How much do you wanna bet that they'll wear it backwards anyways?

At my old high school, there were two "divisions" of girl (There was some grey area inbetween). The dumb, skanky girls, and the smart, nicely dressed girls. Before I moved, I saw three senior pregnancies and one junior pregnancy (and this was at a small high school! My class was only about 100 students). Maybe that's not 12 years old, but a junior is 16/17 years old. The school that I'm at now seems to be a bit smarter in that I haven't heard of any pregnancies. And girls seem to dress a little more conservatively. Just my observations.

Actually Slavakion you're right, now that they showed it being worn backwards on TV, more kids probably will wear it like that. Nice, the media tries to cause a stir amongst parents and ends up causing a new fashon statement.

I agree even if you take out the dress which is being worn backwards, the others are still too revealing. I'm not saying that I think kids should be wearing nun's habits, but cover up something, my god.

Last year, in the middle school I went to, there was a sixth grader, a girl about 12 years old, who was pregnant for a SECOND time. When I was in sixth grade, there was a girl in my class who was pregnant. It's not as uncommon as you think.


Now, in response to the dresses... I opted not to go to prom when I was in high school. And if I HAD gone, there is no way in hell that I would have worn those dresses. However, I did go to a couple of semi-formal dances, and I saw several girls in two-piece dresses: a bikini top and a long skirt. Completely inappropriate, IMO.

i like the blue one, i wore something like it to one of my proms....

I saw that on the Today show. I can't imagine anyone from my high school wearing that to Prom! No way... most girls are too insecure about their bodies for that... and maybe where I'm from, we are more traditional, as well. Interesting, though...

I don't know, I'd have to say I haven't heard of many teenage pregnancies. To say that "It's not as uncommon as you think" is true, but in the same respect it's not as common as it's being blown out of proportion to be. Pregnant teens are a minority, and some are truely bad apples. My previous school had a student body of 1700 and I never heard of a teenage pregnancy, and on top of that my new school also has a student body of roughly 1700 and so far no such stories, still. Of course that begs the question "are you in the know?", and at least for my previous school I most definately was.

Citing planned parenthood is a bad example imo, that's like saying "adults are chronic alcoholics, I went to an AA meeting and you'd be surprised how many adults there were chronic alcoholics." Sober individuals without drinking problems just don't go to AA meetings. Now I don't know what kind of doubts you had about sex between teenagers. In fact you just mentioned you had doubts about teenage sex-- but didn't say what those doubts were. That it occurred? Or that it was as frequent as sex between adults?

In my previous post I think I conveyed the wrong idea that teenage sex doesn't occur at 13, or give or take a couple of years. It does, but for a small minority.

Of course this is all relevant to my experience- I think it does have a lot to do with socio-economic status. My peers in high school are from families who are either right above the poverty line (30/40k a year families) to families with better incomes (say 90k a year families, that's a hard thing to point out because you can't go up to them and ask them what their incomes are haha). I would hypothesize it would be worse in the bad neighbourhoods.

But to address the topic posters questions which I should've just done in my first post:
Would you wear such a dress back when you went to the prom?
No, being a guy and all. :p

Is there a trend towards teens dressing trashier?
Yes, imo almost completely due to bad influences by the media combined with horrible parenting (i.e. letting children be exposed to those bad influences).

Are stores appropriate in asking for a "permission slip" before selling one of these dresses to a teenager?
Stores as a business are seeking to make money and don't care. The exception would be the store owners who as individuals refuse the teenager's business which, at least here is percectly legal to do. So to answer wether they would be appropriate in asking for a permission slip, I'd have to say that it's just a way to make it seem like they care...

If parents are actually letting their kids wear these dresses then they shouldn't be surprised that they may be sexually active. Why else wear such a revealing dress, than to look as good as you possibly can for your man or kid-date. Parents aren't doing their job if their daughters are wearing these sex-object dresses!!

i suppose that depends on what you mean by "blown out of proportion." that every teen is having sex? i know that isn't true. that the majority of teens are? well, you'd have to redefine teen, 13-19 is "teen" but i don't think there as many 13 year olds having sex as there are 19 year olds.

teen pregnancy is a horse of a different color. you must be having sex to get pregnant, but having sex doesn't mean that you will get pregnant. birth control is readily available regardless of age.


well, since i was in college at the time, that was pretty much my only involvement with any teens. and planned parenthood is often associated with the younger population but it offers services to women and men of any age. you don't have to be sexually active to use their services, not all of the clients i saw were. do you go to the dentist for check-ups or only when you have a toothache?

and i wasn't saying that all teenagers are having sex, but that it is definetly happening. and when i talked with a few dozen girls (under age 16) in my average sized community who were not only sexually active but had a significant number of partners, it left an impression.

actually, i said that any doubts i may have had, which doesn't mean there were any. i was well aware it was happening and that it wasn't at all uncommon. as frequent as sex between adults? no. as infrequent as sex between 8 year old children? no. this was a hot topic even when i was a teen and i remember writing several school papers on the subject of sexual activity and education among teens for various health and english courses. keep in mind that at the time, we were relying on stats even older than the '95 ones i presented here, but there was still the question of if the media was blowing it out of proportion (and if sex ed was contributing to increased sexual activity).

this is the latest info i could find on the subject http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/04news/teens.htm

they don't discuss sexual activity for those under the age of 15. but as of 2002, 30% of girls 15-17 are sexually active (which was down from 38% in 1995), compared to 31% of boys (down from 43% in '95). the numbers increase for teens 18-19 with girls at 69% (up from 68% in 1995) and boys at 64% (down from 75% in '95).

so a little more than twice as many teens are sexually active at 18-19 compared to 15-19. i may be a little older than you but the '95 stats are a better reflection of what it was like when i was in school.

to state numbers for teens below 15 would be a guess, unless you have more time than i do and wanna find some stats :D at any rate, 15 is still pretty young and 3 out of 10 isn't what i personally would consider a small minority.

also, as i recall from my own teen years, oral wasn't really sex (and neither was anal for that matter). the older i got though, the more likely such behavior was accepted as sexual activity. afaik, no official data exists on any activity other than vaginal intercourse. depending on how a person chooses to view "sexual activity" the stats offered by the nchs could be way off.

my community has a similar status but with a wider range. i went to school with plenty of kids that lived at or below the poverty line (under 20k) as well as those who were from families easily earning 10 times as much. the majority of us fell somewhere in between. right around the 60-80k mark if i were to guess (based off my own family's income level at the time).

*edit* found this link http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/3229800.html that deals with the subject of oral sex among teens. apparently, there is no accurate statistical data.

In 1988, '89, and '90, which are the three years I attended proms at my school (my boyfriend's senior, and my junior and my senior, and not counting the proms I attended with friends at other schools) I wore black cocktail dresses to each one. At the time, I had a hard time convincing the school administration to allow me to attend in the dresses I chose, since in the late '80s, short tight black adult dresses were not the prom attire of choice. My mom went to bat for me, and I got to wear them. Admittedly, they didn't show as much flesh as those dresses.... the most revealing of them was similar to #8 of the dresses in question.... but it was bias cut at the neckline and the hemline, with the fringe.

I also already had the reputation to go with the dresses, too.... *shrugs* I don't know what I'd do if my own (hypothetical) daughter wanted to wear one, but I'd like to think I wouldn't be a hypocrite. Meh, good thing I don't have (or ever will have) kids, I guess. *grins*

I really don't think a store should need a permission slip for the person. If the dress is inappropriate, they will find out 1 of two ways. Their parents will make them take it back, or they won't be allowed to attend prom. If they pass these little tests, then apparently its appropriate. Personally i wish more girls at my school would wear this stuff but they don't cuz my principles a dick head

I remember at my prom, which was some time ago, dresses like that were not allowed. My daughter will definetly not be wearing anything like that when her prom comes around. Thank God she is only 9 months old right now, and I don't have to worry about stuff like this for some time. The fact that girls today seem to want to grow up so fast does concern me. The girls in middle school and high school today look and act nothing like the girls that I went to school with. Whatever happened to enjoying your childhood and acting like a child?

I don't see a problem with numbers 1, 7, 8, or 10. Look fine to me.

- Undercover_Man

Here are a few more to add to this old thread...

Somehow, posing with your mother makes this ok.
http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/image...M%20DRESS2.jpg

Look at all that gold.
http://cm1.theinsider.com/thumbnail/...or_5.12.08.jpg

I think they're actually trying to sell this one...
http://www.thefashionpolice.net/imag...s_orange_2.jpg

And to show that it's not just a trend from the past, here's a story from March in the New York Post. Prom dresses going risqu this year - NYPOST.com

*hides head in sand and pretends that teenagers aren't having sex*

Costume shop had $30 tuxes....hell yeah.

In the article genuinegirly posted, it says the principal doesn't let girls in if they wear an exposing dress. I'm sure most schools are like that, mine is, so they can buy the dress all the want, but they won't get into the prom with it.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3aJ8Kxqfu3Q/0.jpg
http://cdn3.knowyourmeme.com/i/000/0...jpg?1273395284

Damn, this thread is deader than Vincent Price.

There's a difference between having sex (something most of us did in high school) and looking like a really garish prostitute. I'm all for the first one and the second one is fine when it isn't related to a school function. That and I don't see anybody here attempting to legislate Victoria decorum.

#57 tripped someone's trigger...

That's from genuinegirly's post. Did anyone else see the creepy kid in the background?

And willravel, that "me gusta" picture had me crying.