The prevalence of child sexual abuse or use of children for adult sexual gratification varies according to definitions and sources of information. As the WHO 2006 report finds from international studies conducted since 1980, mean lifetime prevalence rates are twenty per cent among women and five to ten per cent among men. In most countries girls are at higher risk than boys for sexual abuse, neglect and forced prostitution.
This is a broad definition and encompasses practices such as the use of images and depictions of children for adult sexual purposes or commercial gain and direct sexual exploitation as in abuse and trafficking. WHO estimates that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under eighteen experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence during 2002 (2006, p. 63). Recent estimates indicate that in 2000, around 1.8 million children were involved in prostitution and pornography and 1.2 million were victims of trafficking (UNICEF, 2007).
In the context of increasing reports of child abuse and exploitation, increasing use and access to child pornography and greater understanding of the damaging impact of child abuse on development and mental health, the concerns about child exposure to sexual themes are serious. Arguments about what constitutes ‘sexualised’ images are perhaps distracting given the reality of child abuse, and may be seen as an attempt to stifle debate about cultural trends towards greater sexual exposure and the values inherent in this. It is important to analyse cultural representations of gender roles, sexuality and relationships and ask what specific values are being promoted and if these are having a negative impact on child development. Key questions include the impact on children of a phenomenon described as ‘raunch culture’ and celebrity images; the impact on girls of stereotyped images of passivity and sexual objectification; and the long-term impacts of early exposure to adult sexual themes and the ways in which cultural exposure impacts on parents’ roles in protecting and educating children around sexuality in a developmentally appropriate way.
Sex sells: child exposure to sexual images
Children are both primary and secondary targets of sexualised images used in commercial marketing. The direct marketing of adult type ‘sexy’ clothes to children is one example of conscious manipulation of fashion trends for commercial gain. The secondary exposure of children to adult sexual themes in advertising, text and images is also of concern in that it presents children with information and relational themes they may not understand and which may arouse premature questioning. Whilst adults can elect to discuss or ignore some of this material, children are potentially influenced by the array of material and are less able to ‘filter’ this by selective attention. Children learn by observation and imitation and are influenced by the ‘packaging’ of material by things such as music, dance and colour. They respond to the cumulative amount of exposure and the inherent values and communications. Advertising (print, outdoor and television), girls’ magazines and free-to-air television, increasingly present an array of adult sexual themes as well as material aimed at children (particularly girls) around sexual attractiveness, sexual images and fashion, all reinforcing a particular female self-image and identity.
Research
The American Psychological Association’s 2007 review of the proliferation of sexualised images of girls and young women in the media concluded that there is a clear impact on girls’ self-image and development. Sexualisation was defined by the APA Taskforce as a process whereby the individual’s self-worth or value is defined in relation to sexual appeal or behaviour or, if the person is sexually objectified and used for another person’s sexual purposes. For girls in particular the implicit message in these types of representations is that female identity revolves around sexual attractiveness to men and that a girl’s value as a human being is measured in these terms. Opposing values, such as self-determination, self-confidence and assertiveness and positive images of autonomous female roles are either not represented or again ‘turned into’ an image thought to be sexually attractive to men by suggesting that strong females are ‘sexy.’ Of particular concern are the use of representations of pre-pubertal and young girls as ‘sexy’ with an inherent message that even young girls need to be socialised as early as possible into the defined female role.
The research evidence reviewed by the APA (2007) finds that girls and young women are negatively impacted by sexualised images in several ways:
1 Cognitive and emotional development—sexualised images are associated with girls developing anxiety, low self-esteem and body-image concerns;
2 Mental health problems—sexualisation is associated with the development of disordered eating behaviour, depression and low self-esteem;
3 Sexual development—sexualised images present a negative role for girls and women in sexual relationships and damage the development of healthy sexual self-image.
Of particular concern is the way in which sexualisation impacts on self-development. Girls exposed to sexualised images and representations of girls and women as sexual objects internalise these images and values and can incorporate them as part of their self-identity. This results in self-scrutiny, anxiety about appearance, self-consciousness and low self-esteem. Unrealistic media representations of female bodies and a ‘beauty ideal’ contribute to body dissatisfaction in girls and concerns about weight and appearance. Increasing numbers of adolescent girls seek plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures such as botox injections.
Frequent exposure to such culturally specific beauty ideals has produced a commercially significant market in beauty products, diet and weight loss products and programs and appearance preoccupation, even in primary school age children. Children are also exposed to adult sexual themes and preoccupations in the forms of advertising, radio and television items and general exposure to erotic print material and clothing in general stores. Whilst this is not specifically aimed at children or young people it unavoidably influences children’s perceptions and social learning regarding sexuality and relationships. Again, the marketing of a ‘raunch’ culture or set of attitudes concerning sex and gender may have far-reaching impact on children’s development. Further research will be important here. We need to see the development of new strategies for children to understand and evaluate the complex messages delivered in the contemporary media.
Challenges for mental health services and child protection
Mental health and support services for children and young people are well aware of the impact of advertising, media and gender stereotypes on development. Like parents, they often feel overwhelmed in the face of the degree of exposure that children experience, and the difficulties vulnerable children and young people have in disengaging themselves from distorted representations of sex and relationships. Teaching media literacy and strategies for resisting distorted representations is a powerful strategy: to be effective it should be introduced in primary school. A more complex issue is that of child risk in the face of the proliferation of sexualised child images. Recent controversy around the depiction of pubertal girls in art (see Bray, this volume), and ongoing concerns about very young models in adult style fashion representations are seen by some as the minority views of those in favour of censorship. Such labelling is not conducive to a sophisticated discussion about the needs to protect children from abuse. While it may only be a minority who will read these images as directly ‘sexual’ in the sense of finding them erotic and being motivated to act on this, the consequences are significant.
In the midst of the debate about advertising of children’s clothes, I received a phone call from an anonymous person describing his use of this advertising material for sexual pleasure. He described his confusion that his particular paedophilic sexuality was condemned on the one hand, but for him, reinforced in media and advertising in an explicit way on the other. He concluded that this proved that sexual use of children for adult purposes was legitimated by this message. He did not see that his sexual attraction to children was in fact disordered or damaging and that he was drawn to images refle
cting his interests in the media and advertising. Like many paedophiles, he denied that the involvement of children in adult sexual behaviour is damaging and in fact argued that children were interested in sexual relationships with adults and might even benefit from this. This rationalisation of harm to children is a key feature of child sexual offenders and is known to be resistant to change. It poses a significant risk of ongoing abusive behaviour as the offender justifies their behaviour to themselves and shows little regard for the victim.
How can we best protect children, but at the same time promote open and healthy learning around bodies, sexuality and gender? The broader issues of representation of girls and women in harmful and demeaning ways has been long challenged but continues to operate and perhaps in a more insidious fashion as it is now linked to an image of sexual ‘freedom’ and autonomy. Children who are developing their understanding of sexuality and sexual roles are not in a position to unpack the complexity of cultural messages delivered by the media and advertising. As in the two examples described at the beginning, girls especially may be made anxious and vulnerable in the face of a seemingly monolithic and sustained pressure to conform. Restrictions on advertising to children and scrutiny of the sorts of representations children are exposed to are not censorship, but a process of child protection that takes account of the developmental vulnerabilities of children and their unique developmental pathways—and helps children like my patients Rosa and Jane.
References
American Psychological Association (APA) (2007) ‘Taskforce on the Sexualization of Girls.’ Report retrieved from www.apa.org/pi/apa/sexualization.html
Finkelhor, David (1999) ‘The international epidemiology of child sexual abuse’ Child Abuse & Neglect, 18 pp. 909–17.
Fonagy, Peter (2006) ‘Psychosexuality and psychoanalysis: an overview’ in Fonagy, Krause and Leuzinger-Bohleber (Eds) Identity, Gender and Sexuality: 150 Years After Freud. IPA Press, London. pp. 1–21.
Freud, Sigmund (1905/1976) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Standard Edition 7. Penguin, London.
UNICEF (2007) ‘Reference guide on protecting the rights of child victims of trafficking in Europe.’ Retrieved from www.unicef.org/publications
World Health Organization (2006) ‘Global estimates of health consequences due to violence against children.’ Background paper for the UN Study on Violence against Children. www.who.org/publications
Good Is the New Bad: Rethinking Sexual Freedom
Clive Hamilton
The ethic of consent
It is now evident that the removal of most taboos and social prohibitions on sexual activity has led to a highly sexualised society in which erotic imagery and sex talk are to be found everywhere in both private and public life. This has been the enduring influence of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which saw the replacement of traditional moral prohibitions with the ‘ethic of consent.’ According to the ethic of consent, when third parties are not affected, informed consent is the only ground for judging the moral value of behaviour. In these situations, there is no ‘morality,’ only an agreed procedure for individuals to decide ‘what is right for them.’
This form of individualism is the ethical basis of both free market libertarianism and the social demands of the sexual revolution. So unlimited sexual expression has become bound up with notions of freedom to the point where, for many people, it provides the path they follow in order to find and validate themselves.
It seems to me that this state of affairs could come about only because the idea of sexual relations has been unconsciously but essentially redefined. After contraception had virtually eliminated biological reproduction as a factor in sexual decision-making, especially for men, there seemed to be only one function left—the pursuit of pleasure. Yet, as explained in my book The Freedom Paradox (2008), there is a third aspect of sexual engagement that goes beyond its physical pleasures and the biology of reproduction. It concerns the idea of union, both emotional union and what might be called metaphysical union, the direct expression and joining of our inner selves, our essence as humans.
The evocation through sexual union of some mysterious power that holds the promise of ecstatic merger gives sex a significance that transcends everyday experience. I think the power of this little-discussed but ever-present aspect of sexual engagement, in which contact between bodies can take us beyond physicality, explains our society’s preoccupation with sex in all of its manifestations.
Casual sex
Casual sex, if freely consented to, is engaged in purely for physical gratification and perhaps for the emotional pleasure of a brief social encounter. Sex without love is widely practised among younger adults in western countries, and few are willing to criticise it. If both parties freely agree and are over the age of consent, what possible objection could there be?
Before attempting to answer this question, we need to think about the context in which casual sex has proliferated, since in practice it is a minefield of potential consensual ambiguities. In the first instance, each party must be old enough, sober enough and sane enough to be able to take moral responsibility for their decisions. In practice, we know that youthfulness, drunkenness and emotional distress among women are exploited by men to sexual advantage.
And it is not only girls whose emotional confusion can be exploited. The newspapers report cases of schoolboys aged fourteen or fifteen who are invited or seduced by their female teachers into sexual relationships. The typical reaction of men reading about these cases is to wish they had been so lucky at school, yet this popular flippancy is contradicted by the fact that few of the seduced boys escape without emotional trauma, sometimes severe and long-lasting.
There is also a wider set of pressures on people, especially young people, to engage in casual sex. The market is saturated with sexualised imagery and content whose effect is to create and reinforce the view that engaging in sex is a natural part of social life and that those who do not participate will be ostracised. The ‘cool’ group at high school acquires its elevated status primarily by engaging in, or giving the impression of engaging in, sexual activity. Sex is associated with sophistication, non-conformity and a willingness to embrace life.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the pervasiveness of sex is advertisers’ practice of presenting children in sexually provocative clothing and poses to sell products, a marketing method sometimes referred to as ‘corporate paedophilia’ (see Rush, this volume). This is done by even the most respectable companies. The coexistence of widespread alarm about paedophilia and society’s apparent indifference to children being presented in the media as sexually desirable stands as a striking testimony to the power of denial on a mass scale.
Where both parties truly consent to a casual encounter, and no third parties are affected, making moral judgements is a mistake. However, a friend or family member might assume the role of moral adviser. The friend of a young woman considering a sexual encounter might question whether the proposed liaison is really in the young woman’s interests. Is consent freely given or is the young woman feeling pressured? If she gets drunk will she be in a position to consent? Is the sex engaged in for its own sake or is there another objective? Although the scene is presented here as an interrogation, young people engage in these sorts of conversations almost daily, often taking advice from magazines.
If the young woman can answer honestly that none of those factors presents an obstacle and all the conditions of fully informed consent apply, her friend might pose a final question. Will you regret it afterwards? In posing this question, the friend is calling into the conversation the young woman’s moral self, her inner judge.
Why might the young woman regret engaging in casual sex even though she goes into the encounter fully informed and consenting? One view, put by ethicist John Hunter (1980), argues that impersonal sex always falls short of ‘sex with love.’ The latter goes far beyond physical gratification: it includes ‘mutual trust, total mutual acceptance, and an inti
macy distinguished by the sharing of one’s innermost thoughts as well as one’s body.’ Sex in the context of love and intimacy becomes part of a rich relationship marked by security and reciprocity, which nurtures the sense of value and specialness in the lovers that infuses their entire relationship and advances their health and emotional wellbeing.
Hunter’s argument is that casual sex does not live up to an ideal, but for our young woman the choice is not between casual sex and ideal sex: it is between casual sex and no sex. A contrary view, in support of impersonal sex, is described by Raymond Belliotti (1993) who argues that people who pursue sex without love might be seeking only the inherent pleasure of sex and value a life free of emotional entanglements. Impersonal sex may be more enjoyable, he says, because it is free of oppressive expectations and obligations.
This is a point of view widely expressed, especially by younger people. Yet feelings of regret often follow casual sexual encounters. If, after the event, the young woman’s inner judge rules against her, the disturbance she feels—apart from disappointed physical and emotional expectations—will be for something she has relinquished, a gift that has been spurned. The metaphysical intimacy of joining essences she and her partner experienced, has no emotional context and so might feel like a violation of her bodily integrity and a trivialisation of sexual union. For both men and women, if emotional intimacy is absent, metaphysical intimacy feels hollow, for its special character seems to require care and respect.
Getting Real Page 9
