(1) 1 - Introduction [Emma Renold, R. Danielle Egan and Jessica Ringrose]

"For us, Scarleteen illuminates what can go missing in policy and popular debates on sexualization – an assumption that children and young people are complex sexual subjects who are actively negotiating sexuality in their everyday lives. Indeed, this volume responds to this gap. It seeks to provide an academically situated collection that complicates and speaks back to a ubiquitous media landscape where children and young people’s own experiences of doing, being and becoming sexual are often sensationalized, silenced, caricatured, pathologized and routinely undermined." [mijn nadruk] (1)

"Most dominant discourses that have emerged within the Anglophone West have, on the surface, conceptualized childhood as antithetical to sexuality (however, this tends to primarily apply to white upper-middle-class children; Egan & Hawkes, 2010)." [mijn nadruk] (3)

"However, while attention to how changes in the significance and representation of sexuality might be shaping children and young people’s sexual cultures is long overdue, the concept of ‘sexualization’ has been contested (see in particular Lerum & Dworkin, 2009; Albury & Lumby, 2010; Atwood & Smith 2011; Bragg et al., 2011; Duschinsky, 2013)." [mijn nadruk] (3)

"Indeed, a consistent theme running through both historical and contemporary discourses about the child and its sexuality is that they are rarely, if ever, about children’s own social and cultural worlds. More often than not they represent adult preoccupations and anxieties about the nature, corruption and correction of the child’s sex as well as the nature of society. The voices of children and how they make sense of their own lives and bodies are conspicuously absent. Indeed, relying on dubious claims and little empirical research foregrounding children’s experiences of doing, being and becoming sexual, the outcomes predicted for children within the ‘sexualization’ literature are restrictive and frequently serve to moralize about and pathologize particular behaviours and particular children (Egan & Hawkes, 2008; Buckingham, 2009: 26)." [mijn nadruk] (4)

De beperkingen en nadelen van dat idee seksualisering worden opgesomd.

"We draw out further below what we identify as some of the problematic effects, which include:
• Measuring harms and risks of sexual media exposure to advance protectionist agendas (Egan, 2013) that lack analyses of how children, particularly girls, make meaning of, and negotiate media in their everyday lives
• Overemphasizing the victimization and objectification of girls, thereby reducing any sexual expression as evidence of ‘sexualization’ (Renold & Ringrose, 2011)
• Denying girls’ sexual agency, rights, pleasure and desires (Lerum & Dworkin, 2009; Tolman, 2012; Clark, 2013)
• Interpreting a range of commercial products for children as simply dangerous conduits for ‘child’ sexualization (Bragg et al., 2011; Kehily 2012)
• Ignoring how the eroticization of sexual objectification, including sexual innocence, features in girls’ own sexual subjectification practices (Walkerdine, 1998; Renold & Ringrose, 2011; Lamb & Peterson, 2012; Bragg, 2012)
• Creating enduring binaries of passive feminine sexuality versus active, predatory masculine sexuality (Renold, 2013)
• Encouraging ‘either/or’ and ‘polarized’ position-taking among stakeholders between sexual empowerment and pleasure versus sexual danger and risk (Duschinsky, 2013; Lamb et al., 2013; Tolman, 2013)
• Promoting a linear developmental yet delayed future trajectory of ‘healthy’ age-appropriate non-sexual, heteronormative gender identities (Epstein et al., 2012; Holford et al., 2013)
• Mobilizing a white middle-class panic over the loss of a raced and classed sexual innocence via the Othering of working-class/racialized cultures as evidence of hypersexuality (Egan, 2013; Ringrose, 2013)
• Neglecting the wealth of cross disciplinary, theoretical, empirical, clinical and practitioner-grounded research on children, sexuality and sexualization (Atwood et al., 2013)"(4-5)

[Mooi overzicht van kritiekpunten. Hierna volgt een overzicht van de opzet van het boek.]

(19) Part I - Mapping the History of Research and Theory within the Landscape of Ideas

(21) 2 - Anthropologizing Young/Minor Sexualities [Diederik F. Janssen]

[Aan de citaten zie je goed de abstracte wollige stijl van schrijven van deze auteur. Wil hij indruk maken? Is het zelfbescherming? Jammer. Het blijft in feite onduidelijk wat hij wil beweren. Vergelijk het eens met de stijl van Egan en zo in het eerste hoofdstuk. Ik snap niet dat dit hoofdstuk is opgenomen in deze bundel.]

"One would think that the recent ‘sexualization of childhood’ debates have done a good job in making this medicalized and psychologized topic social, historical and cultural. Fascinatingly, anthropological and cross-cultural commentary remains almost non-existent on this subject. This seems true on a broader plane. In the past decades a tradition in ‘ethnographic’ studies of children’s gender and sexual cultures has been developed on a feminist and at times queer theoretical benchmark, but these mostly address anglophone, particularly UK, contexts." [mijn nadruk] (22)/p>

"Modern ‘sex’ is importantly that ‘adult’ realm and industry where children would not, cannot, should not or shall not enter. Modern childhood, recursively, is importantly that life stage where sexuality ‘develops’ but never assumes a reckonable or valid form. How either may be represented is correspondingly strained. World citizens do not have to be reminded that depiction of young intimacies, even in cartoon drawings, has become one of the truly few items not protected by free speech clauses." [mijn nadruk] (23)

"Moreover, what counts, or should count, as ‘sex’ is perhaps least obvious where concerning the young, invariably referring the anthropologist beyond evolutionary theory, to the wider, local – however globalized – poetics of intimacy’s lore and law. What is sex made to mean, and which implications does this semantic overlay have for rubrics such as childhood? If sex can and increasingly may be play, why can’t it be child’s play? As for childhood, adopting an age-based definition for anthropological comparison may easily trample the typically kinship-, myth- and parable-inflected connotations of native life course terminology – and this applies unchangingly to the anglophone world." [mijn nadruk] (24)

"As a recent Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality (Bromberg & O’Donohue, 2013) sums up, conceptualization of young sexualities under global neo-liberalism, from the late 1970s onward, has significantly contracted around the need for the medical, forensic and legislative contouring of the child as world citizen, precisely regardless of its cultural background. The ‘world society theory’ proposed by Frank, Camp and Boutcher (2010) seems to apply to this promotion of developmental individuality in world sex law reform around minors (under-18s). They sketch an international policy shift around intimacy towards containment of ‘risk’, ‘protection’ of ‘rights’ and the securing of ‘health’, ‘agency’ and ‘autonomy’." [mijn nadruk]

"One major puzzle is why young sexualities after the circum-Atlantic sexual revolution remained aggressively circumscribed by scandal, by law and by ‘reproduction’ – along what seem securely interlocking tangents: promiscuity, pornography, prostitution, sexualization, paedophilia, incest, sexual abuse. What kind of globalizing work is done in the name of these late 20th-century ‘global problems’? What are they made to mean across ethnographic settings? What are the conditions for their explosive meaningfulness? How do they impose conceptions of value, subjectivity or identity onto children? How are ‘minors’ inhabiting today’s globalisms of risk and health management?"

[Nu nog antwoorden.]

"Entering anglophone academic literature in the early 1990s, Japan’s erratically eroticized ‘cute culture’ (kawaii karucha) and well-known ‘Lolita complex’ (rorikon) have classically lent themselves to psychodynamic interpretations of the ‘mother complex’ (mazakon) of salariimen. Note that key Japanese terms were imported from the West. Sadly, comparative perspectives have been few to date."(27)

[Ik laat dit artikel verder maar zitten. Volgens mij weet de auteur zelf niet eens wat hij zegt. Je kunt bijna bij elke zin vragen wat hij met die zin bedoelt. ]

(39) 3 - A Sociological History of Researching Childhood and Sexuality: Continuities and Discontinuities [Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott]

"Underlying our analysis is the argument that anxieties around children and sex and the challenges this poses for children and young people derive from constructions of sexuality as a special area of life and the child as a special category of person; we will argue for the need to question and disrupt the ways in which the former is seen as inimical to the well-being of the latter. This has been a recurrent theme in our work and, despite changes in the sexual landscape, remains relevant to contemporary critical analysis."(39)

"While some of the effects of the so-called sexual revolution can be seen as problematic for women, it did open up sexuality as a political issue. Many feminists tried to preserve what they saw as the positive elements within the libertarian ideas of the New Left – the dissociation of sex from reproduction, the emphasis on sexual pleasure and freedom – while also challenging the coercive and predatory aspects of male sexuality (Greer, 1970; Millet, 1971; Boston Women’s Health Collective, 1973). Feminists continued to attack the double standard, to demand the right to define their own sexuality, to see themselves as sexually active rather than passive objects of male desire and to seek forms of sexual pleasure not constrained by the set heterosexual pattern of foreplay (if you were lucky) followed by penetration (Lydon, 1970; Koedt, 1972; Whiting, 1972). At the same time, women’s shared experiences of pressured sex with men led to new analyses of sexual coercion and violence (Griffin, 1971; Medea & Thompson, 1974; Brownmiller, 1975)." [mijn nadruk] (40-41)

"One immediate difficulty when we began academic work in the 1970s was in establishing sexuality as a legitimate object of sociological enquiry. Studying sexuality was simply not taken seriously. When Stevi began research on teenage girls and sex in 1973, academics in her department reacted with either bemusement or ribald comments – and one told her that this topic was the province of psychology and not sociology. Sue’s experience a few years later was not so different; she was told that the study of sexuality was ‘pop sociology’, fun for undergraduates but not fit for serious academic enquiry." [mijn nadruk] (41)

[Typisch voor de normatieve insteek van veel wetenschappers. Allemaal 'nette mensen'.]

"It was our discovery of the work of Gagnon and Simon that provided the major breakthrough (Gagnon, 1965, 1973; Simon & Gagnon, 1969; Gagnon & Simon, 1974). They were ‘truly the first sociologists to radically question the biologism, the naturalism and the essentialism that pervaded most existing research and study’ (Plummer, 2001: 131). They also made it possible to think about childhood and sexuality in new ways."(41)

"From Gagnon and Simon’s perspective, children are neither intrinsically sexual nor intrinsically asexual – how sexual they can be is a product of the social ordering of sexual knowledge and conduct. For Gagnon and Simon acts, feelings and body parts are not sexual in themselves, but only become so through the application of sociocultural scripts that imbue them with sexual significance." [mijn nadruk] (41)

"So, when we remember ‘sexual’ events in our own childhood they are filtered through the lens of adult sexual understanding and would have had quite different meanings for us at the time. Moreover, what adults see as ‘sexual’ behaviour in children is also a product of the application of adult sexual scripts, and may not have the same meaning for children themselves." [mijn nadruk] (42)

[Precies.]

"We have never denied that children do need protection from potentially predatory adults; the point we have consistently made in our earlier and more recent work is that keeping children in ignorance does not protect them effectively." [mijn nadruk] (43)

"It may therefore be that adults overestimate the traumatic effects of such experiences for children and, indeed, may contribute to them by over-reacting." [mijn nadruk] (43)

["It may"? Ik denk niet dat daaraan getwijfeld hoeft te worden.]

"This second point [het punt uit het vorige citaat - GdG] was somewhat controversial at a time when feminists were working hard to put sexual violence against women and children on the academic and political agenda (Rush, 1980; Herman, 1981; Kelly, 1988). It was not intended to underplay the seriousness of child sexual abuse but to highlight possible unintended consequences of potential adult reactions to it, often fuelled more by the idea that sex in itself was a threat to children rather than the abuse of adult power. In the climate of the 1980s, it became more difficult to argue for this kind of approach (and, arguably, has become increasingly difficult)." [mijn nadruk] (44)

"A gulf developed between those who defined themselves as ‘sex-positive’ and were keen to explore all imaginable possibilities for pleasure and to counter all attempts to censor any erotic representations or censure any consensual sexual practices on the one hand and those campaigning against pornography and sexual violence on the other. Our perspective differed from both sides. (...) On the other side of the argument, those concerned with the abuse of children wanted to deny, or at least ignore, the possibility of children ever being sexual. For example, one prominent anti-violence feminist took us to task for suggesting that a pre-pubescent girl could masturbate, stating that this would not occur unless she had been abused. Our point was, and is, that a child without access to sexual scripts will not, of course, be able to label this activity as masturbation or even connect it with the pieces of the sexual puzzle she has, but she can nevertheless discover for herself the pleasures of manipulating her own genitals (see Jackson, 1982: 69–70). Our views on childhood and sexuality, then, did not fit with those of either side in the sex wars, and were unacceptable to both." [mijn nadruk] (44-45)

"The political climate of the 1980s presented challenges, with a marked shift to the right in mainstream politics on both sides of the Atlantic and a general weakening of the Left in Britain. The combination of neo-liberal economic policies and moral conservatism that characterized the Thatcher government was particularly bad news for both policy and research on sexuality." [mijn nadruk] (45-46)

"This was occurring in a climate of increased concern about child sexual abuse and a generalized risk anxiety about children (Jackson & Scott, 1999, 2013), one manifestation of which was the ramping up of ‘stranger danger’ education in schools – despite wide acknowledgement that most sexual abuse of children involved known individuals (see Scott et al., 1998). (...) Most parents were disproportionately worried about sexual risks to children – in particular they were haunted by the image of the paedophile who might abduct and inflict unspeakable things on their children." [mijn nadruk] (48)

[En zo is het nog steeds.]

"These anxieties do not seem to have diminished since we conducted this research. Indeed they may have increased, since the imagined ‘pervert’ is no longer only to be found lurking around parks, but also in cyberspace, ready to invade the supposed safety of the home. In recent years there has been a great deal of concern around the ‘grooming’ of underage girls for sex with older men." [mijn nadruk] (49)

[Precies.]

"In 2007 the American Psychological Association published a report on the dangers of early sexualization for young girls. Media reportage, in tones of shock and horror, played up the sexualization of children who ‘ought’ to be innocent. More recently the British government commissioned two reviews on sexualization. One was for the Home Office, focusing on young people (Papadopoulos, 2010); the other, on children, was for the Department for Education, authored by the Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union (Bailey, 2011). Both called for greater protection of children and young people from sexualization, both constructed sexualization as a threat to ‘healthy’ sexual development and to the very essence of childhood, summed up by the title of the Bailey report: ‘Letting Children Be Children’. While there are, of course, grounds for concern about the ways in which women (and girls) are represented in much of the sexual imagery available today, presenting the problem as one of ‘lost childhood innocence’ misses the point, as many feminist critiques have noted (see Introduction and Chapter 5 in this volume). The effort to keep children ignorant of sex prevents them from being able to make adequate sense of the sexual representations which they will inevitably see around them. Adult anxieties about these issues can serve to render children less safe by potentially depriving them of the knowledge they need to interpret the sexual mores of the world in which they must make the transition to adulthood (see Jackson & Scott, 2010). As numerous feminist critics have noted, there is little or no recognition in these reports of young people’s sexual desire, no sense of them as embodied sexual subjects – the focus is on sexual objectification. Good sex, where it is defined, is that based on mutual respect between consenting adult partners, but with no sense of it involving embodied practices and pleasures. The ‘missing discourse of desire’, noted in critical approaches to sex education (Fine, 1988; Fine & McClelland, 2006), is also evident in these reports on sexualization and in public discourse around it. Somehow young people who are innocent of desire are expected suddenly to become functioning adult sexual actors engaged in ‘healthy’ sexual practices." [mijn nadruk] (49-50)

"It is this understanding of children as active interpreters of their social worlds, as engaged in making sense of it with their peers, that is missing from most of the public debate around sexualization. Feminist researchers, as this volume demonstrates, are engaged in constructing alternative approaches and, in our view, the interactionist perspective has much to offer here."(51)

"In all the public controversy about the sexualization of girls, what goes unnoticed or unsaid is the reverse process – the desexualization of girls. Not only do efforts continue to be made to keep children asexual, but also the supposed sexualization of girls in particular is very much focused on a surface commodification of young women’s bodies (as sexual objects), not on their lived embodied experience of themselves as sexual subjects. Young women are thus deprived of space to develop an autonomous sexuality – and this is becoming increasingly problematic given the contradictions of contemporary Western sexual culture." [mijn nadruk] (51)

(56) 4 - Reappraising Youth Subcultures and the Impact upon Young People’s Sexual Cultures: Links and Legacies in Studies of Girlhood [Mary Jane Kehily and Joseph De Lappe]

[Het artikel begint weer erg abstract. Maar het blijkt gelukkig mee te vallen. De tekst is helder en gaat over concrete ontwikkelingen. Ik zie alleen niet wat het met seksualisering te maken heeft, maar daar gaat het boek ook niet alleen over.]

"The chapter is divided into five sections. Beginning with a discussion of youth subcultures as a concept characterized by the distinctive approach pioneered at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, the body of the paper considers the influence of the subcultural in contemporary research on girlhood in sections on the links between youth subcultures and a case study of the Lolita subculture in Japan. A final section extends earlier discussions into an account of the impact of subculture as a concept that is now dispersed across many spheres of experience, carrying ideas into different sociocultural and geographic locations."(57)

"Engaging in subcultural activity involves young people in acts of ‘articulation’ – the bringing together of different elements in particular contexts, in ways that make sense to the individuals concerned."(58)

"The embracing of pleasure by young women in the 1990s and 2000s through leisure spheres such as rave/club culture, television, magazine readership and fashion and beauty has been observed by feminist scholars as the emergence of new forms of femininity marked by moments of celebration, freedom and fun (McRobbie, 1996; Brunsdon, 1997; Hermes, 2006). Terms such as ‘post-feminism’, ‘third wave feminism’ and ‘new femininities’ have been deployed to characterize the changes in young women’s experiences and their engagement with the social world. The terms themselves are open to contestation in different contexts, signalling both an anti-feminist backlash and new ways of understanding feminism in contemporary times (Hollows and Moseley, 2006).(...) As Sonnett (1999: 170) declares, ‘The current post-feminist “return” to feminine pleasures (to dress, cosmetics, visual display, to Wonderbra “sexiness”) is “different” because, it is suggested, it takes place within a social context fundamentally altered by the achievement of feminist goals’." [mijn nadruk] (61)

"This poses complex issues for sexual politics when girls and young women’s participation in the sex industry and employment in gentlemen’s clubs may also be claimed as an expression of autonomous girlhood. Like feminist subjectivities, this ‘active girlhood’ places an emphasis on the rights of the individual to be an active sexual subject without recourse to moral judgement from patriarchal or feminist discourse." [mijn nadruk] (62)

[Dat is zo ongelooflijk naïef: 'als ik er zelf voor kies is het ok'. Alsof je vrij kunt kiezen. Alsof morele oordelen die je gedrag bekritiseren vanuit bredere maatschappelijke kaders onbelangrijk zijn. Dom neoliberaal individualisme.]

"Working within the lineage of culture as everyday social practice, viewing the activities of young people as a way of making sense of the world and taking their place within it establishes a way of looking that can be applied to children’s self-activity and particularly the idea of young people’s sexual cultures.(...) The following case study provides a rich example of this fusion, using subcultural analysis to make girls visible in ways that highlight the playful negotiation of gender and sexuality in a specific cultural context."(62)

"In 21st-century Japan, youth cultures often revolve around a constantly evolving set of very distinctive ‘street fashions’. Yuniya Kawamura (2006) explains that these fashions are not produced or controlled by professional fashion designers, but by teenage girls who rely on their distinctive appearance to produce a subcultural identity. Lolita or ‘Loli’ is a particular subcultural aesthetic, which is often associated with the Harajuku area of Tokyo where many Lolis gather to socialize and to pose for photographs. Although the subculture is not exclusively female, there are far more female Lolis than male." [mijn nadruk] (63)

"Lolita takes on a completely different meaning in the context of Japanese youth culture. The roots of the Loli subculture can be traced back to the kawaii or cute trend in 1970s and 1980s Japan. In the 1980s, band members within the newly emerging visual-kei (or visual style) music scene began to wear elaborate costumes and make-up which explored what has become known as the Lolita aesthetic. This very distinctive style of dress draws upon and adapts a wide range of influences, including British Victoriana, particularly porcelain dolls and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books, and Japanese popular cultural forms. In addition to visual-kei bands and celebrities, the style is influenced by characters from anime and manga (Japanese animation and comics)." [mijn nadruk] (63)

"The Lolita aesthetic centres round an idealized image of Victorian childhood. Lolis wear clothes designed to de-emphasize the features of an adult female body; they use flattened bodices, high waists and full skirts with voluminous underskirts in order to conceal their bust and hips. They often wear their hair in ringlets with a bonnet, and make use of a range of accessories, including aprons, small bags, stuffed animals or parasols. This style of dress is complemented by striking poses intended to evoke the illusion of a very young girl or of a porcelain doll. When posing for photographs, Lolis often stand with their knees together and toes pointed inwards and their head inclined to one side; a stylization that embodies a regressed state of girlhood that is both innocent and knowing at the same time." [mijn nadruk] (63)

[Lijkt me erg deseksualiserend. Of misschien ook wel niet. ]

"The subculture provides young Lolitas with a way to escape from their immediate realities and to express their feelings about their lives and experiences as young women. Far from being resolutely a-political, then, the Lolita subculture is intricately interwoven with contemporary Japanese sexual and gender politics."(64)

"Winge explains that Lolitas attempt to prolong child- hood through the use of extensive use of kawaii or cuteness. As a result, the Lolita subculture may appear to be anti-feminist because it portrays an ideal of feminine passivity by valorizing the image of virginal youth. However, Winge argues that the doll-like Lolita aesthetic creates a safe space for young women to perform their sexuality." [mijn nadruk] (64)

[Hoe dan? Onwaarschijnlijk.]

"The Lolita subculture has caused controversy both within Japan and internationally. Much of this controversy centres around issues of female sexuality and sexualization, particularly surrounding lolicon (a Japanese portmanteau of ‘Lolita complex’) or sexual attraction to prepubescent girls. Winge argues that the Lolita subculture is entirely separate from lolicon as a sexual fetish. She explains that although Lolitas attempt to prolong childhood through the use of kawaii, they are striving to create the appearance of living dolls, rather than young girls. In contrast, Mackie (2009) argues that the Lolita aesthetic and lolicon are different manifestations of the same anxiety about female sexuality: Lolitas are attempting to escape from the pressures within Japanese society by prolonging their girlhood, while adult men choose to focus on the image of young girls which they find less threatening than adult women." [mijn nadruk] (64)

[Hm, weet niet. Die Lolita-subcultuur raakt waarschijnlijk ook aan het wereldje van al die meidenpopgroepen, '(gravure) idols', 'enjo kōsai', cosplayers, en zo meer. Misschien zijn deze lolita's in hun gedrag niet zo onschuldig als hier gesuggereerd wordt en is er wel degelijk ook de inspiratie van de oorspronkelijke Lolita van Nabokov.]

(71) 5 - Anchoring Sexualization: Contextualizing and Explicating the Contribution of Psychological Research on the Sexualization of Girls in the US and Beyond [Deborah L. Tolman, Christin P. Bowman and Jennifer F. Chmielewski]

"In the US public discourse, sexualization is understood as perhaps an unfortunately simplistic word for two distinct phenomena: (1) the sexualization of culture, which is an intensified presence and infusion of often uncalled-for sexuality into products, media and norms; and (2) the sexualization of individuals, meaning both the process and the effects of living within this sexualized context particularly on girls and women. This includes how girls navigate these pervasive representations of women and girls as sexual objects and introduces the psychological phenomena of self-sexualization and overt resistance to sexualization and being sexualized." [mijn nadruk] (71)

"This chapter is part recent history of sexualization in US psychology and part (critical) review of the psychological literature and reflections on differences in how US and UK feminists are working with and against the process of sexualization, as both an individual and a social phenomenon. We first provide an ‘insider’ history of the APA Report (Deborah Tolman was one of the six authors), which is so often referenced by both conservative protectionists and progressive feminists alike in the UK and the US. We then review a sampling of the psychological research literature that for the most part, including the work of feminists, fits within the parameters of mainstream psychology." [mijn nadruk] (71-72)

"One of the key distinctions between academic understanding of sexualization in the UK and US is that US feminists are more often embedded in psychological (rather than sociological or cultural) study, which positions the individual-in-context as the unit of analysis."(72)

"For this chapter, our conception of sexualization in the US is based on the literature stemming from the theoretical development of objectification theory (Fredrickson et al., 1998). This feminist social psychological theory is unusual in that it sits squarely within mainstream psychology. It explains how some girls and women learn to internalize a sexually objectifying gaze and thereby develop an outsider view of themselves or self-objectification.
Even without the presence of others, many girls and women experience internal as well as external pressure, and learn to assess their self-worth based on impossible (and elite) physical standards of beauty, focused continually on the appearance of their bodies, often to the exclusion of their other qualities. This social psychodynamic theory offers a framework for explicitly under- standing women’s experiences in a sexually objectifying society in which women and girls are often treated as bodies for others’ sexual consumption." [mijn nadruk] (72-73)

"While the Report [= The 2007 Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls - GdG] has been taken up inappropriately and often inaccurately for non-research purposes, the authors of the Report were clear that sexualization is not about the process of girls becoming sexual (in whatever way that might be) but by which girls are viewed and/or treated in purely sexual terms rather than as fully functioning persons. Rather than positioning sexualization as a counterpoint to sexual innocence, the Report underscored how this process can challenge or interfere with girls’ ability to feel comfortable with, own or even experience their own embodied sexuality." [mijn nadruk] (73)

[Iets moet er toch enorm zijn misgegaan, als zo'n rapport zoveel verkeerde interpretaties toelaat. Hier wordt het accent gelegd op de beeldvorming over mannen en vrouwen / de rolpatronen en dat is terecht, maar in de morele paniek gaat het al gauw over de 'seksuele ontwikkeling van - witte middenklasse - meisjes'.]

"psychological literature to date can be cannibalized to serve an individualizing, pathologizing conception and discourse, as well as a profoundly limited and erroneously targeted response to sexualization that blames girls (and their mothers) and can yield protectionist policies and slut shaming practices."(74)

"Research has consistently demonstrated that sexualization of women’s bodies can impact and be associated with girls’ and women’s psychological health. Sexualization among women, working through the psychological mechanism of self-objectification, has been associated with increased body shame (Fredrickson et al., 1998; Grabe et al., 2008; Mercurio & Landry, 2008; Calogero & Thompson, 2009; Carr & Szymanski, 2011), decreased sexual self-esteem (Calogero & Thompson, 2009), increased depression and anxiety symptoms (Carr & Szymanski, 2011; Erchull et al., 2013), increased substance abuse (Carr & Szymanski, 2011) and increased disordered eating (Fredrickson et al., 1998; Calogero & Thompson, 2009a)."(74-75)

"Though this study provides evidence of early internalization of sexualized norms, it also suggests that mothers can play a vital role in buffering against the negative effects of media sexualization."(75)

[Dat kan misschien, maar doen ze het ook, gaan ze niet gewoon kritiekloos mee in de maatschappelijke trends? Hoevaak komt het ene voor en hoe vaak het andere? Is dat ook onderzocht? En spelen de vaders hier geen rol in?]

"Negative psychological effects of sexualization can persist into adulthood. Self-objectification has been shown to decrease women’s overall life satisfaction (Mercurio & Landry, 2008), sexual satisfaction (Sanchez & Kiefer, 2007; Calogero & Thompson, 2009b) and increase inappropriate feelings of responsibility for being sexually objectified (Chen et al., 2013)."(75-76)

"Sexual objectification has also been shown to impair cognitive and physical functioning (Fredrickson et al., 1998; Quinn et al., 2006; Gay & Castano, 2010)."(76)

"Just as self-objectification siphons cognitive resources for intellectual tasks, the mental energy used to pay attention to one’s body also drains focus away from performing physical tasks (Fredrickson & Harrison, 2005). Feminist philosophers have long believed it to be the case (e.g. Beauvoir, 1952; Young, 1990), and in a recent empirical study researchers demonstrated that girls with higher rates of self-objectification showed poorer throwing performance (Fredrickson & Harrison, 2005)."(76)

"Researchers have consistently found that when people are exposed to sexually objectifying media, they are more likely to demonstrate acceptance of rape myths and violence against women (Aubrey et al., 2011; Beck et al., 2012; Burgess & Burpo, 2012; Loughnan et al., 2013)."(77)

"The increase in sexualized representations of women’s bodies (Hatton & Trautner, 2011, 2013) coincides with an increase in sexualized depictions of girls in the past several decades (Graff et al., 2013)."(7)

Kritieken

"While the report does include some studies of sexualization among girls and women of colour, it also notes that the research literature has a paucity of studies on women and girls of colour and class, sexual orientation and ability differences; thus, the findings are primarily about white, heterosexual, middle-class girls. This shortcoming remains persistent in much US research." [mijn nadruk] (78)

"Most importantly, there is a dearth of qualitative psychological research on how girls navigate sexualization that can capture the contradictions, nuances, complexities and various venues in which girls engage with sexualizing processes. The voices of girls themselves are disturbingly absent in the US psychological literature to date – but UK researchers have begun to redress this (i.e. Ringrose, 2010; Renold & Ringrose, 2011)." [mijn nadruk] (79)

"Did the APA report sound a panicky alarm about sexualization? In some sense, it did. As Duschinsky (2013) noted, the report yielded unintended consequences, such as the right-wing leveraging discourses of sexualization as a symbol of moral decline, calling for protectionist policies focused on preventing children from becoming sexual. In the US academic psychology community, research on sexualization in particular is predicated on the assumption that the process of becoming an agentic sexual (and gendered) adult – however that sexuality is expressed (i.e. sexual minorities, transgendered young people) – is to be expected into and through adolescence (Tolman, 2012), and that for girls in particular, in the context of an intersectional understanding of patriarchy, this process should incorporate learning both about pleasure and about risk management (McClelland & Fine, 2008; Tolman & McClelland, 2011). Girls have an inalienable right to experience and enjoy the pleasures of sexual embodiment, and this right is not predicated on being or becoming a sexual object of another’s desires; in fact, it defies such positioning of girls by others. Thus such misinterpretations call for a stronger response from feminist psychologists and even possibly the APA. In particular, we should reinforce our underlying commitments to girls and young women’s right to sexual subjectivity, self-determination and expression, and underscore the ways that sexualization impedes what the report (strategically) called healthy sexuality, a somewhat ambiguous term that allows for the corralling of concerns with public health and feminist propositions of entitlements to pleasure, freedom and rights to diverse expressions." [mijn nadruk] (81-82)

"As in the UK, sexualization often emerges in US public discourses as moral panics over girls’ sexuality.(...) And when it comes to teenage girls using technology, the public is increasingly concerned that teens are engaging in harmful self-sexualization via sexting and social media sites (Koefed & Ringrose, 2012)."(82)

"Sexualization is real, and its psychological effects are real. But girls and women are also resilient and intelligent and capable of sexual agency. Girls are entitled to a sexuality development that both acknowledges them as sexual subjects with an array of sexual subjectivities, desires and embodiments and recognizes the difficult sexualized terrain that normalizes a profoundly narrow and problematic construction of young women’s sexuality premised on becoming ‘good sexual objects’ even as they risk punishment for doing so as they come of age." [mijn nadruk] (85)

(89) 6 - What about the Boys?: Sexualization, Media and Masculinities [Sara Bragg]

Moeten we ons zorgen maken over de seksualisering van jongens? Sommige auteurs vinden van niet, andere vinden van wel.

[Mij lijkt dat we ons hoe dan ook in grote mate zorgen moeten maken over jongens en mannen en niet alleen op het vlak van seksualisering. De hele opvoeding van mannen deugt nog steeds niet. De rollenpatronen zijn nog steeds nauwelijks veranderd. Mannen moeten af van agressie en competitie en superioriteitsgevoelens en gebrek aan gevoeligheid voor andere mensen. Zo lang dat niet gebeurt is het dweilen met de kraan open.]

"The anti-sexualization position repeatedly indicts popular, commercialized culture, targeting advertisements, magazines, TV, films, music videos and consumer goods."(90)

"Typically in the sexualization debate, as here, media are described in metaphors that suggest they are not so much a cultural expression or a language, but a form of (damaging) social action, a homogenous, negative and coercive force that ‘bombards’, ‘saturates’ and ‘dominates’, that is at worst invasive, ‘other’ and alien, at best an unavoidable but highly problematic environment, the ‘wallpaper of our lives’ as it is referred to in the 2011 UK government review (DfE, 2011)."(91)

[Ik denk dat dat waar is, ondanks alle bezwaren die je verder kunt hebben tegen die opvatting die hierna door de auteur gegeven worden:]

"Meanings are singular, not to mention simple. One ‘clear’ or ‘predominant’ message can be identified in texts, not multiple or ambiguous ones. These meanings are located in, or even more insidiously ‘behind’, single texts in stable ways – that is, they can be identified in isolation from their generic, narrative or viewing contexts. They are efficacious in and of themselves; that is, they alone are able to have ‘effects’ and to act – to ‘sexualize’ for instance. Identifying those meanings, and whether they are ‘objectionable’, falls to those with particular authority or expertise, who can also define what genres and cultural fields should (or should not) guide our interpretation." [mijn nadruk] (91)

"Describing texts as ‘unrealistic’ or offering a ‘distorted’ view assumes that there exists an external reality against which media can be assessed for their degree of correspondence."(92)

[Postmodern gebabbel. De voortdurende beeldvorming in de media is bepaald niet onschuldig. Veel ouders en kinderen nemen die beelden over als 'normaal'. Het laatste citaat klopt niet: 'niet realistisch' wordt niet afgemeten aan een of andere realiteit die er al is maar aan hoe de werkelijkheid hoort te zijn, niet. Het is een normatief oordeel. ]

"Power, in these accounts, is possessed by monolithic institutions (‘the global Tween machine’), and shaped by the wider economic or ideological imperatives of the capitalist system. This theory is often expressed in the pedagogical or rhetorical question of ‘whose interests are served by x or y image?’ Effects and meanings are ‘calculated’ for the purpose of profiteering or ‘pocket-money-stealing’."(92)

[En ook dat lijkt me nog steeds waar. Maar dan gaat het er verder om wat voor normatieve conclusies er getrokken worden. De richting werd daar niet het aanpakken van kapitalisme en marketing - bijvoorbeeld een streven naar een verbod op reclame gericht op mensen onder de 18 jaar -, maar het werd een roep om kinderen te beschermen tegen erotisch getinte beelden en een ontkenning van de handelingsbekwaamheid en seksualiteit van kinderen. Daar zit dus het probleem.]

"Audiences, at least in the form of undifferentiated ‘children’, are conceived as products of this environment, powerless (‘susceptible’ or ‘vulnerable’) victims who cannot resist the false ways of being and thinking offered by the media. The dominant metaphor of passive ‘exposure’ to the media and truisms about children spending more time with screens than in schools suggest that young people are unable to make critical sense of what they encounter. The concept of ‘role models’ too assumes that audiences absorb and imitate media content, responding in a literalist way to surface features such as gender. Thus girls identify with female characters, boys with male. Thus girls identify with female characters, boys with male. As a consequence, the media teach them radically different lessons, especially as they grow older. Girls identify themselves with female sex objects, internalize a male gaze and ultimately are taught their submissive position in the patriarchal order. Boys, however, occupy the powerful and active male gaze directly, aligning themselves with the male heroes they are offered, learning to be dominant and even to see themselves as having an ‘uncontrollable entitlement to women’s always sexualized and available bodies’ (Garner, 2012: 328 cited in Brodala, 2014). Girls become objects for themselves and for others; boys learn to see girls as objects whilst remaining subjects themselves." [mijn nadruk] (92)

[Het eerste punt klopt. Maar het tweede? Valt dat nog te ontkennen? De media zetten niet bepaald neutrale rolmodellen neer, is het wel? Ik krijg sterk het gevoel dat de auteur heel postmodern alle opvattingen wil relativeren met een soort van geloof in de macht van het individu om er het beste van te maken. Te simpel, vind ik. Ze waaiert alle kanten uit, maar het wordt geen moment duidelijk welke opvatting ze nu zelf heeft. Kijk naar haar conclusies:]

"In general the postmodern perspectives on which I have drawn in the second part of this chapter involve giving up on certainty. And this, of course, is difficult, because it involves not knowing what someone or something means, whether an image is positive or negative, what the effect of our well-intentioned pedagogical and campaigning efforts will be, accepting that we may not liberate, empower, deliver critical audiences, or oblige young people to abandon their fascination with the media. It means being reflexive about the performative impact of our textual analyses and our constructions of gendered audiences, about the power relations of pedagogical addresses that vainly seek only to hear our own words reflected back to us.
On the other hand, it doesn’t mean giving up on any of these either. Interrupting dominant discourses about the male sex drive or girls and women ‘asking for it’, challenging everyday sexism and demanding resources for survivors of sexual abuse and violence are all still as important and necessary as ever. Some of our critical categories and concepts, our analyses and reflections, will offer useful resources for young people, help them think about themselves and society in new and radical ways; but – so too will the media themselves. And perhaps we need to be more ambitious in identifying what elements of sexist practices might be disrupted, how to force discontinuities and defections, rather than monitoring individuals." [mijn nadruk] (101)

(105) 7 - Desexualizing the Freudian Child in a Culture of ‘Sexualization’: Trends and Implications [R. Danielle Egan]

"Freud’s conception of psychosexual development states that the child, from birth, is a sexual being. This does not mean that the subjective experience of the child is the same as the adult, but that rather the child is autoerotic, curious and that sexuality extends far beyond a reproductive or heteronormative imperative. During his life, Freud actively critiqued moralizing discourses regarding masturbation and spoke against the various movements espousing moral rather than scientifically based sexual education (Gay, 1999; Egan & Hawkes, 2006)."(106)

[Ik denk niet dat het zo simpel ligt.]

"However, unlike their predecessors, psychoanalysts in the Anglophone West have been conspicuously absent from more recent discussions of sexualization and its harms. Why?
After reviewing the literature, I have found that a funny thing has happened in the century since Three essays on the theory of sexuality was published in 1905 – infantile sexuality has faded from prominence within Anglophone Western clinical literature. (...) Prior to exploring the desexualization of childhood within Anglophone psychoanalytic literature, it is important to understand Freud’s contribution to the history of ideas on the child and its sexuality."(107)

"As I noted at the outset, sexualization literature in its conceptualization of the child assumes that sexuality is dormant until puberty and that sexual expression in children must be the outcome of a sexualized culture. Freud, in contrast, paints a picture of childhood where sexuality is active and marked by a host of contradictory features." [mijn nadruk] (109)

"One reason for this transition [naar stukken minder klinische publicaties over kinderlijke seksualiteit - GdG] may be the turn towards object relations theory in the Anglophone West. In the next section, I spell out what object relations says about child sexuality and how this differs from the classical Freudian account."(111)

"It is important to note that a similar trend can be seen in much of the recent Anglophone literature on psychosexual development literature – infantile sexuality is more often than not replaced with discussions of gender development (Benjamin, 1998). When reviewing the literature one finds that authors have become primarily concerned with how children become gendered and tend to steer away from discussions of polymorphous perversity, sexual research and/or erotic fantasy." [mijn nadruk] (112)

[Gezien de totaal vijandige sfeer die er ontstaan is op het vlak van kinderlijke seksualiteit durven ze gewoon niet meer te publiceren over dat soort dingen. Stel je voor dat je inkomen achteruit gaat omdat 'de wereld' over je heen valt ... Psychoanalytici spelen tegenwoordig net als iedereen gewoon op veilig.]

"As I have chronicled in my research with Gail Hawkes, the Anglophone West has a long history of adult anxiety regarding sexuality and the child (Egan & Hawkes, 2010). Within the history of ideas, the child’s sexuality has often been a proxy or displacement for other cultural insecurities within many discourses (Egan & Hawkes, 2010). Is this simply a case of Anglophone sexual hypocrisy or sexual repression seeping into the Anglophone Object Relations School? I would argue this reading would be too simplistic and not particularly compelling."(116)

"Could it be that the extreme anxieties surrounding children and sexuality have made analysts shy away from this topic in an attempt to remain viable within a mental health landscape that is less than welcoming of psychoanalytic perspectives?"(116)

[Is dat nog een vraag?]

"Revisiting psychoanalytic ideas regarding the sexual life of the child seems particularly pressing in the midst of our current cultural climate. Taking the idea of childhood sexuality seriously might allow psychoanalytical clinicians to offer a new approach to seeing how a child’s sexuality might be impacted by a set of adult projections in deeply complex ways (which might include sexualization, containment, care, desexualization or pathologization, to name only a few). They might be able to offer another window into the ways in which young people who are suffering and come into session may be negotiating, among other things, culture, family and sexuality, and how these change and transform over time. Analysts could offer a nuanced picture of how young people identify, disidentify or partially identify with culture, family, peers, and how this shapes perceptions of self. Ultimately, it is my hope that clinicians will begin to refocus on the place of sexuality within the life of the child in order to offer a reasoned counter-narrative to the current popular discourse on sexualization." [mijn nadruk] (118)

[Ik denk dus niet dat dat gaat gebeuren.]

(121) Part II - Pre-teen Sexualities: Problematizing Sexual Agency and Sexual Innocence

(123) 8 - Seeing (with) the ‘Sexy’ Body: Young Children’s Visual Enactment of Sexuality [Anna Sparrman]

"Across the Western world, a great deal of effort is being put into regulating and constituting laws against adults’ possession and use of images of nude and half-nude prepubescent children. In parallel, research on children, sexuality and visuality mainly focuses on how children are sexualized in images (e.g. Higonnet, 1998, cf. Sparrman, 2013b). Less research has been conducted on children’s looking at images of nude or half nude bodies beyond the moral panics concerning their surmised distorted identification with celebrities, which tends to pathologize child sexuality (for an exception, see Sparrman, 2002a, 2002b, 2013a, 2014; Buckingham and Bragg, 2004; Egan 2013, Ringrose and Coleman 2013; Egan & Hawkes, 2008). This chapter explores the close connection between visuality, sexuality, children and adults. The focus is on how children look at images of nude and half-dressed adults and how this raises questions about how child and adult bodies, child and adult gazes, and child and adult sexualities connect with and also enact one another. The theoretical emphasis is on sexuality as enactments." [mijn nadruk] (123)

"An enactment has powerful productive consequences, meaning that ‘reality’ is subject to constant negotiation rather than being made once and for all (Mol, 2002; Law, 2004). This means that sexuality, for example, comes into being through social, cultural, material, political and personal relations, just as Weeks argues (see also Foucault, 1978; Plummer, 1995)." [mijn nadruk] (124)

[Foucault, hè ... Dat gaat tegen elk essentialistisch denken in en dat lijkt me prima. Maar ik hoop dat er geen postmodern geleuter volgt. Want doen alsof de realiteit niet bestaat vind ik belachelijk. Dat hij op allerlei manieren geïnterpreteerd kan worden is een ander verhaal.]

"The theoretical approach developed in this chapter suggests that, when studied as situated practices in children’s everyday lives, child and adult sexuality are complex, ‘messy’ and enacted (Law, 2004; see also Sparrman, 2013a). The analyses in this chapter give insight into this messiness, thereby challenging stereotypical notions of child and adult sexuality – this time from the point of view of children’s own interpretations of ‘sexy’ images in practice (Egan & Hawkes, 2008). Staying with, as opposed to avoiding, ambiguity and paradoxes as they are seen in practice can, in the long run, offer a more nuanced template for policy and sex education curricula, for example." [mijn nadruk] (124)

[Wat dacht je van nuanceringen in de wetgeving op dat terrein?]

"Research into younger children’s (age 6–12 years) meaning-making regarding sex and sexuality is today a lively and expanding field. It is situated in educational practices focusing on sexuality, gender and heterosexuality among children themselves (e.g. Thorne, 1993; Sparrman, 2002a; Epstein et al., 2001; Epstein et al., 2003; Renold, 2005) as well as in children’s views on sexualized media, literature and popular culture (e.g. Walkerdine, 1997; Davies, 2003; Buckingham & Bragg, 2004; Renold, 2013; Sparrman, 2013a). As pointed out by Mary Jane Kehily (2010) in her overview of research on children and sexuality, the field of child studies has great potential for approaching childhood innocence critically by, for example, questioning the notion that sexuality is a universal biological norm. One important theoretical standpoint in child studies is to approach children as social actors in society, who are situated through gender, class, ethnicity and age (James & Prout, 1990; James et al., 1998). This means approaching children as active agents who produce and reproduce the social and cultural worlds they live in. Saying that children are agentive and actors is not synonymous with saying that children per se are competent, mature and rational, which is a risk when children are concerned." [mijn nadruk] (125)

[Mooi overzicht, het werd tijd dat al die dingen onderzocht werden.]

"Hans Belting (2005, 2011) has established an anthropology of the image, arguing that images never exist in themselves but happen or take place in a medium-body-image interaction (Belting, 2005)."(126)

"In this way, the enactment of the image takes place in the relation between bodies, images, materiality and the social (Law, 2004). From this it follows that images have no essential meaning (Bal, 2003). Meanings are continuously negotiated through the relations with which they are interwoven or intertwined. This focus on the ‘relation’ goes beyond the contextualization of images, as the image simultaneously enacts and is enacted through practices. The body in turn becomes a body enacted in practice by intermingling bodily aspects such as seeing, thinking, verbal expressions and gestures (see also Ringrose & Coleman, 2013). The practice-based view of understanding images presented here is highly relevant to understanding how sexuality is enacted." [mijn nadruk] (126-127)

[Hm, lijkt me toch wat erg gemakkelijk. Ik denk dat ze bedoelt dat een beeld van bijvoorbeeld een naakte man met een erectie door een kind niet per se geïnterpreteerd hoeft te worden als iets seksueels. Het zou ook grappig of gek gevonden kunnen worden, afhankelijk van wat een kind wel of niet weet van seks. Daarom is het zo gevaarlijk om de interpretaties van volwassenen als leidraad te nemen voor hoe kinderen naar beelden kijken en voor wat die beelden met ze doen. Maar ik weet nog niet wat de praktische consequenties zijn van deze stelling, want dit is allemaal nog theoretisch. Ik vraag me trouwens ook de hele tijd af of al die inzichten niet ook zouden opduiken als we het gewoon over interpretatie zouden hebben in de betekenis zoals de hermeneutiek die er aan geeft in plaats van over Foucault en de postmodernen.]

"Given these arguments, one needs to ask the following questions. How and in what ways are child and adult sexuality, as well as images and bodies, enacted by children? What versions of sexuality do the children enact? How in practice do children see that something is sexual? And how is children’s agentive dependency expressed? Thus, the focus here is not on children’s inner cognitive processes, but on their practice-based enactments."(127)

Volgt een uitwerking van een onderzoek hiernaar.

"The focus groups discussed 16 visual images, all of which had been reported to Sweden’s Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) for being sexist or gender stereotyping."(127)

"The scrapbook assignment was voluntary and 9 of the 17 Swedish children participated. In one of the focus groups, all children handed in a scrapbook. This group consisted of three boys and two girls, all aged nine and ethnically white. The main focus of analysis in this chapter is on this focus group and the children’s scrapbooks. They were all from the same primary class and were put together as a group on a random basis, though making sure the group included both boys and girls." [mijn nadruk] (128)

"It is also shown that children, when looking at adult bodies, enact both adults and themselves as sexual subjects. A simple conclusion could therefore be that moral panic discourses claiming that sexy advertising demoralizes and pathologizes children and makes them sexually precocious are true (cf. Egan & Hawkes, 2008). But as I say, that is a simple conclusion. Looking at ‘sexy’ images does not per se lead to negative outcomes as images are enacted in and through cultural, social and material practices. An image can of course enact strong emotions of disgust or discomfort (Sparrman, 2013a). However, what the children’s own enactments demonstrate is that their relations and enactments of and through visuality and sexuality give a much more complex view of what is going on. Their enactments illustrate that what counts as child and adult sexuality is contingent and that sexual agency is neither a fixed position nor a property of the individual, but distributed across the material, immaterial, human and social." [mijn nadruk] (136-137)

[Ik vind toch dat de auteur het allemaal wel erg ingewikkeld maakt met al die theorieën en de praktische interpretaties van wat ze in het onderzoek ziet. Het leidt tot wollig taalgebruik en maakt dingen niet zo veel duidelijker. Welk 'normaal mens' snapt nu wat ze wil beweren? Ook methodisch is er zoveel af te dingen op die focusgroepen en de gesprekken daar, dat we niet heel erg veel verder komen op die manier. Nee, ik ben niet erg onder de indruk al ben ik het wel eens met de visie. Ik zou toch liever in termen van wat 'interpretatie is' denken.]

(140) 9 - ‘Bieber Fever’: Girls, Desire and the Negotiation of Girlhood Sexualities [Louisa Allen and Toni Ingram]

"Girls’ sexuality is often the focus of intense public debate and concern. Anxieties over ‘raunch culture’ (Levy, 2005) and premature ‘sexualization’ of girls are currently at a premium in the media and popular literature. This public interest has been accompanied by an array of international and governmental reports documenting the ‘sexualization’ of culture as an area of major social concern (Rush & LaNauze, 2006; American Psychological Association, 2007; Papadopoulos, 2010; Bailey, 2011). These reviews describe the negative effects contemporary sexualized culture is believed to have upon (particularly) girls, such as ‘body dissatisfaction’, ‘poor self-esteem’, ‘depression’ and ‘promiscuous behaviour’. While finding many sympathetic ears, these documents have met with critical debate within academia (Lerum & Dworkin, 2009; Smith, 2010; Atwood & Smith, 2011; Barker & Duschinsky, 2012)."(141)

"Embedded in current ‘moral panics’ surrounding girlhood and sexuality is the idea that childhood is a time of presumed sexual innocence (Renold, 2005). A deluge of popular books detail sexualization’s perils for girls by invoking arguments based on notions of childhood innocence (see Hamilton, 2008; Oppliger, 2008; Durham, 2009). While this literature conceptualizes sexualization as a ‘new danger’ for girls and young women, Egan and Hawkes (2012) suggest current discourses draw on problematic assumptions pertaining to children and sexuality from the Social Purity Movement over a century ago. While themes of sexual corruption and innocence cohered around ‘the child’ during the late 19th century, current sexualization debates have shifted to ‘the girl’. (...) Critics argue that ideas of childhood innocence construct girls’ sexuality as potentially ‘dangerous’, ‘vulnerable’ and ‘in need of protection’, and profoundly endanger them by denying their sexual knowledge, desire and a sense of agency (Robinson, 2008).
This chapter critically engages with discourses of ‘childhood innocence’ and ‘sexualization’, investigating whether these resonate with girls’ own talk about themselves as sexual subjects. Through narratives concerning relationships, liking and loving people and attraction, we reveal how some 11–13-year-old girls’ talk constitutes desire as a normal and everyday expression of their sexuality." [mijn nadruk] (142)

"Within mainstream media and public discourses, acknowledging girls as positively desiring sexual subjects is controversial. Adult acknowledgement of girls’ desire as an expected and positive part of adolescence is rare (Tolman, 2002). Conventionally, female sexuality is constituted in opposition to the virility of male sexual desire, as muted and receptive (Holland et al., 1994)." [mijn nadruk] (143)

[Dat is nog zacht uitgedrukt.]

"Acknowledging 11–13-year-olds as legitimately sexual, that is, as having a right to experience and express their sexuality and for these practices to be viewed positively (Allen, 2005, 2011), also troubles discourses of childhood innocence. Within the regulating dyad of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girl sexuality (Griffin, 2004), girls who experience and express desire are understood as displaying sexuality that is premature, precocious and consequently ‘bad’. Caught at the intersection of discourses of childhood innocence and sexualization, desiring girls are often positioned as vulnerable to, and in need of protection from, adult commodified configurations of sexuality. They are constituted as innocent dupes of a process of sexual objectification they do not fully comprehend and are therefore impotent to negotiate. " [mijn nadruk] (143)

[Een goede samenvatting van hoe conservatieve fatsoensrakkers denken.]

"Our contention is, for many girls in the current study, sexual desiring talk is understood as ‘normal’ at 11–13 years – not as premature/sexualized/bad/wrong. Rather, sexual desire, regardless of intention to act upon it, is conceptualized as ‘commonplace’ and a potential source of delight and pleasure."(143-144)

"Our contribution to a theorization of girlhood agency is to highlight its non-linear exercise by drawing on Renold and Ringrose’s (2008, 2011) work which ‘brings together Butler, with Deleuze and Guattari to . . . reconfigure resistance’ (Renold & Ringrose, 2008: 316). Our aim in this chapter is specific and modest. We seek to characterize agency’s movements as constituted in girls’ talk about desire at the intersection of discourses of sexualization and childhood innocence. Drawing on Renold and Ringrose’s (2008, 2011) explication of schizoid subjectivities, we illustrate the ways in which girls’ desiring talk is characterized by contradiction and multiplicity so that agency may be fleeting. In this sense, agency does not equate with historical notions of feminist empowerment as something which once attained is more or less secured (Gavey, 2012). Instead, agency is conceptualized as more fleeting and can be quickly reterritorialized (Renold & Ringrose, 2008) within normative rules of femininity (Harris et al., 2000) and heteronormativity (Warner, 1993). While analysing girls’ agency utilizing some of Deleuze and Guattari’s toolkit is not new, the site of this mapping – girls’ talk about desire at the intersection of discourses of sexualization and childhood innocence (in a New Zealand context) is."

[Ik vermoed dat de kern van de zaak in het voorlaatste citaat gezien het laatste citaat weer eens gaat verzuipen in een hoop postmodern en feministisch geleuter. Dat heet dan theorievorming. Bah. Eigenlijk is zo'n onderzoek totaal overbodig als we kijken naar hoe jongere meiden al decennia lang hun verlangens omzetten in gekrijs bij concerten van hun favoriete zangers en zo. ]

"A multi-method approach involving visual methods (Rose, 2007) individual interviews and focus groups was employed. This multi-method design enabled the complexities and contradictions inherent in girls’ constitution as sexual subjects to be captured (Allen, 2005)."(145)

"Erotic attachments to celebrities, teachers and male classmates have been described as a resource for girls’ friendship talk and a fantasy space where different forms of desire can be articulated (Kehily et al., 2002). These kinds of preoccupations have been conceptualized as preparatory, ‘inducting pre-teenage girls into the meanings of heterosexuality in anticipation of their practice’ (Kehily et al., 2002: 174). The insinuation here is that girls are not yet practising desire, only preparing for its future expression. Below, girls’ talk depicts an array of relationships which imply another story." [mijn nadruk] (149)

[Ik wacht op het moment dat onderzoekers bijvoorbeeld vragen of alle opwinding over bijvoorbeeld een Justin Bieber er bij de meiden toe leidt dat ze (meer) gaan masturberen. Zou een onderzoeker al ooit zo'n vraag gesteld hebben?]

"Existing research documents the average age of first dating in New Zealand as 13 years (Allen, 2005). Narratives from girls in this study about previous and current relationships corroborate this finding. As it is rarely positively acknowledged that girls aged 10–13 years can be in relationships, little is known about them. To convey a more nuanced understanding of girls’ desiring talk, a brief description of types of relationships girls narrated is offered." [mijn nadruk] (150)

[Die laatste opmerking laat weer eens zien dat de wereld denkt dat jongeren van die leeftijd niet nieuwsgierig, verlangend, enz. zijn. Het is schokkend dat zoiets vanwege een bevooroordeelde ontkenning over die leeftijd niet onderzocht wordt.]

"Previous research (Renold, 2000, 2005) conducted with children in Year Six (age 10 and 11) indicates boyfriend and girlfriend relationships are predominantly school-bound. For the Year Seven and Eight girls in this study many relationships extended, or in some cases were exclusively conducted, outside school. Some relationships were purely telephone-, online- and text-based (e.g. Debra’s). Described relationships exhibited no prescribed ‘formula’, and it was evident from girls’ talk they were considered equally valid. Through the girls’ talk (both those in relationships or not), engagement in relationships was constituted as a legitimate expression of their desire." [mijn nadruk] (151)

"A significant minority of girls constituted their sexuality in ways that were non-sexual."(152)

Of verderop:

"Our aim is to map the movements of this agency by showing how girls’ desiring talk negotiates schizoid sexual subjectivities in a process of ‘anti-linear becoming’ (Renold & Ringrose, 2011: 392)."

[Snap je wel? Het postmoderne geklets is in dit stuk niet van de lucht, tjonge.]

"Girls who did not speak about desire (hetero or otherwise) indicated during their interview they were either ‘not interested’ or had ‘no time for boys’ or crushes. Some drew upon a ‘plenty of time later’ discourse in positioning themselves as desiring."(152)

"In narratively asserting that experiencing desire was normal for their age, these 11–13-year-old girls can be seen to deterritorialize discourses of ‘childhood sexual innocence’. This positioning as actively sexually desiring may be recognized as constituting lines of rupture from ideas that girls are naturally sexually unknowing. This position might be opened by the space discourses of sexualization offer in their positioning of girls ‘as sexual’ (albeit suspiciously/negatively). Yet, girls in this study did not replicate discourses of sexualization as typically constituted. In a ‘failure’ to exactly replicate this discourse, girls did not understand the expression of their 11–13-year-old sexuality as ‘premature’, or their sexuality as ‘corrupted’." [mijn nadruk] (154)

[Wonderlijk verhaal, want in de eerdere weergave van de vier meisjes met relaties is niets gezegd over lichamelijk contact, vrijen, en zo verder. Er leek geen seks aan te pas te komen anders dan het leuk vinden van en omgaan met een jongen. Seksualiteit wordt hier blijkbaar heel breed gezien. Het voelen van verlangens is dan al seksualiteit. Mag, maar erg helder wordt dat niet gebracht.]

"Simultaneously, sexually desiring talk has a multitude of configurations that may have little to do with actually engaging in relationships and/or sexual activity. As explicated, girls’ sexual desire is constituted in nuanced ways: declaring a boy ‘hot’ (and nothing more), placing themselves in a fantasy relationship with a celebrity boy, going out with someone online, going out with someone face to face in and/or outside school. These possibilities are configured by girls’ talk as legitimate, positive and commonplace manifestations of sexual desire."(154-155)

[Precies. En wat de laatste zin betreft: Ik denk dat de onderzoekers het zo zien. Ik denk zelfs niet dat de betrokken meiden het zouden benoemen als 'sexual desire'. Maar ik krijg ook niet de indruk dat de link gelegd is in het onderzoek. Er is simpelweg niet naar gevraagd. Ik vind dat we niets hebben aan die postmoderne conclusies die hier gegeven worden. Dat onderzoek is methodisch veel te ingewikkeld en voorzichtig en vooringenomen. Het hele concept 'onschuldig' deugt om allerlei redenen al niet. Natuurlijk hebben sommige jongeren op die leeftijd crushes en verliefdheden en 'zelfs' lichamelijke contacten of seksuele ervaringen. Is dat een verrassing dan?]

(159) 10 - ‘He’s Cute, for Her’: Kids’ Entangled Pedagogies of Sexuality and Race in New York City [Maria Kromidas]

"While recent scholarly literature has begun to explore how primary school children navigate discourses of gender, class, age, heteronormativity and the sanctity of marriage and how they are productive of children’s sexualities, very little research has explored how race intersects with sexuality in children’s everyday lives (for notable exceptions see Connolly, 2002; Ali, 2003; Bhana, 2005). The innocent child construct that inhibits our understanding of children’s sexualities also plagues our understanding of children’s racial subjectivities. But if we dispense with faulty constructs of the innocent child or a bounded children’s culture and begin instead with the understanding that children are indeed both sexual and racial (as well as gendered, national, classed, religioned) subjects, then new questions are opened for exploration. How are race and sex productive of each other? How is sexuality a site for racial (trans)formation? And how does learning race and becoming a racial subject inform sexual desires and experiences? What does it ‘feel’ like to experience desire within these raced, classed, gendered structures? What emotional and interactional responses do they oblige?
This chapter will explore these questions through analysis of talk and interactions of 9-, 10- and 11-year-old children in a ‘superdiverse’ school in NYC, illustrating how the domain of sexuality is a productive site for the (trans)formation of race."(159-160)

[Weer dat postmoderne vage taalgebruik. Het goede van dit soort onderzoeken is dat er gepraat wordt met kinderen om te horen wat die willen vertellen over zichzelf. Het slechte is dat al die reacties van kinderen worden ingebed in abstract theoretisch gezever. Wat is het nut daar nu toch van?]

(174) 11 - Children’s Gendered and Sexual Cultures: Desiring and Regulating Recognition through Life Markers of Marriage, Love and Relationships [Kerry H. Robinson and Cristyn Davies]

"This chapter, based on qualitative research undertaken with children, parents/guardians and educators in Australia, examines how the discourse of marriage features predominantly in children’s gendered and sexual cultures, significantly influencing their understandings of love, intimacy and relationships. Employing a theoretical lens that encompasses feminist post-structuralism, queer theory and post-developmentalism, we explore how children constitute their own gendered and sexual subjectivities. Fundamental to this process is heteronormativity, which regulates many children’s perceptions of the ‘appropriate’ girl and boy subject, ideals of romantic love and marriage. The ritual of marriage, which in Western cultures is linked to discourses of romantic love, family and having children, is central to children’s encul- turation within heteronormative values and morals. Children take up the discourse of marriage, mimetically incorporating its symbolic meaning into their imaginary worlds. The hegemony of the romantic, fairytale and carnivalesque nature of Western marriages further captures children’s desire to be part of this sociocultural ritual." [mijn nadruk] (174)

[En nog zo een. Wat ik postmodern noem heet blijkbaar 'feministisch post-structuralisme'. Hoe dan ook: irritant vaag en abstract. En waarom zou je nog iets onderzoeken wat zo vanzelfsprekend is: dat kinderen de waarden en normen van hun ouders en school en zo verder overnemen als ze opgroeien. Dat is een open deur. Ik hoef niet met kinderen te praten om dáár achter te komen.]

"Many children demonstrated an ability to be critical subjects and effectively negotiate the competing discourses that operate around gender and sexuality – children are, and can operate as, competent and informed sexual citizens in these areas often perceived as difficult by many adults." [mijn nadruk] (187)

[Kijk eens naar dat typische taalgebruik. Kinderen zijn kritische 'subjecten' die 'onderhandelen' met 'verschillende vertogen', bla bla. Dat is nu waar het lezen van Foucault en andere structuralisten toe leidt, dat auteurs de simpelste dingen moeilijk gaan uitdrukken.]

(191) Part III - Queering Young Sexualities: Gender, Place and History

[Ik ben niet erg geïnteresseerd in dit onderwerp. Ik heb de conclusies gelezen, maar noem alleen de titels.]

(193) 12 - ‘Istabane’: South African Teenagers and the Regulation of Sexuality,Gender and Culture [Deevia Bhana]

(209) 13 - ‘Flaming Gays’ and ‘One of the Boys’? White Middle-class Boys, Queer Sexualities and Gender in Icelandic High Schools [Jón Ingvar Kjaran]

(224) 14 - Resisting the Taint, Marking the Slut: Middle-class Lesbian Girls and Claims to Sexual Propriety [Elizabethe Payne]

(239) 15 - Mud, Mermaids and Burnt Wedding Dresses: Mapping Queer Becomings in Teen Girls’ Talk on Living with Gender and Sexual Violence [Emma Renold and Gabrielle Ivinson]

[De titel alleen al, ugh ... ]

"This chapter develops our previous attempts to radicalize sexuality by exploring what a girl body can do, become and bear in communities where sedimented heterogender roles inherited from the industrial past surface, invade and grate painfully alongside the stifling and often simultaneous emergence of becoming otherwise. Our aim has not been to categorize sexuality as an identity or an act. Rather, our approach refutes the trappings of a unifying identity-based and anthropomorphic understanding of sexuality that dominates policy, practice and research in the fields of education and childhood/youth studies. In research which does foreground a pre-known and measurable sexuality, less emphasis is given to interrogating the potentiality that emerges in the dynamic relational web of bodies and things where Other attachments to the more-than-human are tried on and forged, albeit momentarily (Berlant & Edelman, 2013)."(252)

[Wat staat hier nu precies? Hoe kan gecontroleerd worden wat er beweerd wordt, als al duidelijk is wat er beweerd wordt. Wie het weet mag het uitleggen.]

(257) Part IV - Young Sexualities and the Cultural Imaginary

(259) 16 - A Doll Has No Holes: On the Queerness of Brazilian Children in Xuxa [Diego Costa]

"The sartorial in/of Xuxa is a multivalent currency, able to prop up a variety of identificatory and sexual investments from children and adults, and needs to be analysed in its potential modularity and resignification."(260)

"Very little has been said about Xuxa’s bacchanal, and virtually nothing from the point of view of the child such bacchanal has helped to produce. For if stars are fabricated by a complex and contradictory network of signifiers – from the hypercontrolled concoction of her idealized image (her image in theory, we could say) to the non-diegetic images that befall alongside it (the image in practice), so are the children, the baixinhos (‘small ones’), as Xuxa calls them (Dyer, 2003: 7.). Yet, since the position of the child qua child keeps her/him from speaking, or, rather, keeps us from listening, to talk about children is often to talk down to them, reiterating the very infantilizing fantasies (of inherent purity and innocence, for example) that have manufactured the figure of the child as we know it."(264)

[Begrijp je wel? Deze twee citaten als voorbeeld van het postmoderne geklets waarmee 'poststructuralistische feministes' je om de oren kunnen slaan: abstracte vage termen, beweringen die daarom niets beweren of minstens immuun zijn voor controle en kritiek. Alweer een hoofstuk dat ik verder maar laat zitten.]

(273) 17 - Boys’ Love Manga for Girls: Paedophilic, Satirical, Queer Readings and English Law [Anna Madill]

"Manga has developed in a commercial context in which products are designed to appeal to markets segmented by age and gender, and BL is a subgenre of Shōjo manga targeted at females from early adolescence to early adulthood. The visually cute characterization, embellished drawing style and creative panelling typical of Shōjo is found in BL and it is known that most BL mangaka (artist-authors) are female, as are most of the consumers (Mizoguchi, 2003). Not only are the majority of BL readers female, they tend also to be teenagers or young adults (Pagliassotti, 2008b)."(273)

"With this has come concern that manga contain an inordinate amount of sexual violence and other noxious sexual material, particularly the paedophilic, and this has spurred contemporary sexualization debates (e.g. Allison, 2000; Perper & Cornog, 2002)."(274)

"Moreover, BL is particularly interesting because it appears to challenge assumptions about the nature of young women’s erotic interests, their engagement with what might be considered transgressive pornography, and turn on its head stereotypes regarding whom is creating and consuming such material. And all this is happening within the context of increasing legislative regulation."(274)

"Several interrelated areas of law are potentially relevant to BL manga, including those on obscenity, child pornography and copyright. The following discussion refers to legislation covering England, some of which applies also to other parts of the United Kingdom."(274)

"Of growing relevance to manga, and to genres such as BL in particular, are the laws relating to child pornography. In England, this legislation has built up in stages and it is worthwhile considering several significant steps.(...) As this short summary illustrates, the English child pornography laws have become increasingly stringent. Legislation was first against production and dealing and then extended also to possession; moved from a narrow, actual-age-based definition of ‘child’ to a wider, impression-of-age-based one; and expanded the type of prohibited image from the photographic to include also freehand drawings of fantasy encounters which might involve imaginary beings." [mijn nadruk] (275)

[Dat zal in andere Westerse landen niet veel anders zijn.]

"In Japan, the national age of consent for heterosexual relations is 13 years, but is as high as 18 years in some prefectures, and legislation is mute on same-sex activity. However, significantly, in England, as explained, it is not age of consent, or even age of participants per se, which is definitional of child pornography, but predominant impression of a personage being under 18 years old (see Clough, 2012)."(276)

"These kinds of stylization, codification and practical issues mean that protagonist age cannot be read from manga images in terms of realism, and sexually explicit stories may appear populated by characters who look, at times, very young but who are in contexts that make it clear they are to be understood to be adults (e.g. in college, university and the workplace). This is not to say, however, that age ambiguity is always inadvertent." [mijn nadruk] (276)

Een en ander maakt het moeilijk te beoordelen of bepaalde BL-manga vallen onder de wettelijk vastgelegde criteria voor wat wel of niet mag. Interpretatie gaat een grote rol spelen.

"Perhaps even more problematic, the legislation invites a singular reading of texts through priming a search for the reified elements by a defined audience (magistrates, district judge or jury) under the remit that a certain constellation may warrant prohibition. Specifically, it alerts hegemonically empowered or hegemonically representational groups to a paedophilic reading, and disavows other possible readings as irrelevant if these groups can find that reading."(277)

[En omdat die er niets van weten en niets snappen wordt het oordeel dus al gauw negatief.]

De auteur werkt een voorbeeld uit: ‘Here in Magic Land’.

"Similarly, ‘Here in Magic Land’ invites association with nursery rhymes, fairy tales and, particularly, the children’s literature Peter Pan (Neverland) and Alice in Wonderland. The paedophilic resonances of both books have infiltrated popular culture and are explored, for example, in Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s (2006) graphic novel Lost Girls."(278-279)

"... legislation has become increasingly stringent and focused on inspecting texts for their propensity to incite paedophilic desire. Paradoxically, this requires individuals to partake in the ‘paedophilic gaze’: to look at texts as they imagine a paedophile would look (Adler, 2001; Stapleton, 2010). And in ‘Imagination Blizzard!’ this is what Tora does." [mijn nadruk] (280)

"Queer theory in its deconstructive iteration (e.g. Sullivan, 2003) draws attention to, and celebrates, slippage between dichotomously conceived categorization and in so doing challenges a hegemonic world view that disavows that which is betwixt and between. Where categories are placed in opposition, one is usually associated with greater hegemonic value and the second Othered. Hence, queer theory is also a critique of dominant status and power hierarchies."(280)

[O, komt dat vage theoretische geleuter uit die hoek. Even naar de Wikipedia. Die zegt: "Queer theory is a field of post-structuralism that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (often, formerly, gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term can have various meanings depending upon its usage, but has broadly been associated with the study and theorisation of gender and sexual practices that exist outside of heterosexuality, and which challenge the notion that heterosexual desire is ‘normal’." Geen wonder. Niet zo'n beste insteek als je andere mensen wilt overtuigen van dingen.]

"In deciding whether or not an image is pornographic it is stated in PIC that ‘(i)t is not a question of the intentions of those who produced the image’. This disinterest in authorial intent is consistent with the poststructuralist displacement of origin as arbiter of meaning (Barthes, 1967). However, whereas poststructuralism conceives texts to be malleable cultural products open to a range of legitimate interpretations, PIC specifies the groups whose reading practices will decide the pornographic, and ultimately the prohibitive, status of relevant texts: ‘(w)hether this threshold has been met will be an issue for the magistrates, District Judge or jury to determine’." [mijn nadruk] (282)

[Wat een onzin toch. Uiteindelijk is de interpretatie van die laatste personen ineens het allerbelangrijkste, ondanks al het poststructuralistische geblaat over een veelheid aan mogelijke interpretaties alsof alles relatief is. Nou, voor de rechter en de jury is niet alles relatief en zal de interpretatie van de fans van manga geen rol spelen.]

"English legislation becomes most problematic for Lolicon and Shotacon."(283)

[Dat is toch niet verbazingwekkend? ]

"The implication is that female-oriented Shotacon, although explicitly sexualizing male children and youths and incorporating male–male eroticism, are essentially romantic and dramatic narratives. Most importantly, what evidence there is suggests that female readers are not interpreting erotic manga with visually young characters as paedophilia (Tribunella, 2008), reading it out of lascivious paedophilic interest (McLelland, 2000), or being catalysed by it into paedophilic activity – given the low rates of female sexual offending, in general, and the complex and disturbed life contexts in which female sexual abuse of children tends to occur, specifically (Cortoni, 2011)." [mijn nadruk] (283-284)

[Maar hoe kunnen die rechters en jury's daar in concrete gevallen zeker over zijn? Hier wordt veel beweerd, maar is het ook onderzocht?]

"Globalization, particularly through the Internet, has increased the market for, and hence production of, child pornography, and there is a case that the sexualization of ‘children’ in any form should not be tolerated. However, paradoxically, the attempt to ban sexualizing images of children has had the, arguably destructive and distracting, effect of privileging paedophilic interpretations of commonplace and culturally innovative texts from family photographs to artwork (Kalha, 2011; White, 2011), likely incites boundary pushing in advertising (Vanska, 2011) and may divert attention and resources away from the prevention of real harm to real children." [mijn nadruk] (284)

[Klopt. Het protectionisme is totaal doorgeslagen. ]

(289) 18 - Documentaries on the Sexualization of Girls: Examining Slut-shaming, Victim-blaming and What’s Being Left Off-screen [Lindsay Herriot and Lara E. Hiseler]

"Other professionals have also taken up this subject. Intending to educate the lay public on girls and sexualization, film-makers have created documentaries to foster awareness and identify proactive strategies to address the impact of sexualization on girls (Sexy Inc., 2007). While the history of such documentaries dates back nearly 70 years (see Are You Popular, 1947; Going Steady, 1951; Girls Beware, 1961; and so on) current 21st-century releases purport that the sexualization of girls is a new phenomenon requiring urgent intervention.
Since the late 2000s, a number of such documentaries have been released. While similar in substance to the films of earlier generations, these modern films emphasize the ubiquitous role of technology in facilitating what they identify as ‘sexualization.’ Based on their widespread popularity, similarity of subject matter, and being released within a five-year span, four contemporary North American documentaries have been selected as the subjects of our research:
• Canadian Broadcasting Company (2012) Sext Up Kids: How children are becoming hypersexualized – Canada
• Virgil Films (2012) Miss Representation – United States
• National Film Board of Canada (2007) Sexy Inc.: Nos enfants sous influence – Canada
• Media Education Foundation (2011) The Purity Myth – United States
These retell the same narratives that earlier films in the genre portrayed, morality tales of foolish young girls who are preyed on, yet should know better. The films of the early 21st century also present subject matter in an ahistorical vacuum, wherein girls’ sexuality is both a problem to be solved, and a vulnerability in need of protection. By analysing how the films perpetuate dominant conceptions of gender, age, and sexuality, we are able to identify some of the contours of popular childhood theorizing. Suggestions are offered as to how such films can be shaped to more thoroughly and accurately document this complex phenomenon." [mijn nadruk] (289-290)

"Discourses of sexualization typically rest on four assumptions: (1) sexualization is universal, monolithic and inherently harmful; (2) sexualization targets passive, agent-less children; (3) sexualization is the instigating force behind all girls’ sexual expressions; and (4) sexualization is about the deviant sexuality of girls (Egan & Hawkes, 2008). While all the films studied reinforced these discourses to varying degrees, we broaden our approach to sexualization, seeing it as ‘encompass[ing] not simply children’s self-concept and range of comportments and behaviours, but more precisely, how adults view children’ (original emphasis, Faulkner, 2010: 106). We found that three of the four films place such heavy emphasis on expounding adult anxieties about girls’ sexuality that they omit or distort the lived realities of youth sexuality, focusing instead on perceived threats to adult fantasies of children’s constructed sexual innocence." [mijn nadruk] (290-291)

"Four distinct themes emerged from the data: (a) historical revisionism and children’s presumed (hetero)asexuality; (b) the commodification of youth sexuality; (c) victim-blaming part 1: slut shaming as gendered and aged; and (d) victim blaming part 2: ‘protecting’ girls from violent young masculinity."(291)

[De bespreking van de films levert de bekende conservatieve insteek op. Ik ga die hier niet herhalen.]

"This frustration-fuelled panic with youth’s sexual behaviours is reminiscent of the ‘masturbation phobia’ of the 19th century, where physicians, quacks and self-help gurus sadistically and often violently sought to mould ‘deviant’ children who masturbated into more acceptably asexual youth (Egan & Hawkes, 2010). Just as the subject of these films – the sexualization of girls – is not new, the accompanying adult anxieties around this phenomenon have existed for generations." [mijn nadruk] (293)

"A thread of childism is woven through the moral panic around sexualized consumer products for girls. The filmmakers divorce girls’ purchasing or otherwise obtaining these goods from the relationships they have with the adults who either supply them with the goods themselves, or with the funds to obtain them. Since adults design, produce, market and buy these goods, the creation and maintenance of a ‘girl market’ is largely distinct from girls themselves." [mijn nadruk] (294)

[Precies. Het zijn op allerlei manieren volwassenen die het probleem maken waarvan ze dan later last zeggen te hebben. ]

"Viewing boys’ sexualized goods as humorous shows how it is girls’ bodies and behaviour that is under scrutiny, and the film-makers generally eschew discussion of boyhood masculinity altogether. This gendered application of childism reiterates the shaming of girls/invisibility of boys that is imbued throughout the films."(294)

[Waaraan je kunt zien dat alle volwassenen betrokkenen de rolverdeling tussen mannen en vrouwen in stand houden.]

"With varying degrees of sophistication, girls’ engagement in sexual activity is (nearly) universally presented in Sexy, Inc., Sext Up Kids and Miss Representation as a bad thing; a shameful aberrant from an imagined norm that requires urgent adult intervention. None of the films’ statistics or reports on girls’ scandalized sexual activities mention who (else) is involved in these activities. As quoted earlier from Miss Representation (2012), ‘more than 20% of girls under the age of 14 are having sex’ was used as a foundationless shaming device. The audience is not invited to question if these girls are acting alone, with a partner, or multiple partners. How do the partners involved identify their gender(s)? Is there consent and/or pleasure in these activities? Purposefully not including this information, or not bothering to ask these questions, conforms to the normative trope whereby girls’ engagement in sexual activity is inherently bad (Connell, 2005). Meanwhile, the presumed males with whom these girls are engaging in sex acts are rendered invisible and therefore beyond judgement." [mijn nadruk] (295)

Over sexting:

"The girl in the story [in Sext Up Kids - GdG] was portrayed as a ‘fallen woman’ who had learned her lesson. She has repented by sharing her shamed actions with others in hopes of preventing similar scenarios for other girls. The boyfriend, who allegedly distributed private photos without her permission, is neither interviewed nor taken up as a central character. He is not shamed, nor is it reported that he is encouraged or required, by school policy or the law, to take any responsibility for his actions." [mijn nadruk] (297)

"The victim-blame around sexting is in many ways the same victim-blame that holds women responsible for the sexual violence against their bodies; however, it is now applied to a new technology. It is the same message that Eve Ensler’s (1996) ‘My Short Skirt’ monologue challenged a generation ago. Why then is the repetition of this morality so culturally palatable?
The film-makers’ editorial decision to recycle the trope of female self-protection is understandable only when a powerful absent referent, unquestioned normative masculinity is recognized. Under the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality, male harassment, violence and criminality are excused as a ‘natural’ part of masculinity (Garner, 2012; Renold & Ringrose, 2012; Stoltenberg, 1989). Nowhere is the films’ endorsement of this dangerous masculinity as obvious than in Miss Representation, when normative objectification of young girls’ bodies is explained away with ‘We are a nation of teenage boys!’ (Miss Representation, 2012). This comment, besides being awfully degrading to teenage boys, begs the question, what does it mean to be a teenage boy? Sext Up Kids characterizes young men as unable or unwilling to understand consent or boundaries, much less be considerate, respectful decision-makers in their interactions with others. Both subtle and obvious, young masculinity is presented and accepted here in the demeaning and limiting ways, and as a fixed constant in political, social, and sexual life. A young woman states emphatically, ‘it’s impossible to get someone to stop sexting you’. As in many of the topics addressed so far, the films do not engage with research on boyhood and young masculinity, which in fact interrogates and dismantles the stable, deterministic and potentially violent masculinity presented in the films (see Hyde et al., 2009; Korobov & Thorne, 2006; Martino et al., 2003)." [mijn nadruk] (297-298)

"Based on a book by Jessica Valenti (2009) of the same name, The Purity Myth offers substantially different arguments from those of the three films discussed thus far."(298)

"Here, The Purity Myth brings to a popular audience the arguments that the panic over the sexualization of girls is inextricably bound up in anxieties about race and class (see Egan, 2013). Virginity and indeed girlhood are not universally under attack, but contextually so; only some girls and some virginity are worth panicking about. This represents a radically different approach than Sexy, Inc., Sext Up Kids and Miss Representation, which have a narrow focus on white, middle-class, presumably heterosexual girls." [mijn nadruk] (299)

"Here, we echo Garner’s (2012) call for ‘the missing link’ – masculinity – to be more comprehensively integrated into conversations about sexualization and sexual citizenship for young people (see Robinson, 2013)."(300)

"For instance, recent scholarship indicates that sexuality and sexual learning is a part of childrens’ everyday lives, and is experienced as ‘a mixture of fun, power, powerlessness, anxiety, danger and risk’ and that children ‘were more worried about scary images than “sexually explicit” images’ (Renold, 2013: 9)."(300)

(305) Part V - New Media, Digital Technology and Young Sexual Cultures

(307) 19 - New Visibilities? ‘Using Video Diaries to Explore Girls’ Experiences of Sexualized Culture [Sue Jackson and Tina Vares]

"Crucially absent in the Corporate paedophilia report, and the sexualization of girls literature that has followed in its wake (e.g. Hamilton, 2007; Levin & Kilbourne, 2008; Oppliger, 2008), is empirically derived knowledge about the ways girls are responding to, managing and making sense of the sexually saturated media that they are growing up with. Undertaking such research faces the challenges of any sexually related empirical work with girls, particularly pre-teen girls. For example, how can researchers enable girls to speak about sexual media in cultural conditions that construct sexuality as taboo for pre-teen girls or that represent them as being at great risk through sexuality and sexualization? Addressing the research challenges of ‘sexualization’ research, this chapter adopts a methodological focus in which we discuss the use of media video diaries to investigate girls’ negotiation of hypersexy representations in ‘tween’ popular culture. Our intention is to reflect on the ways in which this visual methodology contributed different and sometimes unique perspectives of girls’ experiences of consuming ‘sexualized’ popular culture. More specifically, we show how video cameras contextualized girls’ engagement with sexualized media in the everyday of their bedrooms and social lives and expanded possibilities for girls’ self-expression in relation to sexualized popular culture. In taking a methodological approach, we hope to both build upon and expand the toolkit of methods engaged by researchers in their endeavours to meet the challenges of researching girls’ negotiation of sexually saturated media." [mijn nadruk] (307-308)

[Jammer dat alleen die tegenstrijdigheid genoemd wordt als reden waarom empirisch onderzoek doen naar de seksualiteit van jongeren zo lastig is. Dat is wel erg netjes en algemeen geformuleerd. Het is zeker een punt op de achtergrond dat veel verklaart, maar praktisch spelen de weigerachtigheid van ouders en scholen en andere instanties om aan dat soort onderzoeken mee te werken of de weigerachtigheid van uitgeverijen om dat soort onderzoeken te publiceren, de sensatiezucht van de media op dit vlak die er op zullen reageren, en verder alle conservatieve groepen die tegen dit soort onderzoek ageren, een grote rol. Jammer dat zoiets nooit eens uitgewerkt wordt in de vorm van een 'j'accuse'. Het wordt verderop overigens wel verder toegelicht]

"Historically much of the research about children and sexuality excluded the child perspective, instead drawing on adult interpretations of children’s behaviour (Myers & Raymond, 2010). This adultcentric dominance may reflect, at least to some extent, a normative construction of children as sexually unaware, naive and devoid of sexual subjectivity (Renold, 2006, 2013; Egan, 2013). Renold (2006) also observes a tendency in some ethnographic studies towards positioning children’s sexuality as ‘play’ or ‘trying out’ adult sexuality which fails to bring to light the complications and contradictions children must deal with in terms of being and becoming sexual. Yet it is also the case that adopting a perspective of children as active, meaning making sexual subjects in qualitative research, casts its own research shadows." [mijn nadruk] (308)

"Researching girlhood sexuality in a culture that has so profoundly problematized girls’ sexuality (e.g. around risks and danger) and sidelined, if not silenced, sexual pleasure and desire (Fine, 1988; Tolman, 2002) has implications for what girls may feel able to share with researchers. Morality discourses of the ‘good girl’ (Walkerdine, 1990) or the ‘child innocent’ (Egan, 2013), for example, constitute girls as asexual and work against disclosures that may align them with participation or even interest in sexual practices or sexual material. Fine’s (1988) well-known work in the 1980s on the missing discourse of desire amply illustrated ways that discourses of girlhood sexuality exerted constraining effects on girls’ communications about sexuality. Fine’s investigation revealed that in the US public school system discourses of risk, danger and victimization allowed only a ‘whisper’ of desire to be voiced. In a contemporary ‘sexualization’ social context, these discourses operate through constructions of the ‘sexualized’ girl as the object and potential victim of a paedophilic, dangerous gaze; simultaneously, a sexualization discourse fixes the pre-teen girl as a sexual innocent (Egan & Hawkes, 2008)." [mijn nadruk] (309)

"In our own work we have found a feminist post-structuralist framework (Gavey, 1989) useful in terms of working with the contradiction, complexity, plurality and social regulation that characterises the ‘sexualization’ field (Jackson & Vares, 2011; Vares et al., 2011). In the study we discuss here, we selected video diaries as our ‘release method’, recognizing the potential of video cameras to not only enable diverse ways of responding but also to ground the project in the everyday lived worlds of the girls." [mijn nadruk] (310)

[Ai, dat is niet zo best. Nog meer geklets? Nou, het valt geloof ik mee, hier. De aanpak met video wordt in ieder geval kritisch neergezet, de beperkingen ervan zijn ook duidelijk als je dit leest:]

"The project required careful consideration of ethics around who could be filmed and where and also regarding girls’ safety and confidentiality, for example possible pressures from others to show video diaries or to use the camera. Camera use was limited to girls’ homes, the filming of family members only with consent given on camera, and filming of friends only if they were also in the project."(311)

"Our discussion focuses on three spaces opened up by video cameras that illustrate different dimensions of girls’ engagement (or not) with the hypersexy representations strongly associated with sexualization claims: bedroom spaces, consumption spaces and creative spaces."(312)

"Socio-economic privilege revealed itself in bedrooms that were richly populated with media technologies such as a TV, iPod or MP3 player, computer, book-filled shelves and mobile phone. At the other, less common, end of the spectrum were rooms with none or few of these things."(312)

[Klasse en seksualisering als onderwerp.]

"This visual kaleidoscope, alongside girls’ narratives about family, pets, out of school activities and interests, suggested that popular culture was simply a part of their lives and not the all-absorbing activity implicated in the girls’ sexualization literature."(313)

[Goed gezien en erg belangrijk om de invloed van al die media te relativeren. Maar dat haalt het principiële punt natuurlijk niet weg dat marketing zich inhoudelijk op een seksualiserende manier opstelt.]

"Uniformly, girls’ clothing ‘reveals’ indicated an absence of the ‘hypersexy’ styles associated with sexualization, and where there was the possibility of ‘sexy’ readings girls provided explanations with their clothing display. For example, dresses with spaghetti straps or shoes with a low heel were for special occasions, short skirts required leggings and a sheer top needed to be worn with something underneath it (see Jackson & Vares, 2012, 2013). We are mindful of the possibility that girls had items of ‘hypersexy’ clothing elsewhere that they did not show us. On the other hand, its apparent absence is consistent with girls’ talk about their avoidance and/or careful negotiations of ‘sexy’ clothing in order to avoid being labelled as ‘skanky’ or ‘slutty’ (e.g. Rysst, 2010; Duits & van Zoonen, 2011; Renold, 2013)." [mijn nadruk] (313)

[Tja, het is methodisch lastig. Het beste - maar ethisch niet toegestaan - zou natuurlijk zijn om overal in hun huizen en zo geheime camera's te installeren. Hoewel ... Zie je dan wel de waarheid? Nu laat je het in ieder geval aan de meiden zelf over, dus die kunnen censureren wat ze je willen laten zien. Opnieuw de sociale wenselijkheid op een andere manier. Je krijgt hoe dan ook meiden te zien die al opgevoed zijn met bepaalde waarden en normen inclusief alle vooroordelen die ze dan zelf ook naar voren brengen. Zoals hier:]

"In another example, Heather also produced a detailed page by page review of Girlfriend magazine and drew attention to one particular page filled with small advertisements about which she commented, ‘sometimes you can buy porno for your phone and it’s in here – it’s a bit gross. We don’t like that stuff.’ As well as operating as a conduit for critiques and spontaneous reactions to sexualized media, the cameras also functioned to convey girls’ actively emerging subjectivities as they related media representations to self. This could be seen in Daria’s distancing from an image of Rihanna in Girlfriend magazine dressed in a ‘see through’, porno-chic-styled black net bodysuit: ‘This clothing right here that Rihanna is wearing is see through and the poses she is doing in this photo is just really, just ew, I never do anything like that’. In the same magazine she reacted to a girls’ underwear fashion shoot with the comment that the girl was ‘only 14 years of age and already posing half naked in a magazine that any old dirty man could pick up and get quite excited over, I would never do that.’" [mijn nadruk] (314)

"Although all of the girls’ media video diaries can be described as a performance of self (Pini, 2001), the focus in this section is on creative performance. Such performances included girls’ creation of their own versions of pop songs. None of these creative performances adopted the ‘sexy’ appearances or moves depicted in sexualized music videos in contrast to studies where girls have deployed sexy moves in performances of pop songs found elsewhere (e.g., Baker, 2004; Renold & Ringrose, 2011). Although this absence could be read perhaps as reflecting girls’ mindfulness of the adult researchers who would view the videos, it might also reflect the use of creative forms to explicitly critique media representations." [mijn nadruk] (315-316)

[Hm, het vervelende is dat je dat dus niet zeker weet. Dus kun je eigenlijk geen conclusies trekken.]

"As in all research, the girls’ material is socially and contextually situated, embedded in the discursive resources available to them. We would argue, however, that there is much to be gained in gathering girls’ perspectives of sexualized media via a video camera.(...) We offer the suggestion that narrating from behind the lens provides a safe, distancing place from which to speak.(...) It would be highly misleading to suggest that putting video cameras in the hands of girls somehow liberates them from the ‘discursive cellophane’ that constrains their self-expression but, on the other hand, cameras allow for the possibility of providing a ‘release point’ towards enabling different visibilities about how girls are using and making sense of sexualized media." [mijn nadruk] (318)

(321) 20 - Is There a New Normal? Young People Negotiate Pornification [Monique Mulholland]

"This chapter suggests that cultural anxieties generated by pornification rest on historically persistent fears about young people’s sexuality and the corruptible power of explicit sexual representations. Constructions of ‘good’ sex in Western modernity are firmly attached to the ‘private’ and the ‘adult’ (Rubin, 1984), along with a sustained disavowal of young people’s sexual agency. Central to this disavowal has been a deep-seated urgency since the 18th century to keep illicit materials out of the hands of children, especially the hands of middle-class girls (Kendrick, [1987]1996; Egan & Hawkes, 2010; Egan, 2013). In view of this, the saturation of popular media cultures by images deemed to be ‘pornographic’ presents a significant challenge to this long-held relationship. In profound ways, the historical function of the illicit to be secreted away is experiencing a serious revision." [mijn nadruk] (321)

"In response to public panics which have the effect of silencing young people’s voices, a set of groundbreaking empirical studies have sought to address this gap (Buckingham & Bragg, 2004; Jackson Vares & Gill, 2011; Ringrose, 2011; Mulholland, 2013; Renold, 2014). This chapter builds on this work, and asks the following questions: What is ‘normal’ sexuality for young people? Are the panics that swirl around young people’s access to pornified culture justified? Here I present the findings of a large-scale four-year project undertaken with 12–16 year olds in South Australian schools,1 offering some insights from the Australian context. Contra to popular panics – which claim porn has become a normal part of life and ‘so mainstream – it’s barely edgy’ (Paul, 2005: 6) – the young people in this study tell us something quite different." [mijn nadruk] (321-322)

[In feite is dit de perfecte samenvatting van het hoofdstuk. Nog een paar dingen over de gebruikte methoden: ]

"I worked with classes from Year 8 and 9 (age 12–13) and Year 10 and 11 (age 14–16) (...) Taking the place of the teacher for the sessions (who stayed as observer in the class for duty of care reasons), the sessions ran as open- ended activity-based discussions. I undertook a large-scale discursive analysis of the discussion-based activities which were video and audiotaped. Child and parental consent was obtained from all students participating in the research." [mijn nadruk] (325-326)

[Als de leraar er bij blijft zijn de tieners misschien minder open. En waarom is er toch altijd ouderlijke toestemming nodig bij dit soort dingen? Mogen tieners tussen de 12 en 16 jaar oud niet zelf bepalen of ze deelnemen? Juridisch gezever.]

"As such, focus groups or interviews appeared too limiting, as I did not want to take students out of their familiar contexts to ask specific questions. I was concerned to map the ways in which young people negotiated the ‘pornified’ within their everyday social worlds. As will be seen, what young people had to say against a public institutional backdrop was complex and surprising."(326)

"First and foremost, the young people described the mainstream presence of pornified culture as part of their social and cultural worlds. From the first activity, the ease with which they invoked the sexually explicit was palpable. When I asked students to write down five words that described their initial reaction to the Bratz Baby doll, within 20 minutes of meeting them the list included hooker, slut, pedobait, whore, dominatrix, slag. Through all the discussions, it was common practice for girls and boys to talk openly (for example) about tits, kink, man-whores, dildos, strip clubs and various porn sites."(326)

[Dat zou conservatieven te denken geven. Ze zouden zeggen: precies dat bedoelen we en zien we als het bedenkelijke gevolg van de pornoficatie. Het is maar net hoe je het wilt beoordelen. En het zegt ook niet zo veel over wat die tieners werkelijk doen, dat maakt het nog ingewikkelder.]

"This familiarity – along with the willingness of young people to ‘talk the explicit’ – presents a significant challenge to popular adultcentric panics. The young people in this study tell us that explicit representations are very much at home in public spaces. In some ways this confirms the claims of pornification panics, which worry that porn has become thoroughly normalized in public life. However, as will be seen below, to say the explicit is familiar and commonplace is not to say it is normalized, or that now ‘anything goes’."(327)

[Dat is wat ik bedoel.]

"Countering the claims of pornification panics, what spoke loud and clear from listening to young people laugh at porn was the way in which humour was used to keep porn aloof, at arm’s length."(328)

[Dan nog weet je niet of het toch geen invloed heeft op gedrag. Maar daar kon ze dus niet naar vragen, zoals ze zelf eerlijk aangeeft. ]

"The young people in this study made clear distinctions about what representations were possible ‘to bring home’ and what were to be kept at a distance owing to their indecency and impropriety. Here again, contra to pornification ‘panics’, this tells us that ‘anything does not go’. Throughout all the activities, historically familiar notions of respectability were utilized to make this distinction." [mijn nadruk] (330)

(337) 21 - What Is Self-exploitation? Rethinking the Relationship between Sexualization and ‘Sexting’ in Law and Order Times [Lara Karaian]

"In and around the same time as the public opprobrium about sexualization reached its pinnacle in the US and the UK, between 2006 and 2011 (Egan, 2013: 3–4), the West was also witnessing the rise of another representational practice, that of the sexy ‘selfie’ – semi-nude and sexually explicit self-portraits, taken at arm’s length or in a mirror, using a cellphone or digital camera, and then posted to social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr. Also referred to as ‘sexts’ by academics and those in the media, although not typically by youth themselves (see Karaian, 2012; Ringrose et al., 2012; Albury et al., 2013; Peskin et al., 2013; Strassberg et al., 2013), sexy selfies have met with a great deal of international attention, if not enthusiasm, by parents, pundits, legal scholars, childhood sexualization critics, child protection and policing agencies, many of whom cite an increasingly sexualized culture as a key cause of the practice (Hasinoff, 2014). The Canadian context is no exception." [mijn nadruk] (337)

"In the midst of this purportedly ‘pornified’ context (Paul, 2005), a range of adult responders have explicitly and unsurprisingly rejected the possibility that teenage sexting may in fact be consensually chosen by, and a beneficial self-expressive practice for, many teens. Instead, organized responses to teenage sexting in the Canadian context have gone so far as to construct consensual sexting as ‘self-exploitation’ necessitating a child protectionist and criminal law response (Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 2012; OPP, 2012). And yet, to date there has been little consideration of what ‘self-exploitation’ entails and no critical deliberation on its potential effects. Thus, in this chapter I consider the relationship between consensual sexting, childhood sexualization discourses, and the structural elements and legal effects of the ‘self-exploitation’ discourse for Canadian youth." [mijn nadruk] (338)

[En opnieuw een morele paniek.]

"Unlike in the UK and Australia, the prosecution of Canadian youth for consensual sexting has yet to occur. The criminalization of teens for consensual sexting is nevertheless well documented in the US."(338)

Maar de trend gaat ook in Canada in die richting, in lijn met opvattingen zoals neergezet door Mary Graw Leary, die hier geciteerd wordt:

"[T]he crime [of self-produced child pornography] is that much more complex because of the nature of the minors exploiting themselves in their criminal acts. The fact of self-harm, alone, however, cannot justify a refusal to prosecute juveniles for self-exploitation. Once those images are created, they create vast social harm as they are used by offenders to sexually assault children, they aid in the creation of juvenile sex offenders, and they further support the sexualisation and eroticization of children. (2009: 50. Emphasis mine)"(340)

"Canadian courts have already expressed concerns about peer-exploitation, if not self-exploitation, stemming from volitional sexting."(341)

"Thus, by finding that the ‘prevent[ion] [of] “attitudinal harm to society at large” ’ and the ‘prevent[ion] [of] harm to children’ flow as equally from the consensual actions of the hypothetical teenage girl as they flow from the non-consensual scenario in the case before her, Topolniski, like Leary, constructs the consensual female sexter as essentially the same as an abusive ex-boyfriend or a hypothetical male sex offender. Taken out of context, her image is construed as inherently harmful. Taken in a context, where the potential benefits of the image to her and others are never considered, the girl is implicitly construed as more responsible for child sexual exploitation than the hypothetical paedophile who will use her image for nefarious purposes given that presumably without her there would be no crime (Karaian, 2014). Implicit in this analogy are troubling conflations, slippages and erasures – between notions of sexual expression/sexual abuse, victim/perpetrator, self/peer, consensual/nonconsensual, pleasure/harm and image/reality. These conflations, I argue, work in tandem with sexualization discourse – which blames girls for perpetuating sexualization while also casting them as its victims. Together, they bolster the ‘self-exploitation’ discourse which, potentially, extends the application of child pornography laws to consensual teen sexters." [mijn nadruk] (342)

"This begs some critical questions, including what exactly self-exploitation means; whether the self-exploitation claim is structurally sound; and what relationship, if any, exists between the practice of self-exploitation and the claim that girls are self-objectifying within a sexualized culture."(343)

"Those who would deny that in the consensual sexting scenario A’s use of her ‘self’ as a means to her desired ends is anything other than ‘fair’ presumably suggest, as was the case in R. v. Schultz, that she cannot experience more benefit than harm from her actions because ultimately it’s not really her desired ends that are being met, as she believes them to be. Rather, the unfair ‘net gains’ are reaped by the ‘paedophile’, whom she has provided with the tools to sexually abuse society’s youth; the porn industry who will profit from her imagery; or even the broader sexualized and patriarchal capitalist marketplace that profits from ‘corporate pedophilia’ (Rush & La Nauze, 2006)." [mijn nadruk] (344)

"From here, then, we may want to turn our attention to whether the self-exploitation claim rests on the assumption that there exists a defect in the process by which A enters into an agreement with herself. That is, whether there exists a defect in A’s ability to enter into such a negotiation with herself. Indeed teens’ status as minors and their purportedly limited mental capacity is often held up as proof of teens’ inability to understand the negative consequences of consensual sexting, thus invalidating their ability to ‘choose’ to sext. However, of greater interest to me is how childhood sexualization discourses come into play here to reproduce a contextual framework within which the alleged defect in process has less to do with age and limited mental capacity and more to do with a sort of false consciousness that is reminiscent of the feminist sex wars of the 1980s and 1990s ..." [mijn nadruk] (344)

[Ze heeft het hierna ove de rare tegenstelling dat jongeren enerzijds elke handelingsbekwaamheid ontzegd wordt en anderzijds wel verantwoordelijk gehouden voor wat ze doen en de keuzes die ze daarbij maken. Dat is in mijn woorden. Ze worden gezien als het slachtoffer van de 'seksualiserende samenleving' en tegelijkertijd als dader gecriminaliseert terwijl die 'seksualiserende samenleving' vrijuit gaat. Het is schokkend hoe inconsequent de conservatieve ideologie kinderen benadert.]

"Thus sexualization and anti-sexting discourses can be seen as intersecting, not only to responsibilize girls – particularly ‘respectable’ white, middle-class, heterosexual girls (Karaian, 2014) – for preventing their own and others’ sexual corruption (Egan, 2013), but also their own, and their peers, criminalization as child pornographers (Karaian, 2014)."(347)

[Vind ik ook.]

(352) 22 - Sexting, Ratings and (Mis)Recognition: Teen Boys Performing Classed and Racialized Masculinities in Digitally Networked Publics [Laura Harvey and Jessica Ringrose]

"This chapter responds to the construction of teen boys and masculinity as predatory and hypersexualized in implicitly classed and racialized ways in the popular press and reporting on ‘sexting’ (Karaian, 2013). We argue that the practices of sexual communication that are often mobilized in debates about ‘sexting’ need to be understood as part of wider social practices of identity formation that work in relation to local norms of gender, race and class and wider popular cultural representations of ideal masculinities (e.g. pop music, advertising). We examine these practices in our empirical data, which explores young people’s negotiation of digital sexual cultures and new economies of self-representation on social networking platforms." [mijn nadruk] (352)

"As with much talk about youth sexuality, the voices of boys themselves are often missing from debates about the sexualization of culture. When boys do appear, they tend to be positioned as problematic subjects in relation to the consumption of pornography or as having uncontrollable sexualities (Mulholland, 2013). Boys are often talked about as an essentialized grouping, which is classed and racialized in relation to negative stereotypes around crime and violence. These constructions of masculinity do not critically examine the role of wider power relations or more mainstream discourses of sexism (Gill, 2011)."(353)

"It seems that fresh rounds of panic in the commentary and debates on the topic of ‘sexting’ emerge repeatedly (e.g. Angelides, 2013; Stubbs, 2014). We have sought to intervene in these debates, arguing that a contextualized understanding of young people’s everyday digital peer cultures is needed."(363)