Too much, too soon? Children, ‘sexualization’ and consumer culture

Culture, policy and the un/marked child: fragments of the sexualisation debates

“…Commenting on the fashion for Playboy logos among girls, young people, aged 12 -14 proved to be expert 'decoders' of contemporary culture, aware of the Playboy heritage, yet able to produce new meanings to suit their own purposes (see also Ringrose and Eriksson Barajas 2011). In keeping with the resignifying practices of subcultural groups, the changed signs ascribed to the logo included a reclaiming of bunnies as cuddly playthings for girls younger than themselves (Bragg et al 2011) and embodied as an ambiguous signifier of both sexiness and innocence (Renold and Ringrose 2011).…”

“…Treated as the pre-eminent sexual signifier in debates on sexualisation, girl's clothes, the fashion industry and retailers take on the power of an incendiary device as the thing that must be regulated (Barker and Duschinsky 2012). Bragg et al's (2011) paper reporting on their review of young people and sexualised goods in Scotland provides an empirical example of how dress and adornment function as arbitrary signs that evade the fixity of a singular meaning. Commenting on the fashion for Playboy logos among girls, young people, aged 12 -14 proved to be expert 'decoders' of contemporary culture, aware of the Playboy heritage, yet able to produce new meanings to suit their own purposes (see also Ringrose and Eriksson Barajas 2011).…”

Sluts that Choose Vs Doormat Gypsies

“…Newspaper coverage following the broadcast of the programme condenses several shorthand referents to the sexualisation panic, describing the Gypsy and Traveller girls as dressed "like prostitutes or strippers" while the dancing is discussed as horrific, provocative, and like pole-dancing. The use of fake tan on girls bodies, 5 although a temporary and safe colouring of the skin, seems to signify here the very worst excesses of oppressive femininity, and moreover to invite a paedophilic gaze (see also Bragg et al 2011;. These discourses repeat across the online discussions, reproducing distinctions between those who are progressive and concerned about child sexualisation (the viewers) and those who are ignorant and perpetuating damage to girls through allowing them to become prematurely sexualised (the Gypsy and Traveller parents).…”

“…These segments resonate with "sexposé" reality television, which invoke classed moral outrage but at the same time (via the authoritative sonorous voiceover) Gypsy Wedding offers an account of strict moral codes around sex and of girls/women who are sexually repressed by Gypsy and Traveller culture. The deliberate dissonance between the sensationalist voyeuristic footage from inside the communion and wedding parties and the accompanying voiceover about Gypsy and Traveller morality deliberately creates a space of contestation, which was taken up (often with relish) by many commentators online: The intense televisual and subsequent media attention in Gypsy Wedding to young girls and their party-wear is usefully located within the context of recent sexualisation panics which have constructed (girl) children as victims of a pernicious market in sexualising culture/products encroaching upon their "presumed innocence" (Bragg, Buckingham, Russell, & Willett 2011;Renold 2002). These panics have been mobilised through several national campaigns (principally engineered by white, middle-class mothers), including Mumsnet's "Let Girls be Girls" and the Mothers' Union's "Bye Buy Childhood," through no less than four government reviews in three years on childhood "commercialisation" and "sexualisation" (Bailey 2011;Buckingham, Willett, Bragg, & Russell 2010;Byron 2008;Papadopolous 2010) and considerable TV and radio debate, most notably Stop Pimping Our Kids (Channel 4, 2011).…”

Sexualisation's four faces: sexualisation and gender stereotyping in theBailey Review

“…Bragg, Buckingham, Russell & Willett, 2011). Research suggests that young people often actively seek out such goods, rather than being 'exposed' to them, and negotiate their own sexual understandings through them (Bale, 2011), frequently engaging with them in ways which are critical and resist obvious readings (Duits & van Zoonen, 2011).…”