comfortably numb October 26, 2006
I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I am becoming desensitized to people telling me they are “in love with” my daughters. Not “love,” mind you, “in love”. The security guard at at school, the soccer coach, pre-school teachers (they actually use the phrase “have a crush on”). It’s fascinating to me that these people choose to use the romantic, even sexualized, language they do. It also fits with the thesis of my recent Halloween post that “younger is better”. Not to say that they are directly sexualizing my daughters, per se. I can aknowledge that there is something beautiful, pleasant, and sensual (in it’s true sense, not the sexualized connotation it has currently) about beautiful little girls. I mean, I love to cuddle up with them in the morning before I wake them up and snuggle their yummy, warm little bodies. See, I’m allowed to do that, and like it, and talk about it, because I’m their mother, and it’s generally accepted that my maternal instincts and the biological closeness I share with them is a unique, desxualized, and irreplicable relationship. But it seems to me that it would be (conceptually, because I’m not letting them anywhere near my daughters!) a nice experience for other people too, but they’re not allowed to do it, or even talk about it, without coming off as lecherous. So either we as a society have to create more socially acceptable and aknowledged ways to talk about sensuality without implying overt sexuality, or daddy’s going to have to get the shotgun.
