Our sexual obsession damages boys as well as girls

Our sexual obsession damages boys as well as girls

Rachel Bell

The number of young men using prostitutes has doubled in a decade to one in 10


It's official: sexualisation harms girls. Of course it does. It harms all of us. It doesn't just make girls ill, it harms boys too, teaching them to be sexually violent.

The American Psychological Association's findings - that the portrayal of girls and young women as sex objects harms girls' mental and physical health - should be addressed at the root cause: the media. Powerful and profit driven, they are left to self-regulate with their own voluntary codes. Not only is this not working, it's harming society. The Government needs to introduce responsible media regulation, in which social responsibility and harm are not compromised for free speech. Only then will we see diverse representations of females in positive roles.

As a society, we should be extremely worried. The saturation of sexualised images of females is leading to body hatred, eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, high rates of teen pregnancy and unhealthy sexual development in our girl children. It also leads to impaired cognitive performance. In short, if we tell girls that looking "hot" is the only way to be validated, rather than encouraging them to be active players in the world, they underperform at everything else.

But the consequences of sexualising girls are far more devastating than this. Rape is at crisis levels, and one in three women will be a victim of stalking, sexual harassment or sexual violence in their lifetime.

...

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2293442.ece

against it

the prospect that one in three women will be a victim of stalking, sexual harassment or sexual violence in their lifetime is downright scary. The world is becoming less civilized, we seem to be going backwards.

thinks it's justified to abuse women. Damn. Over a third...all so the corporate mafia-types can make $.

most of what i see on tv is pure trash. i can't imagine being a child growing up in today's world. it's definitely causing a very perverted society.

And money trumps the good of society every time in the USA.

I'm not sure what "sexualization" is though, humans are sexual by nature, I think the issue is making kids grow up too soon, and an undue emphasis on social conformity and social competition and the like. Kids need a lot of being accepted the way they are, and encouragement, and the like.

sex and being represented (as in "dressed") as provocatively sexual beings. Think Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilar, and whoever else.

Normal human children will not be particularly interested in sex on their own until their hormones have kicked in pretty well.

It breaks my heart that there are people right here at DU who make their living from pornography, and therefore can't "afford" to "see" the harm it does. They'll be along shortly to defend porn, I'm sure.

Personally, I seem to be going in the opposite direction. I keep seeing -- and understanding -- more and more at deeper and deeper levels how the soft porn which comprises so much of our advertising and other media absolutely precludes anything close to equality for women. It's a no-brainer, frankly. You can't represent a whole class of people as merely sexual objects, merely sexual playthings with NO real value beyond that, and still expect that members of that class could ever fully be taken seriously by the society in which they live.

It's just impossible.

You can't expect that members of a whole class of people so utterly disrespectfully and objectively represented in media EVERYwhere will NOT also be made the target of vicious and brutal physical attacks. Also just impossible.

...waiting for the First Amendment yowls to start.

I hear a lot about 'rights'...we are very, very concerned about our rights (and with this particular administration we really NEED to be) but I hear and see very, very little about responsibilities.

We've managed as a society to lose sight that they're the other side of the 'rights' coin.

We can keep those evil men from ever seeing a bit of your body that you don't want to be seen. Or do you prefer a Burqua?


As much as some here on DU hate it the nations with the most liberal porn laws have the lowest rates of teen pregnancy. Lowest rates of transmission of STD's. Lowest rates of sexual assault.

I think the true insanity is that a nation that thinks it's ok to walk down the street with a handful of dogshit in a plastic bag thinks it's a crime to expose a penis or vagina. Exactly where is the harm? Do retinal cells die or something?

Relieving men of their sexual frustrations is a dirty job but physically no more demanding than changing the cat's box or vacuuming. If people didn't make such a big deal about it could be done and the world could move on to dealing with some real problems.

Actually a realistic acceptance of sex work is proven to mitigate much of the harm done all around. See this Scientific American article

The real problem is that the sexual services of women are priced above whatever men are able or willing to pay in social or financial capital. So then these men go into all sorts of contortions to prove themselves manly or otherwise gain approval from women. Porn is a societally cheap way to relieve these pressures. When's the last time Denmark invaded anybody anyway?

Hey, did you hear there's a significant chance that we are going to kill most life in the oceans in the lifetime of a kid born today? I know it's trivial but you should check it out. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=84553&mesg_id=84553

Maybe the first role of feminism could be keeping the Great Mother alive.

:puke:

Thanks for this post.

It would seem that we have a media that force feeds us sex and violence. It's like they're trying to dumb us down so that right wing politicians have a better go of it than they would in a more enlightened society. Could there be a systematic imprinting going on to make us more compliant?
Nah that would be a fascist conspiracy, never happen in this country hah, hah.

:kick:

Our freedom is taken if we don't act and our freedom is taken if we do. I have two ideas:

1- Make surgery and medicine so effective and cheap that when everyone is "hot" so no one will be.

2- Redefine "sexy" to include those with different phenotypes.

bout says it all.....