Cultural decline: Teens broadcast nudity to compete for attention
posted at 12:25 pm on May 5, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Bare midriffs and piercings apparently haven’t made teenagers provocative enough to compete with celebrities for local attention. According to the University of Minnesota, teenage girls have begun using personal-networking technology to send nude pictures of themselves to their friends, emulating the sexualization they see in the national media. One local case has already resulted in arrests:
Using her cell phone, a high school girl sends nude photos of herself to boyfriends that wind up printed and distributed in the boys’ locker room at Hudson (Wis.) High School. Two boys accused of doing it are charged with defaming her character. The girl tells police she is devastated.
More teenagers today are feeling pressure to create larger identities for themselves like the celebrities they see depicted in national media, said Laurie Ouellette, a communication studies professor and reality TV expert at the University of Minnesota. In an era where teens aim to increase their list of “friends” on social networking sites, that can mean flashing nudity in an effort to compete for attention.
“The price is that you have to define yourself in the same kind of terms that celebrities are defined,” said Ouellette, who thinks the emphasis on misbehaving celebrities bodes poorly for teens who see them as role models.
Whether it’s photos of singing sensation Miley Cyrus shirtless and draped in a sheet for a magazine shoot or images of Twin Cities high school students drinking at a house party, more teens are discovering the enduring — and unforgiving — nature of technology.
Observers of young people who show their skin on cell phones and social networking websites say parents and schools should be alarmed at the trend. The Hudson case, they say, is an example of a larger problem sweeping the country that involves girls and boys pressured into sexuality, made easy by fingertip technology that turns their bodies and behavior into public information.
Gee, I wonder where teenage girls get the idea that they have to shed their clothes for attention? It didn’t start with Miley Cyrus; Brooke Shields made an unforgettable commercial almost 30 years ago at the age of 15, saying, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” The sexualization of teens and pre-teens continues today with the execrable Bratz Girls dolls and a national media that cannot let children have a childhood.
The latest trend shows that teenagers listen and respond to the deluge of messages that pressure them into cheapening their sexuality into a brand. The technology itself isn’t the problem. Its easy access allows for more compulsive decisions, but it’s the decisions themselves that prove so worrisome.
That’s why the response from the Minnesota researcher really doesn’t address the underlying issue. Ouellette wants schools to teach about the dangers of the technology and how broadcasting one’s peccadilloes can come back to haunt them. The real lesson should be that one’s sexuality should be considered private, and that the exploitation of it for attention — regardless of the technology used — will damage the girls far more than any potential attention will boost their fragile egos. Unfortunately, the popular culture wants to continue to define deviancy down and sell trampiness as liberation at younger and younger ages, and the popularity of the Bratz Girls and the rest of the promiscuity industry shows that parents haven’t taken much responsibility for teaching that lesson themselves.
Update: South Park had a rather trenchant take on the pseudo-feminist rationalizations used by those who patronize these products (mildly NSFW):
Unfortunately, they dilute their moral message by having this episode sponsored by Grand Theft Auto IV. Otherwise, it perfectly skewers the supposedly liberating experience of exploitation. (h/t: Jim Rose)
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I’m no expert, but I understand from a nurse that it may be a function of bodyweight, or at least correlate to it. Of course, some have suggested it has to do with a greater ingestion of hormones in the food we eat, which is certainly possible.
tom on May 5, 2008 at 3:49 PM
You would certainly think so. I don’t know why girls are so interested in living down to boy’s expectations, given that they don’t have the highest opinion of them. Maybe they’re just not thinking things all the way through?
tom on May 5, 2008 at 3:52 PM
/shrug
The culture’s just being consistent. Being good is bad; being bad is good. Positing a moral law is evil, except for the moral law that states that there is none.
If the best, most resonant response to our culture is a few pot-shots (for laughs) from the peanut gallery (whose behavior is equally party to the same decline), then you can expect it to continue. Pretty soon, if you don’t bring up your child with this poisonous, self-indulgent relativism, then you’ll be prosecuted.
Oh wait…
spmat on May 5, 2008 at 3:57 PM
I guess I’m going to have to say it, since nobody else has. What kind of conservatives are you all, anyway?
Ahem.
I blame MTV.
Only slightly /sarc
tom on May 5, 2008 at 3:58 PM
Whatever the reason, it can be very tragic.
That can be true. A friend of mine from high school rarely had a period because she had no body fat. I don’t think she was anorexic, but she was seriously underweight.
Esthier on May 5, 2008 at 4:11 PM
You mean more than what they do by having 8-year-old swear on a regular basis?
It’s not a show for children, and GTA IV is not a game for children. It’s a completely different issue.
Esthier on May 5, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Technology is only a tool.
If there is a problem with a kid, it started way before the technology facilitated it. If the technology is removed, the problem will still be there.
landlines on May 5, 2008 at 5:27 PM
I must disagree with your premise of technology as “only a tool.” Very few communication scholars (myself included) consider technology neutral, because any technology has a nature to it. The late Neil Postman pointed out that just as smoke signals would be no use for a lengthy dissertation about weather trends, television is not useful for lengthy discussions about serious topics. (I highly recommend his books, by the way). There is a mountain of research about the influence of various media on youngsters. To be sure, the family is extremely important in influencing the mental health of their children, but it is by no means the only, or even primary, influence in a sex-and-violence-drenched mediated culture.
DrMagnolias on May 5, 2008 at 7:46 PM
“We are working hard to resolve our pre-existing contractual obligations and bring you Full Episodes as soon as possible.
Please leave your email address and we will notify you as soon as the videos are available.”
GRAGH!!!
mininovaaa..
Reaps on May 6, 2008 at 12:15 AM
Yet another reason to homeschool your child…
newton on May 6, 2008 at 1:04 AM
Love the wonky eye.
Tzetzes on May 6, 2008 at 1:19 AM
Can’t their parents set the camera in the phone to off (or just find a phone without a camera) until the kids are smart enough not to expose themselves to such world-broadcast-able follies?
You enable the infantile with high-tech, you’ll get high-tech infantilism.
(SEE: Islam.)
profitsbeard on May 6, 2008 at 1:56 AM
What we’re seeing today is the result of a people who have cast off restraint. I’m sure I’ll be skewered for saying this, but I don’t really care. When people or nations want to live by their own rules instead of God’s, then they will reap the consequences. The scriptures are replete with verses that speak to how we should live and yes, even dress.
Women are admonished to dress modestly. Now, do I think that means wearing 18th century dresses that start right below the chin and end at the floor? No, but we need to be very careful in how we present ourselves. Our children today are growing up in broken homes with parents who are still pretty much children themselves. They are seeking to be loved in relationships that are forbidden by God (unmarried). Girls, especially(I know because before I came to know the Lord I was very sexually active and not married)will use sex to find love. And they will dress the part to get attention from the boys. God tells us in the Bible to “flee sexual immorality…”(1 Cor. 6:18) The Bratz dolls and everything else we are seeing with our young people are only a symptom of a far greater problem.
Nolamom67 on May 6, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Everybody lays every responsibility for morality at the feet of the schools. What are the parents teaching these young girls?
abcurtis on May 6, 2008 at 10:10 AM
The youth minister at my church emphasizes over and over again to the teenage girls - cover up. But he has an uphill fight on his hands.
abcurtis on May 6, 2008 at 10:12 AM
abcurtis,
I see this, too, at my church. Some young women have no respect for themselves and so desperately long for approval from the boys or their peers. They need the life changing love of Christ. And besides, we are representing Christ and should all do so with fear(reverential awe) and humility.
Nolamom67 on May 6, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Phooey on all that Women’s Liberation equality nonsense, eh?
Who needs skills or a personality when you can flash your goodies and the world drops at your feet?
When all of these proto-skanks are lonely bitter adults, who will they blame then?
Hello, N.O.W. where are you? Or is this selling out of self respect supposed to be “liberating” on some level I don’t understand?
G-man on May 6, 2008 at 11:20 AM
Utter BS brought to you by the same idiots that peddle global warming.
db on May 6, 2008 at 12:12 PM
This is very common now, the inevitable result of technology. It’s no different than 20 years ago when girls got upset about the rumors of who did what with who; there are just easier means of tranmission now.
Teens have always been sexual creatures by the age of 14 or so. It’s just getting harder to suppress their natural behavior or keep it all private.
And no, women don’t menstruate earlier than they used to. They used to be married off at 12 and have 4-5 kids by 20, remember?
TallDave on May 6, 2008 at 12:31 PM
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