Sexualisation report released today
June 26, 2008 – 6:47 pmI haven’t had time to fully read the Goverment’s report on Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media, but at first glance it doesn’t appear they’ve fallen prey to the hysteria and scaremongering that was thrown around like a ragdoll by certain groups and moral crusaders. I’ll cover the good and bad from the report on this blog over the weekend, but in the meantime you can read it yourself here (PDF).
Here’s a sample:
1.50? The shock value of a term like ‘corporate paedophilia’ may help to stimulate debate on the general question of the targeting of children as consumers, of which sexualisation is a particularly damaging subset, but it also distorts that debate. Targeting children through advertising, creation of the ‘tween’ market and the presentation of inappropriately sexualised? images of children as part of these processes may be reprehensible and potentially damaging but it is not comparable to the criminal, physical, sexual assault of children.
Cheers to Irene on the STOP Censorship mailing list for the tip off.
One Response to “Sexualisation report released today”
The more I thought about the whole “sexualisation” thing the more I realised how amorphous the idea actually is. I was sexually abused as a child and the idea that some types of advertising might promote paedophilia is just ridiculous, because none of this even compares. If the advertising industry is being exploitative, if we think it is we need to be able to explain how. I have read Emma Rush’s report. She chose the wrong targets and made wildly speculative and subjective claims. The end result is that we have had this, the Henson fiasco and the Art Monthly fiasco, and Hetty Johnston’s carry on as the biggest diversion and distraction from dealing with the real issue of real child sexual abuse. And all of this to aid a puritanical moral panic. In the end I am disgusted.
By dan008 on Jul 21, 2008