What is Dressup Me?
Dressup Me is a website that links to many dress-up games on the Web. Based on the paper dolls of not-too-long-ago, these sites let you change clothes, shoes, accessories, hair, and features on customizable avatars or celebrity look-alike dolls.
Concerns for Parents
- All of these games involve dressing and undressing dolls. Most are female, but some are male. While most online dressup/avatar sites do not allow users to entirely undress any dolls, nearly all allow you to strip the dolls down to a bra and panties. Some of these undressed dolls, though only drawings, may be borderline pornographic.
- There are some cute and clean dress-up games online, but because this is a portal site, it allows access to both good and bad websites.
How Can I Keep My Child Safe?
- Be sure you have antispyware protection and a firewall installed on your computer to protect it from anything it may pick up on a site that links from Dressup Me.
- Investigate dress-up games individually and decide which (if any) are appropriate for your child. Allow access to specific games you approve of, but don't turn your kids loose on this open-ended site. If the dressing and undressing is a problem, look at some of the fun makeup and hairstyling games instead.
- Most girls would find these dress-up games fun and unoffensive, but the sexualized and unrealistic portrayals of women may have a negative impact on self-esteem and body image. Make sure your daughter understands that these games may be fun but that women don't (and shouldn't!) look like most of the dress-up dolls on these sites.
Where Can I Learn More?
Many bloggers believe that dress-up games are safer than most other games on the Web. Here is a post representative of this opinion.
