I wish I could shield his eyes when we walk through these stores, billboards lined up revealing backs arched and muscles shining. He's only 5 years old. A new mind in this new world taking in new things, new sights and smells and thoughts. But these posters of women in birthday suits and men in tuxedo suits all look the same. Blonde hair and blue eyes, or black hair and brown eyes, their bodies match in every pose. Women smile and lick their lips, men tear open their shirts and show off their masculinity, but why is something so vulgar common sense to human society? His 5 year old eyes groom over the catalogues of these revealed women prancing around in lacy underwear, and these men become engulfed in the music that tramples over dignity and that talks about the tender pleasures in life like it's a sport that earns you points, this game is sickly, it destroys him.

So we walk past these pictures every day, and every time I wait for that moment I can tell him the fakeness in those smiles and the false oils plastered over their skin, I wish I could wipe clean his memories of nonexistent allurance so he could see a person for what they are, their real attraction lies in the stuff underneath the skin that surrounds them, past the gleaming teeth that smile at him, and past the ludicrous photos and videos that are thrown at him. I wish I could tell him I want him to choose his own fate and make his own mistakes and learn from them. But I especially wish for old times, when things were censored and banned from the grasps of children but reality caught up to him and he sees these things I wish didn't exist, the line between women and men is so thick it cuts through flesh and into minds so we don't surpass it, that stupid line blocks him from originality. I hope someday he'll see through this fog that's being set before him.