Teen T-Shirts

T-shirts with messages like "Your Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser" and "two boys for every girl" are causing area educators to reconsider their dress codes.

Washington Post staff writer Ian Shapira was online Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. ET to discuss how schools are handling the trend.

Read Shapira's story:

Teens' T-Shirts Make Educators Squirm

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A transcript follows.

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Ian Shapira: Good afternoon Washington and the greater online world! Let's about sexy T-shirts, or sexually suggestive T-shirts, or, if you're not easily shocked, really lame T-shirts. We have all kinds of issues to explore and I urge you to write and let's get the conversation going.

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Fairfax, Va.: I find this report discouraging on two counts: (1) that young girls will voluntarily wear shirts that assault their own dignity and (2) that the adults involved are so weak in asserting their authority.

Why can't public schools just come down on stupid gear like this? Can't they ban all shirts with ANY statements on them? Is there actually a dress code at all?

Why are the parents of these girls so negligent?

Ian Shapira: Dear Fairfax, Va: Schools have found that it's best to just judge these things on a case by case basis. Some shirts are pretty harmless, while others do a cross a line. Schools don't mind if students express themselves a little flirtatiously in their attire, but they do have to check them when they get vulgar or obscene. Parents feel the same way -- they're only being negligent according to your viewpoint. To theirs and others, the T-shirts are clever and ironic.

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Bethesda, Md.: I've noticed this trend on the rise amongst many younger people, and also those in college/graduate school. What provoked you to interview students from a school in PG County, and not any others? This problem is rampant in many institutions; there is merit in examining it in areas like Montgomery County and the general D.C. metropolitan area. Do you think the issue will merit further inquiry in other areas?

Ian Shapira: Dear Bethesda,

I encourage you to read the story again. I interviewed students from Prince William County -- two schools there -- as well as Prince George's. I picked those schools because they are big and diverse and the administrators and students have always been incredibly thoughtful interview subjects. I think any "further inquiry" on the Post's behalf, at least in the near future, may be overkill.

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Washington, D.C.: These T-shirts are yet another sad commentary on the poor decisions teens make for themselves and the lack of good parenting to stop kids from such behavior. Unfortunately for these children they won't realize the consequences of such poor decisions until it's too late. They'll be having babies or getting treatment for STDs before high school graduation. This is what you get when common sense is no longer part of the public school education.

Ian Shapira: I am posting this question because I just find it to be a bit unfair, but something I suspect many people may joke about or privately think when they see these T-shirts. Read the story again. There's a part in there that talks about what a paradox this whole T-shirt phenomena reflects: federal surveys indicate that teenagers nowadays are having less sexual intercourse than their predecessors, and that pregnancy rates have dropped significantly. The message of the T-shirts is as follows: "I Want To Appear Sexy or Promiscuous Even Though I Don't Get All That Physical...Really." (In fact, that would make a great T-shirt! I should apply for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch.)

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Fairfax, Va.: As the parents of daughters 19 and 15, my wife and I have struggled, and often disagreed, about the appropriateness of shirts being sold at stores like Aeropostale, Abercrombie, American Eagle, et al. I tend to be bothered most by the $25-40, but our girls have their mother's bargain-hunting instincts. While the response may vary by school, I think that the administrators at Robinson choose to fight other, more substantive battles regarding the dress code. The only brand logo that I have seen rejected outright is French Connection UK (FCUK) which seems to serve no purpose other than to shock. This may be okay in a dance club, but not in the classroom.

Ian Shapira: Yeah, I have seen those shirts worn by adults -- grandmothers with strollers for crying out loud! - but I didn't see them in schools. That's interesting if they are getting inside the hallways, because those shirts indeed are out there, perhaps more than the ones by Abercrombie.

Abercrombie as you may know has long been a champion of risque clothing. They have sold thongs with the words "wink wink" on them, for example

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The solution:: Uniforms.

Ian Shapira: Several of you have brought up the dreaded U-word. As someone who went to a high school with a uniform -- and at this moment I'd like to give a big shout out to the class of '96 from Louisville Collegiate School -- I can tell you that students will always find ways to be provocative and bend rules to fit their sense of style.

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20003: What about a T-shirt that says "I don't need a catchy innuendo to get you to like me"

Ian Shapira: This clever! Let's go into business together? E-mail me at shapirai@washpost.com and we'll get a T-shirt biz going.

Seriously though, my college roommates -- where are you Steven Fuzesi, Robert Anolik and Jed Seltzer? -- actually made T-shirts during our junior year to show off our status in the college's new dorm, which happened to be way far away from civilization. We took pride in our isolation living in Room #102, so therefore, we created T-shirts that said: Can You Be A Part of 102? No.

The point being...T-shirts with messages have been around for a long time and a lot of it has do with one student wanting to express power over another. Students -- mainly girls -- wear T-shirts that try to intimidate guys. Keana Pulley, featured in the story, wore a T-shirt that said, 'yes, but not with u!' and I thought that was very funny...and her way of asserting herself.

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Arlington, Va.: Someone in the article made a good point about picking your battles with teenagers though. Investigating this trend, have you found school administrators opened a dialogue with the T-shirt-wearing kids, as in "What do you think this phrase means? What do you think others think this phrase means? What does this say about you?"

Ian Shapira: Yes, administrators do talk to the teenagers who wear them. Steven Bryson, an administrator at a Prince William school, was really proactive about it and his anecdote is featured in the story. He saw a girl wearing a T-shirt that said "Got [sexual slang]" and had a discussion about it with her in his office. (I don't want to write what the T-shirt said but use Goggle or your imagination to figure it out.) The students are receptive and some of them figure it out and some of them don't and continue wearing similar ones.

The constant phrase I heard from kids was: It's cute. It's funny. I really had to press them on why they thought it was funny or cute and only then did they talk about the deeper implications. What that told me? The sexual connotations are not on the forefront of their minds. Many of them, like Ashli Walker, really just like them because they think they're a little sexy, yes, but, better yet, they like the T-shirt's colors and how they go with their shoes.

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Woodbridge, Va.: Probably wrong to assume, but I'd be willing to be that you don't have a daughter.

Ian Shapira: I don't have a daughter, no. But what's your implication?

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Woodbridge, Va.: "The solution:: Uniforms.

Ian Shapira: Several of you have brought up the dreaded U-word. As someone who went to a high school with a uniform -- and at this moment I'd like to give a big shout out to the class of '96 from Louisville Collegiate School -- I can tell you that students will always find ways to be provocative and bend rules to fit their sense of style."

True, but I bet none of you wore T-shirts with ignorant phrases on them to school.

Ian Shapira: We did! We wore T-shirts with ignorant phrases on them! Don't be fooled by the name "Louisville Collegiate School." Teenagers, no matter what demographic, race, or ethnicity, wear T-shirts with stupid or silly or provocative sayings.

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Washington, D.C.: Should we be more concerned about the T-shirts our kids are wearing in public or the small bits of underwear they are wearing on Webcams for photos on certain Web sites?

Seriously, I can think of three sites I can go to right now and find regular high school girls taking what they think are "innocent" pics of themselves in thongs and bras and putting them in their profile.

Are these things connected? That would be a good follow up for someone.

Ian Shapira: Good point right here. This touches on a broader topic: how students like pornography. That's a sequel story down the line.

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Fairfax, Va.: Turn the clocks back a decade and I remember the "Big Johnson" and "Co-ed Naked" sports T-shirts being banned in my high school in Northern New York.

Ian Shapira: Yea the Big Johnson T-shirts are still around -- but only online. I rarely see them in schools. (Confession: I had one when I was in high school.)

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Washington, D.C.: Was anything asked to the male teachers about how they felt about 17-year-old girls wearing these provocative shirts or other clothes when some teachers themselves are not older than 24 or 25??

Obviously most would say they maintain professionalism, but hey, I lived it, my track coach married a girl on our team one year out of high school. He was 10 yrs older than us.

Ian Shapira: That's a great thought. One male teacher told me he felt intimidated by them and that it was awkward trying to determine whether a T-shirt was out of bounds because the shirt was tight and the message was right over the student's chest.

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Bethesda, Md.: "True, but I bet none of you wore T-shirts with ignorant phrases on them to school.

Ian Shapira: We did! We wore T-shirts with ignorant phrases on them! Don't be fooled by the name "Louisville Collegiate School." Teenagers, no matter what demographic, race, or ethnicity, wear T-shirts with stupid or silly or provocative sayings."

If you wore T-shirts to school with ignorant phrases on them, what was YOUR uniform? I mean, wearing said T-shirt under your polo and sweater vest must have made for titillating talk during gym when you changed for PE.

You're a tool.

Ian Shapira: For the record, I am not a tool. Maybe I used to be one. But no longer.

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Charlottesville: It's not just the shirts. I will not let my daughter wear a pair of short or pants with words - no matter how innocent - written across the rear. I'm not a prude, just feel like she needs to learn to respect herself and respect her body.

Ian Shapira: Yeah, you can bet that any word printed across the rear -- Juicy is a common one -- has just about one purpose.

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Washington, D.C.: I'm disappointed that the article did not discuss the serious First Amendment issues in these T-shirt restrictions. These schools are state institutions and they are banning speech based solely on its content. Granted, it is a school and also granted that very few of us like the speech that these youngsters choose to use, but it seems like there should at least be a debate as to whether such restrictions are: (1) legal; and (2) appropriate.

Ian Shapira: Schools have always been able to ban shirts that say things that promote alcohol, drugs, gangs, other criminal activity, and other indecent material that they think would disrupt classroom instruction.

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Washington, D.C.: For the shirts too ambiguous to disallow, I liked the approach of the school administrator who asked the student "Are you too hot to handle?" (since her shirt said she was) and if that message was for the boys. I think it lets the student know that the shirt speaks to more than just your intended audience. And it may not be saying flattering things.

Ian Shapira: Yes, I thought she handled the "Too Hot To Handle" shirt wisely.

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Word placement : I think one of the main reasons these shirts are so popular is because of where the words are placed. While the phrases may be clever (to some), all they really say is "look at my breasts".

Regardless of their sexual activity, that is certainly not the message I want my 14-17 year old daughter sending.

Thoughts?

Ian Shapira: Yep. I think there is an ulterior motive going on here, at least with some students

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Oversensational: Frankly, I think this is a case of adults getting spooked that their girls have edgy senses of humor and fashion. I have never heard of a T-shirt being the cause of a young lady to experiment. In fact, this is a perfect way for a teen who is uncomfortable with experimenting to remain "cool" in the eyes of her peers. The merits of that are of course debatable on their own... but nonetheless, it's another "out" without endangering herself. As someone who went to public schools, found herself involved in gang activity and yet managed to get to college and have a stable life, the T-shirts are the very, very least we should be worrying about.

Ian Shapira: Here's someone who was a former gang member. T-shirts, apparently, are the least we should be worried about. (She's probably right. I propose that she wear a shirt that says "Get A Grip." What do you think?

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D.C.: Kids trying to freak out their parents? What? There's gambling in Casablanca?

Ian Shapira: Another good saying for a T-shirt! We all need to get a list going.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Re Fairfax's question -- can't they just ban ALL shirts with writing -- the answer is no, they can't; students have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression that cannot be abridged by public officials, including public school teachers.

My 14-year-old wears logos, but hers are a lot tamer (my favorite is the no smoking symbol above "there are cooler ways to die")

Ian Shapira: Your 14-year-old daughter is quite the clever one. But I am curious: what does your daughter think are the cooler ways to die than smoking? (Oh wait. She's being funny. I get it, no, I get it.)

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Washington, D.C.: Although national surveys report sexual intercourse is down among teens, do they speak to oral sex or behaviors that could be classified as risky, but not necessarily intercourse, and how T-shirt messages might be promoting these?

Ian Shapira: I haven't found surveys that speak to that. If you find something on that, e-mail me at shapirai@washpost.com.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I suppose as a 30-year-old female who was the exact opposite of promiscuous in high school (still am, in fact), I may not have the proper perspective, but I read the T-shirt examples in the article and was like, heh heh. Those shirts are funny. For the reasons you say -- kids these days just aren't doing all that much screwing around -- I find it hard to get all that riled up about these shirts.

Ian Shapira: Getting riled up would be risky. For all those about to get riled up about T-shirts, please contact the above person for assistance.

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Arlington, Va.: It is indeed an interesting paradox that the data suggests that the girls who are taking pride in sexualized images are kinda prudish about their own sexual plans (not having sex 'til marriage, yada yada yada). How do we sort these things out? I'm finding it hard to wrap my mind around it, especially since I find many of the shirts unfunny not in a prudish kinda way but because a lot of them seem well, just mean-spirited.

Ian Shapira: Great comment, Arlington. There's an interesting book out there by Ariel Levy called "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" and I think she speaks to some of those curiosities.

With so many sexualized images, songs, merchandise swirling out there, teenagers are absorbing two things: 1) It's cool to be linked to the idea of sex, but 2) It can be dangerous to fool around a lot. They reconcile those two things with their T-shirts, their musical tastes -- all outside the bedroom

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Reston, Va.: I remember wearing concerts shirts to school, and I still have some. Trust me, my old Dead Kennedy's shirt saying "Holiday in Cambodia" is just as offensive, just in another way.

Let me say one thing -- while I find the sentiments on the shirts tacky, the people -wearing- the shirts are the ones who are going to have to prove themselves one way or another when they put a slogan on their chests. Let them find out for themselves if it's a statement they really want to make.

Ian Shapira: Parents! Read the above comments and take note.

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Arlington, Va.: I believe that some of these shirts are too much for school-age children (because lets be honest, even at 16, that's what they still are) to be wearing. However I would be lying if I said I didn't Google and then purchase a shirt that states "Don't Call Me a Cow Girl Until You See Me Ride" after reading the article. Such apparel is acceptable for 25 year olds...right?

Ian Shapira: Yes, that was a great T-shirt. Allison Wynn told me that she bought that shirt because she rides horses and is a hunter-jumper. Classic.

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Bowie, Md.: I think it's disgusting that standards have fallen so low in such a short time. I graduated from high school in 1999, and no one would wear something like this to school.

I wonder why schools are so powerless. For example, they could ban all shirts with writing for a while, or create categories of appropriate or inappropriate shirts?

Ian Shapira: You graduated high school in 1999 and already you're on the bandwagon of the administration? I take it you didn't wear sexy T-shirts!

Kidding, of course.

But to address your point -- schools can't just make an outright ban on T-shirts with words on them. I mean, I saw some kid wearing a T-shirt that talked about how much he liked binary numbers.

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Washington, D.C.: I'm curious: in talking to teens for this story, did you come across boys wearing similar suggestive slogans, and did they mean something different to the boys?

Ian Shapira: Great question. I did find boys wearing them, but not nearly to the same extent and they weren't nearly as clever. I saw guys wearing T-shirts that said "PLAYER" on them and another kid wearing a T-shirt with a surfer on his surfboard with a message describing the, uh, strength of the material that the surfboard was made out of.

I'll just leave it at that.

But it was interesting to hear the guys respond. When they see girls wearing them, they immediately start getting ideas about her, they said.

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20003: Wow, this chat was well planned as the last one of the day to take up what is going on 90 minutes.....

My T-shirt: "Don't call me a slacker until you've seen me kill the last two workday hours on a WashingtonPost.com chat."

Ian Shapira: And we found a winner!

Alright folks. I had a blast. Please email me at shapirai@washpost.com if you have any interesting story ideas at all for the future about teenagers. I am interested in all kinds of stories that explore how teenagers interact with each other and express themselves. But I'm also curious about what peeves you as parents about their schools, their homework. What really gets you parents out there -- and you teenagers who may be reading -- all riled up?

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