Miley Cyrus, Dolls Market Pole Dancing to Tweens

categories: Sex Trafficking and Prostitution, Technology and the Media, Trafficking in Children

Published September 03, 2009 @ 12:03PM PT

The newest sensation to sweep the tween market seems to be .... pole dancing? Miley Cyrus shook her underage stuff (what little she has of it) up and down a pole at the Nickelodeon Teen Choice awards in August, in front of an audience of kids and tweens. And now, kids can buy their very own Poll Dance Doll. What's next -- sexy thongs for kids? Oh wait, that already happened ...

Marketing pole dancing to kids gross and dangerous. Both the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana empire and dolls are marketed to girls in the 7-13 age range. And girls 7-13 have no business pole dancing. There's a great scene in the movie Mean Girls where the popular girl's clueless mom (Amy Poehler) is smiling as she watches her 9-year-old daughter imitate an MTV spring break show by dancing provocatively and flashing the TV set. I always thought that scene was a funny hyperbole of what happens when children are parented soley by pop culture, but now it looks like a scary tarot-like prediction of a Tweens Gone Wild video. Watch the press coverage of Miley Cyrus closely, and you can see the media salivating for her to turn 18 so they can find a good-girl-goes-bad angle. They did it to Brittany and to Jessica and to the Olson twins. And they're going to do it to Miley.

This cultural Madonna-whore complex that eats young teen pop stars alive is moving to devour more and younger girls. At the end of the day this isn't just about a doll or a dance move. It's about the fact that kids are being sexualized at younger and younger ages, and that over-sexualization has serious consequences. It glamorizes commercial sex for young girls that have no understanding of the realities of the commercial sex industry. Desensitizing kids to commercial sex makes it easier for "friendly" pimps to lure them into prostitution and pimp control. Pimps prey on the natural sexual curiosity of teens, which has been warped and over-stimulated by a media culture which tells girls they are only valued for their complete purity or complete depravity. And once a pimp has control over a girl, it becomes exceedingly harder for her to leave.

I'm sure a lot of people will look at this and say, "big deal, it's just a doll." It is just a doll, but this doll and the carnage of fallen teen pop stars and the sexy thongs for kids and MTV and all the other sexy things that are marketed to kids start to add up into a pretty big pile of hyper-sexualized garbage.

Kids play in that garbage. And we're surprised when they come home dirty.

Photo credit: Gizmodo

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Comments (11)

OMG! is this for real?

Posted by Shannon Burt on 09/03/2009 @ 03:31PM PT
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All children need to know is that they are in good hands with their parents and teachers. I guess this means that those people have to be even more conscious and filter more and more stuff like this out. Don't buy it. Money is a pwer, use it wisely.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 09/03/2009 @ 11:14PM PT
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*power. A super power, is what I should have said. There you go Eric.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 09/04/2009 @ 03:41PM PT
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I thought those stupid "Bratz" dolls were bad, dressed primarily in slutty outfits. Parents need to be aware that toys like this promote objectification, de-sensitize children to sex, and can instill inappropriate sexual behaviors.

If this is real , then I would advocate boycotting "all" products from the manufacturer, distributor, advertiser, etc.. Sadly this product will get lots of free publicity due to its outrageous nature.

Whats next? ..."S&M Barbie" complete with ball gag and handcuff accessories....

Posted by David Longton on 09/04/2009 @ 05:47AM PT
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hey

WTF, it is pole dancing, not poll dancing, I agree this is some really messed up sexification, but use the right word when describing it, you make us all look like idiots by saying poll when you mean pole

Posted by Eric Gregory on 09/04/2009 @ 08:46AM PT
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Thanks for catching the typo, Eric!

Posted by Amanda Kloer on 09/04/2009 @ 11:21AM PT
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btw,

btw, good article, just... use more inherent vocab and grammar skills, less reliance on the spell checker maybe.

Posted by Eric Gregory on 09/04/2009 @ 09:04AM PT
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I could not agree with you more. With respect to adult women, I do not find pole dancing to be feminine, sexy, or artistic in the slightest. To market toys like this to children is an attempt to condition girls to think of themselves as mere sexual objects.

Posted by Stephen Bauer on 09/05/2009 @ 06:41PM PT
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What I cant understand though is how could a pop icon or the parents of all these kids possibly look at this as anything other than training kids for future exploitation ???

What the fuck is next ?

Their very own pimp doll ?

Posted by Thomas McHugh on 09/05/2009 @ 10:10PM PT
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Yes I really wonder about the parents. I suspect that the degrading effect of media exposure on these kids is unstoppable. Parents liked the early Miley Cyrus because she had a wholesome image. But for $, Cyrus' own parents are letting her take part in exploitive activities. Another example of a young female celebrity that was caught in the issues described in the blog is Jessica Simpson.

Posted by Stephen Bauer on 09/06/2009 @ 04:37AM PT
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Indeed, the biggest problem is that money has become so much more important than people that as you said...Parents are willingly letting their kids be exploited for it...

Posted by Thomas McHugh on 09/08/2009 @ 03:14PM PT
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Author

Amanda has been a full-time abolitionist for six years. During that time, she has created reports, documentaries and training materials on human trafficking in the United States and around the world.