French model Thylane Loubry Blondeau’s recent photo shoot for Vogue Paris has many fashion-watchers asking the same question: Did the magazine just enter creepy territory?
The mag, which shows pictures of the 10-year-old French model-to-be firing seductive looks at the camera, placed in sexually charged poses, and sporting high heels, has fueled the evergreen debate about the over-sexualization of young girls.
In the magazine, little Blondeau can be seen sprawled on top of tiger fur, applying lipstick, and staring off suggestively into the distance. And other snapshots of the child are enough to make onlookers feel uncomfortable.
Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, told The Daily Caller that Blondeau’s parents should be punished for allowing their child to partake in such a shoot.
“This is clearly child exploitation and her parents should be legally charged,” Nance told TheDC.
Blondeau, the daughter of soccer star Patrick Blondeau and reporter-turned-fashion designer Véronika Loubry, participated in the publication alongside several young models, but appeared racier than the others and rubbed many media outlets the wrong way as such.
Koa Beck, deputy editor of Mommyish.com, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday that these pics encourage readers to view Blondeau in a sexual manner.
“I think that I’m seeing a very young girl being sexualized, being gazed at in a very adult way,” Beck said on the show.
Shari Miles-Cohen, senior director of women’s programs at the American Psychological Association, told ABC it’s detrimental for children to rush into adulthood.
“We don’t want kids to grow up too fast,” Miles-Cohen explained to the network. “We want them to be able to develop physically, emotionally, psychologically and socially at appropriate rates for their age.”
It’s also unlikely that Blondeau understands that her modeling could be perceived and looked upon in a sexual way.
Jenna Sauers of Jezebel.com addressed this in a Tuesday blog post: “Is she aware that, to people older and more familiar with the commonplaces of fashion photography than she is, the way she is being portrayed reads as somewhat adult, somewhat sexualized?”