Friday, February 03, 2006
Teens, Sex and the Media
It's a no-brainer that kids are affected by exposure to the media, right? But amazingly, very little concrete research is being done to find out just how early and repeated exposure to media-generated sexual scenarios is affecting how kids go about their personal lives.
Jane Brody points this out in her January 31 New York Times article, "Children, Media and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages." She starts off the piece rather sensationally:
"In last summer's prize-winning R-rated film "Me and You and Everyone We Know," a barely pubescent boy is seduced into oral sex by two girls perhaps a year older, and his 6-year-old brother logs on to a pornographic chat room and solicits a grown woman with instant messages about 'poop.'
"Is this what your teenage children are watching? If so, what messages are they getting about sexual mores, and what effect will it have on their behavior?"
Our children are exposed to sexuality, of all kinds including the most bizarre and destructive, not just through fictional media like film and TV, or borderline genres like reality TV and pornography, but also, perhaps most disturbingly through the daily news. Does anyone believe that kids are oblivious to the sexual content of our constant debates about topics like abortion, gay marriage, priests and pedophilia, and Oval Office pecadilloes, for instance?
They soak it all in. And of course it affects how they view themselves as emerging sexual beings.
The strange thing is that when I express concern over the frequency of violence in media depictions of sexuality, I'm often branded (by students in my women's studies classes, for example) as an old-fashioned prude. Indeed, they make me feel like one sometimes. Is it a sign of advancing middle age that I often catch myself feeling nostalgic for the "good old days" of my own youth, when the internet did not yet exist, and our individual imaginations were so much more robust?
The scariest thing about the colonization of our pysches by the media is that we can no longer claim our fantasies as our own. Kids who have grown up watching the national average of 24 hours of TV a week, much of it cable, much of it "junk," find their minds simply awash with images that they could never have imagined on their own, but which become part of them in an insidious process of internal colonization.
Then, no surprise, like kids everywhere and in all times, they want to go try out in reality what they've fantasized about privately--except that "the private" no longer exists in this brave new world, and their own fantasies turn out to be media manipulations, often of the most unsavory sort.
The media has become a giant, out-of-control collective unconsciousness for our society, and is spreading rapidly throughout the world. Those of us who haven't been totally indoctrinated by the media need to fight back by advancing our own visions, our own stories, and insisting that these humble offerings have value.
I'm not a prude, I am all for teens experimenting with sex--I sure did it myself! But I am frightened of the crudeness and callousness that many teens I've talked with seem to take for granted as a "normal" aspect of human sexuality.
No, we can't spoonfeed them honey and roses; yes, ugliness exists and they should know about it. But they should also know the extent to which their own minds have been polluted by the media images they've consumed throughout their short lives.
And they should be encouraged to break free of that indoctrination and reawaken the most precious gift of all: their connection to their own deep feelings and their own unique imaginations.
Jane Brody points this out in her January 31 New York Times article, "Children, Media and Sex: A Big Book of Blank Pages." She starts off the piece rather sensationally:
"In last summer's prize-winning R-rated film "Me and You and Everyone We Know," a barely pubescent boy is seduced into oral sex by two girls perhaps a year older, and his 6-year-old brother logs on to a pornographic chat room and solicits a grown woman with instant messages about 'poop.'
"Is this what your teenage children are watching? If so, what messages are they getting about sexual mores, and what effect will it have on their behavior?"
Our children are exposed to sexuality, of all kinds including the most bizarre and destructive, not just through fictional media like film and TV, or borderline genres like reality TV and pornography, but also, perhaps most disturbingly through the daily news. Does anyone believe that kids are oblivious to the sexual content of our constant debates about topics like abortion, gay marriage, priests and pedophilia, and Oval Office pecadilloes, for instance?
They soak it all in. And of course it affects how they view themselves as emerging sexual beings.
The strange thing is that when I express concern over the frequency of violence in media depictions of sexuality, I'm often branded (by students in my women's studies classes, for example) as an old-fashioned prude. Indeed, they make me feel like one sometimes. Is it a sign of advancing middle age that I often catch myself feeling nostalgic for the "good old days" of my own youth, when the internet did not yet exist, and our individual imaginations were so much more robust?
The scariest thing about the colonization of our pysches by the media is that we can no longer claim our fantasies as our own. Kids who have grown up watching the national average of 24 hours of TV a week, much of it cable, much of it "junk," find their minds simply awash with images that they could never have imagined on their own, but which become part of them in an insidious process of internal colonization.
Then, no surprise, like kids everywhere and in all times, they want to go try out in reality what they've fantasized about privately--except that "the private" no longer exists in this brave new world, and their own fantasies turn out to be media manipulations, often of the most unsavory sort.
The media has become a giant, out-of-control collective unconsciousness for our society, and is spreading rapidly throughout the world. Those of us who haven't been totally indoctrinated by the media need to fight back by advancing our own visions, our own stories, and insisting that these humble offerings have value.
I'm not a prude, I am all for teens experimenting with sex--I sure did it myself! But I am frightened of the crudeness and callousness that many teens I've talked with seem to take for granted as a "normal" aspect of human sexuality.
No, we can't spoonfeed them honey and roses; yes, ugliness exists and they should know about it. But they should also know the extent to which their own minds have been polluted by the media images they've consumed throughout their short lives.
And they should be encouraged to break free of that indoctrination and reawaken the most precious gift of all: their connection to their own deep feelings and their own unique imaginations.
Comments:
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This is, not surprisingly, one of the very few stances with which I happen to agree on children, the media, and sex. The reason why is that you don't necessarily condem the phenomenon and say that children ought not to be exposed to sex in the media. Instead, you submit that children ought to learn what is happening with this, what they're being polluted with, etc.
As for Brody's article (which I haven't read; I'm judging this only on your excerpt from it), remember that "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is rated R as well as being virtually unknown, unwatched, etc. Of course, a large amount of children will watch it, but I think far more children will see Barney, or whatever it is they watch these days.
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As for Brody's article (which I haven't read; I'm judging this only on your excerpt from it), remember that "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is rated R as well as being virtually unknown, unwatched, etc. Of course, a large amount of children will watch it, but I think far more children will see Barney, or whatever it is they watch these days.
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