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'Paedo-pop' Tatu much 
By Nicole Lampert, Daily Mail 
29 January 2003 
They are a phenomenon that manages to degrade
marketing and music at the same time. 

Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, the Russian teenagers
who make up Tatu, are bound for the number one spot in
Sunday's charts. 

Their single All The Things She Said sold 21,000
copies on Monday alone.

Whether their lesbian image - the name is supposed to
mean 'This girl loves that girl' - reflects the
reality of their lives is irrelevant. 

With their raunchy body language and their claim to
have been lovers when they were barely in their teens,
they are the latest and most blatant example of what
is being called 'paedo-pop'. 

Other acts with undoubted appeal for the paedophile
market include the pre-teen band S Club Juniors,
Britney Spears, who has appeared in a schoolgirl
outfit, and Charlotte Church, who even had a website
devoted to counting down the hours until she became
'legal'. 

Laughing all the way to the bank is Tatu's creator,
Ivan Shapovalov, who shamelessly admits that he set
out to exploit such a distasteful market. 

The former child psychologist who admits to visiting
child porn websites said yesterday: 'It was five years
ago that I decided to do this underage sex project in
Russia. 

'Why underage? Because I wanted it and found it funny.


'People visit porno sites above all others. I analysed
it and found 90 per cent of people using the Internet
go to porno sites first. 

'And of this 90 per cent, nine in ten are looking for
underage entertainment. This means there is big
interest as well as some dissatisfaction - their needs
are not being met.' 

Shapovalov revealed he also manufactured the lesbian
aspect of the duo to meet those needs. 'Why did I
choose this image?' he asked. 'Because I saw it in the
girls' relationship. You see it with all girls - this
element of lesbianism exists. 

'It happens very often with girls, when a kind of
border between friendship and love evaporates. They
can sleep together, kiss each other.' The girls
themselves claim in interviews that they have been
lovers for years. 

'We are so close you wouldn't believe,' 17-year-old
Lena said to one interviewer. 'Do you want to hear
that we are ******* every night? Of course we do. 

'We love each other, we are even living together. It
has been love for a long time, we have been together
about four or five years. We work together and we
sleep together.' 

Back home in Russia, however, it is widely thought the
whole lesbian image is manufactured. 

Sixteen-year-old Julia's grandmother, Elizaveta,
claimed that on a recent visit her grandaughter
brought a boyfriend. 

'He was tall and respectful - a businessman - and he
drove a Mercedes,' she insisted. 'She also used to go
out with a boy called Anton Khrulev.' 

Both girls have also been seen at a Moscow nightclub
with men who described themselves as their boyfriends.


And Julia has admitted: 'Thinking about life in ten
years, we're both dreaming about normal families and
kids.' 

Last night Michele Elliott of the child protection
charity Kidscape said: 'Record executives have
targeted the young market and the old market, now they
seem to be aiming for the dirty old man market. 

'This latest band really does defy description - it is
totally pathetic. Child pornography is not funny and
should never be laughed at, it is disgusting. I am
very sad this song is going to be No.1.'


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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