Watching Anne With An E is so fucking jarring to me because like… these characters are sixteen… and they look sixteen… the girls aren’t wearing heavy makeup… the cast isn’t vetted based on looks, so while they’re by no means ugly, they look NORMAL, like they’re normal looking kids with normal faces, looks aren’t even a concern…
And these characters- these girls- are sixteen/seventeen, and they’re not performing sexiness, they’re not falling over each other and having tons of sex, they’re just running around like the young teens they are in clothing that’s not designed to make them look sexy, they’re reading and having romantic interests but they’re just crushes and school things, and they’re playing in the woods and having fun and like…
God, I know living in that era would be hell and that’s not what I’m saying I would want but… oh, to be sixteen, and to be able to just be a child, and not be told at every turn to be sexy and have sex and wear heavy makeup and perform feminity or perform anything or be hot. Oh, to just be a sixteen-year-old who runs around with their friends in the woods and writes for the school paper.
And then there’s that fucking scene, in the episode where Anne and her friends decide that their bodies are worth respect and fully under their own control, that one scene where they all sneak out at midnight, all the girls together, in their white nightrobes, and light a bonfire in the woods… and they wave flowers and chant that they are women, they belong only to themselves, they deserve to respect themselves, their minds as well as their bodies deserve respect, and then they dance around the fire laughing and ruby collapses and they ask her what’s wrong and she says, “oh, being a woman can be so lovely” or something along those lines and just hhhhhghgghghghghghghhhggh….. the sisterhood… the camraderie….. the joy despite it all…. i want it
and then i go on tiktok and see 14 year olds in crop tops and short shorts dancing to a song about anal sex or smth and i’m like, “oh, shit, we’re all being groomed”
this is a valid take and makes sense, and modestness is a personal choice, but consider that showing off one’s body can be a source of positivity and confidence, as well as a sign of abuse. same as modesty. it sounds here like you might be trying to tell people that they shouldn’t under any circumstances talk or think about or perform sex (and tbh it’s natural to want to do those things at such an age, if you feel ready) but both sides are valid!!! i get that you feel certain societal pressures but believe me, everyone does. women should lift each other up, not fight each other. we need to push back against oppressors.
pardon but “showing off one’s body can be a source of positivity and confidence” is a valid defense of adults sexualizing themselves if they see fit and young people not being shamed or dress-coded for showing their shoulders but it absolutely does not apply to literal children, usually girls wearing clothing that is designed to sexualize them (see: millie bobby brown, britney spears, etc) (see: length of girls’ shorts vs length of boys’ shorts) (see: riverdale) (see: the modern media)
i’m not saying and never said Sex Is Bad, Be A Nun but young girls are collectively being groomed and that is A Fact. women should indeed lift each other up and girls support girls and all that push back against oppressors but this exact narrative, this sex positive narrative, this weaponized feminity narrative, has been twisted and used for countless years to push this very form of grooming, this very idea that to be a beautiful, sexy woman is to be an empowered woman, that for women sex or attractiveness is power, that- to quote another tumblr post- beauty is the rent we pay to exist in this world as women.
yeah perform sex if you want, if you’re an adult, yeah don’t punish people for showing skin, but also take a good long look at how teenagers are portrayed in the media, how children are portrayed in the media, how sex is portrayed in the media, how many beauty standards are influenced by pedophilia, and how society looks at literal children teh second their bodies change.
that does make a ton of sense. and I hadn’t considered that specific point. however:
I do think that telling minors that they must be modest (which might be something that they want to do, of their own volition) isn’t helping anyone. minors WILL dress sexually and they WILL have sex. we can only hope that this will be consensual, healthy sex; the way to achieve this is not to accuse anyone who shows a little skin of being abused or groomed, but to provide sex education to all who need it.
I definitely agree with you that teenagers and females are poorly represented in the media, but I think the point you are trying to make sort of strays from that a little. as I see it, people should be able to do what makes them feel most comfortable. I’m a minor who has recovered from an eating disorder and wearing shorts and crop tops is genuinely a source of strength for me. however, it could feel uncomfortable and unnatural to others. and I respect and understand that, and don’t police their clothing. not everyone who wears something short is doing it because they saw megan fox being taken advantage of in a film.
I am not at all saying that being sex positive is the only way to be empowered, I am saying that while I see it is not your thing (and not really mine either, usually) it could be for some people, and telling them to be modest could be just as harmful. I am ALSO not saying to send nudes as a minor, or oversexualise yourself for adults, or do reckless things for the hell of it. I mean all of these things as occurring consensually and safely.
I don’t think modesty and abstinence is realistic and I don’t think everyone chooses to do sexual things because of the media they consume but we definitely need more PG material on teenagers.
If there are no other options available to you, is it really a choice?
God this person is trying so hard to pretend this clear, straightforward post is somehow problematic so they can go around both-sides-ing an issue they literally pulled out of their ass
It is obvious what op is saying. It’s obvious that this is about how refreshing it is to see young girls being young girls in a piece of media, how cathartic and touching it is, especially against the backdrop of constant sexualization that saturates other media representation. It’s also bittersweet because it confronts us with how fast we ourselves had to grow up. How much we were groomed, how ubiquitous sexualization was in our upbringing. This is not about modesty its about letting kids be kids and how little girls are groomed.
Its so annoying when people insist everything has 2 sides, cause then we have situations like this where a rando extrapolates something completely innocuous & understandable to make it look as bad as what it’s denouncing with the sole purpose of virtue-signaling about how fair & impartial they are.
Stop derailing this post. Op isnt saying what you think she’s saying. Learn some nuance and take your arguments somewhere they’re needed.
@rosepaya ’s tags on point
