[ukinfj]

So here's what's happening in the UK:

Cameron-backed report to protect children from commercialisation | Politics | The Guardian

Key measures:
Retailers to ensure magazines with sexualised images have modesty sleeves. (brown covers on lads' mags)

• The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards near schools and nurseries.

• Music videos to be sold with age ratings.

• Procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult and age restricted material on internet.

• Code of practice to be issued on child retailing. (no sexual slogans, modest swimwear and, for some reason, no black bras - huh?)

• Define a child as 16 in all types of advertising regulation.

• Advertising Standards Authority to do more to gauge parent's views on advertising.

• Create a single website for parents to complain to regulators.

• Change rules on nine o'clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents.

• Government to regulate after 18 months if progress insufficient.

The good part of this is that the government are listening to parents. That's good. But I think they're going about this in totally the wrong way. Hiding stuff from kids makes it even more delicious. Tell a kid they're not allowed to see something and all they can think about is finding out more.

Plus, are kids too sexualised? Is it their clothes that are making them too sexualised? Or is it their role models? The Lib Dems said before the election that they would take a stand on the airbrushing of pictures of women. I'm pissed off this isn't included somewhere. To me, that's the heart of the problem. All this nonsense about it producing eating disorders is near sighted bollocks, but I'd put my money down on idealised images creating an obesity epidemic and the sexualisation of kids - tell someone they shouldn't eat cake and all they want to do is eat cake. Tell kids they should look like Katie Price and they all want to take their clothes off and have breast implants.

What do we all think about this?

[suicidal_orange]

I completely agree with you - it's crazy trying to ban things as children are by nature curious and will just seek them elsehwere. The internet censorship especially will be a joke for a while (the current batch of 12-16 year olds knowing more about computers than their parents) and removing billboards from near schools may reduce distraction and improve grades slightly but it's not going to reduce materialism as at this age children don't have much money anyway...

The black bra thing is a joke too - a see through white shirt is a see through white shirt, doesn't matter what you put under it, while white straps under a dark summer top will be more obvious. Plus, as with any "age restricted" product, you can just ask your parents to get it for you, I can't believe (m?)any really approve of this ban. Will girls need ID to go underwear shopping?!

What a wonderful use of our taxes

[tuna]

I'm confused as to why black bras are considered oversexualized. They're just black undergarments. This just sounds like another case of "if girls have visible undergarments, they're asking for sex" to me. :\

Also, "Change rules on nine o'clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents" is concerning. While protecting children from the ridiculous amount of sexualized violence in the media is important, the views of the particular breed of "concerned parents" who like to complain to the government are so often things like "any television show that depicts gay kisses should only be broadcast after X hour, because it's obscene" (which was actually a proposed thing for a while, apparently? jfc people are ridiculous) that I'm not inclined to think that changing the watershed is a good idea. :\

I'm not in the UK, though, so my opinion is just an opinion. And hopefully you all don't have as many of the "protect the children from the evils of homosexuality!" parents as we do, lmfao.

[Nomenclature]

Basically what Asmit said. As far as children being sexualized, I'd have to say yeah, they are.

Did you know that more and more when asked about how their "first time" went, teens are answering about how it must've looked from the outside looking in, rather than how it felt? Kind of like sex is becoming more a performance than an act of intimacy.

What's up with Keira Knightley's deal with the King Arthur movie poster? Keira’s Breasts « Posterwire.com » the movie poster weblog Seriously. When was the last time you saw a woman with small breasts on a magazine cover?

The worship of Megan Fox as "sexiest woman on earth" is enough for girls to idolize her. I log on to Tumblr, and see so many girls who want to be just like Megan Fox. Which is actually half understandable, seeing as you CAN'T go anywhere without seeing her on an ad or magazine cover. But what the hell is this? They want to be popular. They want to be sexy. Is that all that matters anymore? What about the girls who want to look like her but can't? What are they going to do?

And some of the stuff that parents let their kids listen to on the radio. UGH. I heard a ten-year-old singing, "Lolly lolly lolly lolly, let me see you pop that body." When I was ten, I had Radio Disney and different colored chinos and cords and polos. I had none of this skin-tight stretchy low-rise jeans crap or sweatpants with logos sewed on the rear. And no matter how obnoxious Disney music is, it's still not much worse music-wise than what's on the radio these days. Content-wise, you to an extent CAN'T turn on popular music channels without being exposed to sex.

[ukinfj]

@Nomenclature Your animation just gave me epilepsy.

[Paradox1987]

I'm not going to get bogged down in a sidetrack on the policies of the Coalition. But will say I've been deeply disappointed by Cameron. When he was campaigning, I was amused to hear he bans his daughter from Lilly Allen songs on his iPod. But that's another story. Yeah, sure there's an argument to be made that sexualised imagery leads to over-sexed children. However; I'm not sure I agree. I'm not suggesting that we should bombard kids with images of hardcore sex; but innuendo etc are common forms of humour around children. Coded references that children simply cannot understand. A child that is not sexually mature won't act on any sexual urges, no matter how many images you blast at them. Now, the problem is sexual maturity comes at different ages for different people.

Sure in the UK, we have that pesky teen pregnancy issue, which tends to fuel this very debate. The point I say is that now you have sexually mature individuals being bombarded with sex. This causes a problem because as a country; we're pretty horrendous at sex-ed. I'm 24, and I remember sex-ed class being awkward, with no real information given. However, thankfully, I grew up amongst doctors, who were not squeamish about educating me. With better education, you can at least give those who buckle to curiosity the information to make a constructive and wise choice.

Interestingly, much of Europe has a lower age of consent than we do in the UK; and yet the Netherlands and Denmark (just as examples) show that
1. their teens lose their virginity later than ours (on average)
2. they are better educated and thus suffer much lower teen pregnancy rates.

Note: by "teen pregnancy" I mean underage mothers.

As for Cameron on coloured underwear; well, the logic behind his hatred for black bras is beyond the pale of my insignificantly libertarian comprehension. I had this conversation recently, about youngsters wearing revealing clothing and so forth and so on. Personally, I think much of your dress sense is learned from your parents. The miniskirt has existed long before Cameron and Clegg were sitting in Westminster, it's parental choice what their children do and don't wear to a certain extent. Those that wish to deck a sexually immature being in highly sexualised clothing are treading a fine line between inappropriate exposure. Not to mention, many youngsters emulate dress senses and experiments with make-up to feel "grown up", rather than to feel horny or find a way for sexual release....

[ukinfj]

Interestingly, much of Europe has a lower age of consent than we do in the UK; and yet the Netherlands and Denmark (just as examples) show that
1. their teens lose their virginity later than ours (on average)
2. they are better educated and thus suffer much lower teen pregnancy rates.

Note: by "teen pregnancy" I mean underage mothers.

There's a few reasons for this, I think. In the Netherlands in particular, you're looking at a very different culture. Well, according to the documentaries on the subject that I've seen. Sex is naturalised there as a normal act that doesn't necessarily have to be hidden from children. I mean, they don't sit them down in front of porn or have sex in front of their kids, but when you think about it, why shouldn't kids know about sex? It's only seen as rude because we say it is. It's basically just like having a shit though isn't it? It's a natural act that we all do, just not in public. Over here, sex is fetishised as an act that children must be protected from - as if there is something inherent about sex that is dirty and soiled. Which makes it all the more delicious to teens. The idea that if a kid knows about sex they'll do it is ridiculous. Like you said, they don't have sexual urges, or not the same way. It's not unusual for a toddler to masturbate, for example, this is normal healthy behaviour, but a toddler wanting to touch other toddlers would be weird - because they don't have the biological urge to procreate yet. So, like you say, they're not all going to go off banging each other. The problem, as you say, is when they become sexually mature.

If you tell a teenager they can have sex when they're 16, you've just sparked a competition between all teenagers to see who can have it first. If you basically tell teenagers they can have sex whenever they like, they'll do it when they want to. There won't be quite as much pressure on young boys and girls to lose their virginity as soon as possible. So lower ages of consent could work. If you put the age of consent at 13, for example, well not many kids under the age of 13 want to have sex yet, so they won't be in such a rush. The kids over 13 can have it whenever they want to. The choice is left up to them. And when you give teens an adult choice, they often meet it with an adult approach. That's in my experience anyway. However, this might not work in the UK, where sex is still seen as dirty. Because then it's seen as something forbidden and thus tempting.

The other thing is defining teenage pregnancy, or rather underage mothers/. Teens are physically ready to give birth at around age 13, but emotionally they're not. However, their emotional maturity depends on our culture. I'd say 16 is fine to be a mum for many sensible ttens, and perhaps that's why we have the legal age of consent there. How much does the stigma of underage pregnancy affect the way they raise their kids? There's always that theory of people meeting your expectations. My friend gave birth at 18 and was treated badly by the midwives, who considered her a "teen pregnancy".

[dalsgaard]

Interestingly, much of Europe has a lower age of consent than we do in the UK; and yet the Netherlands and Denmark (just as examples) show that
1. their teens lose their virginity later than ours (on average)
2. they are better educated and thus suffer much lower teen pregnancy rates.

The main reason Denmark has any age of consent at all, is in order to protect children from pedophiles. Sex education is mandatory and begins at the ages 11-12. Legally and morally, most people I know have no problem with 12-13 year-olds having sex. There are still those who argue that it's a little young, however.

Lately there has been some discussions in our parliament whether or not our sexual education is concrete and specific enough. They want to put whole hours into the schedules, because as it is now, sexual education runs on the side and is mostly part of the biology class. I still vividly remember putting that condom on a cucumber though.

[MiriMiriAru]

@dalsgaard, if that condom on cucumber thing was the only thing I knew about Denmark (it's not), I'd still think Denmark is awesome, simply because of that

Seriously though, I think the style of sex education and attitude found in Denmark and the Netherlands would be quite helpful in the English speaking countries (we all seem to share this squeamish, sex is dirty, thing). At first, I'm sure, it would uncomfortable and unpopular, but l think that it achieve over time the kind of cultural shift needed. The younger generation wouldncultivate a more open attitude, which they'd pass on and so on.

[Paradox1987]

The other thing is defining teenage pregnancy, or rather underage mothers/. Teens are physically ready to give birth at around age 13, but emotionally they're not. However, their emotional maturity depends on our culture. I'd say 16 is fine to be a mum for many sensible ttens, and perhaps that's why we have the legal age of consent there. How much does the stigma of underage pregnancy affect the way they raise their kids? There's always that theory of people meeting your expectations. My friend gave birth at 18 and was treated badly by the midwives, who considered her a "teen pregnancy".

Bang on the money. The "Age of Consent" is common law invention as opposed to a European Civil model invention. When the Common Law countries (UK, USA; and the Commonwealth of Nations) set about devising the age of consent it's a mix of average age of sexual maturity; with weights given to "appropriate" ages for which one can maintain parental responsibility. Obviously, by law, anyone under the age of 16 should be in school etc etc etc. To clarify, what I meant by teen pregnancy was pregnancy before the age of consent was reached. I highlight this because as a policy it's terrible. Whilst the "consent" works perfectly for defining the lynchpin in adult (21+) rape cases; it's not so helpful when you attach a magical age to it. That's why I prefer the European model. Whilst I was living in Denmark, I was hugely impressed by the importance placed on educating and then allowing people to make up their own minds; at least the consent is informed that way.

Lastly, that's atrocious. All pregnancies are important; and common sense (and the Hippocratic oath) dictates that medical professionals should treat all mothers and their babies with urgency, skill, respect and appropriate process to ensure a healthy mother and child(ren).