The Over-Sexualization Of Children In American Culture

Written by: Wendy J Olson, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

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I walked into the living room, where my daughter was watching one of her favorite TV shows. It’s the one about a group of four siblings whose names rhyme, except one. She’s watched this show at least three times this year. As I sat on the couch typing away, I looked up to notice that this season, the girl sibling had started wearing skirts. Not her thing in previous seasons, but now that’s all she wore. I couldn’t help but notice that the skirts had gotten shorter too. So much so that she wasn’t able to do her typical reactive, physical comedy we’d be used to seeing in the previous seasons. I paused the show and commented on the change to see if my daughter noticed.

She’s nine. Of course, she didn’t. I’m one of those people who watch something and immediately want to know what else that actor has been in or where they are now. This is an older show, so I wondered what happened to these kids. It turns out one of them, this same girl, is in a wildly popular primetime show.

I didn’t even recognize her.

What I thought was an olive skin tone born on this girl actually proved to be a spray tan on a ten-year-old in her previous show.

I was stunned.

What does a ten-year-old need a spray tan for? And why, at 13, was her wardrobe of short skirts suddenly decided for her while the boys’ clothes didn’t change at all? Here’s the thing, I’m of the generation that’s old enough to remember Coreys and all the other child actors turned addicts turned recovering addicts if they were able to make it that far. Some weren’t so lucky. And now we’re at the point where we have Disney and Nickelodeon stars making podcasts about the trauma they endured while working on set as a child actor. You don’t need to look too far to find a dozen or so of those. Young women recounting stories of sexual harassment as a teenager from producers, directors, and other staff. And doing so bravely.

I’ve listened to quite a few of these myself. So when we talk about the over-sexualization, or hyper-sexualization, of children in our culture, we don’t have to look too far to find it. Kids in middle school are showing up and talking about the latest episode of Euphoria. Eleven-year-olds on Tik Tok are singing lyrics to songs they don’t even understand the words to. But we do? Don’t we? I have two rules for my kids when it comes to music: 1. They can’t say any bad words or use derogatory slang. 2. It can’t degrade women in any way. (This includes songs BYwomen.) This cuts out a lot of popular music, but I have a point behind it. And sure, we jam to some of Taylor Swift’s new songs that say a few bad words, but for the most part, her music has a clear and empowering message. There’s a difference. According to an article published in 2011 in Psychology Today, “When parents fail to counter and buffer the plethora of sexual stimuli that confront children, they are left to their own devices to manage what they experience…Some will actually try to act out or mimic what they have been exposed to.”

And we’re seeing this manifest itself in many ways. It’s not just the teens anymore. It’s as early as the tween stage we’re seeing an uptick in this sort of behavior, with the average age of exposure to pornography between 8 and 9 years old.

It’s terrifying and it’s tragic.

So what are we to do? Lock on kids up in a bubble and shield them from the world? No. Although sometimes I’d like to.

Instead, we have to be really clear on what we view sexuality as and have healthy conversations with our kids about what it is and what it is not.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been grateful for the pause button on my remote. If my kids are watching a show where something occurs of a sexual nature (yes, even in kid's shows!), we pause and we talk about it. Just like I pause and teach them what manipulation looks like, coercion looks like, peer pressure, and/or people pleasing.

We pause.

We talk about it.

Of course, I’m not always there every second of the day, but thankfully my nine year old, she’s a talker. She’s curious and she wants to know all the things. And she doesn’t want some BS answer. She wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And she CAN handle it.

So, she asks, and I answer age appropriately for where I think she’s at in her young life. We’ve always done the same with our 17-year-old, who has autism. With him, we get a lot of “Ewh gross,” but we always answer honestly and truthfully, giving them both the space to ask questions and not feel fear or shame for asking.

We’re not going to be able to shield our kids from everything. Unfortunately, we can have healthy discussions and welcome dialogue.

And needless to say, we need to make sure WE ARE as clear about sex and sexuality as we want them to be. It does us no good to pass down toxicity to the next generation.

So first, that means we need to heal. We need to be really clear on our stories and our past in order to pass down a healthy perspective . The last thing we want is to pass on that virus.

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Wendy J Olson, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

Wendy J Olson is a healing coach, founder, and president of Grit Plus Gumption Farmstead. Wendy believes in the power of stories to change and shape people's lives. She walks with women through their stories of past hurts and traumas and guides them to find their own freedom and healing. Through Grit plus Gumption, she serves survivors of sexual exploitation and domestic violence. Having applied all she teaches to her own life as a survivor herself, she is able to guide women with kindness and grace, showing them there is always more freedom to be had in one’s life. She believes everyone has a story, and even if that story is really hard, it doesn't mean the rest of the story has to be.