I’m going to start right at the beginning by admitting I haven’t been to Hooters. Is this because I find it offensive, or because I think it degrades women? Neither, really.
Their big pull (aside from the ladies) seems to be beer and sports. I don’t like beer (or fizzy drinks at all, really), and I don’t like sports. I’m odd like that. So after I’ve eyed up the waitresses for 5 minutes, then what? I’ll have to eat/drink something.

I’ll probably go at some point because of mild curiosity. There’s a lot of talk online about this place, after all. Must be worth a look? There’s even a petition to have the place closed.

“A child’s birthday party was held at Hooters in Bristol. He and his friends were served a pornographic birthday cake representing disembodied and life-like naked breasts, with the nipples fully displayed, decorated with the words “Happy 12th Birthday”, and in the Hooters colours of white and orange. The children were also given high-caffeine drinks and party bags containing sexualised Hooters merchandise.”

This raises a lot of questions to me.
Can a cake be “pornographic”? Really? It shows breasts, but it’s not as if these sort of cakes are lifelike. They’re comical, and cartoon-like, surely?
Is it the showing of nipples that makes it somehow obscene? Because you can buy cakes of heaving breasts in most supermarkets, these days. They mostly don’t reveal the nipples, but there’s plenty of people online that have made/do make them (warning – ‘pornographic’ cakes visible, even with Google Moderate set! How could Google allow this to happen?!)
And if showing the nipples is the problem – is this jelly mould obscene? On sale at Amazon, and not age-restricted.
What about this site selling cake moulds, which has rightly realised that two halves of a football is a good start, if you want to make a pair of boobs, in cake-form. They’re listing it right there, along with the Mickey Mouse and Toy Story stuff!
Even Belgian buns are vaguely breast-shaped (and usually sold in pairs). Somebody please tell me what sort of baked goods are and aren’t sexual, these days.

High-caffeine drinks? What did the children get? Coca-Cola? Coffee? I’m not sure that their drinks would differ, had they taken the traditional kids party in McDonalds/wherever.

I am intrigued to know what “sexualised merchandise” is, though. What did they give them? Vibrators? I bet it was vibrators, wasn’t it. Typical bloody modern day restaurants, that is.

They’ve Seen It All Already

This actually reminded me a little of my youth though. Chances are, a 12yr old has seen more than breasts anyway, in a lot more of a sexual persuasion than your average sugar-coated sponge.

When I was 10 or 11, in the days when my primary school had two BBC Micros between all of us, and Google Images wasn’t even thought of, a pornographic magazine appeared from somewhere, and did the rounds. Everyone had a look – boys and girls.
It was very much softcore, but what with my school being of Catholic persuasion, I’m sure you can imagine that this went down well, when a teacher found out. The headteacher went a little bit mental, everyone who had seen it (ALL the boys and a couple of the girls), had to stand up, so the rest of the students could stare disapprovingly at us. Some girls even cried, on our behalf. I didn’t understand that reaction at the time, and I don’t understand it now.
After years of being told to grow up, we were now told that we were acting “like 16yr olds” (which I took as a compliment), and that when they discovered which boy had brought it in, he’d be in serious trouble. Suspension or expulsion, perhaps. He’s probably guaranteed himself a pass straight to hell for all eternity, either way.

You can imagine the collective surprise then, when it turned out a girl had brought this magazine in. Christ knows where she got it from (he almost certainly does), but the whole matter was swiftly brushed under the carpet. She’s probably in counseling now. Imagine, a 10 yr old girl seeing a fully naked woman! Disgusting.

By some method or other, young people see nudity. Whether that’s in the underwear section of the Littlewoods catalogue, page 3 in The Sun or Star, or even half an old porno mag that strangely appear/disappear in parks sometimes – they WILL see it. And Hooters don’t even have proper nudity. So what’s the problem?