You said: "Might it have something to do with the increasingly unattainable beauty standards that corporate advertising stuffs down our young girl's throat?"

That wouldn't surprise me at all. No matter how beautiful a girl might be or might not be, she will never meet those standards. No human's legs are as long as a computer-tampered fashion layout can make them. Add in some peer pressure, some teen harassment, and parents too stressed (economically) and too busy to do the close listening required to truly understand their daughters, and I think you have a prescription that will cause serious depression (given a biochemical tendency) for some girls.

Abstinence training just results in confusion especially when juxtaposed with the sexualization of all other aspects of American culture. The virgin-whore thing used to be mostly an impossible male fantasy. Now I suspect you have young girls trying to fulfill that contradictory fantasy.

Cultural change is tough on children. Until they are 10 or 11 they are desperate little conformists and then they become rebellious identity seekers. It's a wonder more of them don't off themselves.

Isn't it odd how some of us seem less so than others.

You want my real honest opinion? Compared to YOU, my dog is sacred.

puppy mills. Puppy mill has a very specific meaning and people who want to misuse the term for political reasons do not gain my respect.

Some breeders have puppy mills and others are responsible. People who hate breeders don't want the farmer to have a Border Collie to herd his sheep. Don't want a drug Beagle sniffing at their baggage. Don't want a Labrador to lead the blind. Don't want a police service German Shepherd to work with the police. Don't want Papillons who do agility. Don't want a Miniature Schnauzer to tell the epileptic fellow to take his medicine.

To people who think this way that is all animal slavery. They want to overlook the fact that a dog is a domesticated animal bred to be useful to humans. Herding and working breeds truly love to be useful to people if properly trained. If that's narcissism, I suggest getting an actual book on narcissism to learn the true meaning of the word because there are few things true narcissists like better than imposing their will upon other people -- not with training but with arrogance.

Both pretty weird sometimes.

I know to most of us the PETA people seem to have lost all perspective but there is an anti-PETA contingent that can be even more shrill. I once had a rural 4-H-er who had been completely indoctrinated to hate animal rights people in one of my English classes. I assigned a researched essay and this girl wanted to turn in a speech for which she had won a contest in 4-H. I told her it wouldn't do because she hadn't examined the other side of the issue. It was completely incomprehensible that there WAS another side. I explained to her that critical thinking involved actually looking at the other point-of-view in order to construct a good argument against it. I heard her gossiping about me in the hall one day. She told another student that she was convinced I was a communist because I "sided" with the PETA people. To her, the PETA people were out to destroy the American way of life and to even consider an alternate view point, even for the sake of argument was a betrayal of all patriotic aspects of the sainted American farmer.

My dog is a creature of honest moral rectitude. You do more lying than anyone who posts on Broadsheet. I didn't say my dog was superior to everyone, but I am damned sure he is superior to YOU.