March 27, 2011
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Padded Bikini Tops for 8 Year Old Girls
Abercrombie & Fitch is coming under fire for its new line of padded bikini tops designed for 8-year-old girls.
There is a big outcry about how it is leading to the “sexualization” of these young girls. Here is the link: Link
I thought all girls and women bikini tops were padded. I didn’t realize that was to make the boobs bigger even for adults.
Do you think it is wrong to pad the bikini tops of 8 year old girls?
Comments (102)
1st
Padded bikinis and bras marketed to children are just wrong. Of course, good luck finding a cute, nice fitting bra for a young teenager that isn’t padded.
Depends on the size of the padding. There is padding in most bikinis just to avoid too much nipple show-age.
But if there was more than adequate padding for that reason, I would object strenuously.
It’s disturbing.
Dear Dan,
I just always wanted to do that.
I think it’s wrong to sexualize 8 year old girls. I’m not sure if padding the bikini tops is doing this or not.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
I thought they always put padding in bikinis and stuff to hide the headlights..
So that’s why the bikini top I bought didn’t fit…
@Wait_by_Moonlight - agreed.
I am not sure that this is wrong. When I see a gal of any age wearing a bikini, I don’t think about the padding.
I’m with @Wait_by_Moonlight I think that padding would be so you couldnt see their little nibblets. I know when my neice was 8 she hated if they would show in her bathing suit and would wear tank tops over it. I would hope that they didnt pad their suit tops so 8 yr old girls could look like they had boobies. People sexualize every damn thing, it’s sickening.
@Wait_by_Moonlight - this is what i was thinking. if it’s more than enough to conceal nipples then yeah it’s wrong. but all bathing suit tops are gonna have some padding in them for that reason. can’t have the nips poking through! lol.
if it’s like..push up bra kind of padding though then yes that’s wrong.
Well, when I was 8, my bikinis didn’t have padding..and I was fine. So, I don’t understand why it’s necessary to have padding unless you’re trying to make young girls look sexy, which is disgusting.
lining to hide nipples is fine. padding to enhance cleavage is wrong.
@Wait_by_Moonlight - agreed
thats messed up.
Dan, I’m disappointed in you. Lovelyish already did a post on this. I know it’s not technically xanga, but still. You’re usually more original then that! Tisk tisk.
I wouldnt buy my 8 yr old little girl a bikini = problem solved.
Padding for modesty is different than padding for push-up. In just about every woman’s or girl’s bathing suit there is padding in the chest for modesty. These bikini tops from Abercrombie say push-up, so the padding is to push up the girl’s chest. I think that is wrong and is blatantly sexualizing young girls. Children should not be worrying about their boob size until they are well into their teen years. Not to mention that this will just give child molesters “eye candy.” UGH!
You’d think A&F would have learned from the last dozen or so scandals in their children clothes lines.
A&F is only providing parents an additional purchase-option. If there is really no market for it, then the product will phase out of existance.
Little girls can hardly go topless, any more than the rest of femininity, outside of adults in private areas. That said, underage females should not be sexualized. I don’t regard little girls in two piece swimsuits as being sexualized. Two piece swimsuits don’t necessarily have to be skimpy, either.
I took my 8 year old daughter to the store and she thought that they revealed too much skin so she said she was going to go home and starve herself until she could look good in a bikini.
The idea of this is for 8 year olds (and possibly younger) to appear to have womanly shapes because of the padding… ewww, there is something wrong with this. 8 year olds should be unattractively girl-like, not woman-like. Their padding should be baby fat, and that’s it!
@MomGoneMadd - I agree. I have a bigger problem with them making bikinis for girls that age, not the padding. Of course they’ve had bikinis for kids for a while, but I still think it’s wrong. I hate seeing toddlers in them. It just seems so wrong…
Honestly, I question the idea of little girls wearing bikinis in the first place because of the creepers in this world. Maybe if they’re older and to a point where they can technically defend themselves… if they choose to wear a bikini, then so be it. Adding padding to a bikini for a little girl is just wrong, and yes, I can agree that it’s sexualizing children. Heck, children in this day and age get grown too fast as it is; we surely don’t need to be helping them along with something like that.
@caffeinated_mama - We were shopping at Target the other night and they had these teeny tiny short shorts in the juniors section I had to wonder what the point was, they were like underpants short!!! As long as people buy that garbage for their little girls, the designers are going to keep making them, it’s unfortunate they are in such a hurry to let little girls grow up and dress like ho’s so fast.
I wouldn’t allow my daughters to wear a bikini till they were much older. If the purpose for that is to make them look “sexy” then I agree with everyone who said that is disgusting. I wouldn’t want some perv looking at my daughters. I had a big chest at 8 years old and didn’t need a padded bra or top. I was never one to want any sort of attention because of that. Besides, I think those things would feel uncomfortable no matter what. I wouldn’t want padding in my top.
Look, some 8 year olds develop breasts early. But even if they don’t, they all have nipples! And every female’s nipples harden when they get cold in water. Padding makes it so that it’s not noticeable. I’m not for the sexualization of children in the slightest, but no one wants their nipples poking out of their bathing suits. Especially not 8 year old children who are already embarrassed about their changing bodies anyways. Who cares if they’re padded? That’s a good thing. The weird thing to me is the shape of them. I don’t know if triangle tops for kids is okay or not. I think that if I were a mother I wouldn’t restrict my daughter from wearing a two piece, but I would make sure that it was a tankini or something. I can see the problem with too much padding, but everyone needs a little bit, no matter what the age.
I don’t understand why 8-year-olds are wearing bikinis to begin with. Isn’t the point of that to accentuate a female’s upper assets? I mean… They don’t have anything there yet! What’s the point? And what kind of sick **** find bikinis attractive on children anyway?
Dan this is fucked-up. Even for you. Clubbing baby seals would be more attractive to me.
this is the work of child pornography lovers.
Yeah, it is.
Is Abercrombie really at fault, just for selling a product to a market that’s buying? Whose parents are buying these things for their children? That’s the real question.
it would be wrong if their parents actually bought it for them. it says 8-14yr olds. the preteen part is creepy. I still wore a one piece during my freshman year of high school for my swim class because I didn’t want any mishaps with my bikini top if I wore a two piece and the p.e. teacher was very creepy and I didn’t like how he looked at the other female students, who wore 2 piece bikinis. ugh~ I only wore one piece swimsuits when I was a kid and I picked the girliest pyschedelic paint splattered print swimsuit with frills and a partial tutu skirt because the adult looking swimsuits with boring colors were lame.
I didn’t wear any bra when i was 8!
i had flat or no boobs at all at that age….DAMN what is the world getting into…. i feel so old at 21!
i mean i didn’t have boobs as big as i have them now….damn! I. AM. SO. SHOCKED! GAHD!
What is wrong is the parents who will cave to the little girl who demands it be bought for her because she wants to emulate her favorite Skins or Gossip Girl character. Yes. You can be sure 8 year olds are watching along with their mothers and/or older sisters. These shows are not only made to sexualize young girls but to lead them to believe their sole value comes from their sexuality.
yay more jon benet ramsays
@baldmike2004 - lol
I agree with Sparkletone about questioning the idea of little girls wearing bikinis in the first place. But I always thought the padding was to keep nipples from showing through. At least, on the rare occasions I wore one myself that’s what I thought. Many women’s bathing suits, bikini or not, have padding in various places to try to keep things from showing through…for those who don’t want those things showing through. To be honest, maybe some men’s bathing suits should have a little more padding to keep things from showing through too. hehe
8 year olds shouldn’t be wearing such skimpy clothing anyway. tankinis are fine, but bikinis are too revealing, regardless of whether they’re padded or not.
Just make them get implants, flatties!
I don’t think it’s a bad thing, it really just offers more to cover up the goods. If it’s not padded, you can see way more..
all i know is that my parents did not let me wear a bikini when i was 8 years old, haha.. padded or not padded. : )
I never thought of padding bathing suit tops as something to make my boobs bigger. I just thought they covered nippled and helped support my boobs.
As I mentioned in the loveleyish article: most of the girls in my 4th grade year were already getting decent sized breasts. Actually, at 10 years old I was considered a late bloomer. So I don’t see anything wrong with this.
It’s not so much that they are padded (because the padding is for anyone who is self-conscious about their nipples showing) but that they are push-up bras, which children don’t really need.
No, not all bikinis are padded. I have a padded one just because it offers more support. But it also makes my boobs look huge. There is no reason for an eight-year-old to be trying to look like they have big boobs. At eight, they probably don’t even have boobs. So it’s not like they need the padding for support either. I mean, most eight-year-olds haven’t even hit puberty yet.
I agree with whoever said this sexualizes children.
why is an 8 yr old in a bikini anyway? be a kid and wear a nice one piece and stay innocent as long as possible. if the kid is like 12/13 and wearing a bikini, i wouldn’t care but 8 is too young in my book in general.
yes i firmly do. there are so many sick and twisted pedophiles out there- you might as well make the girls hold a sign saying hey come get me
I didn’t even wear a bikini til I was 16 XD
It’s a bad idea.
There is no need for extra padding, I did start getting breasts at nine so a simple lining/thin padding is good.
There are so many nice swimsuits for kids that let them move around
easily, dry fast and feel pretty while still being a child and looking cute not sexy. No matter what a kid wears no one should see it as sexy,but it happens all the time and I would think a padded bikini would only make a child an easier target for someone thinking that way already.No matter how you look at it, bikinis enhance and highlight the parts of the body that are sexually desired.
What tells you that these are they specifically targeted toward “eight year old girls”? I think abercrombie kids starts at a size 8 and goes up to a size 16 which many juniors can still wear. Saying its targeted toward an 8 year old just seems to rouse more of an OMG THAT’S DISGUSTING reaction. No, I don’t think its right that an 8, 10 or 12 year old wear a padded bikini top, but I agree with the other posters that the padding may be just enough to not show any body parts when the bikini gets wet. And honestly, when I was in 7th grade (and fit into abercrombie kids) my mom got me a lightly padded bra at limited too bc all of my friends were bigger than me and I felt self conscious.
thin padding is just to prevent your nipples from sticking out =p but if it’s actually intended as a push up function that’s fucked up
@Celestial_Teapot - the point is not whether or not there’s a market for it, i’m sure there is. there’s a market for kiddie porn but that doesn’t mean it’s okay. the point is that this product shouldn’t be created regardless of whether or not there’s a market for it because kids don’t have boobs to push up in the first place and shouldn’t care what their tata’s look like
@DameUnBeso06 - read the article, this line is specifically marketed towards 8-14 year olds, he wasn’t just pulling that number out of thin air
@jenessa1889 - the point is not whether or not there’s a market for it, i’m sure there is. there’s a market for kiddie porn but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.
There is a market for dog food , but there is a market for kiddie porn too, so it doesn’t mean that dog food is okay. See the non sequitur?
The purcherser of these products will be ordinary moms and dads. As parents, these individuals would have a best sense of the needs of their child and of their own sense of how to raise their children. Padded bikini tops for eight-year-olds isn’t criminal. Padded bikini tops for eight-year-olds lead to no objective and serious harm to anyone.
..the point is that this product shouldn’t be created regardless of whether or not there’s a market for it because kids don’t have boobs to push up in the first place and shouldn’t care what their tata’s look like.
If this is the controlling principle, then parents wouldn’t want to buy the bra for their daughters, and it would no longer be profitable for A&F to market the product– end of story.
The padding for adults is so that their nipples don’t show because they get hard after being in the water. As for little girls… I don’t like it.
lined padding for the purpose of hiding nipp-lage is fine and necessary (some girls blossom early), but according to the linked article, these particular bikinis seem to be designed for the purpose of an illusion of enlargement… in which case brings up a new slew of premature sexualization issues. hmm.
@Celestial_Teapot - no i don’t see it as a non sequitur at all, it’s an analogy. the point is that the fact that a market for something exists does not make it an accept product to be selling. there is a market for dog food and there’s nothing wrong with selling dog food, there is a market for kiddie porn and there is something wrong with selling kiddie porn. that’s my point, the existence of a market is not in any way related to the morality of the existence of the product.
I would contest that it does lead to harm. it’s teaching children that their physical appearance matters and that they should have a chest at that age, which is wrong in both the sense that it is biologically incorrect and that inserting such an idea into a child’s head could be emotionally damaging.
“If this is the controlling principle, then parents wouldn’t want to buy the bra for their daughters, and it would no longer be profitable for A&F to market the product– end of story.”
A) so you’re arguing that if this were wrong parents wouldn’t buy it for their kids? so there’s no such thing as bad parenting?
B) by that logic if someone sells iran nukes and they blow up a city the person who sold it has no moral culpability because iran should have known better and not bought them. yeah the parents are either making the decision to buy it for their kid, or giving their kids money and not monitoring what they buy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s proper for a company to make this product in the first place and that it’s not their fault if bad parents buy it.
It’s totally wrong.
@jenessa1889 - no i don’t. the point is that the fact that a market for something exists does not make it an accept product to be selling.
That’s obvious and undisputed. There are concievable products that are so harmful with so little utility that nearly all of us can agree on their ban: Child pornography, anti-aircraft guns, thumb screws (the torture sort).
The A&F product of the OP doesn’t fall into the above category. There are legitimate uses for the product.
I would contest that it does lead to harm. it’s teaching children that their physical appearance matters and that they should have a chest at that age…
The best individuals to make this judgement would be the parents of the child and not you.
A) so you’re arguing that if this were wrong parents wouldn’t buy it for their kids? so there’s no such thing as bad parenting?
No and no.
B) by that logic if someone sells iran nukes and they blow up a city the person who sold it has no moral culpability because iran should have known better and not bought them
By this logic, if someone sells a carpenter a hammer that is later used to commit murder, there should be no moral culpability because Home Depot should have known better than to sell it to them.
@Wait_by_Moonlight - that’s what i thought…isn’t padding just for the covering of nipples?
Limited Too/Justice (little girls primo clothing store) has been selling these kind of swimsuits for years. I just refused to buy my daughter one from there….we looked at Walmart, etc, for swimsuits that weren’t padded. Why should little girls that don’t have boobs yet be made to look like they do? Idiotic.
I don’t get what the big deal is with the padding. Even when I was a teen in the 70′s, we didn’t have padding in our bikinis or swimsuits. It was never an issue. Only old ladies’ swimsuits had padding back then.
@Celestial_Teapot - “There are legitimate uses for the product.”
What would the legitimate use of a push up bra style bikini top for pre-teens be? as people before have mentioned, a thin layer of foam is great for actually being more modest, but these are marketed as push up tops. There is a difference between those products, as a push up style top has significantly moer padding and often fills the bottom of the cup causing the breasts to sit only in the top half and appear much larger.
“The best individuals to make this judgement would be the parents of the child and not you.”
so one day when i become a parent i’ll magically know what’s right for my kid, but right now i don’t? somehow giving birth makes one qualified to make the correct decision here? only other parents can say what is and is not a bad parenting decision?
“By this logic, if someone sells a carpenter a hammer that is later used to commit murder, there should be no moral culpability because Home Depot should have known better than to sell it to them.”
Hammers have uses other than to beat someone to death, and their intended use is most definitely not for that. However, the intended use of this product as it is marketed is to boost the appearance of pre-teen busts.
Also, i’m not saying the parents aren’t to blame, I’m saying that just because parents could elect not to buy this doesn’t mean there’s not something intimately wrong with the product and therefore the person who creates and markets such a product. the blame lays in many different sources
@jenessa1889 - What would the legitimate use of a push up bra style bikini top for pre-teens be?
As an article of clothing. You don’t propose that they go skinny-dipping?
…as people before have mentioned, a thin layer of foam is great for actually being more modest, but these are marketed as push up tops.
Individual parents are in better position to judge their parenting philosphy, judge their need of their child, and make purchases than you, I, or anyone else.
What next, ban pink poka-dots on questions of aesthetics?
so one day when i become a parent i’ll magically know what’s right for my kid, but right now i don’t?
More so than you, here, across a monitor, mystically divining the clothing needs of every individual parent and their child.
wrong
@Celestial_Teapot - a regular bikini functions as an article of clothing that covers just as much just as well, so the key here is what is the legitimate function of the added padding, not the garment as a whole.
“Individual parents are in better position to judge their parenting philosophy, judge their need of their child, and make purchases than you, I, or anyone else.”
why? what about having a child makes a person suddenly have knowledge that the rest of us don’t?
“What next, ban pink poka-dots on questions of aesthetics?”
I don’t see any harm coming from polka dots, so no. This isn’t about aesthetics, it’s about treating children as sexual objects
“More so than you, here, across a monitor, mystically divining the clothing needs of every individual parent and their child.”
Once again, why? I could have a child right now, why would that suddenly change the legitimacy of my views of this? almost every human being on the planet can have a child at some point, you don’t have to be qualified
personally, i dont think that eight year olds should be in bikinis in the first place
it’s so not necessary.
@sparkletone1684 - great answer!!!
Typically there is some padding just for comfort in all bathing suits, but when they are marketed to young girls specifically as being padded to make your boobs look bigger, that’s wrong…
I don’t think anyone remotely close to that age should be wearing a bikini.
Can you tell me why it would be a good idea?
meh, it’s fine by me. At sixteen, I still fit in the girl’s section at Abercrombie…so yeah, there’s a chance I would have bought the bathing suit.
It’s up to the parents in the end and we shouldn’t criticize Abercrombie.
i don;t like that for 8 year old girls unless they are already developed, and then it ought to be their choice. I thought the padded bottom pants the shops brought out a year or so back over here (the uk) was just as bad, unless of course you are married to a bdsm person… and then you might well need them!
Do 8 year old girls even need bikini tops? Shouldn’t they just wear a one-piece?
i think its horrible. i will just put my kids in rashers
Mother Nature gives you what you need when you need it. If your mother has to buy it, you don’t need it. When you are an adult and think you need enhansment then you can do what you want.
People should try reading the link – it says the bikinis are for “8-14 year olds”. That means that a good 50% of that size range (and it IS about body size, not age) or more is going to have boobs. This is purely about people getting pissy just to have something to demonize.
I thought the pads were so your nipples wouldn’t show when you get out of the water. I don’t think they’re trying to over sexualize them.
wish they had those back in the 1950′s and then my brother won’t have called me “a carpenter’s dream.” smooth as a board
@Wait_by_Moonlight - well said <3
@Erika_Steele - exactly.
What the hell!? This is one of the stupidest thing ever!
this is odd but are they really meaning to push up and show off little girls boobs. i hope not.
I just went to Abercrombies site to look at this – nowhere does it mention it’s a “push up” – it simply lists “padded” under the description when talking about material and such. This is purely just assholes at a news station fabricating stuff to get attention.
Yes, wrong.
@Corporate_nirvanA - right on!
Why do 8 year old’s need bikinis? I don’t care about padding… if you’re going to make the bikini, make some padding, sure… why do 8 year old’s need bikinis? Really.
Before today I didn’t realize I was turning into an old man.
When I was 8, I wasn’t WEARING a bikini! Or a bra either…..wtf. I don’t think there should be any kind of padding on a bikini for an EIGHT YEAR OLD…….she should love her body how it is.
I think it great!:) There are a lot of perverted oldeer men at pools beaches etc. If the bra top is not padded then the girls nipples are going to show…Yea so would you prefer your 8year to have her nipples covered with a little padding.. or her nipples to show and you see right through her along with all the pervs at tha pool…. yeaaaaa think about it
Totally wrong.
I’m not a big fan of bikinis on 8-year-olds anyway. In most cases there is nothing to hold the top in place, and in those few cases where the 8-year-old does have breasts, it seems like that’s something that should go as unnoticed as possible. So yes, it would also be wrong to pretend that they have breasts. And actually pretty weird in a sick sort of way. I’m officially creeped out by this story.
I think the design of the bikini top is much more disturbing.
Depends how much padding. If they had none, people would be in an uproar over childrens nipples being clearly visible….Padding is needed to prevent that…now if the padding is like an inch thick…that’s different.
I think kids wearing bikinis is wrong to begin with. I mean, little girls dont have boobs, so what is there to cover, padding or no padding? If I ever have a little girl, she will wear one-pieces, and when she gets older, she wont wear bathing suits at all, because we are Muslims. Kids in bikinis itself is sexualization of children.
I remember being a little girl and wanting a 2 peice bathing suit. I didn’t tell anyone, but it was because I wanted to feel sexy. The women on tv were sexy in their bikinis, so why couldnt I be? So, even from a kids perspective, it is sexualization.
I have a problem with younger girls wearing bikinis in the first place, due to so many creepers these days. I’d rather 8 year olds be in one pieces or “tankinis”. But I decided to look at the link before posting so that I could have a fair response. The bikini is called the “Ashley Push-Up Bikini” or close to that. “PUSH UP” tells me that the padding is specifically designed to enhance your size. Therefore, this disturbs me.
Little girls would want to have bigger boobies to fit in these. That’s the mindset. Somehow, society dictates it’s wrong. Tsk tsk … Eventually yes, these little girls would realize the truth but at a young age, it’s indeed disturbing.
It’s Abercrombie & Fitch… are we really surprised? The way to stop this is to refuse to buy their products.
ROFL. Didn’t know that they were padded.
Let’s put it this way — if I were to get one of these for my 8-year-old niece, I’m pretty certain my brother and sister-in-law would be just a little upset. Especially my sister-in-law.
Your right in that alot of bikini’s have pads to provide structure and also to hide the nipples.
But unless the padding is extra thick I wouldn’t be able to judge how appropriate they are. I know Victoria’s Secret has the Miracle Bra, which is advertised to raise a womans breast size by TWO cup levels. And the models that wear the bra look really well endowed. Im sure it wouldnt be anything like that with these bikini’s for kids. Though if it is indeed padded excessively I wouldn’t be surprised. Abercrombie has always done things their own way and sex is one thing that they’ve been using to sell their clothing. Also I cant find a article on it, but Im sure someone once said that Abercrombie makes their store difficult to navigate, as an indirect way to discourage fat people from shopping there. They’ve also had trouble with fair employment, they supposedly discriminated while choosing employees
Nowadays it seems like “little girls” are looking way too mature, not even just cause of clothes but their body and faces. I think its disturbing depending on how MUCH padding is going in. Some little girls NEED the padding to cover up the pups, and either way, it can totally be a double edge sword…Pedophiles might not be as interested if little girls are looking more and more mature! XD