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This essay will attempt to introduce the ideas and points that will be used to critically discuss the concerns over the sexualization of girls and the extent this reflects normative and naturalized assumptions about childhood and sexuality. My essay will touch on several points and will establish how the discourse of sexualization obscures sexism and unwittingly reinforces patriarchal constructions of female sexuality. This prominent discourse ensures that young people and girls particularly are characterized as victims and targets of dangerous sexualization and children are not taken sincerely as both social actors and meaning-makers.
Sexualization is quite a complex concept and process that is very really articulated in the debate. What we get is a narrow definition or an assumption. Discussions made throughout my essay will look at some of the debates around sexualization with reference to key and recent government reports such as the Bailey Review (2011) ‘Letting Children Be Children’ which gave recommendations regarding sexualization, and so my essay will attempt to look at some of the assumptions within them. It is emphasized that these naturalized assumptions about childhood are that children are in a process of development, that their sexuality evolves slowly, and that anything that is too much, too soon, is harmful. The framing of the discourses around sexualization is also highly gendered; girls are supposed to be at risk and boys are not at risk at all.
Access to communication technologies over the years has transformed, and so increased sexualized imagery in the media and on the Internet has increased, which has brought about alarm about its impact on children. Children, especially females, are to be seen as at risk, and any sexual behavior they partake in that is deemed sexual is also considered risky due to childhood and sexuality being constructed as antithetical. The social constructionist view of childhood and sexuality is the idea that both are socially constructed. Foucault makes known that in today’s Western society, sex views have sustained a huge fluctuation over the past centuries, and so a need to protect from sexualization has risen, whilst these views are dominant in academic discourses, on the other hand, pragmatic conceptions of childhood and sexuality continue to consider such ideas as natural.
What is important in terms of these debates is the idea of proper and improper sexualization, and Foucault recognizes points that have connected both power and learning to sex, including the pedagogy of children’s sex. Proper sexualization is where adults, teachers, parents, and professionals are to determine the time of access to sexual knowledge and what sexual knowledge is given. Improper sexualization is where children take control themselves and find out information themselves, and all of the debates around sexualization are based on the idea that the child is passive; a passive sponge that lives in a sexualized culture and is unable to resist any of the messages they receive both in terms of sexualization and in the media.
Part of what we have a concern about in terms of the representation of sexualization and children and sexualized behavior is what we can call a cultural incongruence. The construction of children is to be seen as pure innocence, so to see children and child behavior in what is according to definitions a ‘sexual’ way is so incoherent. What is seen as acceptable and unacceptable is solely based on what adults say, and children’s voices are not listened to. A very mechanistic and passive view of children is presented, and many argue the idea that once children become sexual, they become a risk to others. Here there will also be a discussion on a legacy of discourses such as the sexualization of older imagery and how girls are encouraged and socialized to use sexuality to get their way, and so the sexualization of girls is imminent. Similarly, adult meaning is being imposed on situations and images, and children merely take these situations and images and incorporate them into their own meaning. This will be emphasized by discussing the work of William Corsaro (2003) and interpretive reproduction.
Reports such as the Bailey Review (2011) ‘Letting Children Be Children’ and Rush and La Nauze’s ‘Corporate Paedophilia: The Sexualisation of Children in Australia’ (2006) are examples of how boys are left out from many reports around the discussions of sexualization, and even though it is mainly girls who are exposed to sexual imagery and are the ones deemed at-risk, boys are also not immune. Children soak up images they are presented with from the adult world and interpret them into their own with whatever tools they have, and so being exposed to sexualized media will most likely lead to a domino effect of boys sexualizing girls. It is assumed that sexualization is homogeneous and affects all children in the same way. However, boys are expected to be strong and dominant emphasizing sexualization is still a problem for both genders.
Concerns about the sexualization of children and young people in media, products, and services are also predominant. There have been many debates surrounding problems, such as female clothing, advertisements, and girls’ magazines, encouraging sexualization and impractical ideals of what women should look like. Concerns have also been constructed about children’s products/toys, for example, the body and colors of dolls. It could be argued this emphasizes the assumption that exposing children and young people to sexualized images and products at young ages has been argued to lead to premature sexualization.
In conclusion, to a large extent concerns over the sexualization of girls reflects normative and naturalized assumptions about childhood and sexuality. There have been many discourses around sexuality that emphasize the idea of children and young people as a risk as they are victims and targets of dangerous sexualization. A very mechanistic and passive view of children is presented in key debates around sexualization. In turn, children are not taken sincerely as both social actors and meaning-makers, and it should be heard that sexualization both affects girls and boys and what is deemed as sexual and not sexual should not be solely based on adult thinking.
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