Sexualisation

A review into the sexualisation of young people, conducted by psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos has just been published.

Commissioned by the Home Office, the review forms part of the government's strategy to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and looks at how sexualised images and messages may be affecting the development of children and young people and influencing cultural norms. It also examines the evidence for a link between sexualisation and violence.

Key recommendations include:

• the government to launch an online one-stop-shop to allow the public to voice their concerns about marketing which may sexualise children, with an onus on regulatory authorities to take action.
   
• the government should support the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to take steps to extend the existing regulatory standards to include commercial websites
   
• broadcasters are required to ensure that music videos featuring sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics are broadcast only after the watershed
   
• the government to support the NSPCC in its work with manufacturers and retailers to encourage corporate compliance with regard to sexualised merchandise. Guidelines should be issued for retailers following consultation with major clothing retailers and parents' groups
   
• games consoles should be sold with parental controls already switched on. Purchasers can choose to unlock the console if they wish to allow access to adult and online content.
   
• lads' mags to be confined to newsagents' top shelves and only sold to over-15s
   
• a ratings system on magazine and advertising photographs showing the extent to which they have been airbrushed or digitally altered.
   
• The exemption of music videos from the 1984 Video Recordings Act should be ended. The report in particular criticises lyrics by N-Dubz and 50 Cent for their tendency to sexualise women or refer to them in a derogatory manner, and singles out the rap artist Nelly for a video showing him swiping a credit card through a young woman's buttocks. But it adds that, while degrading sexual content is most apparent in rap-rock, rap, rap-metal and R&B, it is to be found across all music genres.
   
• jobcentres should be banned from advertising vacancies at escort agencies, lapdancing clubs and massage parlours.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:  We will now consider the full list of recommendations in more detail and continue to ensure that young people's development and well-being are a top priority.

Children's Minister Delyth Morgan said:

Children today are growing up in a complex and changing world and they need to learn how to stay safe and resist inappropriate pressures. That is why we are making Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education statutory so that we can teach children about the real life issues they will face as they grow up.

PSHE already includes teaching about advertising and body image and from 2011 will include issues around violence against women and girls. The PSHE curriculum is age appropriate to give children and young people the right information at the right time to help them make the best choices and to develop their confidence.

Offsite: Let children be children

28th February 2008. See article from guardian.co.uk by Frank Furedi

We can't hide all sexual images from children but we can stop reading their behaviour through a prism of adult motives

It is difficult not to feel disturbed by the sexualisation of childhood. We live in a world where a significant proportion of 11-year-olds have been regularly exposed to pornography and where many actually believe that what they see is an accurate depiction of real-life relationships.

It is tempting to panic in response to this development and lose sight of the real problem. Sadly, the Home Office report published today proposes the tired old strategy of protecting children from exposure to sexual imagery. The report's addiction to banning and censoring is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. The real problem is not simply inappropriate sexual imagery but a highly sexualised adult imagination that continually recycles its anxieties through children.

...Read the full article

Offsite: The inevitable nonsense from the Daily Mail

28th February 2008. See article from dailymail.co.uk by Liz Jones

The woman is naked - or looks like she is. Only a flesh-coloured leotard covers her body. Her long blonde hair tumbles down her back. She's in a cage, sliding her fingers provocatively in and out of her mouth.

A scene from a cliched pornographic film? Sadly not. The woman in question is Shakira, a pop superstar and the fourth richest singer in the world.

The images can be seen in the video for her single, She Wolf, which will be watched obsessively, again and again, by thousands of young men and women, many of whom will form the opinion that writhing in a cage is precisely the way sexy women should behave.

The government  commissioned  a report, Sexualisation of Young People Review, from Dr Linda Papadopoulos.

For completeness here is the full list of recommendations  No doubt the government will take it as inspiration for more censorship.

Education and schools

1) All school staff to have training on gender equality. Specialist training should be given to those who teach Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education and citizenship.

2) The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to issue statutory guidance to schools to promote a whole school approach to tackling gender inequality, sexual and sexist bullying and violence against women and girls.

3) References on sexualisation, gender stereotypes and pornography to be included in DCSF's revised Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) guidance for schools. New SRE resource materials should be made available for teachers who work with children with special education needs and learning difficulties.

4) Schools to ensure that all incidents of sexual bullying are recorded and reported separately to other forms of bullying.

5) New practical How To guidance on tackling sexualisation is disseminated to all schools.

6) Primary schools should make specific reference to the influence of the media on body image and personal identity within a new programme of study on 'Understanding Physical Development, Health and Wellbeing'.

7) A module on gender equality, sexualisation and sexist/sexual bullying be developed as part of the DCSF's Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme.

8) Media literacy should be taught not only through PSHE education but also through English, drama, the arts, history and citizenship.

9) More investment in youth workers to enable them to work with young people outside of mainstream education around the issues of sexuality, sexist and sexual bullying and gender equality.

10) The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to further develop its current online resource centre where parents can access internet safety advice.

11) Digital literacy to be made a compulsory part of the national curriculum for children from the age of five.

12) The government should work with internet service providers to block access to pro-anorexia ('pro-ana') and pro-bulimia ('pro-mia') websites.

13) A schools campaign to be developed which promotes positive role models for young men and young women and challenges gender stereotypes.

14) Schools should encourage girls to value their bodies in terms of their physical ability. This should be linked to the work of the 2012 Get Set education programme.

15) Local Authorities must be accountable for treating victims of child sexual abuse and ensure that specialist services receive adequate funding for the treatment of children who have been abused.

16) One-to-one confidential help in school/college from a trained professional such as a psychologist to be made available to every child and young person.

Media and awareness-raising

17) A national campaign to be launched to address the issue of teenage relationship abuse, including a specific pack for primary and secondary schools so that they can build on issues arising from the campaign.

18) A working group of high profile women in media together with academics should be set up to monitor and address gender inequality in the media.

19) The establishment of a media award that promotes diverse, aspirational and non-sexualised portrayals of young people.

20) The government to launch an online one-stop-shop to allow the public to voice their concerns regarding irresponsible marketing which sexualises children with an onus on regulatory authorities to take action. The website could help inform future government policy by giving parents a forum to raise issues of concern regarding the sexualisation of young people.

21) Information on body image, selfesteem, eating disorders and e-safety to be included in the government's proposed Positive Parenting booklets for parents of older children.

22) The government should support the Adversing Standards Agency (ASA) to take steps to extend the existing regulatory standards to include commercial websites.

23) The introduction of a system of ratings symbols for photographs to show the extent to which they have been altered. This is particularly critical in magazines targeting teen and pre-teen audiences.

24) The content of outdoor advertisements to be vetted by local authorities as part of their gender equality duty to ensure that images and messages are not offensive on the grounds of gender.

25) Broadcasters are required to ensure that music videos featuring sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics are broadcast only after the watershed.

26) The current gap in the regulatory protection provided by the Video Recordings Act 1984 to be closed by removing the general exemption for 'works concerned with music'.

27) Regulation of UK-based video on demand services to be strengthened to ensure that they do not allow children to access hardcore pornography.

28) Games consoles should be sold with parental controls already switched on. Purchasers can choose to unlock the console if they wish to allow access to adult and online content.

29) This idea should be extended to 'child friendly' computers and mobile phones where adult content is filtered out by default.

Working with businesses and retailers

30) The government to support the NSPCC in its work with manufacturers and retailers to encourage corporate responsibility with regard to sexualised merchandise. Guidelines should be issued for retailers following consultation with major clothing retailers and parents' groups.

31) The existing voluntary code for retailers regarding the placements of 'lads' mags' should be replaced by a mandatory code. Lads mags' should be clearly marked as recommended for sale only to persons aged 15 and over.

32) The government overturns its decision to allow vacancies for jobs in the adult entertainment industry to be advertised by Jobcentre Plus.

Research

33) A new academic periodical to be established and an annual conference series should be held focusing solely on the topic of sexualisation.

34) Funding be made available for research that will strengthen the current evidence base on sexualisation. This should include trend research into teenage partner violence and frequency of sexual bullying and abuse.

35) Clinical outcome research to be funded and supported to find the most effective ways to identify, assess and work with the perpetrators and victims of child sexual abuse.

36) A detailed examination of media literacy programmes should be carried out jointly by the DCSF, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Primark, the clothing chain, ordered padded bikini bras for 7yo+ girls to be removed from sale after criticism that they supposedly sexualised children.

The company apologised for any offence caused by the £4 item and said profits from any bikinis already sold would be donated to a children's charity.

The Children's Society whinged at Primark for premature sexualisation and inappropriate advertising, while Shy Keenan, a child protection consultant called for a boycott of Primark until the bikini top was withdrawn.

David Cameron also intervened in the row and condemned sale of the item, which came in candy pink with gold stars or black with white polka dots, as completely disgraceful.

Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, the parents' online forum which recently launched a Let Girls Be Girls campaign, to lobby retailers against sales of such adult items to children, was also pleased that Primark had removed the bra top from sale. It's a shame it was ever put on the shelves in the first place, she said.

Gordon Brown gave his backing to the Mumsnet campaign and said: All of us parents can recognise there's something wrong when companies are pushing our kids into acting like little grown-ups when they should be enjoying being children.

Driving my little girl to school the other morning, we had the radio playing in the background as usual.

But while I chatted to my seven-year-old about preparing her costume for the school's open day, I began to notice the lyrics of the song that was playing.

Hey rude boy, is you big enough? Hey rude boy can you get it up? sang American pop star Rihanna.

Had it not been for my daughter's presence in the car, I probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid. After all, it was a mainstream station and she's a mainstream singer.

So as I fumbled to change stations it hit me that this was just another instance of how desensitised we have become to the sexual language and imagery that pervades our everyday lives.

...Read full article

Retailers are selling high-heeled shoes to young girls according to parenting groups who fear the new fashion trend is prematurely sexualising children.

The trend was sparked by pictures of Suri Cruise, the three-year-old daughter of actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who is regularly photographed in sparkly heels.

Justine Roberts of Mumsnet, the parenting forum, said: Some of the shoes I have seen on sale look more suited to a lap-dancing club than the feet of a young girl. The items in question are prematurely sexualising young children. We are saying to retailers, 'Have a look at your range and ask yourselves if these items are appropriate. Some of the school shoes Tesco sells have got a two-inch heel. You shouldn't have a high heel if your feet are developing.

It's not about being Mary Whitehouse...[BUT]..It's about not sleepwalking into a world where this is normal. Young girls always want to dress up and emulate adults, and that's fine. But when the bulk of the range on offer is like this, then it is making our children grow up too fast.

Nicola Lamond of Netmums, another parenting group, said: I went shopping with my daughter and was horrified by how many shoes came with a high heel in sizes to fit girls as young as three. These shoes will be harder to walk in than flat shoes so I'd be worried my child would injure themselves.

A spokesman for Asda, which is currently selling a pair of Disney Princess children's sandals with a 3cm heel, said the retailer had received no customer complaints. A Next spokesman said: Their popularity suggests many parents agree we've come up with a look that's special without seeming inappropriately grown up. GapKids said their child heels had been tested to ensure safety.

A moral panic around childhood sexualisation and the dangers of the internet is closing down important channels of debate and making the internet a more dangerous place for adults and young people alike.

That was the consensus view taken by Onscenity, an international network launched this week, which draws together experts to respond to the new visibility or onscenity of sex in commerce, culture and everyday life.

David Buckingham, Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, London University, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, complained about the current media panic over the sexualisation of childhood. While some issues went away with the last government, David Cameron also appears to believe this is a problem.

The real problem, though, is that no one knows what sexualisation is: it is a convenient label used to position the child as always the victim, and then to pile every problem imaginable on top, including paedophilia, body image, sex trafficking and self-esteem. Once that particular juggernaut gets rolling, it is almost impossible to have a sensible debate about what's really going on.

Too many so-called experts – most famously, Dr Linda Papadopoulos - were speaking well outside their field of expertise. Eating disorders get ascribed to sexualisation, despite the fact that most dietary experts would question that conclusion. Worse is the way in which this debate is almost always framed in moralising terms, and a key question must be what political motive lies behind such framing.

Equally of concern was the way in which healthy sexuality is so often equated to non-commercial – as though sex alone can be an activity free from all commercial influence.

...Read full article

The purchase of Channel 5 by Richard Desmond of TVX fame resulted in a couple of parliamentary questions to the Culture, Media and Sport minister.

John Whittingdale (Maldon, Conservative):

Does the Secretary of State agree that the relatively low price for which Richard Desmond has acquired Channel 5 is a further indication of the continuing difficulties affecting all traditional television companies, and that it also shows that successful companies are likely to have to operate across several different media in future? Given that, does he have any plans to look again at the current rules that govern cross-media ownership and cross-promotion?

Jeremy Hunt (Secretary of State, Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I thank my hon. Friend for a thoughtful question, as ever, on the topic. He is absolutely right that media companies of the future will have to operate on different platforms. That is why one of my first decisions was to accept a recommendation by Ofcom to remove the regulations on cross-media ownership locally to allow local media operators to develop new business models that let them take product from newspapers to radio to TV to iPods to iPads and so on.

We do not currently have any plans to relax the rules on cross-promotion. Indeed, the regulations on taste, decency and political impartiality on Five remain extremely tight, but we are aware of the need to lighten regulations in general because, if we are to have a competitive broadcasting sector, we must have one in which independent players can also make a profit.

Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield, Labour)

The Secretary of State knows that Richard Desmond and Rupert Murdoch have huge pornography empires. Does he share my concern that children have increasing access to pornography on television? What can he do about it? It is a curse, and I hope that he shares my desire to do something about it.

Jeremy Hunt

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Our real concern on this side of the House is about the sexualisation of young people in particular; we take a liberal view of adults' ability to make decisions about what they see on television. I do not want to pretend that there is an easy answer, because traditional linear viewing, which allowed the watershed, made it possible to be much more definite about what would be seen by children and what would be seen by adults. To answer the hon. Gentleman's question directly, we have no plans to relax any of the taste and decency regulations on terrestrial broadcasts.

British parents are having a whinge at retail chain Tesco for selling a school skirt that is less than 30 cm long and a third shorter than normal school skirts.

The school skirt called a Hitch and Stitch is 29.5 cm and parts of it are hitched up and stitched in place to keep the hemline high.

Parents observed that the skirts overly sexualises girls.

The Sun quoted Siobhan Freegard, of parenting website Netmums, as saying: It looks like it should be sold in a sex shop.

Shy Keenan, a child protection 'expert', said that the skirts, priced at 8 pounds, could invite very unwelcome attention.

A Tesco spokesperson said: Ultimately it's for parents to decide what is appropriate for their child.

Two authors are campaigning for a change in the law to stop the pornification of society which they claim promotes violence against women.

Kat Banyard, who wrote The Equality Illusion, told the Edinburgh International Book Festival mass pornography will have a corrosive impact for years to come.

She said: All the research shows that watching pornography leads to - as you would expect - an increase of attitudes which support violence against women and aggressive behaviour.

Huge numbers of young boys and men are sitting watching, and getting positive powerful experiences of watching women being physically abused.

There is a massive problem - we are nowhere near tackling it.

She said an internet search using the term porn brings up 193 million results, most of which link to sites with aggressive and violent images: We have never had pornography or sexual exploitation on this scale. The effects are untold but we are likely to see them played out over the next few decades, she said.

Natasha Walter, whose most recent book is Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, told the festival even primary school children are being damaged by our hypersexual society. Up to 90% of teenage boys admit to watching hardcore porn, according to surveys. Walter said, if boys did not, they were regarded as odd.

Women and girls are also psychologically harmed by these degrading images, she continued: Women believe that to be successful they have to fit into a very narrow view of what female sexuality should look like.

The media is not to blame for sexualising teenagers, according to study which shows young people are more influenced by factors inside the home.

Young people seek out racy programmes and magazines to satisfy pre-existing appetites, which are determined in large part by how they are brought up.

While campaigners have long blamed the media for forcing sexualised imagery on children and teens, the study found that those teenagers with an interest actively seek it out.

Psychologist Laurence Steinberg, from Temple University, Philadelphia, analysed data from 2006 claiming that children between the ages of 12 and 14 who consumed a large amount of sexualised media including films, television, music and magazines were more likely to have sex by age 16.

Various aspects of the teenagers' lives were studied, including school performance, religiousness, parental relationships, and perceptions of friends' attitudes about sex.

Dr Steinberg claims his findings, published in the online journal Developmental Psychology, gives the mass media a strong defence over accusations of sexualising young children.

It may look like media exposure leads to sexual activity, but the relation between the two is artificial, he said: If a child reports being very religious, he or she will be less likely to have sex at a younger age, but will also be less likely to consume sexualised media. Instead of pointing a collective finger at the entertainment industry, the most important influences on adolescents' sexual behaviour are probably closer to home.

However, Vivienne Pattison of Mediawatch-UK unscientifically overruled the findings: The findings of these surveys tend to be very contradictory. It is very hard for anyone to avoid being exposed to sexual material these days. On my way to work this morning I went past a billboard with a semi-naked woman on it, even thought it had nothing to do with what it was advertising.

Exposure to sexually explicit media at a young age can lead to a range of problems, including low self-esteem, eating disorders and sexually transmitted diseases. While these problems are difficult for teenagers to cope with, we are particularly concerned by their impact on young children, who are becoming increasingly sexualised by the miasma of explicit material that they are surrounded by.

With just a few clicks of the mouse, your children can find themselves on the fringes of a dark and perverted world. And while they may not have the credit card needed to proceed, they will have already seen the [free] introductory material.

So what is to be done? At our conference I was astonished and disappointed to hear the Department for Education plans to commission yet another report into these problems. The Government has already funded two investigations in recent years, one by parenting expert Tanya Byron, the other by clinical psychologist Linda Papadopoulos.

Both suggested the solution lay in more information for parents and teachers, and in helping them stop children from visiting such sites.

...

The only answer is restricting access to such material. Some 95 per cent of pornographic content viewed in this country comes from servers operated by British-based companies, including BT Internet and Virgin. They and the big search engines must be persuaded that pornography should only be available to those adult users who request it.

They will argue this is technically impossible. But I would remind them of the scandal in 2006 when Google agreed to censor certain search results in China for political reasons.

If the big internet companies can apply blocks to protect their commercial interests, then why can't our Government act in a similar way to protect our children?

...Read the full article

The Sunday Telegraph has learned a government-commissioned review, expected to be led by Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers' Union, will lay the ground for new laws which could see individual companies persecuted.

Bailey's review will gather evidence of ways children are having unfair commercial pressure put on them or being prematurely sexualised by retailers amid protests over high-heeled shoes and provocative underwear aimed at girls as young as 10.

Ministers at the Department for Education intend to legislate or regulate against the supposed offenders, many of whom have already sparked nutter criticism from parents.

Coalition sources said the planned new laws could see businesses targeted individually, while it was likely a new industry-wide standard would be established. Parents, furthermore, could be given the power to challenge offending advertisements or products specifically over child-related issues. Sources drew a parallel with the way complaints are currently made to trading standards officials or the Advertising Standards Authority.

The move is backed by David Cameron, who hit out at the premature sexualisation of children in one of his first major interventions as Conservative leader, more than four years ago.

Reg Bailey, a father of two and committed Christian who is the first male chief executive of the Mothers' Union – the international Christian charity that seeks to support families.

The coalition government has begun a review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of children which will explore, among other things, whether rules should prevent companies marketing the likes of Porn Star T-shirts and padded bras for little girls.

So what is really out there? I trawled the High Street in search of some of these products and I struggled to find very many. There were a few T-shirts with slogans like Future Footballer's Wife, but are they sexualising children or just a matter of taste?

What did make me uncomfortable was what felt like a strong undercurrent of sexuality and glamour that seems to run through many girls' clothing ranges now - mini-versions of adult trends that included strapless or low-cut dresses, sequins, frills and lace.

But who decides what's sexualised and what's trendy? Who gets to be the fashion police?

...Read the full article

Those who celebrated the death of New Labour puritanism may yet live to regret its successor: the new Tory obsession with sexualisation. For this is a moral panic that looks set to be even wider in scope, even more finger-waggingly repressive in effect, than anything the last lot came up with.

Its been coming for a while. The turning point, that is. We've had a decade of new Labour nannying on sex and sexuality. In hindsight, though, that may turn out to have been preferable. For whilst New Labour may have been concerned with sexual exploitation, they appeared still to believe that once that particular issue had been sorted out, sex, on the whole, was not a bad idea.

Of course, the ultimate exploitation, which government rightly reacted to, was exploitation of children. Yet the battlecry --- think of the children --- now pervades every aspect of our thinking about sex.

...Read full article

When it comes to the public discussion of sex there's a lot that's wrong. The main problem is misinformation, with biased sources spreading information that is at best poorly researched and at worst completely incorrect.

The main themes in this loosely-united area of public disapproval include pornography and adult entertainment, sex trafficking, the rights of people in sex work, and the possible sexualisation of children by exposure to all of the above.

It's known that there is no credible research tying adult entertainment to crime and violence against women. It's clear that the numbers surrounding the trafficking claims don't add up. The fact that sex workers deserve protection, not persecution, is self-evident. And to the critical reader, it's apparent that the people pushing an anti-sex agenda are ignoring vast swathes of ethical and commendable research into sexuality.

Sexualisation of children, in particular, is a lightning rod for many of the public anxieties surrounding sex. I'm particularly interested in this topic for a few reasons. First, because the claims surrounding it bear little relationship to demonstrable reality; second, because both the right and the left appear to have reached consensus on the topic. Last, because so many people are parents, it's an issue that has more power to influence the voting population than, say, what a few misguided feminists think about pornography they never watch anyway. Now maybe I read The Handmaid's Tale just a few times too often as a girl, but when the feminists and the bible-bashers agree on something, my bullshit meter goes into the red.

...Read full article

The Daily Mail has been pampering its blue rinse readers with tales of kids partying and playing grown ups:

A Daily Mail investigation has highlighted a burgeoning beauty industry targeting children of primary school age and even younger.

I am disturbed by this trend and I suspect I'm far from being alone, said Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Christian parenting charity the Mothers' Union.

The Mail has found that, from Aberdeen to Devon, specialist businesses are offering pamper parties and cosmetic tips previously confined to the adult market. Services also include pedicures, nail painting, moisturising masks, make-up lessons and stick-on tooth gems.

...Read the full article

A petition of about 18,500 signatures has been handed to David Cameron calling for an end to marketing of a sexualised nature aimed at children.

The petition was presented to 10 Downing Streetby Rosemary Kempsell, worldwide president of the Mothers' Union, as well as several MPs.

The petition is part of the Bye Buy Childhood campaign launched last year by the Mothers' Union.

It calls upon the Government to prohibit sexualised media, marketing and products aimed at or easily accessed by children under 16 years of age.

Kempsell said, We are delighted that the Government has already taken action to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood through the Bailey Review. We would like to see this Review make strong recommendations to Government to ensure childhood can remain a precious time free from commercialisation.

Joining Kempsell at Downing Street were MPs Helen Goodman, David Morris, Fiona Bruce and Jim Dobbin.

Historically sexualised

The review, Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood,  is due out next month. It claims that nine out of 10 parents think that their children are growing up too quickly because of increasing sexualisation and commercial pressures, mainly from the internet and television.

The review has found that direct advertising through mobile phones was the marketing tool that most angered parents, with 35% believing it wrong. Products linked to social networking websites which invite children to click on them were second on the list of features to upset parents.

Although mothers and fathers want their children to have a mobile phone for safety and social reasons, they now realise it leaves them powerless to stop access to inappropriate internet sites, including pornography, the review claimed.

The review, conducted by Reg Bailey, the chief executive of Mothers' Union, a Christian charity, has also claimed growing concerns about the exposure of children to sex on television.

In a poll of 1,000 parents, the review has found 41% said that in the previous three months they had seen television programmes or advertisements before the 9pm watershed that they considered wrong for their children to view because of their sexual content. 40% said they had seen window displays or advertising hoardings inappropriate for children.

Bailey is unlikely to call for new legislation, but will argue that the process for parents to lodge complaints should be strengthened and simplified.

Parents concerns are said to include:

• Children are growing up to quickly and behaving in an overtly sexual manner before they are old enough to really understand what sexually provocative behaviour means.
• Celebrity culture, adult style clothes and music videos are encouraging children to act older than they are.
• Lack of responsibility from business and government in allowing advertising to children.
• Too many clothes, toys, games, music videos or other products that are inappropriate for the age group they were aimed at.
• The use of phone and text adverts when promoting products for children.
• The increasing pressure to buy non-essential items for their children so they don't feel left out.
• Public places (shop window displays, advertising hoardings) that they felt were inappropriate for children to see because of their sexual content.
• Programmes or adverts on TV before 9pm watershed that they felt were unsuitable or inappropriate for children due to their sexual content.

A jewelry company whose bikini line designs were on ITV2's The Only Way is Essex has sparked nutter 'outrage' by creating a children's range.

Vajazzle was made famous by the hit ITV2 show in which women boasted of applying the adornments to their private parts. Jazzles involve sheets of crystals being attached to the body with glue.

Now the firm is bringing out Junior Jazzles targeted at young girls. The designs are not meant to be put on intimate areas and are of cartoon characters.

But the move into girl's jewellery has provoked 'fury' from parents. Justine Roberts, founder of the Mumsnet website, said: Parents on our site are dismayed by the creeping sexualisation of young girls.

Jennie Cox, of Vajazzle.me, stressed that children's versions would not be marketed as jewellery for the bikini area: It will be separated from our main site and will not have the connotations of Vajazzle. We are parents too.

A typical afternoon in a typical middle-class home. It's just after 4.30pm, I'm back from the school run --- and in the next room I can hear my four-year-old daughter Clio rehearsing a routine she's learnt at her school dance club.

In front of the full-length mirror in the living room, she's in full performance mode --- although what she's singing today is a departure from her usual material.

At first, the words melt into one. But gradually, I can pick out what she's trying to articulate: I'm a single laydee, I'm a single laydee --- I've got a man on my hips and lipstick on my lips.

The full implication of the words may be lost on Clio, but it's clear from the way she's wiggling her bottom in her own version of Beyonce's booty-shaking tour-de-force that she thinks she looks grown-up.

Clio was doing what many little girls do for fun these days. Scroll through YouTube and you will see hundreds of little girls being filmed by their parents as they perform the explicit lyrics and sexy movements of Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Britney. The sort of sexually-charged performances that Ofcom apparently deem to be acceptable pre-watershed entertainment, if this week's ruling that The X Factor's most explicit performance ever did not breach broadcasting guidelines is anything to go by.

...read the full article

Showing the sexualisation hysterics that the past was a whole lot naughtier than the present and fighting the good fight against moralisers and would-be censors.

...See calmdowndear.blogspot.com

Sex Education (Required Content) Bill,
House of Commons 4th May 2011

Motion for leave to introduce a Bill

Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require schools to provide certain additional sex education to girls aged between 13 and 16; to provide that such education must include information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity; and for connected purposes.

I am sure that many Members will be aware of the broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell. I always had the impression that she and I were on separate sides of the political divide, but I was intrigued a year ago to read something that she had written in the Radio Times and in the newspapers, in which she said that Mary Whitehouse, who campaigned against declining moral standards on television, was right to fear that sexual liberation in the 1960s would damage society.

Dame Joan was a long-time and fierce opponent of Mary Whitehouse, and that is why her piece was intriguing. She has now changed her mind in terms of her opposition, saying that the freedom granted by the introduction of the pill has been abused, resulting in the sexualisation of young girls and the prevalence of pornography. She said:

The liberal mood back in the '60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn't be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves. Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely. Then everything came to be about money---so now sex is about money, too. Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels full of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff?

In fact, in some newsagents now there are more sex magazines available than any other kind of magazine.

Dame Joan said that our society is saturated in sex: a typical prime-time hour on TV contains 2.6 references to intercourse, 1.2 references to prostitution and rape, and 4.7 sexual innuendoes.

Let us move on to look at some of the examples that are now available. Primark, a store that is frequented by many young girls, including my own daughters, was recently chastised for selling padded bikinis for seven-year-olds. Without going into too much detail, I am sure that everybody in the House understands why women would buy padded bikinis, but to make them available to and target them at seven-year-old girls seems to epitomise how far the sexualisation of young girls has gone within our society.

On 5 March 2010, explicit videos were shown in schools which depicted to seven-year-olds a cartoon graphic of a couple having sexual intercourse. This resulted in some children being removed from schools that showed those videos. It will not be a surprise to any mother, or parent, in the House that seven-year-old children do not want to see a cartoon of a couple having sexual intercourse. I have never yet met a mother who said, I want my seven-year-old to see cartoons of couples having sexual intercourse, so why on earth would schools think it appropriate to show such videos to seven-year-old children in the classroom? Some children were reported to be frightened, alarmed and disturbed by the videos.

In July 2009, a Sheffield NHS trust released into secondary schools---to children from the age of 11---a pamphlet which told them that sex every day keeps the doctor away. It also said that for too long experts have concentrated on the need for safe sex and loving relationships. Alongside this, there was a slogan saying that: an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.

It also said: Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week? This is a pamphlet going out to 11-year-olds at secondary modern schools in Sheffield.

We have to ask ourselves whether, in the midst of this kind of society, with the over-sexualisation of children, we have got our sex education in schools right. It is often argued that compulsory sex education and effective teaching of safe sex will help to tackle a high pregnancy rate among teenagers and underage children. Sadly, the evidence suggests that this is not the case. The British Medical Journal found that 93% of teenagers who became pregnant had seen a medical professional prior to the pregnancy and 71% had discussed contraception. The journal found that: teenagers who become pregnant have higher consultation rates than peers and most of the difference is owing to consultation on contraception.

According to data published by the Office for National Statistics in 2007, Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, so we must be doing something wrong. That is why I am introducing this Bill.

I believe that the answer to ending our constant struggle with the incredibly high rate of teenage sexual activity and underage pregnancies lies in teaching our girls and boys about the option of abstinence---the ability to just say no as part of their compulsory sex education at school. I recently spoke to a 16-year-old who used these very disturbing words: The thing is, if you reach the age of 18 and you're still a virgin, and you meet somebody you'd like to be your boyfriend, he's going to think you're a freak. It never enters the minds of young teenage girls, who are taught in sex education classes about safe sex and about making their decisions on whether to have sex based on how they feel that day or on their wishes---feelings and wishes are the key words---that they are empowered and have the ability to say no. That is not taught alongside information on making the decision based on their feelings and wishes and on safe sex, but it should be an equally viable option.

We have to re-examine thoroughly the content of sex education that is provided in schools, and consider whether what is currently offered is in the best interests of our children and society as a whole. Children learn about puberty and intercourse at the age of seven, and about pregnancy and contraception from the age of 11. Teaching a child of seven to apply a condom to a banana, without telling them that they do not have an obligation to go and do it, is almost like saying, Now go and try this for yourself. At no stage of the curriculum does the teaching cover anything about relationships and the option to say no. Girls are taught to have safe sex, but not how to say no to a boyfriend who persists in wanting a sexual relationship. They are given no guidance on that whatsoever.

In a letter to the Daily Mail, a 14-year-old, Josie Parkinson, described the sex education that she had received at her local secondary school: As a 14 year-old girl, I have had to attend four talks in the past nine months from a woman from a family planning clinic. I have been taught three times how to put on a condom; how easily pupils can acquire condoms free at a clinic; how to recognise sexually transmitted diseases and have them treated confidentially at a clinic; and that we do not need to tell our parents, GP, the police or anyone else in authority about being provided with contraception, or even having an abortion. There was not one mention of abstaining or any discouragement of sex.

For a girl or boy to have sex before 16 is unlawful, but they are told in school, It is unlawful, but it's okay. You can have the condoms anyway. They should be told, It is unlawful. You can have the condoms anyway, but why don't you consider, because it is unlawful, saying no and waiting until it is lawful? That just is not taught to girls at school.

One factor constantly ignored by society is that peer pressure is a key contributor to early sexualised activity among the children of our country. Society is focused on sex. Our sex education teaches children how to have sex, not how to say no to sex. We ignore at our peril the fact that many girls feel pressurised into having intercourse when they are far too young, when what they actually need is their childhood.

In our sex education programmes, we need to promote the notion of abstinence and all the advantages that it brings, such as self-respect and not making relationship mistakes. It needs to be seen as a safe alternative. We need to let young girls know that to say no to sex when they are under pressure is a cool thing to do; it is as cool as learning how to apply a condom. It is as important as all the other issues that they are taught in sex education. It has to be taught alongside everything else so that young girls can say, I have been told to say no.

The proposal to introduce the bill was passed 67-61

Offsite: Nadine Dorries Rants

19th May 2011. See article from blog.dorries.org, thanks to emark

Nadine Dorries again, winging about "the left" on Twitter, over objections to her girls-only abstinence plans:

Also includes this gem:

"Parents feel that the bombardment of sexual images and easy access to online porn, the availability of lads mags, the over sexualised adverts at bus stops and on the sides of buses, the incessant references to sex on prime time TV, the prodigious number of teenage magazines aimed at the very young which discuss sexual positions and techniques in graphic detail, the high street marketing and provocative perfume advertising billboards, to name just a few, all achieve one goal – the over sexualisation of our young people at too early an age."

...Read the full article

Update: Out of Time

24th May 2011.See article from christianvoiceuk.blogspot.com

Nadine Dorries's Ten-Minute-Rule Bill to include teaching on abstinence for girls in sex education, will not become law, Christian Voice has learned.

The Government have said that there is not enough time for the Bill to become law.

Minister of State for Health Simon Burns MP (Chelmsford) was asked by a constituent to support the Bill and help it become law. He replied:

Thank you for your email but I am afraid you are almost 3 weeks too late. The Ten Minute Rule Bill was debated on 4th May and I am sure you will be pleased to know that it past (sic) the first hurdle but it will not become law as Ms Dorries has named 12 January 2012 for a second reading debate and there is not enough time in this session for the Bill to progress to the statute book.

We live in an over-sexualised culture and witness an unprecedented increase in the sheer volume of sexual imagery young children are exposed to on a daily basis.

Parents feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of overt sexualisation their children are exposed to. Who can blame them? A typical primetime TV hour contains 2.6 references to intercourse, 1.2 references to prostitution and rape, 4.7 sexual innuendos, 1.8 kisses and one suggestive gesture.

If girls and boys are taught only safe sex and the mechanics of sex in school, then something is missing. You wouldn't teach history and leave out the Middle Ages.

Teenagers should be taught to say No until they are truly comfortable. Dare I say it, that they wait for love and a stable relationship? How different a message would that be?

We should empower girls and boys who feel the weight of expectation upon them and give them a safe place to go.

Say No should be taught as an acceptable, natural option in a world full of confusing messages.