This is grim, but those of us born in the 80s will remember how absolutely obsessed the media was with Britney Spears becoming “legal” and reporting on her virginity every chance they got.
UK newspapers would frequently publish photos of 16 years old girls with their tits out. That was only made illegal in 2004.
Back during Paedomania of the early 2000s, Brass Eye had an episode taking the piss out of the press’s new found moral crusade, despite them happily being in on it for the better part of 30 years. The press did not like this at all. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to realise they were at fault, which led to the memorable juxtaposition of an article about “perv spoof bosses” on the opposite side of the page from an article about how big 15 year old Charlotte Church’s boobs were getting.
I’d forgotten they did this with Charlotte Church. Christ.
Kirsten Dunst and the Full House kids too
Chris Morris tried to warn us
Member the Olsen twins…gross
I think that was still very much a thing at least a decade after Britney became legal.
Gif reminder that Daenerys is 13 at the start of GoT. But ofc the actress was 24 in s1 so not really anything controversial.
I can’t say for sure that actresses ages were tracked as much but I remember like sites showing countdowns to when Emma Watson became of legal age. I’m the same age roughly so it wasn’t weird for me but it was weird that people did it.
And still do.
They did age up all the ASOIAF characters for the show, so the show insisting that we all ogle Daenerys didn’t really have much to do with pedophilia. It was just regular old gross ass Hollywood misogyny.
Y’all… they were doing this to Millie Bobby Brown as recently as 2020.
it wasn’t much long after brittney, but a radio station had a countdown for natalie portman’s 18th birthday when she was 13
Oh yeah that might be the one I’m remembering. Idk there were so fucking many it’s gross
I actually do not remember that because I actively ignored all popular music, all royal family, all oj simpson, and the rest. I still do. Oh yeah, also actor’s names, I try not to learn them.
Cool, thank you for your valuable insight.
Me too man, me too. Improved the signal to noise ratio in my head.
I’d bet that more-or-less describes a disproportionate amount of Fediverse users.
I remember she was nude in Blue Lagoon and she was 14 or 15 at the time. It was a scandal.
Also, Woody Allen? Guess everyone knew he was a creep all the way back then.
Damn dude, I was ready to call you out on this as I remember the movie when I was a teenager and she looked 17-18. I googled it and you were right, she was 14.
Hopefully they used a body double for the nude scenes.
She farted once on the set of Blue Lagoon
Everybody sharts
She was abused for nude modelling and movie roles that sexualized her, including fully nude sex scenes, from age 11 on.
The movies were shown in theatres and on TV. Mainstream magazines published the pictures.
Fucked up times.Nude scenes/nudity is not a problem. Nudity is completely natural and should be normalised. The problem is in sexualising children, whether they’re nude or not.
It’s important to not conflate the two to avoid reinforcing puritanical views around nudity.
While I agree with your point, she played a child prostitute whose virginity was sold to the highest bidder.
Yes, and it’s literally based on a true story that has happened a hundred times over and the film portrays this as a horrible thing.
Like the story is repellent and horrible because it is supposed to be. This is like a criticism of Schindler’s List because it portrays a genocide.
It’s funny because there is plenty of horrifying and deliberately salacious shit that they did with Shields that would merit more criticism. How about her fully nude appearance in Playboy at ten?
This is like a criticism of Schindler’s List because it portrays a genocide.
It’s like criticizing an article about Schindler’s List with the bolded caption “Find out how many kikes can fit in an oven”.
It’s funny because there is plenty of horrifying and deliberately salacious shit that they did with Shields that would merit more criticism.
The quote directly below a photo of her and Woody Allen is more than I needed to see, thanks.
This person made some truly awful arguments, lol
I can’t imagine volunteering my child to take that role personally. They don’t have the maturity to understand the subject matter
Her mom was a horrible person.
Clearly
Lately I’ve been considering the idea that people under a certain age (16? 18?) should be banned from television and cinema altogether. My thinking is that it’s a form of child labor, and that they’re not able to consent to fame.
Same thing with social media, don’t fucking upload things with your kids’ faces in them god damnit
I would argue that while nudity at home should not be an issue, the nature of the film industry means that even if the nudity is presented in a naturalistic fashion, the fact it is on film makes it exploitative.
Imagine being 10-12 years old, naked, and surrounded by adults (mostly men,) some of whom are more or less ordering you around. I can’t imagine a way to make that anything other than deeply distressing for a child.
The biggest thing I learned from living in Italy for two years and then marrying a Korean woman a few years after that is that Americans have fucked up views on sexuality and nudity. I came from a pretty liberal secular hippie type family and I was surprised to find I had some residual cultural hang ups just from growing up in the US.
I’m from Poland and didn’t think about it until I found that in the first part of The Witcher games, the game that is directed to adults, they had to develop a special versions for the USA. The version included full violence with decapitations and gore, but showing a woman’s nipple was too far so they had to censor it.
That’s pretty weird because I do see women’s nipples in US movies and series.
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I’m very body positive and pro nudity for an American who grew up Catholic, but moving to Germany unleashed similar hangups for me.
Fun story: the first time I used the communal shower at the pool naked (like everyone else here), a child pointed at my nipple piercing and loudly asked “mommy, what’s that on her nipple,” so everyone turned to stare at my tits. I was doubly overwhelmed, because it was the first time I’d heard the vernacular term for a nipple in German: “Brustwarze,” which literally translates to “breast wart,” which is fucking horrendous.
If it weren’t for the fact that I remember that every time I encounter the word “Brustwarze,” I think I’d have blocked it out.
“Brustwarze,” which literally translates to “breast wart,”
And it’s little things like that which cause German to be known as the language of love.
German-American here. I had a stint with organized religion and American purity culture. The church and “purity culture” messed me up pretty good, most notably in the 5 years after my deconversion. Americans love judging people for sex, then cheerfully do all the same things secretly themselves without an ounce of self-awareness. I still can’t decide if I have an irrationally strong fear of STDs brought about by American sex-ed, or of it’s a rational response to the fact that everyone is going around fucking without protection, many without a basic anotomical understanding of their own body. I wish we could get people to take safety seriously because we’re all connected in a giant fucking web.
What stood out the most to you about Americans sexual hang-ups?
What stood out the most to you about Americans sexual hang-ups?
The thing that stood out the most was some latent inherent shame to being naked. When my wife and I first got together, we’d rent some cheap hotel rooms and go there to hook up, she’d get there first and shower. I’d arrive and she’d answer the door naked and it was just wild to me. She was so comfortable in her own skin and fine just existing totally naked (in the appropriate circumstances). I had to quickly recalibrate what I thought was “normal” and my life was improved as a result.
That makes total sense. I’ve spent a lot of non-sexual hours sitting butt naked in the Sauna in Germany with hundreds of people. In the US, that would only happen in the woods with hippies. Thanks for sharing.
we’re all connected in a giant fucking web
I so much love your comment because the “fucking” part reads as a literal description (and I’m not sure if that was intensional on your part).
Thats the ex-redditor in me; I can’t pass up a good pun.
It’s also possible to safely take Adderall. The problem is when people who shouldn’t have it get ahold of it. And that’s why it’s restricted.
Your take is delusional. No video material or images of naked underaged people. Period.
I hope you revisit your statement in a few years.
Pretty Baby is a 1978 film where she portrays a child prostitute. There’s a scene where her virginity is auctioned off and a main plot point is that a grown man falls in love with her and wants to marry her. I watched it as a young teen (~12) and I was horrified.
To be clear, the film treats this as the atrocity that it is and is based on a true story.
You probably wouldn’t describe this relationship as “falling in love” if you saw it as an adult. Nothing about this relationship is portrayed as healthy.
Yeah, but it seems most of the people watching that movie took exactly the wrong message away from it, if that article is any indication.
You think a shock article in High Times is a barometer for what “most people” took away from the movie?
To quote [email protected] elsewhere in the conversations:
It makes me think about the Italian movie from the '80s called “Maladolescenza”, which is now considered child porn by many countries, thus illegal.
I also saw a newspaper from the time in which they were interviewing people that came out of the movie theater, asking them what they thought of the movie. It was almost as disgusting as this article.
So certainly a fair number of people did.
As a teen I remember seeing blue lagoon on cinemax. Now that I’m in my mid 40s I realize blue lagoon is literal child porn
I dunno. People are actively siding with pedophiles now so Im not sure we changed much.
I believe we never had all the social progress we believed to have. Many people were just “restricting themselves” to conform with the rules, and now they feel comfortable enough to show what they really think about things…
turns out if you make rules, people comply with them. that, however, does not change anything about the underlying reality of the human nature.
Ed Dwyer was still writing for the Saturday Evening Post just a few years ago:
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/author/ed-dwyer/
Among others:
Ed Dwyer has written for Los Angeles Magazine, Variety, and AARP the Magazine, among other national publications.
Someone should subpoena that dude’s search history.
If you are not familiar with Brooke’s story… I’m sorry for ruining you day.
Shields, now 59, has been vocal about her experiences, including her infamous appearance in Playboy at age 10 and her role when she was a minor in The Blue Lagoon, a film that featured her and her co-star in numerous nude scenes.
Horrid.
On a similarly infuriating note, the article states, “One user on X, @dvorstone, captured the public’s shock and dismay . . . They wrote, ‘I don’t think this country has, or even will, come to terms with the sexual corruption of the boomers. From the swinging to divorce to homosexuality, drag/transvestites, and pedophilia, they mainstreamed virtually every sexual degeneracy that has metastasized everywhere in our culture . . .”
None of those words belong with pedophilia in that sentence. Breezing by a careless association like that it is why we are in a horrid place right now. This is the sexual corruption of the boomers still at play. Fuck that guy.
A more suitable word would have been “conservative” or “religion,” since those are the key corrupters of civilized society in realtime.
Evie Magazine is an American alt-right women’s magazine. Evie has published conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific content and anti-vaccine misinformation.
Exactly, the depraved and cruel sex acts (such as rape of children) usually come from sexual repression from religion and lack of education on consent and boundaries due to religious repression.
It does not come from healthy adults exploring with other healthy adults in a consensual environment with healthy boundaries. That comes from sexual education and freedom.
EDIT: What’s even more infuriating is the first sentence of that statement is still correct when it comes to rampant child abuse: “I don’t think this country has, or even will, come to terms with the sexual corruption of the boomers.” The whole statement is real “they had us in the first half” material.
One thing rarely touched on is how her image and movies were used to groom other children for sexual abuse back then. I know a few people, including myself, that were abused to The Blue Lagoon.
Today, it looks like the Brooke Shields situation was normal for the time, but I assure you that it wasn’t. Plenty of people called out the behavior of those around her, and it led to the tighter restrictions on childhood sexual exploitation that we see today. There’s a reason why Brooke Shields is pretty much a solo act - when Hollywood handlers tried to cross boundaries with her, they got slapped down pretty quickly, and nobody really followed.
It’s even more fucked up when you take the context into account. This article is making sidelong references to the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Baby_(1978_film) which was based on a true story of child rape and exploitation. So this “article” takes that context and I guess sides with the monsters? fucking hell.
Her torrid freshness became an underground legend among the talent set. Producers literally held their breaths, waiting for the remarkable Brooke Shields to reach a reasonable age of fuckability, not yet legal, but oh, so sweet. Welcome to the end of innocence, Brookie.
Multiple people had to okay that. How? HOW???
This is an unhinged paragraph about a 13 year old.
Producers literally held their breaths, waiting for the remarkable [anyone] to reach a reasonable age of fuckability, not yet legal, but oh, so sweet.
Is a criminal thing to say about anyone at any age.
Even saying that about an adult is suspect.
How about Kid Rock on Saturday Night Live talking about not waiting till the Olsen twins turn 18 literally saying “If there’s grass on the field, play ball!”. If you didn’t know, the Olsen twins were famous for their portrayal of the baby/toddler in Full House as well as a plethora of children’s adventure videos starring them at various super young ages.
This is the same Kid Rock who sang lyrics about child sex in a children’s movie and just headlined the Alt-Right Superbowl not-quite-halftime show.
I haven’t ever watched SNL because that show is better when filtered into secondhand aggregates.
But Kid Rock is a disgusting creep who only has a platform anymore because the GOP can’t get anyone else with a preexisting fanbase who is stupid enough to openly pitch pedophilia to their voters.
He should’ve had a rock through the mouth decades ago.
Don’t ask Danish people about which kind of porn was not only legal, but actively produced in their country up until the '90s…
It really was the worst of times
Oh this shit is still going on. There were people in the late 90s early 00s that were counting down the days when the Olsen twins would turn 18.
Would not surprise me one bit if there are websites dedicated other child celebrities.
And following them … Emma Watson all throughout the Harry Potter series.
And Millie Bobby Brown …
Before those, Charlotte Church in the UK press.
I remembering having a crush on Hermione. Emma Watson was also older than me, though, and I remember thinking that adults perving on her was gross.
Emma watson as well
Because 70’s were WILD for that shit.
Should I remind you that street marches were held in the name of “adult-child love”? That NAMBLA, a North-American Man-Boy Love Association (you can’t make this shit up) tried to meddle with LGBTQ+ to get included? That songs were written about teenage girls being taught “adult love”?
If anything, the article is characteristic of the time.
What the fuck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartman_Joins_NAMBLA
I thought it was just a joke when the episode aired
There’s a lot of things South Park have portrayed accurately that I simply didn’t think could be true.
“what scientologists actually belive” is another one.
I thought it was a joke up until… today.
her mom let her do a sexualized fully nude photoshoot when she was 10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Gross?wprov=sfti1#Brooke_Shields_photograph_controversy
Not only that, but when she wanted those photos to be taken down, US courts ruled that she has no right.
Truly the best democracy in the world.
Wat
Its my fault for having internet today.
Mildly Infuriating
Nope, that’s just full-on despicable and the people that wrote that should get serious therapy and not something unspeakable done to them
Makes you think America has a pedo problem. What a ridiculous notion.
the world does collectively
It wasn’t just America. There was code used with women, girls about whose knee to avoid sitting on etc. Some people realized it was wrong but for the most part, society’s way of dealing was to ignore and pretend it wasn’t happening. And if a girl got pregnant - it was all her fault. The difference was the greater reach of TV, cable, magazines than previous decades which started to undo the secrecy. As much a people hate on Boomers, they were the ones who started saying enough already, there needs to be laws against this if people can’t figure out on their own that it is wrong.
Not just america but other countries are better at ignoring it or in some cases dealing with it effectively. Some still allow it even if its officially illegal. The current US leaders want this as well.
We have accountability problems too on so many levels. Pedophilia is a good pace to start. As a society we should deal with pedophiles harshly, no matter who they are. A system where the rich are allowed to circumvent the law is our reality, but we should draw the line before pedophilia. If a rich person does what the Epstein abusers did, they should be at the mercy of the accused and their family, even if it means their death. Chain the abuser to a wall and let the abused and their families into the room with a crowbar. Thats simple justice and its long overdue.
The problem with that is false convictions happen. There were hundreds of false convictions for child rape and devil worship in living memory, in the 80s and 90s, the Satanic Panic.
fair call. Lacking a coherent and just justice system, Life in prison (but no beating) will have to be enough I guess.
She played the role of a prostitute in a movie and instead of the article being like “whoa this movie is pretty heavy - trigger warning” it’s all “damn she’s hot.”
Jeeesus christ. One helluva thirsty pedophile wrote that.
Fuuuck…
