Originally posted at Ms. Magazine.

It’s official. As Kim Kardashian approaches her 30th birthday in October, she is joining the ranks of women such as Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson: modern-day spinsters. There’s no comparable expression for men, such as 49-year-old unmarried George Clooney, who has traipsed around the globe parading a rotating bevvy of babes. Oh wait, he’s a bachelor.

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It was only a matter of time before the younger half-sister of the Kardashian clan, Kendall Jenner, joined in on the money making fun and modeled for a bikini photo shoot.  Kim posted the photos on her blog this past week and praised Kendall’s ability to do what the Kardashians do best: looking “pretty” (and reaping mega profits).

They turned out sooo gorgeous!! I am so proud of Kendall. She’s going to take over the modeling world… you just watch!

Now, where shall I begin?  I am beyond bored with the one-dimensionality of the Kardashian claim to fame.  The issue here is not necessarily that Kendall is wearing a bikini at age 14 or really even the fact that she has decided to pursue a modeling career.   The issue here in my mind is the fact that this is not surprising at all.  But then again, the Kardashian legacy is looking ‘pretty.’  The incessant downplay from the entire family  and her mother’s orchestration of the shoot doesn’t leave Kendall much room for growth outside of posing in a bikini and reiterates that the only component of self that she can have will be reduced to her looks.  I feel the same way when looking at these photos that I did when I found out the mom, Kris Jenner, was the one who convinced Kim to pose for Playboy– saddened and confused.  I was pretty surprised at the amount of acceptance this photo shoot received and am even more surprised as to why this is considered to be “typical” 14 year old behavior.  Shouldn’t her mother be trying to shield her from the inevitable dangers of the modeling world which is notorious for sexualizing girls at an earlier age and essentially chewing them up and spitting them out?

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Guest post by: Rachel O

Let me start off by saying that whenever I read about online and cell phone phenomenons such as “sexting”, I feel old.  I was in high school only 10 years ago, but the current culture feels so far removed from what I grew up around.  There were plenty of rumors about people’s behavior regarding sex, drugs, and relationships, but they were just words, nothing more.  All teenagers in all periods of time have acted reckless, made stupid decisions, and made mistakes.  Except now, those mistakes live online, on computers, in a digital chip forever.  There’s no escaping – pictures meant for one person can be shown to hundreds of Facebook friends, and profiles and pages deleted are stored in Google cache, long after they’re gone.  There seems to be these two parallels running at the same speed – risque and sexual behavior starting at younger ages, as technology makes communication easier and faster.

I started thinking “Have we learned nothing from the Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians of the world?”  Of course it then occurred to me that mainstream media, and the treatment of these women is part of the problem.  I’m not saying they should’ve been slut shamed or torn to shreds, but the way it was handled doesn’t exactly set a good example.  Paris Hilton went from being an anonymous heiress to a household name (again hit television show, movie roles, spokesperson, etc.) What did Kim Kardashian get after her sex tape was “leaked?”  A hit television show on E! and countless offers to be a spokesperson, cover model, etc.    So far network heads, corporations, and publications have shown that you get rewarded for this kind of behavior.

Like I said, the answer isn’t slut-shaming, but maybe the answer is not rewarding these exploits or at the least not paying attention?  I got annoyed the other week when I read the Huffington Post writing about Brandon Davis’ tweets about ex-girlfriend Mischa Barton.  “Why is the media still giving this asshole a platform?” I wondered.  The question isn’t just “Why were these women rewarded for their sex tapes?”  But like Davis’ tweets, “Why were the sex tapes a top story in the news in the first place?”  The media is our educator – they get to set the norms.  So what is the norm the average 15 year old girl is growing up watching?  Girls Next Door, Pretty Wild, and Keeping up with the Kardashians, just to name a few.  I grew up watching Daria and Buffy.  Quite a difference in the last decade, no?  Not everyone is lucky or educated enough to be as media literate as us.

The pop culture landscape is flooded with endless streams of hypsersexualized images, with images targeting younger and younger audiences, and personal sexual exploits that would concern any parent resulting in reality TV careers. What’s a young person to do? The messages are conflicted and inconsistent. The news reports the latest story on sexting or a tween sexual exploit shared on Facebook and at the next turn a new celeb-wannabe gets rewarded with fame and fortune for the same behavior.

As parents are less able to keep up with all the new technological innovations that make this behavior easier and faster, teenagers expose every aspect of their lives through social networking, the two combined create a problem that just seems to be spreading instead of slowing down. Combine this with the contradictions of the media environment and one can become overwhelmed, searching for answers.

We need to be educated – in technology, in the long lasting effects of this behavior, and in having a critical eye when it comes to magazines, TV, movies, and music.  It’s important not to forget about the influence the media can and does have on our society and culture.

Three days ago a law suit was filed in California against actor Steven Seagal. The woman who filed the civil suit, Kathryn Nguyen, 23, apparently found an ad on Craigslist for an executive assistant. She was taken to New Orleans after her third interview. When she got there she found two Russian “assistants” that Seagal was apparently keeping in his home, on call 24/7 for sex. According to Nguyen, Seagal attacked her several times and forced her to take “illegal pills.” According to Seagal, she is upset because he fired her for drug abuse. However, since Nguyen came forward several other women have come out saying that he assaulted them, as well, one of them being actress and comedian Jenny McCarthy.

My concern here is less for Nguyen who has felt empowered enough to employ all appropriate resources & and take action; she will inevitably be taken care of (despite the misogynistic assumption that she is doing this for money – note the condescending dollar signs in the linked post). My concern is even less for McCarthy who left the interaction physically unharmed and untouched. My concern is for the two nameless, faceless and presumably missing  Russian immigrant women. Where are these women and why haven’t they been taken either a) into custody or b) FROM SEAGAL!? In all of the news on this story there is no mention of of these women beyond Nguyen’s assertion that there were two Russian sex slaves in Seagal’s house.

It has been estimated that sex trafficking will be the number one crime worldwide by the end of this year. This link to the Polaris Project’s compiled statistics is unbelievable. Why don’t people know that there are more slaves right now than at any other point in history and that sex trafficking is the most prolific form? Why is no one talking about it in a meaningful and urgent way? I can only hope that it is not because the overwhelming majority are mostly sex slaves, and than that, by nature, is a “woman’s issue.” We have to use this unfortunate opportunity to ask these questions.

Our most mainstream point of reference of late was a mildly catty interaction between Demi Moore and Kim Kardashian a few weeks ago, but that played out more like an episode of “Desperate Housewives” than an intelligent conversation as far as I’m concerned. Even with Seagal’s story making headlines and our nightly news there is absolutely no discussion of the sex trade in the mass media. By contrast, working in predominantly activist and academic circles, we have the work of Ben Skinner who actively & purposefully threw himself into following the global human slave trade, and became the first person in history to view the sale of human being on 4 continents. His book A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery is his account of what he has witnessed.

On a far smaller scale, I have also been witness to the difficulty that some of these young women have in getting out of these situations. I worked for Neighborhood Legal Services in their Domestic Violence Legal Self-help Clinic in Los Angeles. It is admittedly hard enough for American women who are victims of domestic violence to get out of these potentially life threatening situations, but immigrant women are often much more fettered. Whether it be the language barrier, confusion about the law, their immigration status, or literal bondange the odds against them are crushing.

Whatever outcome is in store for Seagal we have a much larger problem here that needs to become part of our social dialogue in way that will produce real local and global change for these women. Not just bad reality t.v.

Twitter is an excellent forum for disseminating and sharing information. It’s also a good place for constructive dialogue and debates to begin. Demi’s critique of Kim Kardashian’s causal reference to “big pimpin'” is evidence of that.

In the wake of the media coverage of this celebrity “feud,” Rachel Lloyd digs deeper. Her post (minus the original twitter exchange) follows below (originally posted at HufPo and crossposted at Ms. Magazine’s FB page and now crossposted here).

There’s been lots of coverage in the last 24 hours on the Twitter ‘feud’ between Demi Moore and Kim Kardashian. Yet the glaring omission from all the articles, blogs and commentary is any real analysis of Demi’s point – that we glamorize and glorify pimp culture, use terminology that seems to legitimize the practice, and in doing so ignore the fact that pimps are modern-day slave-owners.
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