Watchdog attacks store bosses over 'sex kitten' products targeted at young girls

The chief consumer watchdog has condemned the sexualisation of young girls, warning it triggers 'emotional distress, anxiety, low self-esteem and eating disorders'. [Daily Mail link]

Ed Mayo made his remarks amid mounting alarm that childhood innocence is being lost in the chase for sales and cash by big business.

Bratz dolls, which wear short skirts, make-up and high heels, have been condemned by the NSPCC

He also revealed that W H Smith is to stop selling Playboy-themed merchandise for schoolgirls.

Mr Mayo, chief executive of Consumer Focus, has been lobbying store bosses to drop their links to the porn company.

He said the sale of pink pencil cases and folders with Playboy's bunny logo has been part of a far wider problem.

'Children's products, such as the Playboy range, help to make sex and pornography normal,' he said.

'The bombardment of sexual imagery that children do not understand can be off-putting and scary.

'This is a clear case of too much, too young. The effects of early sexualisation for girls include emotional distress, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders, disrupted school life and depression.

'Boys who are affected end up with an image of girls as sexual objects, which can jeopardise their ability to form and maintain intimate relationships.'

Mr Mayo's comments echo previous statements from the Prime Minister and the Conservative leader David Cameron.

Last week, the Good Childhood report for the Children's Society also warned of the dangers of the sexualisation of children, including high levels of teen pregnancy.

Mr Mayo's research found that children are targeted through clothes and fashion before they reach school age with, for example, birthday fashion parties and photo- shoots for four-year-olds.

'T-shirts include slogans such as "sex kitten" and "flirt!" for girls as young as six,' he said.

The consumer champion also attacked the magazines which are designed to appeal to young girls.

'Magazine websites like Sugar, Mizz and Blizz have been caught running modelling competitions, and online "rate my body" contests for girls from age 13 to 14,' he said.

Mr Mayo added that exposure to sexual images comes mainly from mainstream advertising, where up to half of women shown are partly dressed or undressed.

The Daily Mail highlighted how W H Smith was selling Playboy-themed products for children in 2005.

Mr Mayo, co-author of Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming our Children for Profit, said: 'That always sat uneasily with W H Smith's reputation as a family-friendly chain.'

The retailer insisted it has axed the items for commercial reasons.

Rihanna, Avril and co are all living Bratz Butterflies

[Thought this was also interesting, more obvious info from Daily Mail on Barbie (based on a prostitute, Handler etc):

The man who designed Barbie and Ken was a kinky swinger with ‘a manic need for sexual gratification,’ according to an explosive new book.

Jack Ryan, whose wives included Hollywood actress Zsa Zsa Gabor [see Freeman/Springmeier for more info on who else used Zsa Zsa], surrounded himself with busty ‘Barbie’ clones and threw wild orgies at his luxurious Bel-Air, California mansion.

Ryan, who died in 1991 aged 65, designed toys like Barbie and Ken, Hot Wheels and the Chatty Cathy talking doll during his years as a top executive for Mattel.

[More on Dominatrix Barbie (based off a comic book character).]

...

In ‘Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel’, Oppenheimer says that Yale University-educated Ryan was a ‘full blown seventies-style swinger’ who patronised ‘high class call girls to streetwalkers’ in his quest for excitement.

Five times married Ryan also indulged in wife-swapping, claims the book. [Yale/skull and bones and similar scumbags never have "wives", always slaves; "wife-swapping" is really slave-swapping in their case]

Even more disturbingly, Ryan’s kinky motivations played a part in his design of the world’s favourite doll.

‘When Jack talked about creating Barbie it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert,’ Ryan’s friend, Stephen Gnass told the author."]

Ryan with "wife" Zsa Zsa

Classic Country Music Barbie Doll/kitten (leopard-print) Dolly Parton (who predictably pops up in Hannah Montana and such), shooting the video of her song Backwards Barbie in Hollywood Boulevard [image from Daily Mail, no article].