Sex, Women, Children and the Media

The sexualization of underage girls in the popular media has become a major concern both due to the media representation of children as sexually aware as well as the "trickle up" phenomenon where adult women are presented as childlike. A study published in a recent issue of Journal of Media Psychology tested the hypothesis that viewing images of women posed as sexy young girls can lead to greater acceptance of child sexual abuse myths. Sixty-five participants were randomly assigned to three groups: the control group who viewed “Nature” ads, the “Sexy Adult” group who viewed ads of adult women, and the “Sexy Child” group who viewed advertisements of women posed as sexy young girls. It was predicted that participants who viewed advertisements of women posed as sexy young girls would score higher on the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (CSAM; Collings, 1997) than participants in the two other groups. The hypothesis was not supported; however participants who saw ads portraying women of any age in sexual terms scored significantly higher on the CSAM Scale than those who viewed nature ads. The researchers conclude that images of objectified women can lead to greater acceptance of child sexual abuse myths. While it was recognized that this research was preliminary in nature, the researchers concluded that further research was definitely justified.

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Comments

[Ariella]

Hey Romeo! Here's an article you may be interested in. It speculates that medieval and early modern "dancing plagues" were a kind of mass anxiety attack brought on by stressful times.

[Romeo Vitelli]

Ariella, I've heard about the dancing plagues although there haven't been many examples in recent times. The Italian dance, the tarantella supposedly traces its origins to one of the epidemics.