A friend of mine passed this to me when it was published, and I was really elated, and thought Seventeen deserved big props for doing it.

But lo: while the usual sexist and sex-selling tripe was considered fine to have on the shelves in grocery stores, and the common content of teen mags which in effect tries to sell girls their own bodies via cosmetics and fashiion focus and advertising is okay, by one chain (and no doubt plenty more) this wasn't.

What do you think about this?

And statements like this: "'Once their innocence is gone, it's gone,' said Debbie Cottingham, 42, toting groceries alongside her 14-year-old daughter. She said it's her job as a mother to teach her three daughters about their bodies.

(As if knowing about your own anatomy makes you less innocent? Why the heck are vulvas and vaginas somehow different from elbows or mouths in this respect? And why is it okay to SELL the vagina, or the promise of its sexual use, but not to explain its health and functions?)

I shop at that grocery store, and I've never heard of them actually pulling a magazine. I'd rather see a well done article on a woman's body than what Cosmo sells.

One thing in particular stood out to me (warning! history/senior research/rant coming on!):

"Once their innocence is gone, it's gone," said Debbie Cottingham, 42, toting groceries alongside her 14-year-old daughter. She said it's her job as a mother to teach her three daughters about their bodies.

Uh, not from my research, it ain't. Early in the 1900's, Victorian mothers passed that duty to the doctors and Girl Scouts. It was against their high moral ideals to discuss such unsavory topics.

In the fifties, they passed that duty to the product companies and to the schools. Heck, at least it wasn't the Girl Scouts anymore!

Today, that job has been passed to the product companies, the family doctor and the internet.

(See Brumberg's Body Project and Karen Houppert's The Curse for more info, if you'd like.)

There's a reason that 17 ran that article--it's because fewer and fewer mothers are actually doing anything to TEACH their daughters. I understand it's not all mother's who have passed on that duty, but it's quite a few of them. Besides--at fourteen, her daughter has already seen Molly Grows Up or some other modern variation.

The videos are crap, frankly. I hope they've gotten better. But anyhoo. Bravo to 17, and shame on the Victorian-esque parents who have gotten their knickers in a twist.

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- PERVasive

But more informed? Yes, absolutely. I think that's both valid and common enough. More savvy? Maybe. More exposed? Absolutely.

I do think -- not to defend that mother, because I think it was an utterly moronic comment and really sexist, to boot -- that sometimes those concerns are coming from a sincere, caring place, from a wish that teen girls weren't wrrying, for instance, that their bodies as they are are not right, that they're not healthy, et cetera. From the realistic knowledge that their kids likely WILL get that information elsewhere, when parents wish it'd be from them, even if they know better from their own teen years.

Mind you, I think there are also crappy motives of control, envy and the lot, too, but not anything close to always. I also think that saying this shouldn't be available is hgwash: an attentive parent would snap up to the fact that it is, see an opportunity, and share that information with their kid.

And Beppie, I hear you, and I agree.

Just as an aside, I've noticed in my research a distinct change in attitudes about "ownership" of a girls body after 1972--that was the year a doctor was sued for giving a girl spermicidal foam and showing birth control during a lecture. Many of the things I'm reading hail that as a landmark.

There's still a residual, obviously, of the idea of "joint ownership" of a girls body. But I'm glad it's not nearly as prevelant as it was thirty years ago.