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Shag bands

Children's 'shag band' fashion craze outrage
By Kate Lahive

The Star, UK: 12 September 2009
http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/Children39s-39shag-band39-fashion-craze.5641787.jp
[ http://tinyurl.com/mknmww ]

AN OUTRAGED South Yorkshire mum has hit out at a sexually-explicit
children's fashion craze which is sweeping the nation.

Youngsters up and down the country are sporting so-called 'shag bands'
- bendy plastic wrist bangles which look just like innocent friendship
bracelets and come in an array of trendy neon colours.

But the idea behind them is the wearer twists two of the bands
together - and then jokingly agrees to sleep with whoever gets close
enough to snap the bands apart.

Most kids wearing the intertwined bracelets are youngsters in their
teens - but because the bands cost as little as £1 a pack they are
readily affordable for any child to buy with their pocket money.

Young children across the country without full understanding of the
bands' true sexual meaning are buying them, wearing them, and talking
about them.

Shannel Johnson, from Totley, Sheffield, says her eight-year-old
daughter Harleigh picked up the bands for just £1 in the Blue Banana
shop in Orchard Square in the city centre.

But it was only when the mother and daughter got home, and Harleigh
told Shannel the bracelets were called 'shag bands', that the shocked
32-year-old realised she had bought something entirely inappropriate
for children.

The mum-of-three, from Totley, said: "Initially I didn't see the harm
in her having these bands - in my day they were called friendship
bracelets.

"But later that day, as she was showing off her bands, Harleigh told
me and other family members, 'These are called shag bands - you join
two together and whoever snaps them apart you have to shag them'.

"I was horrified. As this seems to be the latest fad aimed at young
children I don't think they have an appropriate name and meaning at
all.

"What kind of message is this sending to children?"

Shannel added: "I am outraged especially as Britain has the highest
rates of teenage pregnancy. I would never in a million years have let
her buy these bands if I had known what they meant at the time.

"My daughter is eight years old, young and innocent, and I don't want
her influenced by such things. I believe a child shouldn't be old
before their time.

"I now have my three-old-daughter copying her and talking about the
bands."

Charity Parent to Parent helps increase parents' confidence and skills
in talking to their children about sex and relationships and has been
running free sessions in Sheffield for the last 12 years.

Spokeswoman Kath Broomhead said "outside influences", while a feature
of family life, could be "daunting and upsetting".

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