There was a story on MSNBC.com Today Show, Too young? Preteen girls get leg, bikini waxes, about how 20% of bikini wax customers at one Hollywood salon are tweens - pre-teen children.

"Nearly 20 percent of the clients that Nance Mitchell sees for bikini waxes in her Beverly Hills, Calif., salon are tweens, she says. . . 12 is the new normal."

"But nothing prepared her for being asked by one client to book a bikini wax appointment for her 8-year-old daughter."

{{{{{GASP}}}}}

Did you share my first reaction?

But, then I thought - wait, why is it the waxing that is making me gasp in shock?

Isn't it more alarming that 8 year olds have enough pubic hair to wax?

The sub head of the story is inaccurate: Moms are bringing daughters to spas for hair removal before puberty

The fact is that 50% of girls are getting their periods by age 10 and doctors now consider it within the "range of normal" for girls to develop outward signs of puberty, including breasts and pubic hair, by age 8. It's not that even medically alarming for 6 or 7 year olds to begin puberty, and many do begin developing breast buds or pubic hair.

Isn't it more emotionally alarming and worthy of a {{{{gasp}}}} that we're seeing a dramatic shift in girls' puberty development and no public health official is coming on the nightly news declaring,

"We're going to find an answer to this most disturbing development in girls, who hold the future reproductive burden for our entire species. In the meantime, don't let your daughters drink the water full of pharmaceuticals. Stop injecting milk and meat cows and other animals with hormones. Be wary that extra weight causes girls to make estrogen and develop pubic hair and boobs early. Avoid plastics. We're going to outlaw high fructose corn syrup in foods directly marketed to children. We understand the reproductive future of our entire nation depends on it!"

Instead, we hear about the early pubic hair trend in the fashion and beauty section of MSNBC's Today Show with a sexualization of girls slant.

Shouldn't those mothers be ashamed of themselves? the story basically asks.

Should they?

The story includes a quote by Philadelphia aesthetician Melanie Engle who says the 8 year old request for a bikini wax, "was about the mother's obsession with her daughter being a supermodel."

OK. I can buy that. I've seen mothers primp their daughters as a photographer and photographer's assistant. There is definite maternal beauty pressure.

Yet, if there was nothing to wax, if she were hairless, then her mother wouldn't be thinking her daughter needed to have anything removed to "look like a supermodel." Right?

Last year I did a story about Nair directly marketing to tween and teen girls with a "new" line of hair removal cream, Nair Pretty.

"It's profoundly disturbing," I wrote. It's also disturbing that Nair caught onto this early pubic hair trend and marketed to it, before I, as a parent, caught up with it.

I also went off on some radio DJ who was bashing Lordes, Madonna's young daughter, for having a unibrow and a slight mustache. I was appalled at the DJ's lack of class and placing all this beauty pressure on a young girl.

One brave mother, Athena of 1001 Petals, wrote in the comments section of that post, "I feel kind of bad now for telling my husband yesterday that if our daughter turned out to be as hairy as me, I'd start taking her to an esthetician for waxing as soon as it became evident -- unless she said she didn't care for it. This is because if you wax regularly at such a young age, you're saved a lifetime of regular waxing later on down the road. I had to take myself starting at 12 yrs of age, and now at 30 it is still practically a daily maintenance routine. . .I spend hundreds a year and a lot of time bothering with it."

Athena's right. The more I consider this hairy subject, the more I realize that I will likely assist my daughter, in some way, with her pubic hair and if she developed a mustache or side burns, for goodness sake, I'd help her eradicate it. Like I'm going to throw her to the Mean Girls and hope she survives?

Swim suits are not designed to cover the pubic area. They haven't been for about 40 years.

In "Clean" Bikini Line I wrote about my own struggle since my teen years with various methods of shaving, Nairing, one excruciating episode with Neet and a vicious chemical burn.

I'm amused by Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS), but I still keep my bush rather trimmed, as a courtesy to my husband. I wear swim shorts rather than show off my all my private hairs when we go swimming. The itching always gets to me mid-grow.

But, is my daughter really going to be into wearing one of these modest suits that would cover her bikini area? Am I going to make her be the only kid at the swim party or pool to do so?

I shave my pits and my legs. I pluck my eyebrows. I search for stray hairs on my chin and pluck them immediately.

It is only my budget that keeps me from getting all this hair waxed off. When I lived in NYC there was hair & waxing salon on every corner and it was a mere $30 to get my bikini and eyebrows done. I did it whenever I could afford it.

It's the least painful than other methods, it lasts longer and it was the ONLY thing that prevented razor or chemical burn - in other words waxing was the only solution that I didn't trade unwanted hair for an unwanted rash.

It seems to me a young daughter growing early pubic hair is an even bigger motivator for waxing.

Certainly, the minute girls develop breasts or pubic hair society treats her with less respect and she hears more negative and sexual comments about her body. The more she looks like a teenager or woman, the sooner she will be seen as an object for male entertainment, instead of the three-demensionable little girl, the young child, she really is.

What bigger incentive is there to hide pubic hair, keep it as private as possible, or have it removed?

Does the removal of hair further sexualize girls, because the latest fashion is for adult women to remove hair and get a Brazillian wax? Ironically (and a little disturbingly) making them look more like children.

Or does the removal of a symptom or sign of puberty buy a little girl some more time to be a child?

Please comment, I really am interested in exploring this issue further.

Empowering Girls: Hootchy Clothes

Second Generation Mean Girl

Empowering Girls: Ho'oponopono for Girl Fights

Empowering Girls: Breast Cancer Risks

Empowering Girls: Early Puberty

Precocious Puberty

Image Source: Ohana Swimwear

by Tracee Sioux

I just read Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults by Logan Levkoff, sexologist and sexuality educator.

This book covered every single aspect of sexuality that might come up with your kids.

I was shocked virtually the whole time I was reading it. Not so much by the content, as by witnessing my own emotional responses to the content in connection with my daughter. Truthfully, reading it was not a pleasant one for me. It brought up issues.

That said I thought it was a very wise. Levkoff points out that if we, as parents, aren't talking about sex with our kids we'll be the only influence in their lives not putting in our two cents.

Which is extremely dangerous for our kids as all the other influences are promoting a very unhealthy sexuality.

Sex is everywhere. But, not really the good kind. It doesn't take a genius to realize that our kids are exposed to blatant, inappropriate sexuality with negative messages and connotations multiple times a day - and that's just during the commercials.

If there is any hope for daughters at all parents should be talking as openly and honestly as possible.

This, I believe with all my heart, in a cerebral kind of way.

In reality when my daughter asks me a question concerning sex I feel as though my conservative parents have temporarily inhabited my body to the point that I hear my own mother's voice come out of my mouth, "where did you hear that?" with a hysterical accusatory urgency.

Okay, I don't actually say that, but it is my first irrational instinct.

The truth is that I don't feel my own sexuality is a healthy one. It's more of a reaction to the oppressive anti-sexuality of conservative religion mingled with rebellion, an intellectual political response, a teaspoon of good old fashioned Christian guilt, a lifetime of hormonal biology, more than a few mistakes and regrets, influenced by hyper-sexual contemporary culture that becomes increasingly offensive to me, with some violent and abusive sexual trauma thrown in, mingled with a good dose of busy maternal exhaustion. The combination of which doesn't leave me feeling very equipped to pass on a healthy sexuality to my children.

That said, reading Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults did better prepare me for some contemporary questions I'm bound to face as the parent of contemporary kids. I hadn't really confronted the modern-day reality that kids are exposed to an advanced sexuality with little nuance and they are going to be bold enough to ask me some provocative questions.

I want my kids to come to me. I want them to trust me. I want them to believe me to be more of an expert than the other kids on the bus. I want them to look to me for sound advice.

Except that I don't ever want to talk about it again. In fact, I don't want them to ever know some of the sexual stuff they'll be exposed to even exists. See that? It's gonna take a healthy dose of courage to have conversations with my kids about sex and sexuality, after reading the book I feel better armed with adequate information.

Sexy

By Tracee Sioux

Everyone has heard this urban legend . . .

I have a cousin (or uncle or brother or dad or son) who was only 18 (19, 20, 21, 22) and his girlfriend was 14 and she totally seduced him and then when he broke up with her she had him arrested for statutory rape. Now he’s on the sex offender list for the rest of his life and won’t ever be able to work with children and I don’t think that’s fair at all. I mean, she totally wanted to do it and she was seducing him. He’s a good guy and this just shouldn’t follow him all his life. It’s not fair, she's just a slut.

Yeah, I’ve got that cousin too. He’s my favorite cousin, always has been. And it sucks for him that he’ll have to pay for his mistake all his life.

And I’ve been that 14-year-old girl.

Now I won’t claim to know what went on in every single one of those rooms with your "innocent" uncle, brother, father, son or cousin. Perhaps if you knew the details you would still believe he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

I’d have to fiercely disagree.

I’m 33 now and I’ve started volunteering as a mentor with four 14-year-old girls.

Here’s what I have learned THEY ARE CHILDREN!

I occurs to me now that no matter how much I would have sworn that I was ready for love and sex, that I was “mature” and should be legally allowed to consent to sex with a boy four or five years my senior – I was a naive and delusional child. I thought I was so grown up. I thought I was so ready for all of adulthood.

Children make bad decisions, it’s in their nature. Not to mention that I had zero sexual education and was therefore unprepared to make any kind of educated decision about whether or not I was ready.

What I really was ready for was for a boy to like me. I was ready for a little romantic involvement. I was ready to experiment with my self as a sexual being – preferably with boys my own age who were also into experimenting with the new world.

My innocence should have been protected by the law, by my parents (they tried to talk me out of it, but did not involve the law), and most of all by that 19-year-old pervert who spoon-fed me seductive crap about how "mature" I was and how "different" I was from girls my age and how he preferred hanging out with me to "high maintenance" girls his own age. READ: You're an easy target and girls my own age are too hard to f***.

Looking back I know that in his innermost being that guy was a coward. He didn’t dare date girls his own age because they were mature enough not to take his crap. Had it been a severely punishable offense that was frequently (rather than almost never) prosecuted he wouldn’t have had the guts to pursue a child for his perverted and deviant hobby.

My point here is that your uncle, brother, cousin, father or son is not entitled to a free pass at our teenage daughters. As an adult he should know better and should be held to a higher standard than a child in regards to sexual responsibility.

For much too long we have been offering our teenage daughters as some sort of sacrifice on the alter of a man’s uncontrollable (what crap!) need for sexual gratification.

Our teenage daughters deserve legal and social protection. They deserve to be able to experiment with their provocativity and sexuality without an adult man taking this as a viable invitation or seduction. My five-year-old often experiments with looking sexy or provocative – all little girls do. This doesn’t give anyone permission or a legitimate excuse to molest her. Not now and not when she is 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or17.

By Tracee Sioux

As the mother of a four-year-old daughter, I have been mentally preparing myself for the eventual discussion about sex. I was going to be open-minded and talk honestly and without fear. I was going to talk about specifics, including feelings, and be open to my daughter’s wish to experiment, though cautioning against too much experimentation too soon. Prepared was I to calm my husband down, explaining that a little education never hurt anyone. What had to be avoided was conveying feelings of shame or embarrassment or shock about the issue. Sex was, after all, invented by God. I would handle the subject without inflicting negative feelings on her sexuality while at the same time cautioning against promiscuity.

“Mama, do you want to have sexy today?” my daughter asked one morning. She’s only FOUR YEARS OLD!

No air in my chest, eyes and mouth opened as I tried to control the shrill shriek of my voice and I asked, “Ainsley, do you know what that means? What do you think ‘sexy’ means?”

“Like kissing and holding hands and wearing a dress and going on a date,” she said.

“Okay, well it’s not something mommies and kids do and it’s not appropriate for four years to talk about,” and for good measure, not to mask my real and legitimate concerns, I added, “Please don’t talk about sexy or sex in front of other kids or they won’t be allowed to play with you anymore.”

And there I was, stunned, terrified, completely unprepared for such an exchange and praying it didn’t come up again until she was at least nine or ten and I could give her a Judy Blume book.

I flashed back to the previous evening’s episode of the Gilmore Girls. Honestly, I thought the show was innocuous, even good for us to watch an example of affectionate mother-daughter dialogue. I vaguely remember doing something else while the character Ling discussed having sex with her boyfriend. Virginity was winning the battle, but the word sex was probably uttered at least 20 times.

I started paying closer attention to what got into her little brain. I noticed behavior that felt more dangerous than cute, as it had only the day before.

I took notice of the provocative poses on the cover of magazines in line at grocery stores, in the images of Disney princesses and Jessica Simpson sauntering around singing about snack foods on commercials.

I heard her say, “I’m her,” when she saw Pamela Anderson in a commercial for her TV show Stacked. Pamela Anderson! Not even on my worst, most self-loathing day have I wanted to emulate Pamela Anderson. Never have I wished to be so gaudily female and so, well, Barbie-like and unnatural and made-up and plastic.

My daughter is taking in all the images of womanhood she’s presented and picking up on an unattainable, and I think, unattractive, exaggerated version of girlness.

Overnight I felt like a failure at filtering terrible distorted images of women, and far too inadequate to handle the question of “sexiness” and femininity. I became almost certain that she would inevitably find herself in therapy attempting to fix all the damage we’ve done to her by not sheltering her from every sexual or provocative image and then reacting to her curiosity in the worst way possible – with shock and terror.

“Ignore it, at four she doesn’t need any more information. Just tell her it’s not appropriate for her to talk about,” has been the advice from all I’ve consulted.

Still, it – the issue of sexiness and sex – hasn’t gone away. In fact, she seems to be more preoccupied with it.

I lashed out in fear turned to anger one day and hissed, “You don’t need to be posing provocatively, do you understand me? You are only four-years-old and that’s simply not appropriate.”

Having overheard me, my husband responded, “She doesn’t even need to know the word ‘provocative.’”

He’s right, but I can’t think of an appropriate four-year-old synonym for sexy or provocative.

My original fear was realized when my friend informed me that the last time our children played together that Ainsley struck a pose and said, “I’m sexiest.”

To which I took my girl aside and said, “you better not use the words sexy, sex, sexiest or anything like it around those kids or you will be in big trouble. Huge! And don’t you do any posing with your hips or bottom out either!”

“No,” my friend said, “It’s never come up with my kids. You should probably keep telling her not to talk about it, but she’s definitely too young for more information.”

Further investigation illuminates that my friends' method is to use a way more intense filter than ours. They turn off the TV when commercials come on. They flip the covers of magazines over when standing in line at stores. They tell their kids to turn away from billboards that contain provocative images of the body. They even withdrew their kid from private Christian school when a fellow kindergartener offered to show him her boobs.

Not only does this seem like an awful lot of effort, but their goal as parents is vastly different from ours. They are raising their daughters to grow into being submissive wives. Were we to ban every negative image of womanhood we would include that of a blindly submissive wife. Using the criteria that bans sexiness, unattainable prettiness and servant-like wifeliness, what images of femininity would be left? Stern schoolmarm? It is unlikely such images will hold much appeal for our daughter. They certainly don’t hold much attraction for me.

For now I’m sticking to a few little lies about sex like, “Sex is something that mommies and daddies do,” and a few poignant truths, “four-year-olds don’t need to worry, or talk about, things like sexiness.” Let’s hope I come up with something better when she’s nine or ten.

I’m also going to be more vigilant about what images of femininity she is exposed to. Within reason.

The findings in the 2005 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Global Survey give me hope. While 97 percent of girls by the time they are 15-years-old want to change something about their bodies, it also shows that most girls are taking their cues from their mothers. Actually it’s a three-way tie between mothers, media and girlfriends, which is both frightening and hopeful. If mothers are an early pivotal influence on how daughters feel about themselves, then I had better start watching what I say about myself, women and beauty in general.

Next time my daughter says “I’m her” when she is taken with an overly-perfect picture of womanhood I’m going to say, “No, you’re you, and that’s better. In fact, that’s perfect.”