Newsweek reviews The Porning of America, a book inspired by a father’s realization that “porn culture and I were in a death match for my daughter’s soul.”

He had battled the Bratz empire.

It’s too early to know exactly how kids who grow up in this hypersexualized environment will be affected in the long term. But Scott and his coauthor say it’s not too soon—or too prudish—to sound the alarm, and to look critically at the sexualized culture we’re exposed to every day. . . . [P]orn themes have gone from adult entertainment to prime time, seeping into nearly every aspect of popular culture. Sarracino and Scott define “porning” as the way advertising and society in general have borrowed from the ideas and characteristics central to most American pornography: sex as commodity, sexuality as overt, narrow views of women and male-female relationships, bad girls and dirty boys, domination and submission.

This isn’t about sex. It’s not about morality or sexual freedom or abstinence or teen pregnancy or any polarizing belief or issue.

It’s about kids’ mental and physical health. 

Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a compelling report that described the sexualization of young girls: a process that entails being stripped of all value except the sexual use to which they might be put. Once they subscribe to that belief, say some psychologists, those girls begin to self-objectify—with consequences ranging from cognitive problems to depression and eating disorders. 

Fact sheet on childhood sexualization from CCFC. 

Emphasis mine. H/T Whole Kids Project.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under Books, Bratz, Child Sexualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.