I can’t wait to snag me a pedophile with my new padded bra!

Shaker Traddad pointed me in the direction of this Broadsheet story which seriously makes me want to hurl:

[H]ave you seen these Bratz dolls and their provocative underwear sets? These little pink and purple numbers include padded "bralettes" to better enhance your 6-year-old's cleavage. According to a piece in Saturday's Australian Herald Sun, these sets are for girls who are 6 and 7 years old. That's kindergarten, first grade, second grade, folks. And don't let the diminutive "bralette" fool you. These are brassieres. For Broadsheet readers who may not have experience with this: Girls that age do not typically wear bras. At all. Because they do not have breasts. Because they are children.

A spokeswoman from Bratz distributor Funtastic told the Herald Sun that the notion that the bras might sexualize children was silly. "The idea of the padding is for girls to be discreet as they develop ... It is more about hiding what you have got than showing it off." A Target spokesperson likewise argued that the padded bras "give girls modesty and style as they go through development changes." The message is that everyone should calm down: No one's trying to make your little girls voluptuous by selling them padded bras. They're just trying to make them feel shame about their bodies six years before puberty!

How on earth does faux cleavage confer modesty and style on a six-year-old? How does giving the illusion of breasts where there aren’t supposed to be any qualify as “discreet”? As Jessica says, “the idea of padded bras for little girls is beyond nasty to me—discreet my ass. If you need to cover up a six years-olds' non-breasts in order to feel like she's being "discreet," there's something wrong with the way you look at six year-old girls..” Indeed.

I’m also extremely troubled by the thought that pre-pubescent girls are being compelled to “hide” a lack of breasts, as if there’s something wrong with their bodies without them. Aside from the inevitable body image issues that will arise from such lunacy, it strikes me—as a girl who used to run around without a shirt all summer until I was about 9 and started getting breasts— as an infringement on their freedom, a liberty of which they might not even be aware. The lack of body consciousness I had at that age was brilliant, and I can’t imagine how my childhood would have been improved by taking away that complete, careless indulgence from me and replacing it with a shame for being perfectly normal.