[CherylNYC]

I confess to having skimmed, but not thoroughly read, the majority of this thread. As has been noted, this topic can be triggering for someone with my history. If you received the JC Penny or Sears catalogue, read popular magazines, or watched television in the late 1960's through the early-mid 1970's you would have seen images of me. Yes, I have a history of childhood sexual abuse. More to the point, I have a history of childhood modeling and performance. This is a bad, bad combination.

Do pedophiles relentlessly find ways to sexualize the most innocuous images? Of course. Do I believe that the business of sexualizing children in the media fuels pedophilia? You bet. This is a chicken-and-egg problem which no one, including me, can hope to sort out well enough to protect children from those determined to do them harm. I can, however, speak with authority about the effects that my history of being professionally sexualized as a child had on me personally.

One thing that we must never forget is that the media is big business. Image making is about money making. Girls who worked as I did were hired to sell product. Print ads, commercials, movies and television shows, as well as live performance, are all very expensive to produce. Every time my agent sent me to interview or audition for any of the above there would have been plenty of money at stake for the producers/clients. I can tell you from experience that when middle-aged men line up a row of little girls and choose the prettiest one to get the job, (lesson learned: the prettiest girl always gets the most money), each girl in the room experienced repeated and profound damage. These messages are far too harsh for grown women to absorb well. Imagine how a child of 6 experiences that message, delivered with callous explicitness by men who are primarily concerned with selling product when they deliver it. Take my word for it, it's no easier to be the girl who gets the job than the girl who does not. Those of us whose self-hood had already been breached by sexual abuse were even more susceptible to injuries to our sense of self worth. The more damaged a child has been, the more susceptible they are to future abuse.

The above example is one of the most obvious ways that professional children can be injured. There are just so many varied ways for professional children to get all messed up. Kids who are making money from their image are never, EVER emotionally developed enough to escape a really bizarre kind of damage in the process. Yes, they are earning good money. The more they earn, the harder it becomes to reject the bad lessons they are learning in the process.

In case you're wondering, it was not my choice to be a professional child. It was something my mother wanted me to do. And I never saw a penny of my money. My mother took it all. So, yeah. I've been sorting out some complicated issues. It's been a long road.

I have worked like a dog to regain my equilibrium as a woman in a world that has not changed very much in terms of how girls and women are valued. The girl that best fits our culture's narrow standard of beauty most closely, still gets the most money. Men still deliver that message as callously as they did when my livelihood depended upon their judgement of my image. I'm happy to say that it has been many years since my sense of self worth hinged on the approval of others. These days I can usually refrain from expressing my desire to eviscerate men who expect me to care how they view me. It has been a looong road.

I hope that anyone who knows a parent contemplating a foray into modeling or acting for their child will discourage it. It is a very unhealthy environment.