On her show yesterday, Tyra Banks talked with women who wanted to be legal prostitutes in Nevada. One particular woman is Summer, an 18 year old wannabe porn star, and her father, who also happens to be her manager. Not only is her father her manager, he helps pick out her clothes, does her hair and gives her bikini waxes, all shown for Tyra's cameras.
He tells her, "Always make sure your make-up is right as you have to be every man's fantasy." Doesn't that imply that she has to be his fantasy as well?
The kicker is at the end of the clip, the father is dropping the daughter off at the brothel. She's crying and unsure of if she wants go and he's telling her, "The decision is made, this is what you want to do. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but go in there and think happy thoughts." It's hard to not see the situation as coercive... I wonder growing up how much he pushed the idea on her growing up. Talk about the sexualization of children.
I'm so appalled at his behavior and I feel bad for the girl. I wonder if she wouldn't want to be a prostitute had he been a better influence in her life. Someone's going to have a lot of therapy bills, that's for sure.
And by the way, Tyra needs to get more upset about the fact that the father is practically forcing her to be a prostitute than that he's giving her bikini waxes (although that, too, is upsetting. Just focusing on what's a bigger violation).
Video at Jezebel and h/t to the F-Word.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
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4 comments:
This is one of the sickest things I have ever heard. yes the bikini waxing is every type of wrong, but forcing your daughter into prostitution, I am pretty sure people leave other countries and come to ours to get away from that kinda thing. honest I am beyond filled with the heebee jeebies.
Yeah, this really disturbed me, too, and I am pro-pornography and pro-sex workers. The fact that this really seems to be a father exercising undue influence about his daughter's career path is what got me. Not cool, man. Let her be her own woman. >_<
From the information given this seems pretty seedy, however, I am aware that there are sex industry workers who have actually asked their parents to manage their careers, as they trust them to not exploit them like some unknown agent, much like this father did...
As for grooming, its a two way street. If you really want honest details on my opinions on this I would be happy to open a mature dialog regarding standards of grooming.
I would just like to say, Andrew, that the feeling I got from the video (and perhaps this was due to editing...but that's what I have to go on right now) was that the father really really wanted her to go into sex work. It showed her crying on the way to the brothel, and he was like, "It's been decided that you're gonna do this...blah blah." It seemed like pressure to me.
If not for that, I could believe that yeah, she just wanted her father to be her manager. But I didn't get that feeling. More like her father wanted him to be her manager.
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