Tuesday 4 October, 6.30pm until 8.30pm, Foyles Charing Cross, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB
Tickets: £7.50 (£5 concessions) per person. Tickets are available from the Academy of Ideas website.
While the question of how best to raise children can make even the tamest coffee morning erupt in anger, the one thing all parents can seemingly agree on is that today’s kids are under pressure to ‘grow up too quickly’. The sale of padded bras and Playboy-branded goods to little girls has been branded ‘corporate paedophilia’, while many parents also worry about explicitly raunchy music videos and TV aimed at the Skins generation, and the ready availability of hardcore pornography on the internet (along with the associated dangers of ‘sexting’ and online grooming). Even those who have enjoyed the liberation of the permissive society for themselves are uneasy when it comes to drawing the boundary between what is acceptable for adults and what is appropriate for children.
The issue has become politicised in recent years, with four government reviews in four years commissioned on related themes. Yet despite widespread agreement that society has become ‘sexualised’ and that this is infecting childhood, the questions of what ‘sexualisation’ actually means, why it has come about, and what can be done about it, are seldom answered. The Bailey review commissioned by David Cameron and led by Reg Bailey of the Mother’s Union shied away from any attempt to explain the trend towards the ‘commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood’, which it claimed was a cause of concern to many parents. The review acknowledges that there are two main responses to this anxiety. Some argue for greater regulation in an attempt to protect childhood as a more innocent time, away from the predations of adult sexual culture and consumer culture. Others argue instead that youngsters need earlier sex, relationships and media education to help them deal with a sexual culture where they will be targeted by the distorting forces of the market. But what are we to make of the underlying premises of the discussion?
Has the sexualisation of society really gone too far, or should we all learn to be more comfortable discussing sexuality in frank and honest terms? Is it naive or wrong-headed to want to protect childhood as a time of innocence? Does protecting childhood inevitably inhibit adult freedom, or is it simply about taking grown-up responsibility? Is the sexualisation debate really just about children, or does it reveal a deeper uncertainty about these issues among adults?
 | Hephzibah Anderson writer and broadcaster; author, Chastened; commentator on sex and the media |
 | Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal freelance journalist; former sex-advice columnist, Evening Standard; author, Tourism |
 | Sally Gimson Labour councillor, Highgate; member, Camden Council's planning and housing committees; Camden's Equality Champion |
 | Irma Kurtz writer; broadcaster; agony aunt, Cosmopolitan Magazine; author, About Time: growing old disgracefully |
 | Dr Jan Macvarish associate lecturer and researcher, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, University of Kent; author, Neuroparenting: The Expert Invasion of Family Life |
 | Cristina Odone journalist, novelist and broadcaster; columnist, Daily Telegraph |
| Chair: | |
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David Bowden
associate fellow, Academy of Ideas; culture writer |
Jools Willis says it boosts little Tate's confidence.
Rhodri Phillips and Jamie Pyatt, The Sun, 3 September 2011
Every parent I know dislikes the fact that most pre-teens are regularly exposed to explicitly raunchy music videos. Yet I can’t help feel this obsession with sexualisation whiffs of panic and overreaction. It hides behind the shield of children to argue for the usual illiberal litany of bans, censorship and regulations. It finds easy scapegoats, exaggerates evidence and sensationalises reality.
Claire Fox, Herald, 26 June 2011
The pressure on children to grow up takes two different but related forms: the pressure to take part in a sexualised life before they are ready to do so; and the commercial pressure to consume the vast range of goods and services that are available to children and young people of all ages. Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union, has led a six-month independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.
Reg Bailey, Department for Education, June 2011
The reason that she attracts such hostility, and receives so little back-up from quiet sympathisers, is that a non-judgmental approach to sex is part of a series of status-defining beliefs by which university-educated people identify themselves.
Ed West, Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2011
For men and women both, permissiveness has grown restrictive. We've lost the sense of sex as a uniquely personal expression. While sex appears to be everywhere, it's a highly defined, increasingly one-dimensional experience.
Hephzibah Anderson, Guardian, 31 October 2010
Parents must stand firm against the creeping sexualisation of children to prevent its corrosive effects on their mental health
Kate Williams, Guardian, 22 June 2010
The affirmation of free speech and civil liberties, at least in any consistent fashion, is far weaker today than at any time since the 1950s. We live in a world where seven- to eight-year-old children are condemned for ‘inappropriate sexual behaviour’ and where there’s barely a murmur of protest when serious criminal cases are tried without juries.
Frank Furedi, spiked, 15 June 2010
The row over Primark’s padded bikinis revealed modern parents’ anxieties about behaving like adults.
Jan Macvarish, spiked, 21 April 2010
