That kind of girl

DOWN TO EARTH

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By Pauliina Grönholm
     
      I remember a girl from my junior high school days who was a couple of years older than me. I will call her Jonna. Jonna’s clothes were more grown up than ours, she wore make-up, and she talked dirty.
      Her boyfriend, who was in a vocational school, picked her up after school with a car that had a broken exhaust pipe. On Mondays Jonna told us, loud enough for all to hear, how she had been drunk on Saturday after having a bottle of white wine.
      The rest of us thought that Jonna was easy. That kind of girl.
      No one thought to wonder how many boyfriends Jonna had actually had, and what was going on if she called a 25-year-old man her boyfriend.
     
Last Sunday I travelled to Toijala. The news had reported that several men were suspected of abusing around ten girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
      The grown-ups I spoke with were shocked by the news. There had been rumours circulating earlier among the teenagers. The case supposedly involved drugs, Satan worship, and the girls cutting themselves.
      After all, if something like that happens in our neighbourhood, it must be some sort of sick phenomenon. Otherwise, it would mean that the abuser was one of us.
      Therefore, the gazes were turned on the girls, who hung out in "suspicious crowds". None of the teens I talked to knew the girls, but they knew of them. Those kinds of girls.
     
About a year ago, I wrote an article on men who frequent teen chat-rooms on the internet in search of sex.
      "When they flaunt around in small tops, you know what they have in mind", one grown man commented.
      That man is not alone. On Tuesday in a seminar dealing with the sexual abuse of children, an older nurse praised the fact that the sensitive subject is now more openly discussed, but was horrified by the way teens dress nowadays.
     
Why do girls dress in short tops and tight jeans? After all, men turn on so easily. They must be after something.
      However, we adults dictate what is fashionable. We design the clothes, we buy and consume. Teens copy their idols when they choose their outfits. It is not a sign that they would be ready to have sex.
      What has gone wrong when diamond-studded thongs worn by a teen turn us on?
     
Adolescents continually weigh up the values of adults and test the boundaries that have been set. They drive cars without licences or get drunk on Friday nights. Will the police really intervene? Will someone at least get involved?
      In the same way, teens search for and test their own bodies: by dressing provocatively, sexily, or as freaks. Am I beautiful? Do you accept me as I am? If I wear my hair in dreadlocks and dress like this, will you still like me?
      If I cut myself, will you notice and help me?
     
Nowadays, Jonna has a teen-aged daughter. She probably watches on the sidelines while her daughter and her friends whisper and giggle in the bathroom on Friday nights. They paint their lips a shade too red, if you ask the mother, and dress in clothes that are two sizes too small.
      Jonna feels like shutting the girl in her room until she turns eighteen. No can do, you can only hope that nothing bad happens.
      "Have fun, look after each other", she yells after them, perhaps. "Yeah yeah, get off my case", comes the reply, before the door slams shut.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.9.2005


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Toijala wants to get back on its feet quickly after child abuse scandal (22.9.2005)
  More arrests possible in Toijala child abuse case (21.9.2005)

PAULIINA GRÖNHOLM / Helsingin Sanomat
pauliina.gronholm@hs.fi