Susan Estrich
Wednesday, June 2, 2004

After all, not only have they never worn such things, they don't shop for them or pay for them, much less have fights with their daughters about whether they'll be allowed out of the house in them.

But that doesn't stop them from thinking they know enough to run the show. Just ask the all-male board of directors of Wet Seal, who sat on a stage last week in Orange County, Calif., as a music video showed young girls dancing suggestively and mannequins wore short skirts and low hung jeans.

The occasion was the debut of the new line. Even the shareholders realized that there was something very wrong with the picture of seven old white men and all those hot, hip clothes for teenage girls.

Chairman Irv Teitelbaum assured everyone that Wet Seal is searching for women directors. Right. Looking under every rock, no doubt. CEO Peter Whitford pronounced the new line, unlike his board, very hip and young. Victor Alfaro, the creative director, explaining his design approach, described himself as a believer in sexy clothes.

Do 13-year-olds really need sexy clothes?

In my house, where the former preteen just turned 14, we call it slutwear. It's not just Wet Seal - the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogues featured naked models in a layout labeled Group Sex - there's now a billboard on my corner that I would drive miles to avoid. Girls wear wifebeater T-shirts with Pornstar logos that my daughter tells me cost a fortune. Their mothers let them out of the house dressed that way? I ask in shock. Presumably, someone buys them these clothes.

The seven men at the Wet Seal board meeting were not the only ones in Orange County addressing the limits of teenage sexuality last week. In a courthouse just a short hop away, defense lawyers were arguing that a teenage girl, who might have been a Wet Seal customer, pretended to be an actress in a kinky sex scene and willingly had sex with three boys (one of them the deputy sheriff's son), who are charged with raping and assaulting the then-16-year-old with a pool cue, a Snapple bottle and a lighted cigarette. According to the defense lawyers, this wasn't an isolated incident - we feel the jury will understand this behavior didn't just exist on this particular night, but exists among teenagers across the country.

In Los Angeles, on the same day, another jury deadlocked in favor of acquitting three boys, teenagers at the time they were charged, with raping a UCLA student while on a tour of the campus. The three broke away from their high school group, knocked on the coed's door and claimed to be college football players considering transferring. One juror, explaining the result, said: It's not so far-fetched to me that today a female would go and have consensual sex with three men after 10 minutes of meeting them.

If you talk to the experts, there's no reason to think that group sex is more common than it had been 10 or 20 years ago, according to Lynn Ponton, author of "The Sex Lives of Teenagers." In 1991, 54 percent of high school students responded to a national Centers for Disease Control study saying they had had sex; 10 years later, the percentage had actually dropped slightly. It's not exactly a picture of abstinence, but it could be worse. If you shop at the mall, you'd assume it is.

If you don't want to be treated like a slut, don't dress like one, I tell my daughter and her friends. If you don't want to send a message about sex, don't dress your daughter in sexually provocative clothes, I tell other mothers. Boys clothes are a piece of cake by comparison.

Do you think someone could tell Irv Teitelbaum and the old guys? Also, give him my number. I know a lot about teenagers' clothes. If I'm not home, I'm just at the mall, looking for something decent and age-appropriate for my daughter to wear (not to mention her mother). Believe me, it's not easy, and he and Victor, as far as I can tell, aren't making it any easier.

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