Without any iota of a doubt, society as a whole has become hypersexualized. Almost everywhere you go, pictures of supermodels in scanty clothing make their shocking appearances on highways, in magazines, in TV advertisements, and on book covers. It is impossible to escape exposure to these images that portray both men and women inaccurately and without shame. I do not mean that there is shame in wearing little clothing. I firmly believe that people should be able to wear whatever they want so long as it is not offensive. There is shame in the underlying message that all of these pictures tell.

But what exactly is this message? Who is receiving it? And what are the effects of this message on our society?

The message that these many images advertise is that of sex. It is not just adults, who are mentally capable of handling these images that relay such mature messages, but because of its prevalence, children starting from birth are exposed as well. The effects are great and research is still being done. In “Sexualisation of Young People,” by Dr. Linda Papadopoulus, I was able to read about a few of the effects and gain more of an understanding into how sexualisation plays an enormous role in the development of today’s youth. (The link is included above for anyone that wishes to gain more information. Definitely worth the read.)

What exactly is sexualisation? “Sexualisation is the imposition of adult sexuality on to children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it, mentally, emotionally or physically” (23). The APA, American Psychological Association, further defines sexualization as “occurring when: a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified…; and/or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person” (25).

With a now very thorough definition of what sexualisation is, it is easy to see how racy images of women and hypermasculinzed images of men promote sexualisation of our society, even those who are not ready for it, like our youth. Because these images are not exclusively used for adult advertisements, they also plague video games, TV shows watched by children/tweens, and are being incorporated into dolls like Barbies and Bratz, the exposure that children face nowadays to sexual nature is obscene.

Is sexualisation wrong, though? In fact, “some interpret this as a sign of cultural maturity and of the democratisation of the visual field…,” but, “a more widely held view is that the sexualisation of culture is a sign of cultural degradation” (23-24). There arises a natural desire to keep the innocent exactly as they are, innocent, until they are able to handle corruption. Even if children believe their faculties capable of understanding sexual nature and all that comes with it, psychological studies have proven that an advanced stage of abstract reasoning is necessary to process this information, reasoning that is only attained at a certain, much older age (28). “Although they may believe and say that they understand specific messages their behaviors often indicate otherwise” (29).

Due to a natural tendency to react based off of emotional feelings instead of cognitive reasoning, this makes for a very dangerous situation. A mild example explained by Dr. Papadopoulus illustrates that of two groups of children who partake in sugary cereal. One receives exposure to the cereal brand’s game included with the box, and the other group does not. Both are asked if fruit is healthier than the cereal and both, of course, reply in the affirmative. However, when given the option of which to eat, those exposed to the game, to the positive stimulus, chose the cereal more often than they chose the fruit. “This is what makes certain media or advertising messages so powerful, they can change children’s behavior even though they do not believe that their minds have been changed at all” (29).

Subconscious emotional connections targeted by advertisements in the form of sexuality prove even more dangerous than cereal advertisements. If children are not even able to choose what they know is healthy for them in terms of food, how can they be expected to interpret and act on what is healthy for them in terms of lifestyle and sexuality when exposed at such an early ages to false representations of men and women?

“Women are revered – and rewarded – for their physical attributes and both girls and boys are under pressure to emulate polarised gender stereotypes from a younger and younger age” (5). Women are shown to be unbelievably slender, usually blonde, and in possession of huge boobs and long graceful legs. Raise your hand, who actually looks like this in real life? Almost no one. And if someone does, she only looks that way for a small percentage of her life. Men, on the other hand, are shown to be huge, dominant, muscular, handsome without effort, and aggressive. Advertisements encourage males to be this way by illustrating men who look like this with beautiful women accompanying them. The same idea goes for women. The advertisements play into our natural insecurities and hit the nail on the head with what we all want- “to be desired” (31).

I believe that I am of a generation that truly began to suffer from hypersexualisation at an early age. As we grew older, technology rapidly gained ground and became more pervasive. This allowed for sexual images to become more pervasive as well. As we grew up, society began to devolve in this sense. We are witnessing the effects it has on us at the college level and beyond right now. You see, these messages that were fed to us as children have translated and can partly explain our actions today. Call to mind the cereal example again. Now, replace the positive game stimulus that was provided by the cereal instead with the positive stimulus of being desired. Of having a beautiful woman who would do your bidding, or a handsome man who could sweep you away. What must you do to achieve these great and wonderful things? We do what society has told us to do from the start. "The argument is that, once they understand what society expects of them with regard to gender roles and standards of behaviour, children start to internalise those expectations and create their own rules. They then, in effect, start to ‘police’ themselves in line with these self-imposed standards, adapting and monitoring their own behaviour without the need for reassurance and reinforcement from outside.”

Media and society tell us we must be sexy, in the very narrow version of their terms. Men must be aggressive. Women must wear revealing clothing. Both must make themselves seem sexually available. What does this evolve into, you might ask? After much internalization and without the proper instruction from parents, it turns into abuse. It turns into depression at our inability to achieve perfection as deemed by society. It turns into eating disorders and it turns into rape culture. To get the woman a man must show his masculinity, right? To be masculine means to be “sexually dominant,” which means that he must be aggressive when going after a girl, right (8)?

People wonder why the hook up culture has become the norm. They wonder why rape has increased across college campuses. They wonder why women are more objectified today than they ever have been before and why chivalry has all but flown out the window with the baby and the bath water. But I tell you I cannot understand why parents do not wonder at their little girl as she plays with a Barbie doll that has unrealistic features. As their little boy casually shoots prostitutes in his video game. As their sweet ten year old insists on buying a thong, wearing make-up, and sporting crop tops that are designed to show off her body in a sexual way. And I cannot tell you why parents, why this society, continues to allow exposure to their youth of images that in the past would be considered pornographic and wildly inappropriate. The children do not see these messages as dangerous, they do not even truly understand what the messages are. And that makes the consequences all the more harmful.

I cannot tell you why people continue to allow the sexualisation of our youth except that society has played the game on the cereal box that it created. We have become victims of our own game - although we know that fruit is healthier, sweet, sugary cereal provides gratification that is damn near addictive. Addictive, but not necessary. Not healthy. Not right.