I hereby decree…
Babies aren’t sexy!
Happy Epiphany, everyone! It’s the official last day of the 2010 Christmas season, which in practice mostly just means that tomorrow it’s time to take down the decorations and for me to put my Santa Claus pin away until Thanksgiving. Always sad. But, contrary to my perhaps unsatisfactory posting frequency when it isn’t December, Sure, Why Not? is still here to celebrate the win, the fail, and the lulz.
Now let’s talk about the sexualization of infants…
Is anyone else really creeped out by ads on TV and elsewhere for skin products that seem to place a lot of emphasis on the smoothness of a baby’s skin? There’s that Johnson & Johnson baby oil ad that’s been on a few times where throughout the entire thing, some woman is downright fondling a little baby. It starts off with her kissing him on the lips, and throughout she also kisses his feet and rubs his baby-smooth stomach and arms and face. Why? Because he’s a little baby that makes his skin so smooth and fun to touch and rub! Oh joy!
Also creepy are ads for women’s skin products that at some point show a baby or toddler to point out that this cream will make your skin feel all smooth like theirs! Use this skin cream and your skin will be so soft you’ll feel like a baby! A sexy baby. Or a baby-like woman. Textural attractiveness means your features feeling like you spent most of the past year in a womb, be it the smooth baby skin as dictated by skin creams and moisturizers or soft baby hair as sung by Hall & Oates (though they at least think the eyes should be a woman’s).
Of course, the infantilization of women isn’t exactly new and is something feminists have been battling in several forms for about as long as there have been feminists!
Hey, I’m not saying anything against smooth skin. That’s fine. But when extolling how attractive and hot and sexy smooth soft skin and other features are, think you could, you know, leave the little kids out of that one? We really shouldn’t be encouraging people to find their features attractive and definitely not to feel them up!
And can we get rid of the phrase “smooth as a baby’s behind”? You’re talking about someone’s ass, for God’s sake!
*takes down lights, takes off pin*
