Our Sunday Visitor: Society sells sex - Can youths be taught not to buy into sexualization?

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) - We've all heard the advertising adage: "Sex sells." But nowadays that strategy is being taken to new lows as marketing gurus target young girls - some as young as preschool - with overly sexualized clothing, toys, music and more.

Sex is society's central theme these days, and it can be found everywhere, from department stores selling thong underwear for 6-year-old girls to cable stations airing near-pornographic music videos to college students who have turned sex into a sport known as "hooking up." The sexual revolution of the 1960s has become a free-for-all, with college women doffing their tops at parties and young girls buying into the notion that sex is their main reason for being. A new task-force report by the American Psychological Association's confirms that the sexualization of girls can lead to a host of problems down the road, including emotional issues, eating disorders, depression and an inability to develop a healthy sexual self-image. The task force, which said sexualization occurs when a person's value is seen as coming only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, said the consequences of the sexualization of girls are "very real" and are likely to negatively influence their development. The question is: Can we lay all the blame on media and marketing executives, or do parents play a part in this phenomenon? Involvement key Mark Regnerus, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, $25), said that while parents may "symbolically or verbally" protest sexualized images of their children, they often give in to their children's wishes, which are motivated not by sex but by peer pressure. "Marketing cannot simply create demand out of nothing, so there must be some willingness on the part of consumers to not only allow this sexual commodification of children but underwrite it in some sense," he told Our Sunday Visitor. Regnerus said open communication and dialogue between parents and children is one of the "most effective buffers" against sexualization. He suggested that parents try to redirect their children away from electronic media, especially the Internet, and engage them rather than entertain or avoid them. "Love them, stay involved in their lives, and talk to them about it when they - or you and they together - see images that give off false messages about them, and then tell them and retell them true stories about who they really are and what they are like and what they are meant for," he explained. Regnerus, who has done extensive research into the effect of religion on the sexual behavior of teens, said that while having a religious foundation helps children withstand the pressures of society, going to church on Sunday is not enough. "Many Christian traditions, especially the Catholic Church, have rich texts and doctrines about family and sexuality upon which to draw, but somehow few parents really get it and convey it to their children," he said. "If they did, their children would not only internalize the religious stories but would also be surrounded by adults who share in them. That is optimal for the formation of a strong identity that can withstand peer and cultural pressure, but it's pretty uncommon." The chastity choice Sarah Kinsella, 22, a social anthropology major at Harvard University, founded True Love Revolution, which promotes premarital abstinence on her Ivy League campus. She told Our Sunday Visitor that she and her boyfriend, Justin Murray, founded the group because they felt the ideas of premarital sexual abstinence and chastity were missing from discussions about sex both on their campus and across the country. "Both of us are Catholic and have found the virtue of chastity to be extremely important in our relationship, so we wanted to share it with others. We believe, however, that the benefits of waiting for marriage transcend any religion," she explained. "It's not always easy to stick to one's convictions about abstinence and chastity in our society, but we wanted to be an alternative voice out there to support our peers and let them know that waiting for marriage is an OK decision. In fact, I would argue that it's the best decision one can make for sexual health and relationships." Societal pressure Kinsella said that based on her own experience and from what she has seen among her peers, the "overwhelming presence of sex" in society affects the way young men and women understand themselves, their bodies and the role of sex in relationships. "Students see sex everywhere - in movies, on TV, in magazines - and this deluge can make it seem like everyone is doing it," she said. "Society presents engaging in sex before marriage as the default choice for relationships, and this picture places pressure on young people to simply go along with what seems like the norm of behavior. "Girls are taught by the media that they must be 'sexy' if they want to keep a guy, if they want to have fun, or if they want to find love. Guys are taught that they must 'score' and hook up with as many girls as they can in order to prove their masculinity." Kinsella said that society places too much pressure on girls and young women to conform to certain ideals in shape, size and fashion, leading girls to think they are valued only for their bodies. "We need to promote individuality and healthy living to show girls and boys that they are valuable for everything that they are - body and soul," she said. - - - Mary DeTurris Poust is a contributing editor of Our Sunday Visitor.

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Republished with permission by Catholic Online from the Nov. 2, 2007, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper (www.osv.com) in Huntington, Ind., a Catholic Online Preferred Publishing Partner.