Sexualisation of Young People Review

Sexualisation of Young People Review
Introduction (cont.)
As images that would have been found
shocking just a few years ago flood
the mainstream, so the boundaries
get pushed back further. We’re seeing
adverts that reference gang rape and
adverts where women are reduced
to dismembered body parts. In fact
the influences of the iconic visual
constructs of porn are contributing to
the emergence of a caricature of what
it means to be a woman. Being beautiful,
being attractive, being ‘sexy’ is no longer
about individuality and the characteristics
that make a person unique, it’s about
ticking off items on a checklist: big breasts,
big lips, fake tan, fake hair, fake nails – and,
of course, youth.
The notion that all young women
who are socialised into believing that
their worth lies in their sexuality and
appearance should have the ‘agency’ to
stand up to these images is naïve. This
assumes that: firstly, all these messages
are assimilated on a conscious level
so can easily be challenged; secondly,
that all young women are afforded the
opportunity to moderate these messages
through healthy parental and peer
relationships; thirdly, that their own selfesteem
is resilient enough to allow them
to question and stand up to prevailing
norms; and finally, that their education has
afforded them the kind of media literacy
that allows them to ‘filter out’ unhealthy
messages. The fact is that many young
people don’t have these opportunities
and, as such, are vulnerable to the
messages both overt and covert that are
propagated in the world around them.
With a tendency to ‘adultify’
children and ‘infantilise’ women, the
lines where childhood ends and
adulthood begins are becoming
increasingly blurred. Girls who haven’t
even developed secondary sex
characteristics are posed to look overtly
sexy, while adult women are posed to
look submissive and child-like rather
than empowered and in control. It’s no
surprise therefore that for young female
actors and musicians, taking their clothes
off has become a rite of passage, a way
of showing the world that they’re ‘all
grown up now’. While boys are ‘allowed’
to enter adulthood without needing
to advertise their sexual availability or
desirability, they are nevertheless exposed
to messages that reinforce the idea that
they should be primarily motivated by
sex and that male desire is something
that cannot be controlled. This is having
an impact both on boys’ attitudes to their
own bodies and on their attitudes to and
behaviour towards girls.
The following section provides an
overview of how the media and
advertisers are promoting sexualised
images and messages and explores the
role of the internet. It also looks at the
role of parents in providing support
to help their children understand and
contextualise what they see and hear.
It goes on to look at the various ways
in which pornography has entered
the mainstream, including through
the internet and the proliferation
of lapdancing clubs. Throughout,
we consider the implications of this
exposure on children and young people’s
emotional and cognitive development.
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