There's a billboard by where I stand every night waiting for the bus home by the BART station on the corner of Diamond and Bosworth in Glen Park. Movie ads usually are splayed on it; right now it's the big, grinning shark in Finding Nemo.

But last month it was different. Last month, after every workday, I'd stand in a little enclave from the wind, facing the ad and discreetly smoking pot while I waited for the 23 Monterey. The ad showed a hot chick (a bit young, maybe) in a miniskirt and sporting what sure looked like a push-up bra underneath a snug sweater—decent mindless eye candy at the end of the day.

Well, imagine my discomfort when I found out which movie was being advertised on the billboard. It was something called The Lizzie Maguire Movie, and was based on a Disney TV series in which the title character is (get this) just getting out of middle school. Which would make her, what? Thirteen? Fourteen?

Ack. Mixed feelings abounded. Was I a sick fuckin' pervert for checking out what is being represented as a girl who hasn't poked out of the other side of puberty? I mean, what kind of scumbag was I for letting my eyes wander over the form of a teenaged middle school student who's barely gotten her period?

Just as quickly, thoughts of justification popped up. Wait a minute—I'm not some Chester creepin' around local high schools looking for girls sporting a learner's permit. And, hey, she didn't exactly look 14… jeez, not even 16, by my estimate (like that would be any better, bleh).

I did a little independent research on the subject. I asked girls about the image, and asked them if they thought this represented a girl who wouldn't even have a driver's license yet. I was pretty relieved when they noted her fully developed-looking breasts (though a couple also noted that some girls develop awfully early… thanks, guys).

It turns out the girl in question is an actress named Hillary Duff. She is, indeed, only 15, and the fact that every pop media-savvy person I informed of this was surprised was small comfort. I decided that either I was some vile teenage-stalking lizard, or I had been cruelly manipulated by the opportunistic toads in Hollywood and on Madison Ave.

Shockingly, I chose the latter.

Duff is a pretty striking example of pop media's "tween" phenomenon. The term "tween" is a combination of the words "twenty" and "teen," and the tweener market is appropriately enough comprised mostly of girls between their mid-teens and pre-drinking 20s. And to appeal to them, Hollywood and other media use girls who they feel mall-obsessed, middle American teenagers will identify with.

But ever since the arguable advent of this tween culture with the introduction of a schoolgirl-looking Britney Spears, entertainment media has discovered that it carries with it another market: men.

As Britney and Christina Aguilera and Leann Rimes all grew up, their naturally emerging sense of sexuality was played up by marketers and promoters, who upped the sexual ante even more. It's hard to imagine they were aiming at young girls with this strategy, as they already could depend on this audience before things got steamy.

So why bother getting so steamy? Well, to bring in even more men, of course.

Now, this saturation has reached the point where the image of oversexualized teens doesn't even cause one to bat an eyelash.

Take the recent controversy over the film What a Girl Wants, which had the misfortune of opening at the start of the recent Gulf War. So much was made of the peace sign flashed by actress Amanda Bynes (subsequently removed over silly controversy), that nary a word was mentioned of how provocative the image was, with or without the peace sign, and how it was meant to depict a 15-year-old girl.

What's kind of creepy about this tween marketing is that, as it develops to god knows what end, you now have an icky dynamic whereby young dads are taking their young daughters to movies and concerts, with both sets of eyes lingering on a young subject for what can be assumed are contrasting reasons.

Take the example of a recent concert review of petulant young popster Avril Lavigne. In it, the writer describes the almost equally enthusiastic (if a bit more composed) reaction of the men who came to chaperone young girls to see their faux angst-ridden idol.

And, truth be told, why the hell not? I'm sure the young girls didn't notice Avril's bra-less tits jiggling (despite her scowling) in her last video, and believe me, they weren't visible by accident.

Damn media manipulation.