them, age appropriate facts about bodies, relationships, reproduction etc then we continue to have youngsters who have a confused understanding of sex and relationships. This leaves them in a more vulnerable position.

I too think it is wrong to have dancing that simulates sex on TV at family viewing time and I am no prude!

Lilygran What do you mean?

This is an area which desperately needs legislation - see the thread on wearing hijab!

I know how you feel. I can remember my grandma saying the same things. I think each new generation has its own set of values, but thankfully there are always some who break the mould and adhere to old fashioned values of respect and morals. I had to catch a bus full of senior school children recently and was expecting to have to stand up all the way home and listen to bad language but to my surprise, as soon as I got on the bus, I was offered a seat. It was noisy, but I know what its like when children have just come out of school. There was no bad language, no references to sexual behaviour and no throwing things at each other. There is hope, I think. I have teenage grandchildren and they don't like the way their peers behave. As adults we have to set examples and sadly a lot of adults choose to set bad ones.

I don't think I'm a prude, but I find that more things make me feel uncomfortable these days.
I don't like the way things are going and I worry for my grandchildren.

On a lighter note I have just remembered a sign in the hall where we used to go for PE, as the school did not have its own hall, which proclaimed:

JITTERBUGGING, JIVING AND IMPROPER DANCING STRICTLY FORBIDDEN

greatnan I had ythe same problem apropos my son!

Greatnan Coming back to your OP, I love ballroom dancing and jive too, and sequence dancing, and I drag a reluctant MrA out at every opportunity - not that either of us have much aptitude for it
There is just something about moving in time to music which seems to satisfy some basic need and I also enjoy watching other people who are much better at it than we are, moving with grace and style.
I have only watched bits of 'Strictly' (I have to confess a weakness for Anton du Beke) but the 'dancing' seems to bear no relation to ballroom dancing as I understand it - they will perform a Foxtrot, for example, to music which is not a foxtrot tempo and isn't even a particularly nice piece of music. I dislike the theatrical aspects of it and like you, find some of it distasteful.
Wikipedia has this in its definition of 'prude':
The name is generally considered a pejorative term to suggest fear and contempt of human sexuality and excessive, unusual modesty stemming out from such a negative view of sexuality
so no, I don't think we're prudes

I don't think I'm a prude - by my standards. I feel the same as when I was teenager. My gran thought the way I dressed / danced was provocative and I thought her a prude. It's the times which have changed!

My daughters knew all the anatomical names for the parts of the body by the time they started junior school. Some of the other mothers complained to the head that they were using 'dirty talk'.

When my eldest daughter was about 7, the Headmaster had a 'cough, cough' discreet chat with me. Her teacher was concerned because DD kept saying things like "I'll spank you for that".
You can imagine the chat in the school staffroom! As a teacher myself, I know how exaggerated rumours get in schools!
So, with distinctly uncomfortable Headmaster by my side, and class teacher on the other side, I asked my daughter where she had come across talk of spanking.
I'll never forget their faces when she said "my Enid Blyton books"

I've definitely become a prude as I've got older, I can't stand bad language on TV, chat and comedy shows seem to rely on smuttiness to get a laugh. I know I can always switch it over or off, and often do, but it's most annoying.

Am I a prude because I get bored with the F word being used as if it were the only adjective in the English language? Or is it just that it was such a dreadful word when I was growing up, even 15 years ago? These days it seems that a book or film or TV programme can't be popular unless that word is liberally used. The thing is, it rubs off on me, and I find myself thinking it and I hate that! I understand that it is just a word that has become very common, but......

I was not actually thinking about children - I just found the pelvic thrusting of some of the dancers mildly embarrassing. I love ballroom dancing, including rock and roll and jive. I am the last person in the world to be shocked by other people's sexual activities - I just think they should be carried out in private.

So how many of you are writing to the producers of 'Strictly' and other such programmes?

It saddens me to see children behaving in ways that can be perceived as sexualised. It's not their fault - they copy what they see. You're not being prudish Greatnan. I feel the same. I've got a broad mind and I can discuss anything without feeling embarrassed, but sexualised behaviour that gets copied by children is breaching boundaries that should be adhered to for good reasons.

BTw, I don't (can't – no tv) watch 'Strictly'.