It’s my impression American culture has been more responsible than any other culture for the sexualization of children. Perhaps that’s true. If so, it’s an odd truth, almost counter-intuitive, because it seems such a large number of Americans pretend children have no sexuality at all. So, how is it that a society which notoriously sexualizes children could also be a society that to some large extent pretends children have no sexuality?
This morning, I’m wondering about all that in part because of the comments on the Miley Cyrus Affair that I’ve been reading in both the traditional and the new media. Many of those comments quite obviously assume no 15 year old girl has a legitimate sexuality, and that any 15 year old girl who indeed does have a sexuality — and dares to express it — is a tramp and a whore. On the face of it, that vehement denial of a girl’s sexuality does not fit with America’s sexualization of children. So, what is going on?
There seems to be a subtle distinction — maybe it’s not even that subtle — between, on the one hand, recognizing and affirming a child’s sexuality, and on the other hand, sexualizing a child. Some days, I think Americans by and large have it backwards: Instead of refusing to sexualize children while at the same time affirming their sexuality, we refuse to affirm their sexuality while at the same time sexualizing children.
Is that the Victorian in us?
To recognize and affirm a child’s sexuality means nothing more than to accept the child’s sexuality at his or her stage of development, and not try to turn the child’s sexuality into something it isn’t. After reading up on how we’ve been handling the Miley Cyrus Affair, I’m no longer so sure Americans are all that good at doing it.
Instead, it seems we often enough are hell bent on turning the child’s sexuality into something it isn’t. For instance, we infamously dress little girls in sexually suggestive outfits — as if little girls had the sexuality of adolescents in their late teens. Then we do an abrupt about face when the girls become pubic, and — as the Cyrus affair indicates — deny they have any age-appropriate sexuality, and must instead remain little girls in their sexual feelings. In neither case are we accepting the child’s sexuality at her stage of development.
If all that is indeed true, then why are we doing it to our kids?
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Maybe we should stop worrying about it and go with the flow and turn these contradictory demands into another religion…..and then, erect Shirley Temples across the land.
But flippancy aside, isn’t this whole mass of contradictions actually quite consistent with that other mass of contradictions that characterizes the North American (and most likely a few other cultures as well), as you aptly put it, Victorianism?
Paul, just came across an article in Slate with a picture of a Disney billboard in Beijing. It shows a young white girl, (looks about 12) wearing Disney underwear and nothing else.
http://www.slate.com/id/2190209/?GT1=38001
I have no idea what we are doing to our kids except ruining our future.
@ AOS: “Shirley Temples” — I wish I’d come up with that!
I think the best that can be said for Victorian morality is that it was a make-do response to the economic and social conditions of early industrialization before birth control was widely available.
@ Brian: It appears we’re not the only society that sexualizes children.
-Caution: European perspective-
Maybe the problem isn’t so much sexualisation, but rather commercialisation. There’s various ways to commercialise: flirting with eroticism is one, reinforcing Traditional American Values is another. There’s a niche in the market for both of them. Miley Cyrus’ miscalculation may just be operating in those two -mutually exclusive- niches at the same time. Had she stayed in only one, the other ‘niches’ wouldn’t have bothered so much.
It also explains her apologies: if she doesn’t, she may loose the most profitable niche (she won’t be Victoria’s Secret’s next model for at least another three years I gather…).
I also don’t think it has much to to with children in particular. If I remember correctly “Little House on the Prairie” (TAV-niche) featured very, very little eroticism, not even among the adults. I suspect that -had Miley been an adult- she would have caused as much indignation in the TAV-niche. It’s just that the fact she’s still a minor gives that niche added arguments to hurl at her.
Paul:
In all this, where is the adults – the photographer, Annie Leibovitz, who should take some responsibility; the parents, who should have supervised the shoot and put their foot down?
It keeps bringing me back to Marty Kaplan’s (USC) powerful phrase describing Americans and their “public puritanism, private sinfulness” about which I wrote many months ago, infuriating more than a few people…
@ Shirhashirim: That’s a good insight! I’d like to add that, on the one hand, Miley is a billion dollar franchise — on the other hand, a 15 year old kid. Those two aspects of her life are bound to conflict at times.
@ Shefaly: If Miley were my daughter, I would support her decision to have an erotic photo of herself at 15, but I certainly would not allow it to be published. Publishing it just riles up the “public puritanism” of Americans — which, it seems, knows no restraint and will even crucify a 15 year old.