VAJAZZLED by Sophie Flynn.

I was sitting at my boyfriend’s house on a regular Sunday afternoon when his niece came up to me looking upset. We’ve all seen it, that little girl grimace and quivering lip. I half heartedly expected her to come out with a phrase like, “Uncle Piers was mean to me, he hit me,” or “ I dropped my bracelet down a drain,” or the all time favourite among kids aged seven to eleven, “I fell off my bike and cut my knee…wahhhhhhh.” No … This time I was horrified by the words that materialized, she drew back a breath and mumbled, “I’m too fat.” I sat there for a moment wondering what to say, before asking her who told her that? I wanted to hunt them down, put them in a choker hold and tomb stone them off a cliff.
It got me thinking, where did all this madness start?! Women’s glossy magazines, MTV, The Pussy Cat Dolls, Disney channel? Who’s to blame for this nonsense?

What about ‘The Only Way is Essex,’ the popular TV show was in the spotlight recently when the press reported the selling of ‘vajazzle’ to children. What is ‘vajazzle?’ Well it's only jewellery, for your genitalia. Has the world gone absolutely mad? Since when did I need jewellery on my fanny and as for children… lets NOT go there.

Could we blame ‘Hannah Montana?’ A generation of children have watched her grow up, living her dream on screen with pink hair and a pop career? Maybe Montana’s been vajazzled, who knows. How about Disney? Are they turning kids into sex symbols far too early? Only recently a tanning parlour in Essex was reported to be spray tanning children as young as two. Pop culture makes it impossible to avoid the likes of body image and the music industry is as sexed up as ever. Are we sexualizing our kids with song lyrics and sexy clothing?
There’s only one way to get inside the head of a seven year old. That’s right. I’m going to become one. Unfortunately I haven’t got a time machine. But I have got the medium to completely immerse myself in every single one of the above. ‘The Pussy Cat Dolls’, ‘Hannah Montana,’ women’s lifestyle magazines and ‘The only way is Essex.’ Whether I come out the other side alive is yet to be known, hopefully not vajazzled.

TBC.