From the Bad Holiday Gift Ideas department (part 1):

British store chain, Tesco, has removed this questionable item from the toys and games section of their website. The Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit has been condemned by family campaigners as being "extremely dangerous" and accused of "destroying children's innocence."

The kit comes with a chrome pole extendible to 8ft 6ins, a 'sexy dance garter,' a DVD demonstrating suggestive dance moves as well as play money.

Dr. Adrian Rogers of Family Focus said that this item would be "sold to four, five and six-year olds" which I find hard to believe. He also went on to say that "Children are being encouraged to dance round a pole which is interpreted in the adult world as a phallic symbol." Yes... in the mind of the people who are destroying children's innocence it is. Sometimes a pole is just a pole, Ade!

It's good to know that pole dancing ranks up there with war, poverty and child abuse, but in all honesty, this item is not usually marketed toward children. Tesco is the one at fault here for putting this item in their website's toy section rather than a separate adult section.

Besides, I'm sick of all of this growing up too fast stuff! Remember what it was like in the old days when we first gave little girls a complex by providing them with plastic misrepresentations of what a woman should look like? Many girls had several of these plastic women, all with a different miniature jewel-encrusted necklace or name brand purse. Later in life, these women would undergo plastic surgery, then turn to stripping... Sometimes without a pole at all! Really Tesco! Slow down! Sexuality and low self esteem combines to form a delicate mixture that requires patience to achieve the desired result. It's like a fine marinade, actually. You can't rush these things with pink packaging and Monopoly dollars!

(Daily Mail via Marc-Anthony's Livejournal)

Stay tuned for more Bad Holiday Gift Ideas as the season approaches! If you hear of any, let me know of them in the forum.