On Monday, PLOP! Review will publish my review of a new anthology, Madonna & Me: Women Writers On The Queen of Pop. 

Behold, a teaser:

For more than a decade, psychologists, parents, and child advocacy organizations such as Common Sense Media have expressed alarm over the hyper-sexualization of young women in the media for the explicit purpose of making money. Writers such as Lyn Mikel Brown (Packaging Girlhood) and Diane E. Levin (Too Sexy Too Soon) have made it part of conventional parenting wisdom that advertisers target children.

In her 2001 book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein was the first to connect the dots between a little girl’s devotion to all things princess-like and the emotional jeopardy of a sexual attitude developed too soon. A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association went on to demonstrate the jeopardy posed to girls' happiness, self-esteem, sexual health, and academic performance as they learn to project a hardened sexuality before experiencing any sexual feelings of their own.

You’ll never guess the rock star to whom Orenstein traces the trend.

Laura Barcella, the editor of Madonna & Me, counts herself a proud, Madonna-in-her-living-room fan since age six. It comes as no surprise that many of her contributors also write about imitating Madonna’s sexual acting out as six-year-olds. While no one can specify what is too soon to be sexy, I don’t need an APA report to know that six years old is too soon.

It floors me that Madonna & Me does not address the obvious question posed by Madonna’s popularity and power: is Madonna good for girls?

(Continued in my piece on PLOP! In the meanwhile: if you can stomach it, you can watch the 2-year-old's Madonna routine here.)