You're probably thinking, "why do we have to choose between abstinence education and protecting our children from hyper-sexual media?

So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids very clearly explains that this is not the choice we face, it's the choice we have already made in America.

Why would Republicans push for abstinence-only education and then allow commando marketing to children with a hyper-sexual message?

Because they are not representing your values. They are using your values to get votes and then stimulating the economy by creating access to your children as a marketing target. The fact that the message is a hyper-sexualized one is of no concern to them.

Feminist friends, allow me to introduce you to my Religious Conservative friends. . .

You both have the same goal - raising children with a healthy sexuality - you should both feel betrayed by the way politicians and marketers have exploited your children's sexuality for profit.

So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids really articulated something I'd been feeling for a long time. Do you ever watch The View and want to scream at them - Joy, Whoopie and Elizabeth - all at the same time when they discuss sex education in schools? Joy talking about what it was like to want to do it with your fiance 40 years ago, Whoopie saying she wants to teach kids to put condoms on bananas, and Elizabeth wanting everyone to live in a Norman Rockwell painting, with Jesus playing the harp, but where she can wear $500 low-rise designer jeans.

Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne gave me a much better understanding of my frustration when I watch those discussions.

We're all missing the point. While we're arguing about whether to tell kids about sex - marketers told them already. Marketers have an organized strategy to actively use every single opportunity they have to SELL sex to kids.

Because they want kids to have sex?

No silly. They don't give a flip whether kids do or don't have sex.

They just know that sex sells - even to small children - sex sells.

So while we're having our analytical and sometimes heated discussion the politicians turned marketers lose on kids.

Marketers have said, "parents and educators are better distracted anyway" and they proceed to sell clothing, dolls, toys, games, video games, actual sex and pornography, television shows, credit cards, beauty products, school suppolies, easy readers featuring toy hookers, and barbie doll-knock offs as strippers to kids using their own sexuality. They are selling a sexual message in children's books, in their commercials, in their video games, on their television programs and with their toys.

Every ad, every image, every message is hardwiring our children's brains to connect sex and their own sexuality and sexual value with objects.

Did you catch that? Their goal is to connect the child's sexuality and sexual emotions and sexual triggers in their brains to the objects and products they sell.

The ability to buy the products and wear them and look like them becomes an expression of the child's sexuality. The marketing message is encouraging children to be erotically turned on by labels and products that promise to make them happy. "To buy our products is hot," is the message they sell to children. To the point, where women are exchanging body parts for objects (boob job). (ie. Dr. 90210 is sexy advertising for plastic surgeons).

People aren't sexy. Prada is sexy. People aren't hot, the Abercrombie they wear are hot. People don't have value, their Coach bags have value. Boobs aren't sensual, silicone implants are sensual.

In the meantime, we're giving kids a naive little abstinence-only curriculum in a 45 minute class. The message of which seems entirely irrelevant, never mind statistically ineffective, in the face of the how incredibly successful this media onslaught on our children's sexuality is.

Hello, America! Abercrombie & Fitch bought 10 million dollars in advertising to name the Emergency Room at Columbus Children’s Hospital, tying the the label to both inappropriate sexuality and children's health simultaneously. As the blogger of Canoe Room points out - parental protests against Abercrombie & Fitch's sexualized ads have served only to make the brand more attractive to kids.

There are laws that prevent Marlboro from advertising to children - why not laws that prevent corporations with a similarly damaging sexualized message?

Religious Conservative friends, I'd like you to meet my Feminist Friends.

You both have the same goal, you just have slightly different motives.

Maybe we should try having the same conversation and devise an effective strategy to deal with a real and well-financed threat to our children.

Educators and Parents should read So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids for a well-researched, completely thorough, understanding of today's Sexualized Childhood.

Tune in tomorrow or subscribe to my RSS feed for more on solutions for Today's Sexualized Childhood.

Monday's story: So Sexy So Soon: Sexualized Childhood.

For more on how our children are being viewed as marketing targets visit Parents for Ethical Marketing.

Image Source: Canoe Room, by way of MomoLogic.