Sexuality, youth and the perils of endangered innocence: how history can help us get past the panic

Abstract

Popular discourses on the problem of sexualisation are beset by emotively charged rhetoric that all-too-often promotes a visceral and affective response as opposed to reasoned and nuanced examination. Drawing on materials from the Social Purity Movement (1860 -1910) as well as contemporary anti-sexualisation literature, this article argues that a historical-situated perspective may help authors, activists and advocates offer a more reflexive perspective on 'the problem of sexualisation'. We forward a historically informed discourse analysis to render visible the longstanding, and deeply problematic, assumptions of childhood, gender and class at work in current concerns on sexualisation.

Walking a fine line: Young people negotiate pornified heterosex

“…Whatever you think of pornography, whether you consume it or abhor it, or both, it is now a highly visible part of our world and one we all need to discuss and deal with. (McKee et al, 2008) On the one hand this trend represents a new form of sex panic, captured in adult-centric fears about the porno-saturation of young people's worlds Smith, 2011a, 2011b;Egan and Hawkes, 2012). On the other hand, it may herald an interesting moment in which heterosexual pornography has become normalised and socially acceptable.…”

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

“…Providing a female-centred account of late-modern social change that can be located within a historical trajectory (Egan and Hawkes 2012), McRobbie (2009) considers the positioning of young women as neo-liberal subjects caught in the double-bind of consumer culture and late-modern governmentality. While the new social contract of late-modernity offers young women political subjectivity in exchange for the evolving capacity to work, consume and be sexually independent, McRobbie suggests there is a 'new sexual contract' taking shape in which women conform to the regulatory powers of the fashion and beauty industry while simultaneously renouncing any critique of patriarchy.…”

Histories of Adolescence and Affect: Setting an Agenda

“…By the 1940s, adults came to worry about the incitements of violent and sexualised comics and cheap novels that told of 'delinquent daughters' and 'thrill-hungry teen-agers'. 54 These decades were not without their contradictions. The 1950s saw increasing tensions between the rising glorification of sex in music and the movies on the one hand, and demands for young women to maintain their virginity on the other.…”

“…42 Sexualityespecially young women'swas (and is) carefully policed by adults. 43 Parental authority played a role, as did the gendered ideologies on which parents drew. 44 Teachers oversaw gender segregation in schools, and tacitly checked students' sexuality.…”

“…52 The city could be a 'hotbed of passion' for adolescentsmany commentators argued there were as many 'bad girls' as 'bad boys'and the new citadels of consumer culture 'offered a tempting world of pleasure and companionship beyond parental control'. 53 Excessive stimulation posed a problem. By the 1940s, adults came to worry about the incitements of violent and sexualised comics and cheap novels that told of 'delinquent daughters' and 'thrill-hungry teen-agers'.…”