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Choose a Girl

Advertising, product placement, and influencer marketing can be an important piece of teens and young adults purchasing choices. As teens and young adults develop their own sets of beliefs and values, these influences can be particularly important. By working together with your teen to create a media use agreement — and to update it as they grow increasingly independent and responsible about their media use — you can help them build the habits that will lead to a healthier, more balanced engagement with the digital world. As they strike off more independently into the online world, teens and young adults need opportunities to take risks with safety nets and to rely on their caregivers and trusted adults for support and guidance. Adolescence is an active period of change finalizing the shift from childhood to adulthood. Teens are maturing physically, sexually, and cognitively while they also develop more complex and nuanced relationships with peers and seek even greater independence from primary caregivers.

Sexy Too Soon: The Sexualization of Girls

Another possibility is that mothers of girls who displayed sexualized attitudes and behaviors had responded by restricting the amount of TV and movies their daughters could watch. Regardless, the authors underlined, “low media consumption is not a silver bullet” against early self-sexualization in girls. American girls are increasingly being fed a steady diet of products and images that pressure them to be sexy. From clothing to cartoons, choreography to commercials, the emphasis on sexuality undercuts parents’ efforts to instill purity in their daughters.

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As teens’ sexual identity becomes more established, teens and young adults may turn to the internet for information. This is particularly true for LGBTQ+ teens, who may not be provided as much information in sexual education classes. Some teens are sexting, and while this is usually consensual, girls are more likely to report that they were pressured into sending images of themself, and similarly, boys were more likely to respond that they would ask for sexual pictures from a partner. 73% of teens are exposed to porn by the time they are 17, with over half of teens reporting the first time they saw porn online was before they were 13. In 2021, teens spent an average of eight hours and thirty-nine minutes on screen use, not including time spent for school, and 62% of teens responded that they use social media every day and eighty-four percent of young adults report ever using social media.

At 13, 70% of teens have their own smartphone; by 18 that number jumps to 93%. Although many guidelines for screen time exist, preschool-aged children spend an average of 2.5 hours per day using screens, and online videos from platforms like YouTube are extremely popular for children this age. Author Peggy Orenstein says that when it comes to sexuality, girls today are receiving mixed messages. Girls hear that “they’re supposed to be sexy, they’re supposed to perform sexually for boys,” Orenstein tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, “but that their sexual pleasure is unspoken.” “It’s very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages,” explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self.

That’s a question Laura Hamilton says was the push she needed to start Bridging Freedom. It’s a nonprofit for young girls who have been victims of sex trafficking. The research also highlights the need for more discussion about gender roles and attitudes, particularly regarding girls and young women, she said. In all three areas, the non-sexy profile scored higher, indicating that those who viewed that photo thought Amanda was prettier, more likely to make a good friend and more likely to complete a task.

• In 2-4 working days, the payment will be transferred into our account.
• As a recent viral video indicated, some of the dolls reveal clingy lingerie when dunked in cold water.
• And we can inoculate our kids against the world’s counterfeit sexuality by talking to them about God’s good plan for men and women.
• Much of teens’ social connection is happening on smartphones, which have made it increasingly easier to stay connected at all times.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association sounded the alarm in a report on the sexualization of girls. It documented consequences of self-objectification and sexualization that have been identified in mainly college-age women, ranging from distractibility during mental tasks and eating disorders to reduced condom use and fewer women pursuing careers in math and science. Starr and her colleagues wrote that they expected similar outcomes in younger adolescents and girls. LGBTQ+ teens and young adults may be particularly at risk of participating in sexting, with 21% of LGBTQ+ youth reporting they have shared images or videos of themselves. This may be because LGBTQ+ teens report feeling more pressured to sext, or, possibly due to uncomfortability or inability to be “out” and dating in real life, are creating romantic relationships online. To understand why the young girls chose the sexy dolls, they asked their mothers about their media intake, own self-objectification and how involved they were with their daughter’s body image.

When shown a set of two dolls, one in revealing clothes and the other in trendy by covered-up clothes, about 70 percent of girls in the study said they looked more like the sexy doll and that the sexy doll was more popular than the non-sexy doll. While it’s easy to blame media for these poisonous influences, we also need to scrutinize ourselves. If we fret over physical appearance or enjoy media laden with sexual images, chances are we will pass on the same mind-set to our daughters. Previously researchers found that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the latest study, published in the journal Sex Roles, is the first to detect self- sexualization in girls just slightly older than toddlers. Girls and young women are in a “no-win” situation when it comes to their Facebook photos, Daniels said.

Keep reading to learn more about how it’s important to spend face-to-face time with your teens, outside of screen time. Pop singer Beyonce now has her own clothing line that introduces the red-light district to the school lunchroom. “As maternal TV instruction served as a protective factor for sexualization, it’s possible that higher media usage simply allowed for more instruction,” Starr said to Live Science.