It’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been engaging in discussions elsewhere in cyberspace, mainly combating Christian conservatives (futile, I know, but I had my reasons), until the plug was pulled by a nervous moderator. The subject? Children’s sexuality. Odd, given that he started the topic by writing about the Sydney Catholic bishop, Geoffrey Robinson, who has just written a book advocating reform of the CC’s teaching on sexuality (and who was the former head of the Sydney doicese’s anti-abuse unit).
The decision to stop the discussion highlighted what I think is a significant problem in the West (although, for some perspective, nowhere near as important as global warming or social injustice), and that is the taboo on talking about sex in general, and acknowledging children’s sexuality in particular.
This all ties in neatly with a discussion on the ABC’s ‘Matter of Opinion’ on 27/9. The topic was the sexualization of children through the media. Here I am revisting the corporate paedophilia entry, and here I wish to note that Dr Catherine Lumby, who made a comment to that entry, was on the panel. I won’t bore you with the names of the other panellists (because they are probably not known outside OZ) but they consisted of a female child psychiatrist, a conservative feminist, a male media expert and Catherine, also a media expert and I guess, liberal feminist.
Whilst I thought it was a fair discussion of what are complex issues I was struck by one thing. How little we actually know about children and sexuality and how little we are prepared to discuss it.
I have come to the conclusion that we face two threats: the commercial exploitation (and commercial sexualization) of children, and the ‘asexualization’ of children by sexual conservatives. This last term needs further explanation. Over the last hundred to fifty years the West has generated the myth of the innocent child. I have pointed out that up until 1929 the minimum age of marriage in England (and Australia) was 12. The situation in the US changed later, with some states keeping a low marriage age until the 70’s (the country singer Loretta Lynn married at 13). The idea that adolescents must now wait until they are 16-18 is relatively recent and is an attempt to increase the length of childhood.
It seems that the more open adults are about sexuality the more sexual conservatives want to increase the age of consent and prevent adolescents from knowing anything about sex. Mind you, when the age of marriage was as young as 12 the young wife was meant to be an innocent virgin magically awoken into her sexuality by her husband on their wedding night. The age of consent has increased at the same time as women choose to marry later. Is this really about trying to preserve conservative, patriarchal notions of virgin marriages?
So it seems the more the adult world embraces open discussion about sexuality the greater the fear about ’sexualizing’ children. I’ve probably said this before (I’m too lazy to check) but I loathe the word ’sexualize’. It’s a new word. It’s not in my dictionary. The correct word to use is socialize. In which case children have always been socialized into the norms of their society. To use the term ’sexualize’ in this context is to provide an excuse to narrow the discussion and avoid a general discussion of how children are socialized in our hyper-marketed, consumer culture. It’s not just about sex. It’s about a whole range of issues. In fact by accepting and using the term sexualization we in fact conflate a whole range of issues that actually have little to do with sex as such.
A prime example is the research done by the APA that purports to show that sexualization of children leads to anorexia and eating disorders. There is no doubt the incidence of eating disorders has increased, but I would have thought it was due to the social pressure to be thin. Granted, physical appearance is connected to appearing attractive to the opposite sex, but current research shows that for girls and women, it has more to do with being accepted by other women. Here I want to interject with a common male complaint – we don’t like skinny girls; we don’t like stick thin models. The biggest buyers of celebrity and fashion magazines are women. Look to Playboy to find the masculine ideal. The eating disorder epidemic is about female competitiveness and peer acceptance. By using the term sexualization we blame the wrong process. We are looking for apples in an orange tree.
There is also no doubt that marketers have discovered a new market in children. But this is not about sexualization, it’s about marketing to children using a whole range of ploys. I’m clear about the solution. Marketing to children is unethical and should be banned. Sweden has done this. We must follow.
But what is happening is that the conversation about sex in the adult world bleeds into the child’s world. I was buying a newspaper the other day and in the magazine rack, at child’s height, was a woman’s magazine with the clear sub-heading ‘achieving better orgasms’ (or ‘how to have great sex’, or ’sex secrets’, etc). Magazines, TV and films targeted at adults are seen and read by children. Doh! My father kept Playboy magazines under his bed – of course my brother and I found them. My ex-girlfriend told me the story of minding her five year-old niece. She had discovered her grandfather’s Penthouse magazine and had come into the loungeroom naked, posed in a sexually explicit way and asked if she looked pretty like the girl in the magazine. My ex-girlfriend was flabbergasted, embarrassed and did not know how to handle the situation. I read of another story recounted by the photographer and film director Larry Clark, a female friend of his was exposed to porn as a child. Her father would watch porn late at night. If she had to get up to go to the toilet she would pass the living room and see the images on the TV, without her father being aware.
Children have always been exposed to sex. Older children (siblings, cousins, neighbours) tell younger children and these stories get retold in the schoolyard. I saw my first porn in the schoolyard. A friend got it from his older brother. Do you think the parents or teachers ever found out?
This is why I advocate sex education, early sex education. And I’m pleased to note that the type of sex education I think should be taught at primary level is being taught. I saw video of ten year-olds drawing naked male and female bodies, after the initial giggling the class approached the lesson with amazing maturity.
Sadly, even after hearing some promising discussion on ‘Matter of Opinion’ I’m still dismayed at the level of ignorance about children’s sexuality and the process of socialization. We fret about bras for prepubertal girls, but accept that they should cover their chests. This is socialization into gender norms. It’s been going on for centuries.
Let me say it this way. All children are socialized. The real question is what type of socialization is appropriate. But in a society that is undergoing a revolution in sexual attitudes it is unsurprising and unremarkable that we are confused about how to socialize children in this area. We don’t know what is acceptable, so how can we tell our kids what is and isn’t? Attitudes differ in sub-groups. Latina and Afro-American girls tend to start having sex earlier than White girls. Much of the complaint about the sexual imagery in music videos is about Black music. White kids are exposed to Black culture. But here we reveal sexual racism. White girls are supposed to kept pure, but ethnic girls are somehow different (and Black men are very sexual by nature – get my drift?).
So what’s the fear about? What exactly will happen if children are exposed to sex? I’ve never heard a clear explanation of the fear. It seems irrational. As I have said before, children in traditional cultures are exposed to the realities of sex. It’s Western culture that seems obsessed with protecting children from sex. Why? We used to create nice stories about storks and cabbage patches to avoid explaining where children came from. Why? The answer is obvious, the Judeo-Christian teaching on sex.
The way through this is to talk intelligently about sex.
Finally, a comment on the two conservative Muslim women, one of whom told the story of her ten year-old nephew who asked why women got excited so easily. She tried to blame Western culture and the Western media for its portrayal of women. Sadly Catherine Lumby fell for the ploy and tried to defend the media. However, she failed to address the real problem. The 10 year-old boy in question was reflecting Islamic attitudes to women picked up from older males. This too, is a process of socialization, but socialization into negative, patriarchal attitudes.