It is not unusual to have scantily clad human beings, hidden-but-still-obvious sexual messages, or even a human in the bare flesh presented in modern media. Sexualization can be simply defined as the sexualizing of an object – or making something sexually appealing. This current wave of sexualization in common media has led to some very mixed responses. There is the business side of things that sees a marketing technique that successfully catches attention – and, of course, there are the people who just like it. But the other side of the issue finds the sexualization of people, of women in particular, inappropriate and dangerous. A bit of sexualized media couldn’t really hurt, right? To the developing minds of children, yes it could. Multiple
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Children are exceptionally observant of what is going on around them. It is their entire purpose as children to be watchful of the world, so they are paying attention. And herein lies the problem, the world they are watching is full of sexy photos, not so subtle innuendos, and large helpings of general inappropriateness. Exposure to this world does not give many advantages, in fact children are likely to develop an unrealistic idea of how they should be, of how they should look – and when life happens and they do not fit the image presented to them, problems are likely to develop. There are problems like developing unhealthy fixations on physical appearance and trying to gain approval through appearance. It is the type of obsession that not being approved of physically could be considered life ruining. Or there are problems like internalized sexualization, which psychologists have defined as the belief that being considered sexually appealing is a crucial part of oneself (McKenney and Bigler 173). There are also issues with one’s body like increased body shame and increased body surveillance. Body shame is defined “as the extent that people feel shame when their body does not meet cultural standards of beauty,” (McKenney and Bigler 182) and body surveillance is when someone is conscious of how they could appear to outsiders at every moment, especially of how bad they can be perceived as by others. Along with low …show more content…
This is partly businesses. Sex is a major selling point and businesses know that, so they are going to take advantage of that. They are going to argue that the use of oversexualized media is a successful marketing strategy, so why should they not use it? Then there are of course those who just enjoy it and say they should be allowed to enjoy it in peace. But then there are the ones who find it empowering and find fault with the APA’s stance. One article argued that sexualization does not always have to be a bad thing, it can result in higher confidence and greater enjoyment (Thompson and Donaghue). Another claims to take a feminist approach to the APA’s stance, saying it “may actually interfere with some contemporary feminist goals – in particular, the goals of facilitating sexual agency and pleasure, sexual rights, and sexual health for girls and women,” (Lerum and Dworkin 253). So the APA’s more negative outlook on sexualization is argued to be damaging to gender equality in the sexual sense. Overall, people can argue whatever they want, but it is just firmly inappropriate for children to have to be aware of all this. A child is not the intended audience for this media, or one hopes they are not, so it should not be so public and plastered around everywhere so they have to see
Children are exceptionally observant of what is going on around them. It is their entire purpose as children to be watchful of the world, so they are paying attention. And herein lies the problem, the world they are watching is full of sexy photos, not so subtle innuendos, and large helpings of general inappropriateness. Exposure to this world does not give many advantages, in fact children are likely to develop an unrealistic idea of how they should be, of how they should look – and when life happens and they do not fit the image presented to them, problems are likely to develop. There are problems like developing unhealthy fixations on physical appearance and trying to gain approval through appearance. It is the type of obsession that not being approved of physically could be considered life ruining. Or there are problems like internalized sexualization, which psychologists have defined as the belief that being considered sexually appealing is a crucial part of oneself (McKenney and Bigler 173). There are also issues with one’s body like increased body shame and increased body surveillance. Body shame is defined “as the extent that people feel shame when their body does not meet cultural standards of beauty,” (McKenney and Bigler 182) and body surveillance is when someone is conscious of how they could appear to outsiders at every moment, especially of how bad they can be perceived as by others. Along with low …show more content…
This is partly businesses. Sex is a major selling point and businesses know that, so they are going to take advantage of that. They are going to argue that the use of oversexualized media is a successful marketing strategy, so why should they not use it? Then there are of course those who just enjoy it and say they should be allowed to enjoy it in peace. But then there are the ones who find it empowering and find fault with the APA’s stance. One article argued that sexualization does not always have to be a bad thing, it can result in higher confidence and greater enjoyment (Thompson and Donaghue). Another claims to take a feminist approach to the APA’s stance, saying it “may actually interfere with some contemporary feminist goals – in particular, the goals of facilitating sexual agency and pleasure, sexual rights, and sexual health for girls and women,” (Lerum and Dworkin 253). So the APA’s more negative outlook on sexualization is argued to be damaging to gender equality in the sexual sense. Overall, people can argue whatever they want, but it is just firmly inappropriate for children to have to be aware of all this. A child is not the intended audience for this media, or one hopes they are not, so it should not be so public and plastered around everywhere so they have to see