Sexy girl

"Corporate pedophilia" is the name down under, for corporations' and marketeers' unhealthy attraction to children, and I guess we can include in that, the corporations involved in marketing films, and also using film as a medium to market other products (via tie-ins, licensing, product placement).

These pedophiles' longing for closeness, means they groom kids, flatter them, suck them into their world. And in the end, the corporate pedophiles corrupt our kids. Sexualizing kids before their time, is a new angle, but hardly surprising, given that advertising is virtually unregulated.

On one level kids wanting to dress older, is usual. Younger kids always envy older ones. They imitate them. They try to act older, more mature. That's OK, but Unfortuantely, interfering in this, are the marketing people. Paid to find out what kids want; paid to exploit that knowledge to alter kids behaviour - in ways not in the kids best interests.

The article is correct in explanation of how this causes damage. Advertisers operate, by creating an artificial image which people find un-naturally attractive. Their work trains people to strongly associate this image, with a product, making the product look good, or rather, making you think of the warm fuzzy image whenever the product is mentioned, rather than the nature of the product itself (often disappointing).

A little of this does no harm. But advertising techniques these days, have become too powerful. People reject reality and chase the image. When the reality you reject, is your own self as you actually are - - - - trouble.

PS Disappointing, the writer ignored the effect on boys. When girls are affected - that distorts the whole boy-girl-friendship/relationship thing too - and - yes! boys get damaged as well.

@ Ruperty - Surely it is irrelevant what constitutes "hot" or not? I think what the article is arguing is that for young women - and girls - the continual emphasis on the importance of external appearance helps to reinforce the idea that having their sexual attractiveness validated (by men, other women, society as a whole)is the only thing to aspire to. And that this unhealthy mindset is occurring at an ever-younger age. When young girls have become part of a sexualised culture that judges them on their 'sexiness' before they even know what sex itself is, something is very wrong.

@ BriscoRant - I agree that boys are also damaged by this sexualisation of young girls and it is no wonder that surrounded by so many conflicting and confusing messages about sex and sexuality, that they too are affected.

Great article Libby.

Surely the problem is wider than indicated in this article. It is not just the images aimed at young girls. It is the images of, and aimed at, women in general. Women are portrayed every day as morons whose central objective in life is to 'look good' for men. From the TV adverts of the "Because you're worth it" variety to the behaviour of female celebrities. It's not just page 3 images in the Sun. Look at the images of women in the fashion/women's pages of papers like the Observer. And there there is the endless stream of material in women's magazines telling women how look sexy. I can hardly believe the amount of such stuff we are all bombarded with daily.

Children are being robbed of their childhood.

Let us not forget that boys, too, are similarly affected: look for those things that The Market defines as 'beautiful', 'hot', etc. Also, little kids trying to look, dress, act macho... it is a sad spectacle.

Here in India, there is the other disgusting phenomenon... the Fairness Fixation. People STILL talk of being fair in very approving tones and of being dark in disapproving tones. The common phrasing is, "Even though she is dark, she is still not bad looking..." Usually not said of a 'he', mind you. Dark-skinned guys want light-skinned girls!

Skin-lightening creams, treatments, and other services constitute a multi-million industry in India.

There are many parents here who are in the same predicament as your friends. I am happy to note that I know some who are instilling a good healthy sense of self-hood in their children who are enjoying their childhood and being happy with very little concern about their appearance to others.

Others, young and old, caught up in this dark (!) phenomenon are damaged emotionally and physically... fearing the aging process, fighting to be young... but only in appearance, mannerisms, and language... with neither the exuberance of youth nor the wisdom and peace of age.

The parents of these young "sexualised" girls have not been mentioned. Surely they are part of the problem too - not just big corporations. For example, who would buy a teen or tween a pole dancing kit?
It is quite pathetic that females wish to be famous, a WAG, etc as a career.
I feel sorry for women, and angry at the parents of girls.
It needs parental discipline from all parents to stop the rot, NOT government legislation

I wonder how much things change over time and how much the changes are worth worrying about. It's easy to see things as drifting out of control, sexually or otherwise, among the young, but what's the context?

I grew up an American male in the '50s, and let me tell you, there was plenty of pressure to look "hot," to subsume yourself under a cultural mandate to look good and what the hell else mattered? I was a geek, a misfit, and I still tried to force my limp blond hair into the Italian greaser mold of my friends.

Yes, the pressure is far greater on girls than boys, and yes, it's slipping down disturbingly in age. What was true of 16 years old back then seems to be true of 11 now. But cultural mores move up and down like a yo-yo, and vary broadly between cultures.

Masai males are followed around by groups of pre-pubescent females. That's just the way it's done there. I'm not say that that makes it right here and now, but I do think that we may be overstressing a passing phenomenon - or one that's part of a natural cultural growth pattern.

It's a damned shame that girls - or boys - should have to worry about their appearance, but alas, that may be what growing up and getting prepared for reproduction is about. I hated the whole process and would gladly change it, but that will take far more than moaning over "lost" values that were never really there in the first place.

Heads up on another film, "Wild Child", starring Emma Roberts as a porntween who goes to boarding school in the UK, grows up a bit, then brings her new crew back to Malibu. Natasha Richardson also. There may or may not be a moral in it somewhere :-)

This problem is serious, but like so many others (e.g. global warming) cannot be solved without recognizing its "root cause" in an economic system that developed both to serve and exploit man's "more animal than human" nature - unsurprisingly, in view of human origins and evolution.

However, because of the way in which Darwin's theory was misunderstood and misused - criminally by some, including the Nazis - in the 90 years following its publication, there is currently a taboo on applying it to the social sciences.

It is a taboo that we urgently need to break, in order to understand our situation and be in a position to make the radical and rapid (i.e. revolutionary) changes necessary, not just to our economy, but to our entire socio-economic order, which - obviously, from a Darwinian perspective - is all deeply rooted in and dependent on man's blind, dumb-animal nature and behaviour, and without which our civilization will continue heading towards a premature end.

http://www.spaceship-earth.org

@briscorant A very good comment. Here in Italy Mr. Burlesconi's TV put on a program in the 1990's "Non e il RAI" which consisted of pre-pubescent girls gyrating in revealing costumes while miming to songs - A paedophile's wet-dream. What I find evil is the corporations which cynically exploit this for their profit.
I had my fights, shouting matches and tears with my daughter in her early teens about what she was wearing for going to school, but luckily she was slightly older, and it is the usual story for a parent I suppose.

Children have always wanted to look like adults. The problem is so many adults now want to look and act like children. If I never see another 30-year-old wearing low-cut trousers with 'Juicy' written on the bottom, I'd be ever so thrilled.

It would be useful if society accepted people for who they were, and encouraged them to dress accordingly. But that's not very likely, is it?

@crosby99
Yes, goverment intervention. In a democracy the goverment is the the corporate executive of the people. To allow such an issue to be one of individual conscience is a dreadful mistake, handing power directly to the purveyors of this stuff - the corporations who indirectly or directly make money from the sexualisation of children.

We need to make a social statement that this is not acceptable in our society; that we believe that it is damaging to our children and consequently our culture.

We have a mechanism to do so. We need to lobby our government to legislate against such practices - not mumble that it's bad but down to individuals to ignore and resist the enormous pressure the marketeers and advertisers pour upon us.

It's time to quosh the nanny state myth (that Murdoch and his crew find so useful), reconnect ordinary people with their own government and restore power to our democratically elected representatives.

As I recall, the pole-dancing kit was intended for adults. The scandal was that the retailer tagged it to appear in the "toys" section of their online store, and so parents looking for presents for their kids came across it.

That said, I think we haven't yet gotten to grips with the effects of media saturation on coming generations. I don't think we realize how different it is from our own childhoods to grow up watching several hours of adult-themed entertainment a day, whether television, internet, etc.

I think parents haven't gotten to grips with how much energy they should be putting in to make sure media is appropriate for their kids. It takes a lot of effort to monitor, even if you aren't using the TV as babysitter; and if you're the only one doing it, your kids are going to resent you for it, and circumvent it anyway. But more than that, I think parents just don't realize how harmful immersion in adult media can be for kids.

Parental supervision and guidance is really the only hope here. Society evolves as it will, and censorship at the source is just getting harder. But even as the amount of effort required to protect kids increases, increasing individualism means that parents probably have less energy and motivation than previous generations to do what's required. I guess we'll see how it's played out in 20 years.

"It's unlikely that the new St Trinians film will precipitate a run on extra-small stockings from Marks & Spencer, but only because the majority of youthful wardrobes already bulge with the micro-minis and cropped tops required to replicate the look"

Even eons ago, during my teen years, girls wanted to look sexy and would test the limits. As I see it, the problem comes from two directions. Firstly, girls expect to become "sexual beings" from increasingly younger ages. My daughter won't leave home without her make-up on and she's just 12. When the TV goes on, she switches it straight to American teen shows in which an endless stream of exceptionally pretty pubescent girls are fixated with how they look, and boys. Secondly, a child's main occupation - being a schoolkid - is now part of this sexual scene, and girls at my daughter's school expect to be allowed to go wearing pink nail polish, spangled bracelets and micro-minis! The whole function of uniform is that children should forget about individuality of appearance by conforming to an expectation of an institution so that they can focus upon learning. At my school, we were inspected each morning. All cosmetics and jewellery wer prohibited (excepting a plain watch), ties had to be tied properly and our skirts had to cover our knees when standing. If we failed the inspection, we were sent home with a letter!

Great article, though I think there are two aspects that need referring to.

The first was the comment on the Manchester Utd footballers. It's a bit of a cheap shot for a couple of reasons:
(i) The relevant subtext to this was the alleged rape of a woman. A case has not yet been heard. I realise that the "find more men guilty" voice is often heard, but let's keep the kangaroos from jumping all over the courtroom.
(ii) it's even more tenuous as the player was seven years younger than the woman he was involved with. If he'd been 26 and the alleged victim 19 it would have been at least partially relevant
(iii) The concept of players "ordering up women". Hmm, even the most biased of viewpoint accepts that this is a two-way street. There is a slice of womankind whose destiny is to land a rich footballer. I know, I've known these women. This works across the board, a friend of mine once pretended to be a reserve player for a lower league club and had a small stampede of women attend him once this was found out. It doesn't do your otherwise excellent article good to insert a lazy and tenuous example to enhance topicality.

The second point concerns those who never seem to blame, the parents. We're seeing a large portion of girls who don't command large amounts of surplus money being focused on here. It's not so much the 15 year old spending her weekend-job money on a t-shirt with "porn star" on it as much as nine year-olds with t-shirts with "porn star in training" on it. With xmas on the doorstep the number of 10/11 year olds wearing really inappropriate outfits whilst out with mum shopping is really on the increase.

But - parents are power. They hold the purse and most media won't touch them. To prove this try and watch a segment of GMTV when the attempt to do their "serious" bit. Chances are the topic of the day will see the local council/government/first person in a suit blamed whilst parental responsibility is quietly forgotten.

other than that an excellent article - keep up the good work.

Well, my gast is somewhat flabbered. An article on CiF I can agree with... whatever next? Perhaps it is Christmas after all.

However, unfortunately for smug Guardianistas, you can't completely blame this consumerist commodification of the self (for both males and females) entirely on the usual right-wing, free-market demons. For trendy-left anti-elitism is also - at least, partially - responsible for a dominant - but stagnant and stultifying - shallow popular culture which puts image way, way above substance to the point where anything of substance is completely lost.
Of course the (former) broadsheets themselves (both of the nominal right and the left) are complicit in this too, constantly telling the mothers of these kids that they 'must have' this handbag, that exact pair of shoes, those particular knickers if they want to be a real woman, rather than suggesting to them it would be fair better for them to grab a handful of, say, Wollanscroft, Greer and de Beauvoir.

Thank goodness for school uniform.

My daughter is 7 and the girls in her class at school talk about being sexy. When I asked daughter if she knew what it meant she said 'It means really pretty' which bothered me because it's not the same as pretty. The pole dancing kit may have been intended for adults, but there are incredibly inappropriate clothes on sale for 7 year olds, expecially party clothes.

rogerhicks > recognizing its "root cause" in an economic system that developed both to serve and exploit man's "more animal than human" nature <> Darwin's theory was misunderstood and misused <> there is currently a taboo on applying it to the social sciences.

J7> The economic system that the world is running under at the moment is usually considered to be globalised capitalism. I can see that Darwin's theories might relate, at some distance, but you would probably do better to look at some of the theories of Marx, Weber, Foucsult and Bourdieu on class, consumption, power, discourse, and the relationships between social structures and personal agency. There's no taboo - just more relevant and useful theories. Any good sociology textbook will lead you to the relevant authors and original texts.

One of the many things I like about Norway is that it's illegal to advertise to children here. This, combined with the fact that adults have more time to spend with their children - the working day is much shorter - and the high visibility of women in public life means you have a culture in which being a 12-year-old girl is perhaps slightly easier than it is in the UK.

Children are less separated from the world of adults - there isn't that weird disconnect that you find in the UK - but they are also allowed to be children. They are far more physically active, are given more responsibility and control over their own lives (how many 12-year-olds do you know in the UK who are allowed to take out a boat on their own? Here it's entirely normal) and they seem far happier and better balanced.

If you only give children control over one area of their lives - let's say how they consume, which seems to be the British way - then it's unsurprising that they express themselves entirely through this. We complain about children growing up too fast, but the reality is that British children are far too shielded from the world beyond the market.

Yeah, kids these days, eh?

As the Guardian likes to produce a daily article (or two) on Islam let me be the first to bring it into this thread by saying that maybe we should learn from the new Puritans in our midst and promote the covering up of the female form (of all ages) in figure concealing dress (even when swimming or doing the high jump)

Crosby99: "The parents of these young "sexualised" girls have not been mentioned. Surely they are part of the problem too - not just big corporations. For example, who would buy a teen or tween a pole dancing kit?"

As Eminem put it: "what about that make-up you allow your 12 year old daughter to wear?" Sexiness is always to some degree about sex, it is about evoking the erotic. And for underage and pre-teen girls to appear sexy is downright disturbing. That many of the left are keen to champion pre-teen sexiness should be cause for concern.

The more people are obsessed by their own looks, the more they judge others in the same way. They re-enforce each others priorities, ie: clothes, make-up, boys. And they home-in on boys who have the male equivalent priorities, eg: first team sport, muscles, sex. The more reliant someone is one looks as a social passport (and, for pretty girls, it is a very sure passport), the less likely they are to develop other parts of their personality. It means we stick in a world where batting eyelids and marrying rich men remains major routes to the top for women.

Good article.

There's also the problem of making models anorexic and therefore look prepubescent. The fashion industry has to look at itself and say: who among us likes pre-pubescent girls, and then out them.
I remember that chocolate ad a few years ago (can't remember the name of it)where thirteen-year-olds were about to bite into a bar of chocolate, the music getting louder until the moment she bit into it. It was relating it to an orgasm.
Why the advertisers were never jailed for that I don't know.