Taiwanese actress Terri Kwan has raised a storm of controversy since posting a picture of her two-year-old daughter parading around as a Victoria’s Secret lingerie model for Halloween.
You read that right. TWO. YEARS. OLD.
The tot donned a lacy white bra and panties along with the trademark Victoria’s Secret “Angel wings.” As if that wasn’t enough to oversexualize a toddler, Kwan handed her a pink lollipop to suck on to complete the look.
Needless to say, some fans were pretty riled up after the actress posted a photo of the risque get-up for her 346,000 Instagram followers.
“I have been a fan of yours for years now, before and after kids,” wrote one user. “I also never stick my nose in other parents’ business in how or how not to raise their kids. But this is wrong, this is all sorts of wrong. A toddler wearing stuff like this is just disgraceful. Please don’t do it again.”
“As a mother of two young girls, I found these photos very disturbing and uncomfortable,” added another appalled mother. “I would never ever expose my girls body like that! The cyber world has a lot of weird people out there and I would do anything to protect my children from sex predators!”
To make matters worse, the costume was for a Halloween party the child had at her NURSERY of all places.
But Kwan seemed undaunted by the criticism, asking alongside her post on Weibo (China’s equivalent to Twitter) if anyone had ever seen such a “good-looking” and “alluring” model.
Her Weibo following of 240,000 seemed to be more tolerant, with many sloughing it off as “just a costume” that shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Others even called it “cute.”
Well Weibo users, I beg to differ.
We may be inclined to believe that this kind of problem is a world away in China—but the sad truth is, it is not. It’s happening here. Right now. Under our noses. And it needs to stop.
It’s happening in nursery Halloween parties held for two-year-olds where boys too little to even process sexual desires are planted with the seed that girls are sex objects.
It’s happening in our daughters’ dance classes where 8-year-old girls are taught that shaking your money-maker in belly-baring outfits is the key to gaining attention and paving their way to the pop-star “American dream.”
It’s happening in high school hallways where 16-year-old girls are dressing like they think they’re supposed to, while being jokingly called a ‘whore’ by their male counterparts because “it’s funny, right?”
…Only to be raped by him later at party—but it was her fault because she was too drunk, and clearly asking for it with that outfit.
And before we know it, we’re raising a bunch of Regina Georges in a rape culture where “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it.”
So I have just one question for you, Terri Kwan.
How “alluring” is it when your 2-year-old gets targeted by an online predator who specifically trolls the Internet for precisely the type of photo you just posted?
Or when she turns 22, dresses in the SAME sexy lingerie costume on Halloween, and ends up getting blamed and shamed for “asking to get raped” in that outfit?
Is that the time to finally take it seriously?
Is it still cute THEN?
What starts out as apparently innocent and adorable morphs into a society that breeds the “Mean Girls” and Brock Turners of the world—and then we wanna turn around, raise our fists and rant about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket?
Doesn’t quite add up.
And Kwan isn’t the only one at fault. As a culture at large, we NEED to do better.
In the words of Brie Gowen, “It’s not cute. And then there’s this little fact. The world is cruel, and it is full of bad people. People who don’t have the best intentions. People who wish to harm others, take advantage of the weak, and other unspeakable atrocities.”
“It’s definitely outside of today’s norm, but maybe it’s okay to be different. Maybe it’s just fine and dandy. Perhaps kids can be kids, wear clothing that doesn’t look like they’re headed to a magazine, photo shoot, and we can think as parents before we act. We can ask ourselves things like, ‘What am I teaching my child when I put them in booty shorts and tell them to drop it like it’s hot?”
“They’re so much more than the bodies they haven’t even grown into yet, but they count on us to teach them that,” Brie adds. “The world will try its best to go in opposition to maintaining their virtue, so our job as loving parents is to keep it and their sweet spirits intact.”
Let’s start today.
