There is a problem in our society and one that we need to urgently acknowledge. It is a problem that is only going to get worse unless parents instil better values in their children than those that provided by the mass media and the political classes. This problem is the sexualisation of children.
This guest post by Benjamin starts with the graphic description of what some ‘Asian’ savage was allegedly caught doing to an apparently underaged boy, but places this disgusting and horrific incident in the context of a society that is increasingly sexualising its children. Children are being exposed to media environments that promote singers that dress like strippers and schools that teach about sex too early and often, in what I and some other parents believe, is age inappropriate detail.
Unlike previous generations of children from the late 19th to the late 20th century, today’s kids are surrounded by sexualised images and language with much of this material readily available and sometimes, in the case of certain singers, promoted to children. Children have been encouraged by the mass media, cultural icons and some political activists to, in my opinion grow up too early. Forcing adulthood in this way on those who are not capable of dealing with its pressures, is in my view a form of child abuse. This enforced adulthood that children are being thrust into, is damaging children.
The sort of society where some Muslim or ‘Asian’ savage can abuse a young boy in a parked car in broad daylight did not suddenly appear from nowhere or from the aether, it started when parents started to act like children themselves instead of being responsible adults. Like it or not instilling a moral code in your offspring and protecting them from harm are some of the primary jobs of a parent and too many seemed to have forgotten that. When television and You Tube becomes a defacto third parent, the result as we have seen, is an openly and in your face sexualised environments that exist in both the public and the private spheres, something that cannot be good for children.
I completely agree with the sentiments of Benjamin, this Guest Post author about how our children have been overtly and continually sexualised over recent decades and how wrong this is. This sexualisation of children is having a corrosive effect on our society, and of course on the lives of the adults that these sexualised kids will grow up into.
We seem as a society to be reversing the protections for children’s morals and children’s bodies that the Victorians introduced. Public scandals about the sexual abuse of children inspired high profile reformers to seek increased protections for children. They did this by bringing in a national age for sexual consent, and worked hard to put an end to the misery that was caused by large scale child abuse and child prostitution. Some people may deride the idea of ‘Victorian Values’ but I see little wrong with the values of those of that time who even then could see the damage that sexualising children was doing. If Victorian reformers could appreciate that sexualising children was wrong why cannot we take the same view today? If we want to protect our children then we need to make sure that we instil values into our children that give them the ability to resist what is an avalanche of messages calling them to do too much too young.
On the Sexualisation of Children – By Benjamin
Yesterday I had the misfortune to watch a video on Facebook. It’s since been removed. A man with camera in hand approached a car on a Birmingham street in broad daylight and he looked in the window and recorded a baby-faced white boy giving an ‘Asian’ man a blow-job. I’ve no idea what was going on. The boy didn’t look like he was being forced, he was orally pleasuring the man apparently of his own free will. His head wasn’t being held down and he wasn’t restrained in any way. The ‘Asian’ man was simply holding his shirt up in order to free his genitals for the boy to suck on. The boy might have been doing it for money. He might have been a baby-faced 17 year-old and of legal age. He might have been doing it for drugs. But he didn’t fit with the classic image of what I assume a ‘groomed’ youth would look like, and the location wasn’t where I imagine groomed children would be taken to be sexually assaulted. I imagine if he were the man’s ‘property’ then they would be having sex in a room somewhere with the boy being passed around multiple men. It looked like it might have been an online hook-up via an app. At no point am I condoning sex with children. It’s incumbent upon every adult to say “NO” the instant they find out or realize that a person in the UK is below the age of 16. And it should also be noted that I can’t find out any further information on this boy, so I have absolutely no idea what age he is or about the condition of his mental health (there are lots of rumours doing the rounds by people who apparently know him).
Ten years ago I was walking through a city street during the early afternoon, past a known cruising area for gay men (they usually congregate around public toilets with the general public being oblivious to this fact). I saw a very tall, muscled, rugby-built guy who looked about 19 or so giving me the eye. I looked at him and he then nodded his head in a certain direction. I followed him. He was very sure of himself and acting as though he had done this a million times before. He led me to a quiet bathroom in a BHS store. We both stood at separate urinals and got our members out. We looked at each other and he said to me, “What age are you?” I said “31. What age are you?” He replied, “14”. At this point I zipped up and ran out of those toilets as fast as my legs could carry me. I was stunned on two accounts. 1 – He did not look 14. He looked like a man. 2 – He was so sexually aware and experienced in cruising at such a young age, more so than I was as an adult.
The problem here is that our children are sexualised too soon. From Miley Cyrus twerking with a giant inflatable penis in her hand, through to lyrics about “pearl bangles” (a cum-shot from giving a man a hand-job). What do we expect of our children if they’re exposed to pop-stars who advocate an ‘anything goes’ mentality, one that espouses sex with multiple partners? There’s so much to unpack. Phone apps that allow for immediate hook-ups with anyone who happens to be nearby. Technology. Censorship laws (or lack thereof). Far too much sex education in schools at too early an age with too many conflicting messages (gender-fluidity for example, and homosexuality being presented as a ‘norm’ when in fact it’s not). Parents not keeping an eye on their children’s whereabouts and not examining their phone data and browsing history. And I can also include the mass importation of a culture who see having sex with children as being a normal occurrence.
Hormones do kick in, however, and every age has seen every youth attempt to find his or her own route into the world of sex. I remember my own sexually-curious and frustrated self at 17 entering a newsagent and reaching up to the top shelf and exiting the shop with my magazine wrapped in a brown paper bag. From the hippies and their message of free love, through to the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll era, right on to Madonna getting her breasts out and advocating for people having multiple sex partners, our children are inundated with messages that sex is nothing more than a handshake. There’s no quality or meaning attached to it and our children are reaching for sex far too soon. It’s almost like a right of passage. It’s a rush to be an adult. When I was at school it was the smoking of cigarettes that we all aspired to in order to make us appear older, wiser, hipper. Nowadays it’s sex that seems to be the right of passage and technology is assisting with this. Most cities have discos for youngsters that start about 7 PM and close about 10 PM in order that the club can get the venue ready for that night’s adult entertainment to begin. Walk past these lines of 13 year-olds and the girls are like mini-women. They have full faces of make-up, the highest heels, shortest skirts, and no jackets on in the freezing winter, all in a rush to be an adult.
So what is the answer? It’s pretty obvious. Every adult has the responsibility to say no to having sex with a child. The media isn’t going to change any time soon. Sex sells. Beauty products sell. Admen know that they can make us feel bad about our natural odours or complexions and they very easily convince us we can’t live without this deodorant or that skin perfecting cream. The same for clothing. The tighter and skimpier the better. Be the vamp you were born to be, and seduce your way into success in this world. Pop stars aren’t going to stop attempting to push the boundaries either, even although they know that their market are young impressionable teens. All Saints are an example of how clueless pop stars can be. Their market, too, was young teenage girls and yet they went and made a movie of themselves which was given an 18 rating. Of course none of their fans could see it and the movie flopped.
We also live in a world that is more fast-paced than it has ever been, and with that fast pace quality has gone out the window and our attention spans have shortened. We have a need for more, more more, and we need it now, now, now. And then we get rid of it as soon as we’ve used it once. Why do you think Primark is so popular? It’s cheap, nasty, and if it gets ruined in the wash after one wear then who cares? It only cost you a fiver. The same with online news agencies. Image quality has gone out the window. It’s a rush to take a badly composed photograph and send it to your agency so that they can be the first to get it online. And so it is the same with people. Have sex with him today, her tomorrow and then find someone else the next day. Nothing is built to last any longer, including relationships. We need someone to make morality sexy again. We need the values of our post-war grandparents who knew that relationships needed working on and building, just like their post-war communities did. We need commitments to each other, trust, respect for ourselves, and the accepting of responsibility for our actions. If we can instill these values into our children, perhaps that will stop them seeking out sexual partners too soon, or at least encourage them to stay within their own age-range and not be seduced or abused by perverts.
