Childhood? Vaping Tweens and Teens in Crop Tops, Thongs and Makeup

The kicker for "Being 13", Jessica Bennett's New York Times post (Sept. 20, 2023), serves as a good synopsis of the piece:

Three girls, one year. This is what it’s like to be 13 today, in a world that can’t stop talking about the dire state of your future.

One of the girls Bennett profiled was Anna - a 13-year-old 8th grader at a top-ranked charter school in Colorado. 

Anna reminded us of Mare of HBO's Mare of Easttown. After Mare discovered that Erin, a teen, had a secret account on Sidedoor's escort service, Mare said, "Trust me. Teenage girls are fucking sneaky."

In terms of sneaky teens, after Anna complained to her mom, via text, about being the only member of her 8th grade friend group who wasn't allowed to wear thongs and crop tops, Anna: 

"[...] went to Victoria’s Secret with her friends and bought the [thong] underwear anyway, then hid them in her room."

(In addition, Bennett shared that Anna's parents had discovered, via Anna's iPhone, that 13-year-old Anna had been sneaking to her boyfriend's house, conveniently, when his parents weren't home, which reminded me of 17-year-old Lily of HBO's And Just Like That whom lost her virginity in her boyfriend's house, conveniently, when his parents weren't home.)

In terms of tweens in crop tops, Anna’s mother may not condone it, but 11-year-old Maxwell’s mother, Jessica Simpson, condones it; however, some of Simpson’s followers condemned Maxwell’s crop top. 

Leah Bitsky reported for Page Six that “Jessica Simpson [was] slammed for letting 11-year-old daughter, Maxwell, wear crop top” (August 28, 2023)

Bitsky reported that after Simpson posted pictures on Instagram of 11-year-old Maxwell posing seductively (i.e., tongue out) in a crop top, one of Simpon’s followers posted: “Isn’t she like 11 or something?? Stop sexualizing your little girl” But Bitsky related that another follower defended Maxwell’s tween crop top by posting: “So many Karens here geez! No 11 year old looks like an 11 yr old today. We’re not in the Brady Bunch years anymore, she looks fine [...]!” 

Yet, none of Simpson’s followers addressed designers like Marc Jacobs whom designed crop tops for tweens and teens. For example, we posted that Brooke Frischer posted on Fashionista that "Heaven [by Marc Jacobs] and Bluemarine Made the High School Movie Wardrobe of Your Dreams a Reality" (JUL 7, 2023).

Per Frischer, Blumarine by Marc Jacobs features 11 of the brands best-selling pieces, which boast the brands "signature touches". The best-selling signature pieces consist of ultra-mini skirts, and they mean ultra, lacy pink camisoles, baby tees, and they mean baby, and cropped sweatshirts - among other revealing pieces. 

In terms of thongs, we wrote in our substack “From the 1939 World's Fair to TikTok: A History of Teen Thongs” that Ariel Levy wrote in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press, 2005) that the thong was invented in New York City to "cover" exotic dancers during the 1939 World's Fair but that thongs are no longer relegated to exotic dancers but that thongs, like Hello Kitty and Abercrombie & Fitch, have become the "underpants of choice" for nymphets:

Now they are the underpants of choice for pubescent girls. I saw Hello Kitty thongs for sale at the mall; Abercrombie & Fitch—which markets to seven- to fourteen-year-olds—makes a thong that says WINK WINK and another that declares EYE CANDY; the teen chain store Hot Topic sells a Cat in the Hat thong; Delia’s has a little cotton thong with Bart Simpson on the front and another that asks FEELING LUCKY? with a green four-leaf clover stamped on the crotch. The urban youth Web site Dr. Jay’s has rhinestone Playboy bunny thongs with matching camisoles. 

In addition, we related that there’s a plethora of dancing teens in (cheeky) thongs on TikTok; thus, it should not be surprising that Anna was the only 8th grader in her friend group who didn’t wear thongs. 

And while we’re on the topic of tweens in crop tops and thongs, it’s worth re-mentioning Rachel Brown’s post on Beauty Independent that “Evereden Is Positioning Itself To Lead The Race For Gen Alpha Consumers” (September 12, 2023) In other words, Evereden is selling makeup to 13-and-under-year-olds. And it states in the piece’s kicker that Evereden is: “[...] encouraging gen alpha consumers to play with beauty products [...]” 

EverEden: Kids

And why is Evereden selling makeup, like Ruby Red Lip Oil, to 13-year-olds? It’s for the same reason that Marc Jacobs is designing crop tops to teens and Abercrombie & Fitch was selling thongs to tweens. #money And notice that the brown tween in the Evereden advertisement (above) is dressed, à la Blumarine by Marc Jacobs, in a crop top and mini skirt.

Lastly, if adults wear crop tops, thongs and makeup, one should not be surprised to see tweens and teens in crop tops, thongs and makeup, because as Neil Postman reminded in The Disappearance of Childhood (Vintage/Random House, 1994), as recently as two hundred years ago, the concept of childhood did not exist and that it originated during the Renaissance with the invention of the printing press, which initiated a separation between children and adults with the bridge from childhood to adulthood being only crossed by learning how to read. 

In addition, Jennifer Senior related in her piece "Little Grown-ups and Their Progeny" (April 8, 2013), which was part of the New York magazine cover story "Childhood in New York", that up until the end of the WWII, children were expected to contribute to the family financially. Particular to New York City, newsboys were rampant, but delivering newspapers wasn’t their only source of income. They: “[…] blacked boots, scavenged for junk, and shuttled messages and goods.” But: “[...] child poverty, child abuse, and exploitative labor practices […]” lead to an effort by reformers and the government (e.g. Children’s Bureau) to protect children.

However, Steven Mintz, the author of Huck’s Raft: A History of Childhood in America (Belknap Press\Harvard University Press, 2006), wrote that, “They [reformers and the government] viewed kids smoking at 10 and 12 and having independent money and walking into bars as the worst thing in the world. It reminds you that "child" is a label, not a reality."

And just like Postman related in The Disappearance of Childhood, things have gone full circle. The separation that resulted from the printing press and the Children’s Bureau has been seemingly removed by smartphones and social media. Consequently, we shouldn’t be surprised to see a 13-year-old nymphet in a crop top and micro mini skirt that barely covers her thong with a vape between her Ruby Red lips.  

A History of the Age of Consent & Ramifications

A History of the Age of Consent

I related in The Allure of Nymphets that Mary E. Odem shared in Delinquent Daughters that until 1897 the age of consent in California and in most states was ten. It was twelve in seven states and, even more shocking, it was seven in Delaware. How did the ages get so low? Our early age of consent laws originated over the pond. And how did the age go from ten to seventeen in most states? Feminists are to blame thank.

Odem wrote that after the 19th century, many young women started working outside of the home and consequently became more promiscuous. Feminists blamed the raunchy behavior on "dirty old men" who paid for the services of nymphet prostitutes and successfully lobbied to have the age of consent raised. However, it backfired, because a number of young women became even more licentious.

To give an example of how raunchy things got, Odem related that during World War I, when the problem of female sexual delinquency assumed national proportions with the spread of prostitution and consequently venereal diseases among soldiers, a five-mile radius moral zone was implemented around military training camps. In those moral zones, alcohol and prostitution were prohibited. Surprisingly, the military discovered that it was not professional prostitutes who were loitering around military bases - it was thousands of teen prostitutes.

Consequently, feminists realized that issues like abuse, education, and poverty had more to do with the nymphet's erratic behavior than "dirty old men", but it was too late. The damage had already been done. The age of consent laws had been changed. However, there were two unsuccessful attempts to lower the age of consent.  In 1889, there was an effort in Kansas to lower the age to twelve, and in 1890, there was an attempt in New York to lower the age fourteen.

"Childhood" in New York

New York magazine had a April 8, 2013 cover story on "Childhood in New York" and printed Jennifer Senior's article "Little Grown-ups and Their Progeny". Senior's report was consistent with the research that I related in The Allure of Nymphets about childhood being a relatively recent invention.

 

Senior related that up until the end of the WWII, children were expected to contribute to the family financially. Particular to New York City, newsboys were rampant, but delivering newspapers wasn’t their only source of income. They "blacked boots, scavenged for junk, and shuttled messages and goods.” But “child poverty, child abuse, and exploitative labor practices” lead to an effort by reformers and the government (e.g. Children’s Bureau) to protect children.

However, Steven Mintz, the author of Huck’s Raft: A History of Childhood in America, said, “They [reformers and the government] viewed kids smoking at 10 and 12 and having independent money and walking into bars as the worst thing in the world. It reminds you that "child" is a label, not a reality.

Clearly, prior to the end the WWII and before the American economy prospered, young people (i.e., children) were expected to behave as adults in terms of earning a living wage. And their adult behavior, in terms of vices, was condoned. It was even common to see ten-year-old prostitutes in New York City.

Just like Neil Postman related in The Disappearance of Childhood, things have gone (almost) full circle. Today, children\teens behave like adults. For example, they drink, smoke, take drugs, have sex, and are (virtual) teen strippers. The Internet has broken the barrier that the invention of the printing press once erected after The Renaissance. In Porn Before Puberty?, an ABC News feature, Winnifred shared that when she was in eighth grade, "boys mostly, were watching porn during school [...] during independent reading, they would do that." In addition, the feature related that nine out of ten children between the ages of eight and sixteen have viewed pornography on the Internet. However, age of consent laws and high school continue to keep (most) "children" and adults separated. 

"Children" and Adults

"Why You Truly Never Leave High School" was printed in the January 20, 2013 issue of New York magazine. The article is about how high school is a sadistic institution and how new research suggests that high school may be worst possible place for a vulnerable sixteen-year-old mind. Here's an excerpt:

Until the Great Depression, the majority of American adolescents didn’t even graduate from high school. Once kids hit their teen years, they did a variety of things: farmed, helped run the home, earned a regular wage. Before the banning of child labor, they worked in factories and textile mills and mines. All were different roads to adulthood; many were undesirable, if not outright Dickensian. But these disparate paths did arguably have one virtue in common: They placed adolescent children alongside adults. They were not sequestered as they matured. Now teens live in a biosphere of their own. In their recent book Escaping the Endless Adolescence, psychologists Joseph and Claudia Worrell Allen note that teenagers today spend just 16 hours per week interacting with adults and 60 with their cohort. One century ago, it was almost exactly the reverse.

Something happens when children spend so much time apart from adult company. They start to generate a culture with independent values and priorities. James Coleman, a renowned mid-century sociologist, was among the first to analyze that culture in his seminal 1961 work, The Adolescent Society, and he wasn’t very impressed. “Our society has within its midst a set of small teen-age societies,” he wrote, “which focus teen-age interests and attitudes on things far removed from adult responsibilities.”

Anne Rice's sixteen-year-old Belinda had an affair with forty-four-year-old  author and artist Jeremy Walker after she had a fling with her step-father. Belinda exemplifies that a consequence of "children" being separated from adults is that when they do get together it's often done illegally due to age-of-consent laws - whether it's consequential, like in the case of Belinda, or non-consequential like in the case of incest. Belinda expressed her frustrations with being considered a child:

"Look, I had my first period at nine. I was wearing a C-cut bra by the time I was thirteen. The first boy I ever slept with was shaving every day at fifteen, we could have made babies together. And I found out the kids here are just as developed. I wasn't any freak, you know? But what is a kid here? What can you do? Even if you're going to school, even if you're a goody-two-shoes who hits the books every night, what about the rest of your life?"

"You can't legally smoke, drink, start a career, get married. You can't even legally drive a car till you're sixteen, and all this for years and years after you're a physical adult. All you can do is play till you're twenty-one, if you want to know. That's what life is to kids here - it's play. Play at love, play at sex, play at everything. And play at breaking the law every time you touch a cigarette or drink or somebody three or four years older than you."

Interestingly, the age of consent is still low in most of countries across the pond. For example, in Germany it's fourteen, in France it's fifteen, and in Spain it's a whopping thirteen. However, this shows that lowering the age-of-consent is not enough to remove the barrier between "children" and adults. The author's of Escaping the Endless Adolescence and The Adolescent Society may have surmised correctly that an additional culprit is the invention of high school.

From DAVE to CHUCKY: Streaming Teen Sex and Drugs in Pop Culture

I related in The Allure of Nymphets from Neil Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood that as recent as two hundred years ago, the concept of childhood did not exist and that it originated during the Renaissance when the printing press was invented. 

Postman purported that the disappearance of literacy, education, and shame that occurred during the Dark and Middle ages in Europe lead to the disappearance of childhood and with little literacy in the Middle Ages, what we consider today to be childhood ended at age seven, which was when most humans had a command over speech and was considered an adult. 

There were schools in the Middle Ages, but instead of teaching reading and writing, the students underwent “on-the-job-training” in classrooms with other students whose ages ranged from 10 to adults of all ages. Even at 10-years-old, the students lived away from their parents in what could be described as dorms.  Consequently, since there was no social distinction between “children” and adults, the “children” were exposed to everything. 

However, the invention of the printing press initiated the distinction between children and adults and the bridge from childhood to adulthood was only crossed by learning how to read. As a result, a new form of schooling was required. Children were no longer placed in mixed-aged classrooms to learn a trade. Children were placed in classes with other children close to their own ages and taught a curriculum that emphasized literacy. Sound familiar? 

Just like Postman, Richard Farson’s research in Birthrights lead him to the conclusion that "children" were invented in the 16th century in Europe during the Reformation and Renaissance periods, which was when children were no longer thought of as little people but as fragile potential adults who needed to be protected and educated. However, it still took another two-hundred years before “children” began to be separated by age in school. Farson wrote that prior to the seventeenth century, children were not considered innocent, were not segregated, and were not prevented from participating in adult conversations where salacious topics like sex were discussed. There were no children’s stories or books, and it was common for girls to get married at the age of thirteen. 

However, technology, specifically the Internet accessed via smartphones, has re-exposed "children" to everything (e.g., pornography). For example, in "Porn Before Puberty?", an ABC News feature, Winnifred Bonjean Alpart shared that when she was in the eighth grade in Manhattan: "[..] boys mostly, were watching porn during school [...] during independent reading, they would do that."

But what inspired us to post this post was the "Hypospadias" (s01e03) episode of Dave where  two nymphets encouraged a young Dave to "feel up" there fountains. Mallory Parker even informed Dave, "You can go under the bra," which was before Kayla Waters informed Dave, "Now we wanna feel you up." However, due to his hypospadias, Dave declined to let the nymphets feel his penis. 

And Dave reminded us of a number of other mainstream shows that blurred the line between "children" and adult content. For example, on the "First Day" (s01e01) episode of PEN15, Maya informed Anna that, "[...] Heather gave a handjob to both Brandt and Dustin L. this summer." Anna, "That ho bag." Maya, "Such a slut. Also, I heard that Connie M. grew double-ds last night at camp." Interestingly, Connie, a middle-school nymphet, was shown with  swigging double-ds.

On the "September" (s02e01) episode of Better Things, after being introduced to Arturo, 16-year-old Max's 32-year-old boyfriend, during a game of Truth or Dare, the viewers witnessed Duke, Max's pre-teen sister, dare a nymphet, "Put four Monopoly pieces in your vagina." She did!

On the "Winter Kills" (s10e6) episode of American Horror Story, Alma, a nymphet with a thirst for men's blood, was informed that a shirtless "Hustler" had been picked up for her from a donut shop in Santa Monica. Interestingly, the Hustler was of the impression that he was supposed to have sex with the pre-teen Alma.

In addition to Alma, who killed her father on American Horror Story, there have been a spat of recent shows and films that depict "children" committing murders and/or being murdered (e.g., Halloween Ends (2022), but although we've read a number or YA novels (e.g., Gossip Girl) that depict teens doing drugs, we were shocked to see Lexy Cross, a middle-school student on Chucky, snort cocaine and crushed Clonazepam pills. For example, on the "Halloween II" (s02e01) episode of Chucky, after Lexy made out with another teen, she snorted a bump. 

In the end, we know that art imitates life and vice versa; thus, it should come as no surprise that Connie got double-ds over summer when the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported that in 2020 (i.e., during COVID!) over three thousand nymphets, between the ages of 13 and 19, had breast augmentations (i.e., teen boob jobs). And previously, we wrote about Laura Sessions Stepp's Washington Post post "Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex" (July 8, 1999) and the New York Post post about the teen masturbation and porn literacy classes being taught at some Manhattan prep schools.

A History of "Childhood" in New York City

The April 8, 2013 New York magazine cover story is "Childhood in New York". This excerpt from Jennifer Senior's article "Little Grown-ups and Their Progeny" is consistent with the research that we've previously posted about childhood being a relatively recent invention.

The article relates that up until the end of the WWII, children were expected to contribute to the family financially. Particular to New York City, newsboys were rampant, but delivering newspapers wasn’t their only source of income. They “[…] blacked boots, scavenged for junk, and shuttled messages and goods.” But “[...] child poverty, child abuse, and exploitative labor practices […]” lead to an effort by reformers and the government (e.g. Children’s Bureau) to protect children.

However, Steven Mintz, the author of Huck’s Raft: A History of Childhood in America, said, “They [reformers and the government] viewed kids smoking at 10 and 12 and having independent money and walking into bars as the worst thing in the world. It reminds you that "child" is a label, not a reality."

Clearly, prior to the end the WWII and before the American economy prospered, young people (i.e. children) were expected to behave as adults in terms of earning a living wage and their adult behavior in terms of vices was condoned. It was even common to see 10-year-old prostitutes in New York City. 

Just like Neil Postman related in The Disappearance of Childhood, things have gone full circle. Today, many children/teens behave like adults. For example, they drink, smoke, take drugs, have sex, and are (virtual) teen strippers; however, what separates them from adults isn't the printing press, but age-of-consent laws. 

Jim Carrey and Ariana Grande: A Celebrity Age-Gap Affair?

The “Did Jim Carrey and Ariana Grande hook up?” episode of the FluentlyForward (video) podcast is “[...] about the rumor of Ariana Grande hooking up with Jim Carrey.”

On the podcast, Shannon McNamara related that Carrey was Grande’s childhood crush, but it wasn’t until, approximately, 2019 did rumors circulate that the age-gap couple were “hooking up”. 

McNamara, “Basically, Ariana Grande [...] has always had Jim Carrey as her childhood crush for years [...] then around, I want to say, 2020, 2019, these blind items start coming out about them hooking up.”

What is McNamara’s evidence? On Live with Kelly [Ripa] and Michael [Strahan] (January 30, 2015), Strahan asked 22-year-old Grande to share her childhood crush, and she shared that it was 53-year-old “perfect” and “cute” Carrey. 

Strahan: “Your childhood crush. I'm going to try to get this out of you.” 

Grande: “My childhood crush, my lifelong crush, like kind of all just goes together. It's Jim Carrey. I love him so much. I love him so much.”

Kelly Ripa: “Do you still have a crush on him?”

Grande: “Yeah, I met him and I, like, cried. It was really weird. It was so weird. It was so, like, uncharacteristic of me. I'm usually, like, sort of chill and usually somewhat contained. But I met him and I was just like.

Strahan: “What did he do? What did he do?”

Grande: “He was like, oh my god, I was kind of nervous because I was like, you know, he's been my crush forever [...] And he was so over the top nice and perfect [sic] and just how I’d hoped he’d be [...] I was like, oh my god, you're so cute. I love you. I was like, wow, help me God.”

After showing a clip of Grande’s confession on Live with Kelly and Michael, McNamara shared a “cute” video that was posted on Grande’s Instagram account. In the video, after 20-year-old Grande, who was wearing a sweater, sans pantalons, and a pair of white go-go boots, met 52-year-old Carrey for the first time on the White House lawn, she gave him a “cute” hug, shed tears and prayed, “Oh my God.” 

Subsequently, Grande posted an image of Carrey on her Instagram story with a quote from Carrey:

DEPRESSION IS YOUR BODY SAYING, “I DON'T WANT TO BE THIS CHARACTER ANYMORE. I DON'T WANT TO HOLD UP THIS AVATAR THAT YOU'VE CREATED IN THE WORLD. IT'S TOO MUCH FOR ME.”

YOU SHOULD THINK OF THE WORD “DEPRESSED” AS “DEEP REST.” YOUR BODY NEEDS TO BE DEPRESSED. IT NEEDS DEEP REST FROM THE CHARACTER THAT YOU'VE BEEN TRYING TO PLAY.”

JIM CARREY
THE WHOLE LOML
forever

Carrey replied to Grande’s story, via Twitter, by tweeting that he found her Instagram story “lovely” and that he felt “[...] blessed to have such a gifted admirer.”

Grande quote tweeted Carrey’s tweet by tweeting that Carrey had no idea how much she adored him and how much he meant to Grande:

thank u so much for your kindness. [black heart emoji] I don't think u understand how much i adore u or what u mean to me. thank u for taking the time to share this w me. you are such an inspiration. i can't wait to tattoo this tweet to my forehead. sending lots of love & all things happy. 

Grande didn’t tattoo Carrey’s tweet to her forehead, but she did get a tattoo of Carrey’s lines from  The Truman Show (1998).

In case I don't see ya
Good afternoon
Good evening
And good night!

In response to a clip from 2020 that McNamara shared of Grande and Carrey “beautifully” singing a duet on Kidding, Carrey’s Showtime comedy, McNamara implied that Grande and Carrey “should make love”.

McNamara, “I was kind of like, wait a minute, do I like them together? Like, any time two people sing beautifully together, I just, like, think that they should make love.”

After Grande’s appearance on Kidding, Carrey shared in an interview that Grande was “wonderful to be around.” Consequently, Grande posted a picture on Instagram of the (potential) age-gap couple hugging on the set of Kidding, and she wrote in the post that she “adored” Carrey as a pre-teen, even before she could speak, but that Carrey was more “special and warm” than she “[...] ever could have imagined.”

I’ve been staring at my screen and no words do this moment justice. thankful for the most special experience of my life. nothing is crazier than getting to work with and spend time with someone whom you’ve idolized and adored since before you could speak. actually, what’s even crazier is discovering that person to be more special and warm and generous in person than you ever could’ve imagined.

As FluentlyForward’s a gossip slash blind item podcast, McNamara moved on from the more concrete evidence of a potential age-gap affair between Grande and Carrey to the blinds. A blind from a 2019 Crazy Days & Nights post alleged that Grande and Carrey were having sex, but it wasn’t clear if Carrey was going to leave his girlfriend for Grande.

I think we all knew the hooking up of the former A plus list mostly movie actor and the A-list singer was inevitable. The question is whether he dumps the girlfriend he cheated on the singer with or not. 

Interestingly, Grande released the song “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” - in 2019. Consequently, McNamara stated, “The song’s actually about Jim Carrey. Who the fuck knew?”

In the next blinds that McNamara read, she alleged that the age-gap celebrity couple had sex, did drugs, and that Grande kissed Carrey’s ass?

Of course the former A plus list mostly movie actor loves the A-list singer. They hooked up and she kissed his ass and took his drugs.

This former A plus list mostly movie actor is probably A, A-minus now with the big name recognition still. He has been hitting on an A-list singer who is much, much younger than him and offering her the best drugs if she wants to party with him. 

It’s not clear exactly when Grande’s childhood crush on Carrey began. Grande, an apparent teleiophile, inferred that it began before she could speak, but let’s assume that she was being hyperbolic. 

Interestingly, overall, McNamara appeared to condone Grande’s attraction to Carrey. For example, of Carrey, McNamara opined, “He really does have that charisma to him?”

(FRAMING) BRITNEY SPEARS & Tavi Gevinson: Self-Sexualized Sex-Positive Teen Feminists or Sexualized Teens?

In Tavi Gevinson's New York magazine/”The Cut” piece, “Britney Spears Was Never in Control” (FEB. 23, 2021), Gevinson wrote that The New York Times’ Framing Britney Spears documentary did the following:

It made a compelling argument that Spears’ image was an expression of her teen sexuality

It deemed it misogynistic to question Spears’ expression of her teen sexuality

It deemed it anti-feminist\sex-negative to feel that sexualizing a teenager is dubious

It related that Spears’ expression of her teen sexuality is an expression of female power

And the documentary rewrote Spears as a teen feminist icon

In addition, Gevinson wrote the documentary “casts a spell” “specifically of the stretch that chronicles Spears’ rise as a teen idol, starting with the “Baby One More Time” video, but Gevinson shared that she was “unsettled, as an adult, to watch a 16-year-old embody a schoolgirl fantasy.”

“Baby One More Time”

However, once again, in terms of Britney’s teen sexuality, Gevinson wrote that the documentary purported that Britney “made her own decisions” and “was never just some puppet”.

The filmmakers achieve this by alternating between footage of Spears and her collaborators asserting that she made her own decisions [...] If “Baby One More Time” made me feel queasy, I was soon reminded that America is sexist and sexually repressed. If I wondered what kind of say Spears had in the “sexy” Rolling Stone photos taken in her childhood bedroom, I was soon reassured that she was never just some puppet.

The result is a documentary eager to characterize Spears’s early image as an expression of female power [...]

Yet, Gevinson disagreed with the positive assessment the documentary made of Britney Spears' teen sexuality. Gevinson implied that Britney didn’t make her own decision and that Britney was a puppet:

[...] the doc was rewriting Spears as a feminist icon. “[However] [s]he was the Establishment! She was what we were supposed to be: sexy and young. Not a paragon of independence.”

But Spears shared in the documentary that being sexy is naturally a part of being a nymphet. Britney said, “Well, I think we’re all girls, and I mean, that’s a part of who we are. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like to feel sexy. You know what I mean? You’re a girl.” Wait, was Gevinson implying that the "Establishment" force this stance upon Spears?

Ed McMahon & Britney Spears

And in a 2003 interview with British GQ, Spears answered that the Rolling Stone photographer did a very good job of portraying her - despite asking her to “Undo your sweater a little bit more.”

“How did I realise [I was a sex symbol]? Probably the first Rolling Stone cover by David LaChapelle [...] I was back in my bedroom, and I had my little sweater on and he was like, ‘Undo your sweater a little bit more.’ The whole thing was about me being into dolls, and in my naïve mind I was like, ‘Here are my dolls!’ and now I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell?’ But he did a very good job of portraying me in that way. It certainly wasn’t peaches and cream.” [Emphasis added]

By sharing Spears' 2003 British GQ interview, Gevinson made the point that we’ve been consistently making in our posts, which is that it’s two-way street - both the "Establishment" and Spears are guilty of using her teen sexuality (i.e., the allure of a nymphet) to make (a lot) of money. (e.g., LaChapelle/Rolling Stone: “Undo your sweater a little bit more.” Spears: “But he did a very good job of portraying me in that way.”)

Even Gevinson appeared to agree with our “two-way street” assessment: "There is no need to believe it’s either Everything was Britney’s choice, and therefore she was always a sex-positive feminist or Nothing was Britney’s choice, and the evil adults made all her decisions."

The “90’s Lolitas Volume 3: Wild Things, Cruel Intentions and Britney Spears” episode of the You Must Remember This podcast (October 9, 2023) shed more light on the “Baby One More Time” video and the LaChapelle/Rolling Stone photoshoot. For example, per the podcast, the catholic school girl uniform with the blouse tied above her midriff was 16-year-old Britney’s idea. Karina Longworth narrated:

Nigel Dick had been directing music videos since the beginning of MTV, and was responsible for image-defining videos for artists as diverse as Guns n’ Roses, Oasis, The Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. [In] Dick’s idea for the “Baby One More Time” video […] Britney would have gone to space with animated characters that looked like Power Rangers. The story goes that she saw the treatment and thought it was lame, and offered her own idea: she would play a bored student who daydreams about breaking free from class and dancing in the high school’s halls.

“Your initial reaction to this is, I'm being told by a 16-year-old-girl what I should do…,” Dick said later. Then he rationalized, “This girl is 16 and I'm a grown man; perhaps she has a better perspective on her audience than I do. So I swallowed my pride.”

When Dick suggested she would be wearing a t-shirt and jeans in class, Britney suggested a catholic school girl uniform. When she showed up on set, she thought the blouse she was supposed to wear looked, in her word, “dorky,” so she tied it above her midriff.

16-Year-Old Britney Spears
(LaChappele/Rolling Stone)

Longworth narrated that Dick recalled that Britney wasn’t “pushed” into anything raunchy; however, she needed to be restrained. And Larry Rudolph, Britney’s manager at the time, related that being “squeaky clean” wasn’t natural for Britney, because she wanted “sexier”.

As Dick recalled, “She genuinely wanted to go down that road. It wasn’t like we pushed Britney into doing anything. Most of the time you have to hold her back a bit.’”

This was the standard line from the middle-aged men who worked with Britney: they wanted her to project wholesome virginity, but she kept wanting to look sexier. As her manager Larry Rudolph put it, “The record company wanted to keep things squeaky clean, and she went along with it at first. But it quickly became clear that it wasn’t natural for her.”

However, per Longworth, Rolling Stone alleged that Rudolph was: “marketing her as the teenage Lolita of middle-aged men’s dreams.” However, Rolling Stone’s April 1999 cover story of 16-year-old Britney was a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. Longworth opined that:

[...] nothing in the article was as provocative, or memorable, as the photos, shot by David LaChappelle in and around the Spears family home in Kentwood, Louisiana. The cover image, in which Spears wears a white blouse unbuttoned to show a black bra and white silk boyshort panties while clutching a phone in one hand and a teletubbie in one hand [...]

In the most obviously staged image, Britney straddles a pink bicycle, looking back at the camera, which is focused on her white short-shorts, on which the word “baby” is spelled out on one butt cheek.

There are also pictures of Britney in a cardigan open over a white bra and short-shorts, standing in her childhood bedroom surrounded by stuffed animals and dolls, and another of her dressed in a blue satin micromini and bandeau top, dancing in her family’s TV room as though she’s at a club [...]

Longworth went on the narrate that Britney’s LaChappele/Rolling Stone photos were shot to “titillate”, initiate a “Lolita fantasy”, and instigate an “[...] adult sexuality into the spaces of childhood.”

[...] Britney was styled in these photos, which were shot just before her 17th birthday, to titillate, and particularly to activate that specific 90s Lolita fantasy of the child who will seduce you into forgetting that having sex with her is legally and ethically out of bounds [...] The LaChappele Britney photos seem intent on reminding the viewer that you’re looking at a child, while pushing adult sexuality into the spaces of childhood.

16-Year-Old Britney Spears (LaChapelle/Rolling Stone)

However, Longworth went on to say that there are conflicting stories about the photoshoot. LaChappele related that Britney wanted to take advantage of the “Lolita thing” to “[...] get people talking and excited.” And that after Rudolph left the room, the 16-year-old mischievously “unbuttoned her shirt wide open”.

A dozen years after his photos of Britney ran alongside her first Rolling Stone profile, David LaChappele gave an interview in which he described the photoshoot as a collaboration between he and his then-16 year-old subject.

Quote: “I said to her, ‘You don’t want to be buttoned up, like Debbie Gibson…Let’s push it further and do this whole Lolita thing.’ She got it. She knew it would get people talking and excited.”

The photographer went on to describe something that happened when he was shooting Britney in her childhood bedroom at 2 a.m, ostensibly trying to get the shot of her with her exposed bra in front of all of her toys. When her manager Larry Rudolph suddenly walked in and asked what was going on, according to LaChappele, Britney acted shy and said, “Yeah, I don’t feel comfortable.” At first I felt betrayed,” he recalled. “But as soon as Larry walked out, Britney said, ‘Lock the door’ and unbuttoned her shirt wide open.”

However, per Longworth, Britney said that LaChappele “tricked” her, because she was a “naïve” 16-year-old.

This was very different from how Britney told this story. Four years after the shoot, she said of LaChappele, “He came in and did the photos and totally tricked me. They were really cool but I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing. And, to be totally honest with you, at the time I was 16, so I really didn’t. I was back in my bedroom, and I had my little sweater on and he was like, ‘Undo your sweater a little bit more.’ The whole thing was about me being into dolls, and in my naïve mind I was like, ‘Here are my dolls!’ and now I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell?’”

But Longworth reminded us that, per Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, despite purporting in interviews to being a virgin, Britney lost her virginity when she was 14 - to her 18-year-old boyfriend.

The Daily Mail reported in the piece, “‘Britney started drinking at 13, lost her virginity at 14 and took drugs at 15 [...]” (4 September 2008):

Britney Spears' mother [Lynne Spears] is set to lift the lid on the troubled singer's life - with revelations [via the book Through The Storm: A Real Tale Of Fame And Family In A Tabloid World] that she was drinking at 13 and lost her virginity the following year.

Lynne Spears claims Britney was drinking not long after joining Disney's Mickey Mouse Club, a U.S. variety television show.

Mrs. Spears also says her daughter lost her virginity aged 14 to an 18-year-old high school football player soon after she quit the programme.

[...] allegedly [Britney was] caught boarding a private plane (aged 16), [when] cocaine and marijuana was found in her bag.

And per the Daily Mail, Lynne: “[...] encouraged the [teen sex] relationship because she thought it would make her more popular.” And Lynne: “[...] allowed her [i.e., 15-year-old Britney] to share her bedroom with new boyfriend, Justin Timberlake. Mrs. Spears was said to be sure the teenagers were having sex.”

Lynne’s assumption was correct, because per the Cosmopolitan piece “Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake relationship timeline” (25 October 2023), Britney revealed her in book The Woman In Me: “Justin and I had been living together, and I'd been having sex since I was 14.”

Of course, just because 16-year-old Britney had been having sex, for years, in the very same bedroom where the LaChappele/Rolling Stone cover photo was taken, doesn’t prove that LaChappele’s version of the story is correct. But does it prove that Britney was not naïve?

18-Year-Old Tavi Gevinson

Lastly, and going back to Gevinson’s “The Cut” piece, the parts of the post that relate directly to Gevinson are often contradictory. For example, Gevinson wrote that she allowed her 18-year-old self to be photographed “lying across the bed” in her “childhood bedroom” in a “romper”, because she desperately wanted to “update” her “public image as a sexually active being”.

Like Britney Spears, I was professionally photographed, lying across the bed in my childhood bedroom, when I was a teenager. I had been 18 for a month [...] I remember that the romper had symbolized, for me, my new life starting, and it’s very likely I was eager to update my public image as a sexually active being after extensively documenting an adolescence where I favored bulky layers and granny glasses. 

But in the very next paragraph, Gevinson wrote: “Still, when I see the photo now, I just see another thin white able-bodied blonde girl being sexualized.”

Wait, is Gevinson saying that she self-sexualized, she was sexualized or both. #twowaystreet