There are appropriate times and places for a range of human emotions and responses. To ignore this aspect of humanity in order to promote an apparent distaste for sports is no great accomplishment. – Tim

It’s as if you’ve tapped the primal core, and try as you might to engage a rational discourse it simply won’t happen.

People don’t like your liberal point of view. People like your liberal point of view. People want to defend sports. People want to help explain the parent’s point of view.

No one seems to want to debate your main thesis – that boys are gender-expolited too. I guess when we reach the point when people can actually discuss these things rationally, we may not have the problems we have today.

your logic is retarted
sports is constructive – shaping the body and mind;
improving the physical strength of the body and the sharpness of the mind –

sexualizing girls is deconstructive – perverting the body and the purpose of sexuality

be a masculine man – if you’re a man
be a feminine woman – if you’re a woman
and you’ll be much happier

Parents care about things like that.

But the feeling I got then, as now, is that the girls aren’t flaunting their sexuality or anything like that. They are performing in the only way they know to get attention and popularity and adoration, which they require because of their desperately low self-worth. They’ve got the message that their bodies are their value, and what they can do with them behind closed (or not-so-closed) doors. The girls I knew who engaged in sexual stuff in middle school were all desperately unhappy, and they were letting others lead them around by it like a bull by the ring in its nose.

I’m not anti-girl sexuality (far from it; I probably am the person who lost their virginity at the earliest age, 14, among my friends & associates — and I don’t regret it at all). I’m not patronizing “oh girls, low self-esteem, can’t be allowed to be sexual!” blah de blah. That’s just the way it was when I was in school — sadness; doing what they were expected to do, trying to be little busybee mini-adults but, like children often do, totally misunderstanding and skewing the reality of adulthood; going along for the ride like they had no way to get out of the rollercoaster cart. (The # of sad girls had been reduced a lot, %-wise, by mid-High School, I’ll note. By the time girls are feeling sexual because it’s fun.)

If they were happy and delighting in it, I’d feel differently. But I’m haunted by the image of one of “happy in public, hopeless in private” socialite girls who was trying to borrow money from one of the very at-ease, full-of-himself popular boys, and was practically begging and whisper-hissing, “I’ll pay you back later.” It was obviously a suggestive offer, but all she wanted was to be able to buy some fries at lunch.

Sexuality, as aggressivity are important feelings. But they are not suitable for seventh-graders. Aggressivity is important in a certain way, for war is sometimes necessary. Worrying about girls’ sexuality is not invalid if it’s not together with the worry on boys’ aggressiveness. It’s as the worry on Africa poverty wasn’t valid if not together with the worry on Middle East and South America violence.

We have evolved our behaviour, from the animal-like (eating, sleeping, wenching) to the “we-call-it-human”. Returning to our ancestor behaviours on sex matters, rejecting all the moral asserts that centuries gifted us on that, is not evolution, it’s involution or devolution. It’s called pre-trans fallacy. It occurs when you think that you are evolving, but you are going back. Chesterton has a good quote on this thing: “When you do not believe on God, it’s not that you don’t believe in nothing, you believe in anything” (somewhat freely quoted). Despite your religion thinkings, that I do not know what are, what he means is, when you become too skeptic, you have just become a believer on everything. You think you are better, you are worse.

If you care about our social and moral evolution, if you care about what makes us diffferent from animals, you have to worry about extreme sexualization. As I said, sexuality is important, and I think it’s also a mistake to put a burka in every woman, subject to death by stoning if she neglects. Nevertheless, Mr. Downes is precise on his worries. Maybe your feminism (that I do not consider neither a good or bad quality) was touched when he meaned “boys don’t do such things”, maybe if I was a woman, I would feel insulted too, but he is worried about women and, despite what he meant, his warning can be a first step towards a rational development of sexuality. He has some points, you have one, and this one does not invalidated his’.

Thanks for your time, and sorry for the “Engrish”. Greetings from Brazil.

But human expression of anything is a tricky thing, and we’re just about guaranteed to offend somebody with everything that we do, be we male, female, or somewhere in the middle.

It also underscores one of my beliefs, that it’s a mistake for women to attempt to increase their aggressiveness. How can women improve their lot by adopting the worst qualities of men (and vice versa)? If girls can be constantly reassured that it’s good to be forceful, dynamic, and decisive, while boys can be reminded that these qualities do not equate with hostility, both genders will benefit.

But I confess — I’m a big football fan.

Well said, this is one of the fears that drives parents behavior and decisions. As most fears go, this one is full of falsehoods. Girls can be and many times are just as aggressive and out-of-control as the boys are.