NY- Too Sexy Too Soon: A New Teen Trend?

11-25-2008 New York:

It seems to be everywhere - the sexualization of teenage girls in magazines, on television, at the mall and even in school hallways.

These images are impacting the clothes girls wear to school, the way they behave with boys and what they're doing on their cell phones.

We sat down with ten teens from local high schools and a local modeling agency, Mary Therese Friel, LLC. Overwhelmingly, they said some of their peers are revealing too much.

”They think if I dress this way, throw myself at the boys, there'll be more attention,” said Blythe Luong, a 17-year-old from Hilton.

“My boyfriend's in college and sometimes I'm scared that since he's seeing other girls that look older, he's going to be like, 'oh you look too young'," said Stephanie Pafka, 15-year-old from Greece Olympia High School.

The problem goes beyond impressing boys. There are more pressures than ever to dress and look like the young women on television and the Hollywood stars on the pages of teen and celebrity magazines.

"I think that's where it starts,” Luong said. “The media makes it look like it's appropriate.”

“Definitely, there's no question about it,” said Leanna Sherman, a 15-year-old from Greece Olympia. “Where else would you get these ideas?”


Reality shows like "The Hills" on MTV have caught the eyes of thousands of teen girls. The show follows the lives of young women in Los Angeles as they cope with their relationships, while television shows like "Gossip Girl" portray high school students drinking at clubs, having sex and wearing skirts so short, it's no wonder they're allowed inside the walls of their private school.

“Younger girls and teens are like, ‘oh well, she's wearing a shirt that shows her mid-drift, why can't I?,’” said Jessica Land, 16, of Greece Odyssey.

The girls say the pressure inside the walls of real schools is very real too.

"There are girls in my grade that dress that way because they have older siblings and they see older girls,” said Paige Walton, a 13-year-old from Pittsford.

“I know girls who come up to some girls and say, ‘why don't you show off your body, you're so pretty!’,” Sherman said.

Kerry DeGrave has also noticed teens are dressing skimpier. She's been teaching for almost 30 years and is currently a health teacher at Greece Olympia high school.

She says the school enforced a dress code because the girls were leaving the house wearing low-cut tops and baring their mid-drifts.

“You hear the kids in the middle school talk about changing on the bus or their parents see them when they leave and then they change their clothes,” she said.

Some teen girls are now behaving sexy too, sending nude photos and provocative videos over their cell phones, over the Internet to their boyfriends or worse -- to guys they don't even know.

“I've heard kids talking about different girls texting pictures,” DeGrave said. “I've heard of kids getting pictures and they don't even know who they're coming from.”

The girls we talked to know the act as "sexting." And most of them say they know someone who's done it.

"It's the nude pictures, it's the videos and it's also just like dirty talk through texting as well,” Luong said.

"It's not a new thing,” Sherman said. “When it was new it, was probably like 'oh that's hot' but now…it's getting out of control.”

The girls agree something needs to be done.

“I think there should be a big sister/little sister program where you can take the little kid and help them out, so they don't feel like they need to be that pressure,” Land said.

“Be a role model because you don't need to look like that,” Blythe said.

“You have all the time in the world to dress sexy and show things off,” Pafka said.

Tune in to News 8 at 11 Tuesday night to learn how parents are having the conversation with their kids and why it’s so urgent to have that discussion while your children are young. ..News Source.. by Meghan Backus