This is from 2005. Even worse today.

WARNING: Descriptions of some of the filth out there in this article is not appropriate for minors.

Boston Globe

The disappearing tween years
Bombarded by sɛҳuąƖized cultural forces, girls are growing up
faster than ever

By Bella English, Globe Staff  |  March 12, 2005

Push-up bras. Thong underwear. Eyeliner and mascara. Skirts
up to here and shirts down to there. Bare bellies and low riders.
sɛҳuąƖly explicit rap lyrics and racy adult television shows.

They're not just the domain of young women anymore. Before
parental anger forced them off the shelves, Abercrombie & Fitch
marketed a line of thongs decorated with phrases such as ''wink
wink" and ''eye candy" to youngsters. In a recent survey, the
steamy adult series ''Desperate Housewives" ranked as the
most popular network television show among kids ages 9 to 12.

Prime-time television, with its ubiquitous commercials for Viagra
and Cialis, tells youngsters about erectile dysfunction. Nielsen
ratings show that 6.6 million children ages 2 to 11 watched
Janet Jackson's ''wardrobe malfunction" during last year's Super
Bowl. The Internet offers kids a whole new source of information
on sex, including pornography. Even the children's film ''Shrek 2"
contains scenes in which the honeymooning Shreks are making
out, clearly preparing for sex.

Constantly bombarded with sɛҳuąƖ images and lyrics, girls today
seem to be going straight from toys to boys, without a stop at the
tween years.

''The idea of girlhood as being a time of playfulness seems to
have gone away," says Jill Taylor, who teaches in the women's
studies department at Simmons College. ''I think the culture is
pushing them to grow up faster. You see the girls and they're 12
going on 16."

Last Halloween a group of 13-year-old girls in Brockton dressed
up as prostitutes, with fishnet stockings, tube tops, miniskirts,
and high heels. ''We're ho's," one girl told the local newspaper.
The news that a 15-year-old girl at Milton Academy performed
oral sex on five older boys has prompted a wide discussion
about sɛҳuąƖized behavior among kids. And it's not just sex --
girls today, on average, take their first alcoholic drink at age 13,
according to the American Medical Association.

Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist who works with
adolescent girls, says cultural forces are causing girls to grow
up fast today. ''We've really lost what used to be called middle
school years," says Steiner-Adair. ''It's almost like kids go from
elementary school to teenagers. There's no pause."

Where there used to be separate fashions and departments for
adolescent girls, 12-year-olds are now being sold the same
clothing as 18-year-olds, she says. ''It's turning girls into
sɛҳuąƖized objects at an earlier age. Who does it serve? It serves
the patriarchal culture and the consumer-driven market. As a
culture, we're selling sex to girls at a younger and younger age."

Magazines that are widely read by the preteen group often
include posters and centerfolds of bare-chested ''hot" boys,
articles on losing your virginity, and ''love secrets" of the stars
adored by girls. Teen People recently ran a story about a
teenager who ''went all the way with a guy she just met." It
included a poll of online readers: ''Would you ever have sex with
someone you'd just met?" (Yes, 19 percent; no, 81 percent.)

Parents report walking in on their children watching videos on
MTV where the dancing and language are explicitly sɛҳuąƖ. One
mother told of hearing the popular song ''Candy Shop" by rapper
50 Cent -- the No. 1 song in the nation this week -- and quickly
realizing it was about oral sex.

''My girls love MTV, but I hate it," says Laurie Maiden, 47, of
Weymouth. ''When I see it on, I tell them to shut it off." Maiden
has three girls, ages 9, 13, and 15. Though she hasn't had any
major problems with them, Maiden doesn't like the way the older
two -- and their friends -- dress. ''If a girl back when I was in high
school wore the clothes these girls are wearing today. . . . But
these girls see it all the time -- they think it's normal, the shirts
with the belly showing, the low-cut neck." Maiden said she
recently threw out a drawer full of thong underwear belonging to
her 15-year-old.

Her 13-year-old, Corey, was shopping with her friends the other
day at South Shore Plaza in Braintree. The five girls -- four of
them seventh-graders, the other an eighth-grader -- said
everyone they know wears thong underwear. (The trick, they said,
is sneaking it by parents, who do the laundry.) They say they've
been wearing makeup since sixth grade. The girls were in
Abercrombie looking at skirts but didn't buy them. ''They're
expensive, and it would be a waste if you can't wear them to
school," said Shayna Albanese, 12.

The girls attend Chapman Middle School in Weymouth, where
the dress code prohibits skirts or dresses shorter than fingertip
length from the knee and tank tops with straps skimpier than
three fingers wide. No words can be emblazoned on the seats of
pants. Belly shirts, spandex shorts, low-cut necklines, and
clothing with obscene or suggestive comments are banned.

''Our goal was to create an environment that would encourage
and allow children to be successful middle-school kids," says
principal Sheila Fisher. ''If you look especially at girls in this age
group, they have the physical maturity of someone who is older,
and the social awareness of what people who are older do,
through videos, movies, and older siblings. But they really don't
have the intellectual maturity to handle situations they might find
themselves in, and that's a tough thing for these kids. They're
growing up faster."

Asked what sort of sɛҳuąƖ commercials they've seen on
television, the middle-school girls mention Victoria's Secret bras
and underwear, Viagra, and Trojan condoms. They don't believe
what girls their age wear -- the belly shirts, the tight tank tops, the
low-rider jeans -- is provocative. Still, Karin Nachtrab, 12, reports
that ''old guys" sometimes beep the horn at her and her friends.
''It's gross. I'm like, 'Dude, I'm young.' "

Her mother, Jeannine, says she fights a continual battle against
sɛҳuąƖ rap lyrics and MTV videos. ''I won't let her buy the unedited
versions of rap, but someone made her a copy of Eminen's
latest album and gave it to her at school," she says.

Susan Chiavaroli, whose daughter Lauren is an eighth-grader at
Chapman Middle School, is in charge of the radio channels
while they're in the car. ''But it's really hard to control completely,
because they can download this stuff off the Internet," she says.

The mothers say they constantly set limits on everything from
clothing to music but feel they are swimming against a tidal
wave of sɛҳuąƖ messages targeting an ever-younger set of girls.
''Sometimes," says Chiavaroli, ''it's hard to find clothes in their
sizes that aren't provocative. You really have to look."

Penina Adelman, a scholar in residence at Brandeis University,
runs a group for girls preparing for their bat mitzvahs. She gives
them teen magazines, and they discuss the articles and images.
''We really try to get them to look more critically at what is being
thrown at them," Adelman says. ''We want to give them greater
self-esteem . . . as an antidote to what they're being bombarded
with as far as hypersɛҳuąƖized marketing goes.

''The attention that young girls get, a la Lolita, for walking around
in these kinds of clothes and these kinds of makeup is
phenomenal. The thing is, they're not old enough to even
understand how dangerous this can be," she says. Adelman
recalls one 11-year-old girl asking her the difference between
sex and oral sex. The girl did not consider oral sex ''real sex."

Some mothers, says Adelman, encourage precocious dress.
''They love dressing up their daughters. It's like dressing a doll;
miniskirts with tank tops with see-through blouses,
off-the-shoulder. The mothers are recapturing their lost youth."

Leslie and Eric Ludy have just written a book with advice for
parents of adolescent girls: ''Teaching True Love to a Sex-at-13
Generation." The couple, who have written eight books on young
relationships, have talked to thousands of girls. ''The thing that is
continually startling, no matter how many times you hear it, is
how young the pressures start, especially for girls," says Leslie
Ludy. ''The images in the media, song lyrics, magazines,
movies, TV shows, and clothing lines tell them that the only way
to become attractive is to become sex objects. This is a
message that starts in elementary school. It has escalated to the
point where oral sex is normal in middle school."

Ludy attributes some of the cause to product lines that target
young girls. ''They'll stoop to any level to sell their clothes or their
gum or whatever it is," she says. ''It's amazing how almost any
product can be made sɛҳuąƖ." The main message in the Ludys'
book is to parents: Get to your kids before the pop culture does.
''Parents need to lay a foundation for what a healthy relationship
looks like before the girls get bombarded by all these sɛҳuąƖ
messages," she says.

Jane Buckingham is president of Youth Intelligence, a consulting
firm that forecasts trends for those ages 8 to 35. ''The girls 8 to
12 years old are growing up so much faster," she says. ''They're
incredibly sophisticated, incredibly savvy, incredibly
brand-conscious. I think a 10-year-old is a lot more like a
14-year-old now than she used to be, and I think a 14-year-old is
more like an 18-year-old than she used to be. I think it's a hard
time to be a young girl. . . . They may not be quite ready for the
things being thrown at them."