sexual images in the media?

78 Vodafone
Digital Parenting
ExpErt viEw
Dr Linda Papadopoulos
Dr Linda Papadopoulos’ 14-year career
as a research scientist and practising
psychologist has led to her work being
published in some of the most wellregarded
academic journals and given
rise to a high profile media career.
www.drlinda.co.uk
How are young
people affected by
sexual images
in the media?
Leading psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos
highlights the consequences of the sexualisation of
children and teenagers and suggests how they might
learn to navigate our increasingly complex world.

Vodafone
Digital Parenting
79
i
feel in many ways that I’m part of the
‘lucky’ generation when it comes to sexual
politics. My mum went out to work but
she didn’t exactly burn her bra; I simply grew
up surrounded by the belief that my worth
was based on who I was, my talents and what
I did with them.
I was aware of the media, of course, but even
though it feels like yesterday, the internet didn’t
even exist, teenage magazines were in their
innocent infancy and sex was a really big deal.
We had our own version of the pressures all
teenagers face – discovering our emerging
selves while wanting to be liked, to be clever
and to be popular, if at all possible – but I feel
we had just that bit more time and space in
which to find out who we were.
When I was asked by the Government to
look at the relationship between sexualisation
and growing violence towards women, I truly
wasn’t prepared for what I would find.
Why did it feel like we had taken so many
steps backward in terms of sexual equality
among young people and healthy sexuality?
How had rape scenes become a normal part
of video war games? Why were so many
girls having breast enlargement surgery as
teenagers and what possessed a girl to sell
her virginity on eBay? Were teenagers just
different today and growing up more quickly
or was something else going on?
what is ‘sexualisation’?
Many of us in the ‘lucky’ generation are
now parents and it feels like we’re just
now starting to wake up to what is going
on with our children and the impact of
premature sexualisation.
Simply put, sexualisation is the imposition
of adult sexuality on to children and young
people before they are capable of dealing
with it mentally, emotionally or physically.
While girls are valuing themselves in
terms of how sexually desirable they are
to boys, boys are feeling the pressure to be
hyper masculine.
“there is a growing body of
evidence that suggests that
sexualisation is having a profound
impact on our children’s
emotional development
and how they develop their
sense of identity.”
Kids are learning how to have sex from
pornography and we live in a world that is
more saturated by images than at any other
time in our modern history.
Behind every image lies a message about
expectations, values and ideals. Right now,
those images more often than not present and
perpetuate a world where women are revered
and rewarded for their physical attributes.
Gender stereotypes are back in fashion and
to object is often to be accused of lacking a
sense of humour or proportion.
There is a growing body of evidence that
suggests that sexualisation is having a
profound impact on our children’s emotional
development and how they develop their
sense of identity. Young people have a
natural, healthy interest in sex. But when their
developing sexuality is moulded to fit adult
stereotypes, this can compromise that healthy
developmental process.
Children no longer have the time and space
to extend their own understanding as images
and constructs are literally ‘in their face’ on a
daily basis, often before their minds are ready
to know how to interpret or process them.
Instead of putting children in control of their
sexuality, we are in danger of isolating them
from it altogether.
what are the consequences?
The serious negative consequences
associated with the sexualisation of children
is becoming ever more clear in areas of body
confidence, ambitions, low self-esteem, sexual
harassment, abuse within teen relationships
and views on sexual violence.
A study in America found a direct correlation
between children’s exposure to sexual content
on television and teen pregnancy rates.
The World Health Organization estimates
that 20% of girls and 11% of boys in the UK
have been sexually assaulted. Homophobia
is still a significant problem within schools.
These are the kinds of consequences that
leave long-term effects, often resurfacing at
vulnerable times during their adult life, affecting
careers, relationships and, in turn, how they
parent their own children.
what can we do to help
young people?
It’s unrealistic to assume that we can
stop our children and young people from
being exposed to unhealthy images but
we can give them tools to navigate the
world around them.
From digital citizenship to media literacy,
equipping kids with tools to help them
understand and interpret what they see
without internalising all the negative messages
can help them build their self-esteem and
inner confidence so they feel secure in their
own identity. Just as they are taught reading
comprehension and, later, literary criticism,
children can be taught how to critique the
media they consume.
We may think our children are highly
literate when it comes to media but it’s just
that they know how to work it, not how to
interpret it. Where these classes are already
happening in schools, the children are taking
to it with relish and then starting to create
their own forms of media and expression
rather than simply sitting back and letting
it all come to them.
With encouragement and guidance,
children are incredibly creative and have
the potential for amazing inner strength,
resilience and individual thought.
For more information about Dr Papadopoulos’ review go to: www.drlinda.co.uk