Sexy Too Soon: The Sexualization of Girls

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Among youth who watched between 4 to 6 hours per week, a third agreed with more than half these statements. And among seventh-graders who watched 7 to 9 hours of music videos per week, a full 50% agreed with more than half such statements. Recent books like “The Lolita Effect” (Overlook TP, 2008) and “So Sexy So Soon” (Ballantine Books, 2009) have raised concerns that girls are being sexualized at a young age, and Starr said her study is the first to provide empirical evidence for the trend.

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• As they begin to navigate the online world more independently, teens will be making important decisions every day.
• Before Victoria’s Secret’s new clothing line, the same outrage came after actress Elizabeth Hurley last year started a new line of tiny bikinis for young girls, and after Target began selling pink silk padded bras for tweens.
• Mattel today takes style to a new level with the introduction of Black Canary Barbie for adult collectors.
• The battle against the sexualization of our children can only be won if we as parents recognize where the battle ground begins.
• The lives of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan fascinate young girls.
• Is the person who rushes toward intercourse wasted getting more experience than the person who spends three hours making out with a partner sober and exploring ideas about sexual tension and pleasure and what feels good?

They felt it was safer sex, which is true and not true, because the rates of STDs have actually shot up among teenagers, even though the rates of intercourse have not, because they think that oral sex is safer sex and things like gonorrhea are spreading much more quickly. Our culture tries to convince our daughters that they amount to nothing more than the sum of their parts. Only by addressing this lie head-on will we equip our children with the truth.

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At 13, 70% of teens have their own smartphone; by 18 that number jumps to 93%. Although many guidelines for screen time exist, preschool-aged children spend an average of 2.5 hours per day using screens, and online videos from platforms like YouTube are extremely popular for children this age. Author Peggy Orenstein says that when it comes to sexuality, girls today are receiving mixed messages. Girls hear that “they’re supposed to be sexy, they’re supposed to perform sexually for boys,” Orenstein tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, “but that their sexual pleasure is unspoken.” “It’s very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages,” explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self.

The lives of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan fascinate young girls. The Hannah Montana phenomenon, while seemingly innocent at first, is a prime example of the media pushing young starlets to move beyond “precocious and cute” to “sensual and sexy.” All the while, impressionable tween fans stand by in wide-eyed wonder, wanting to be just like them. In the sexy photo, “Amanda” is wearing a low-cut red dress with a slit up one leg to mid-thigh and a visible garter belt.

Advertising, product placement, and influencer marketing can be an important piece of teens and young adults purchasing choices. As teens and young adults develop their own sets of beliefs and values, these influences can be particularly important. By working together with your teen to create a media use agreement — and to update it as they grow increasingly independent and responsible about their media use — you can help them build the habits that will lead to a healthier, more balanced engagement with the digital world. As they strike off more independently into the online world, teens and young adults need opportunities to take risks with safety nets and to rely on their caregivers and trusted adults for support and guidance. Adolescence is an active period of change finalizing the shift from childhood to adulthood. Teens are maturing physically, sexually, and cognitively while they also develop more complex and nuanced relationships with peers and seek even greater independence from primary caregivers.

These habits will carry into college and independent life when they get older. She recommends that parents examine the messages they send regarding girls and sexuality. “One of the things that I really took away from this research, is the absolute importance of not just talking about [girls] as victims, or not just talking about them as these new aggressors, but really surfacing these ideas of talking clearly and honestly to girls about their own desires and their own pleasures,” she says.

When shown a set of two dolls, one in revealing clothes and the other in trendy by covered-up clothes, about 70 percent of girls in the study said they looked more like the sexy doll and that the sexy doll was more popular than the non-sexy doll. While it’s easy to blame media for these poisonous influences, we also need to scrutinize ourselves. If we fret over physical appearance or enjoy media laden with sexual images, chances are we will pass on the same mind-set to our daughters. Previously researchers found that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the latest study, published in the journal Sex Roles, is the first to detect self- sexualization in girls just slightly older than toddlers. Girls and young women are in a “no-win” situation when it comes to their Facebook photos, Daniels said.

Girls Who Dress Sexy Are Assumed to be Popular, But Not SmartEven before the end of elementary school, girls come to equate looking sexualized as a marker of popularity and status. Girls, especially prior to puberty, aspire to look sexualized before they have any understanding of sexuality or sexual behavior, and before they see it as a way to attract the attention of boys. Instead they are reflecting what the media has told them their most successful peers are like and who they are most likely to hang out with. When six- to nine-year old girls were asked what outfit would be popular with other girls, they selected an extremely short black mini-skirt and an off-the-shoulder top, an outfit significantly more sexualized than what they said they wore every day, and more sexualized than what they thought boys would like. So looking sexy is seen as a route to be popular among one’s peer group. But at the same time, the mass media deluges girls and women with a very different message, one that encourages them to seek approval by the way they dress and look rather than by their abilities and talents.