He's Sexy and He Knows It

A six year old made the front page of the LA Times this morning.  Apparently he's a habitual sexual offender because twice now he's been expelled from school for singing the song "I'm Sexy and I Know It."  For the G Rated version you can click here to see Elmo's parody.  It's a catchy little song.

Around here Zach and I sing it all the time.  Well, okay... I only actually sing the "sexy and I know it" part and the "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" part.  During the wiggle part I waggle my finger at Zach in a very mom-ish kind of way.

Have you ever met a computer geek?  Their concept of what is sexy can seem very odd to a normal person.  Any just released tech gadget that they just got a hold of is deemed "sexy".  A particularly elegant piece of code?  Sexy.  And it's not just geeks... once I saw a demolition team get almost teary eyed when they unpacked a new  "sexy" torch cutter.  (Girl look at that body/girl look at that body/girl look at that body/It works out!)

If nobody has noticed, living in America today is a kind of sexual harassment.  Kids are constantly exposed to hyper-sexualized everything.  Are those little beauty pageant girls expelled for harassment?  Because that's just overt sexuality they are pushing there.  Kids are like little sponges (click here to see the Sponge Bob version, but be careful, I don't think it's rated G) and they learn what we teach them.  I'm not talking about their moms, I'm talking about what society as a whole teaches them.  Don't think of them as kids... think of them as small people.  Putting our culture off limits just to them doesn't really work.

When Hamad was five and starting school I was told that I needed to take him home and read the school's zero tolerance pamphlet about drugs and sexual harassment.  I was further instructed to explain any bits that he didn't understand.  I had to sign and return it stating that I'd gone over it with him and he had to sign it saying that he understood.  I carefully read the many pages but the whole time I was thinking, "He's five.  He doesn't know anything about drugs or sex." Why fill his head with that stuff when he was already trying to figure out if a shark could beat a tiger in a fight?  So I gave him the condensed version:

"When you go to school you aren't allowed to smoke cigars or run around naked."

We both signed the document, feeling that we could live under those terms.  But I do need to say... he's sexy and he knows it.