High Street Hussies

My rule of thumb, when it comes to women's fashion is: "if you are too young to cross the street without holding onto your mother's hand, then you are too young to be dressed as a harlot."

Maybe this is becoming more prominent, or maybe I'm just turning into an old curmudgeon, but it seems to me more and more parents are happy to tart up their pre-teens as if they are budding streetwalkers. Is it really that difficult to get by on dole payments these days?

I don't recall things being quite so bad in the US when I was there but I can't vouch for the way things might be now. You may be ahead of us for all I know, but I tend to doubt it; surely you'd be drawing in more tourism if that were the case.

Nothing good can come from this behavior. For the parents, it means buying overly expensive clothing (and, one must hope, added anxiety about what their single-digit daughters are up to), for the children it means the truncating of their childhood (you youngsters will never agree with me on this but wait until you're my age, cupcake, then you'll wish you had another year or two of blissful, childhood innocence) and for us old folks, it means premature heart attacks (not from lust, but from grumbling about it). The only winners here are the shops on the High Street and, 11-year-old boys and, sad to say, pedophiles.

With our summers becoming longer, sunnier and hotter, this trend can only become worse as fewer and fewer body parts are deemed worthy of clothing. You'd think, in this weather, they'd want to cover up to avoid sunstroke.

I realize seeing a child dressed that way gives people no right to assume anything about her, but an American comedian has come up with an appropriate come-back for girls who are insulted by the assumptions made about them:

"Suppose I put on a policeman's uniform and someone runs up to me and says a guy is being mugged on the next block and I should do something about it. Does that give me to right to be outraged and exclaim, 'Just because I'm dressed this way what gives you the right to assume I'm a policeman?'"

"You might not be a whore, but you're wearing a whore's uniform."

If you'll excuse me, I have to go hunt up my blinders; we're going to sit in the park to enjoy the nice weather and I don't want to be distracted.