The Old Paths: Are we being boiled alive?

**Published in honor of “Human Trafficking Awareness Day” on January 11, 2016.

*This was published in The Stokes News in April 2013, in my regular column, “The Old Paths.” Due to the fact that all Internet links were broken to our old articles when Civitas Media switched websites, I am slowly but surely posting all of my old columns in my blog so that they will be archived as they SHOULD’VE been on the newspaper website.

Most of us have heard that you can boil a frog alive if you do it slowly enough. The idea is that if you put a frog in a pan of hot water, it will jump out. But if you place it in a pan of cold water and heat it up very slowly, the change is so imperceptible that the live frog will eventually allow itself to be boiled to death.

Whether or not this is scientifically true, the frog analogy of “we do not react to change when it is gradual” is an accurate one.

Take your weight, for instance. When you put on the pounds in a gradual manner, you may not realize just how “fluffy” you’ve gotten. Then you look at an old picture of yourself and are amazed by the change. “How did I not see this happening?” you ask.

Because the change was so slow, day by day, that it was not really noticeable.

I wonder how often this analogy proves true in other areas of our lives. This hit me when I attended my son’s dance competition recently with my hubster. I had been to many such competitions before. But seeing it through new eyes–my hubster’s–was very enlightening to me.

It wasn’t long before he turned to me with startled eyes and asked, “So THIS is what it’s all about?” And suddenly, I saw what he saw–little girls in skimpy outfits doing moves that used to be reserved for pole dancers. I’m not talking teenage girls; these were girls of the barely-out-of-or-still-in-elementary-school variety.

The girls did not belong to my son’s dance school which tries to choreograph more tasteful routines with deep meanings rather than the routines that appeal to the–yes, I’m going to say it–sexual senses. A group of about six dance moms in front of us were “whoopin’ and hollerin’” and yelling, “That’s right! Move it, girls!”

Besides the fact that these moms were downright annoying, it hit me that they were cheering on these dancers to do moves that their grandmothers would’ve fainted dead away upon witnessing. Are these the moms who will dress their pre-teen girls in the clothing line called “Bright Young Things” being marketed now by a major company known for lingerie?

You know, the line that includes a thong trimmed with lace that reads “Call me” on the front, shorty shorts that say “Wild” on the rear end and polka-dot hipsters with the words “Feeling Lucky?” printed on them. When I saw this, I literally felt sick to my stomach.

I am troubled by this trend to brainwash girls with the idea that “Sex sells.” Why are we parents shocked when cell phones are banned in middle schools because our daughters (and sons) are taking nasty pictures of themselves in the bathrooms? Why are we stunned when our kids are having sex regularly throughout high school and girls are becoming pregnant out of wedlock at younger and younger ages?

I feel sorry for the little girls who are being fed a double-minded message here. “We’ll allow you to wear itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny bikinis while parading around the local pools, and we’ll dress you in skimpy black leather for dance competitions where you do pelvic-thrusting moves, and we’ll buy you short shorts with provocative phrases on the rear end, but no boy better touch you!”

I also feel sorry for boys with raging hormones–a teenage fact of life–who are confronted daily with such clothing or lack of. My 17-year-old son confided in me that boys his age are sometimes tormented by a girl’s scanty clothing. Skimpy and/or tight clothing laden with “Come hither” screen-printed words seem to be designed to attract a boy in a way that unfortunately increases his appetite, and I don’t mean for fried chicken.

(And no, I do NOT believe that a girl in such attire who gets raped or assaulted asked for it. Men have a responsibility to control themselves regardless!)

This is not a Sunday School lesson nor a religious commentary. I won’t even mention the Bible or God. Whether or not you are religious, this should be an issue that you ponder carefully in a world that is seeing more and more sex trafficking.

Did you know that an estimated 12.3 million people right now are considered slaves–most of them sex slaves? The average age of a sex slave is 13, and the majority of them are girls. And no, it’s not just in the former Soviet Union. Our nation has a huge sex trafficking problem. In fact, many legitimate organizations rank my home state of North Carolina in the top 10 for this problem.

“Sex trafficking? Oh, that’s farfetched stuff!” you argue. Well, the increase in child pornography isn’t. With easy access to the Internet, the viewing of pornography has escalated to epic proportions. Statistics say that every second, 28,258 people are viewing a nude picture of somebody’s daughter.

Are we like the frog that has had the water heated so slowly that we don’t even know it? Just 50 years ago on the old paths, much of the dancing in today’s dance competitions would have been seen only in strip clubs. Meanwhile, the little girls of that day wore saddle oxfords and mid-shin-length dresses.

But little by little, the water heated up, and the change was so subtle we didn’t realize it. Now it’s here, and we accept it as normal in our culture.

My son dances fully covered and doesn’t do the risque moves that predominate the female dancing, but even so I am going to have to heavily ponder his situation. I don’t want to be boiled alive. Let’s jump out of the pot, shall we?