The Sex Myth: Why Everything We're Told Is Wrong (9 page)

But remember that in the recent past, it was thought that sex needed procreation in order to have meaning. Mores of a previous age held that birth control was sinful. So perhaps this idea of sex
having a meaning, as such, should be abandoned.

The idea of ‘sex addiction’ gives the impression that sex is inherently dangerous, that giving in to ‘temptations’ like pornography, masturbation, or affairs makes us
‘addicted’. The model of addiction, where a single exposure is enough to tip some people into uncontrollable drinking or drug taking is applied to something that humans in general
should not abstain from completely.

What we must consider is that the behaviour ‘sex addicts’ describe might be simply an example of compulsive behaviour, rather than a distinct illness. And we should consider how the
criteria defining sexual addiction might be viewed in cultures not in the West, where relationships are regarded differently.

It may all seem very amusing to us now, looking back at the acid-swabbing and ice-bathing past, reading about bizarre treatments for things that don’t exist. But we should remember that
nymphomania was considered to be not only real, but also dangerous – and treatable. No doubt a number of people became very wealthy indeed diagnosing and medicalising this
‘problem’.

In the mid-twentieth century, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey famously quipped that a nymphomaniac is simply ‘someone who has more sex than you’. As knowledge of
human sexuality advanced, the idea of the nymphomaniac became more a witty punchline than an actual phenomenon.

If good research and rational thought have taught us anything about sex, it’s that being a sexual person is complex, and some people feel shame about it. Codifying people’s shame
about sex, however, hardly seems likely to help our understanding of healthy sexuality.

It’s not a new trend: the concept of some kinds of sex as sin, and the origin of sin as sickness. Historic attempts to ‘cure’ homosexuality, nymphomania, and masturbation have
been a far more recent part of our past than we generally admit. And those ‘cures’ have been pushed by therapists and scientists with gains to make just as much as by moral
crusaders.

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O
ne of the bestselling books of the late nineteenth century was
Plain Facts for Old and Young,
first published in 1881 with editions on the
shelves until 1917. And as far as advice about young people went, this was one book that was not afraid to put its cards on the table:

It’s hard to imagine disapproving of kids sitting at the dinner table, but the past, as they say, is another country. The rapid social changes
wrought by the Industrial Revolution no doubt threw all previous mores into question, especially regarding boys and girls. After all, in the nineteenth century, what was considered
‘too young’ was a little different, and the age of social intercourse was not far off the age of married intercourse. Until 1929, girls as young as twelve and boys of fourteen could
legally marry in Scotland without parental consent. This had also been true in England until the mid-eighteenth century.

In times past, the extended adolescence of the teenage years did not exist. People were either children, or they were adults, and that was that.

But, even accounting for the march of time, some more recent trends do give us pause for thought. The clothes available for girls these days can look surprisingly racy. Magazines and television
seem to aim explicit talk at an ever younger audience. Pornography and other adult-orientated materials are not difficult to come by. That extended period between childhood and grown-up life, which
flourished in society after World War II, seems increasingly encroached upon by sexual images and products.

At first glance, the worries about children and sexualisation seem to have reached a consensus. Pretty much everyone believes it causes harm – everything from low self-esteem and early
sexual activity to sexual and gender-related violence. Government, news media, and an array of non-profit organisations agree. The research evidence, they claim, is staggering. Are they correct? Or
does examining the issue from another perspective give us a different picture entirely?

Probably the hardest part of being a parent these days is negotiating what is appropriate in a world where much has changed.

Parents, and people in general, are rightly concerned about the effects of an increasingly consumerist society on kids. I fully support the right of parents to enforce their own standards
– deciding what is and isn’t appropriate is a complex balancing act. The age of the child, cultural background, and all kinds of variables can only really be appreciated on a
family-by-family basis. And, importantly, there need to be better support systems to educate and inform concerned parents, so they can make the right decisions for them.

What rarely gets reported, however, is that the data around the supposed trends are very shaky. When you look at the problems most people fear – such as increased
sexual activity – the evidence just isn’t there. And in the few instances when people bother to talk to children, most of them actually have a more balanced and mature approach to
modern culture than commentators give them credit for.

Various claims have been made around this issue. But are we being given evidence and solid policy, or assumptions, agendas, and sloppy analysis? More worryingly, is the outcome being decided
without even consulting parents, educators, and children?

‘Sexualisation’ is a difficult concept to pin down. To some, it could mean children imitating grown women, such as the furore over Jordan letting her toddler daughter have a go at
false eyelashes, or little girls dancing like Beyoncé on YouTube. To others, it could mean excessively gendered clothing, such as ‘Future WAG’ T-shirts and an avalanche of lurid
pink. And it’s easy to see how, to different people at different times, either, both, or neither of these examples might count as ‘sexualisation’

Childhood is a jealously guarded notion, not least because people associate it with innocence. And in recent years the claim that sexualisation had gone too far have only got louder and more
insistent. Indeed, when Kirsty Wark waved around a padded bra for ten-year-olds on an episode of
Newsnight Review
in 2010, it seemed like sexualising material had reached full
saturation.

Now, Kirsty Wark is a great presenter. But the idea of a newsreader trawling the high street in search of age-inappropriate clothing? Uh, I’m sure she has better ways of spending her time.
Since when did the news media claim collective responsibility for all of the country’s children?

And, as it turns out, there are many legitimate reasons why Primark might carry such items for pre-teens that were not discussed. Padded ‘training bras’ have existed since at least
the 1950s. As well, due to complex factors, girls are developing breasts at younger ages than before and therefore buying bras. In European populations, the mean age of puberty onset in girls
declined from 10.88 in 1991 to 9.86 in 2009.
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Maybe shops are carrying those things not only
because the public demands them, but
because lots of girls actually need them?

Agenda Setters can be effective at outlining their view of how topics should be handled, and they often have cash and influence to spare. But the message goes nowhere without
people to back it up. Enter the people whose claim to expertise supplies the quotes, studies, and numbers needed by Agenda Setters to push their vision. These are the Constellation Makers. As
we’ll see, Constellation Makers have been absolutely critical in helping to bolster the sexualisation hype.

When ancient cultures looked at the night sky, they saw groups of stars, just the way we do today. They drew imaginary lines between the stars to make pictures and tell stories. The pictures
were what are known as constellations.

The stories behind constellations often came with moral or cautionary undertones. One popular tale was the legend of the warrior Orion, placed among the heavens after his heroic death. Another
was the fate of Cassiopeia, a vain queen hung upside down in punishment for her self-obsession. But the pictures and the stories varied, depending on who was doing the looking.

One of the most easily recognisable constellations is the one called the Plough . . . or, at least, it’s called that if you grew up in Britain. I was raised in North America and we knew it
as the Big Dipper. Ancient Greeks saw the very same constellation as the tail of a bear and they called it Ursa Major. The same collection of stars is a cart to Scandinavians, a coffin with
mourners in Arabia, and a group of sages according to Hindu astronomy.

From our vantage point on Earth, the stars seem inextricably linked and for most of human history we have had no way of telling otherwise. But the stars in the Plough are actually not close
together at all. It’s the angle we view them from that makes them look related. In fact, they vary from between 78 to 124 light years away. And they’re moving apart – in 50,000
years’ time the Plough won’t look as it does now at all.

Constellations are what you make when you look at something from a particular angle at a particular time. Ancient man stared at
the sky so long the dots seemed to make
pictures, so he joined them up. The names the constellations have been given by different cultures reflect particular preoccupations of the people naming them. But as interesting as they may be,
those stories tell us nothing about the nature of the stars themselves.

Making constellations from unrelated information happens a lot. But just because things seem to be connected to each other doesn’t mean they are. It could just be the angle, or the point
in history, that creates the picture. Humans are hard-wired to see patterns and seek explanations but, sometimes, this tendency can lead to the wrong pictures being drawn.

When it comes to the subject of sex, the habit of making constellations is so pervasive that we take it for granted. Myths, assumptions, and preconceptions take hold even when there is rational
evidence to the contrary.

Agenda Setters in governments or NGOs have ideological reasons for pushing certain points of view. But they benefit greatly from the appearance of research activity going on among Constellation
Makers. Unsurprisingly, the result of evidence collected by Constellation Makers conforms with outcomes already endorsed by Agenda Setters. Teasing out who is pursuing independent enquiry versus
who is bringing a whole set of assumptions to the table can be very difficult indeed.

As the concern about sexualisation has spread from society to government, new attempts have been made to address it. People want those in charge to identify real risks before deciding how to
address a problem. But do the results of these fact-finding and consultation missions contain hard evidence on which solid policy could be based? Or are they a collection of constellation-like
assumptions about what ‘we’ supposedly ‘all know’?

Government already intervenes in tobacco advertising and alcohol prices, so if something is a risk to young people, then examining it is within their remit. And so, in 2009,
the UK Consultation on Sexualisation of Young People was launched by then home secretary Jacqui Smith, glamour model Danielle Lloyd, and psychologist Linda Papadopoulos.

The review set its goal as seeing ‘how sexualised images and messages may be affecting the development of children and young people and influencing cultural norms,
and examines the evidence for a link between sexualisation and violence’. This is pretty ambitious.

But the real proof of the pudding is in the eating – in this case, how good is the report? Does it stand up to close examination of the evidence? Reports like this can influence policy as
well as opinion. So, it is important to see if it is robust enough to have this much power. Or whether it’s yet another constellation in disguise.

The report, released in early 2010, contains no original research. It starts by describing a world where girls who can barely walk are given high heels and Playboy tees, before entering an
internet-based culture that pressures them to dress and act as sexual objects. It blames this for everything from violence to anorexia. It then moves into a summary of existing work in various
topics from violence to internet usage among children.

This summary is what is known as a ‘literature review’. Literature reviews are common in academia, though they are more often used as a first step before conducting research than as
a stand-alone piece from which to make conclusions.

Reviews of the sexualisation of children have appeared before. One was by the American Psychological Association in 2007.
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Australia also released a
similar report in 2008.
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These were well received at first, but the expectation was that later reports would take a fuller view of the context in which
young people live. A Scottish Executive report, also released in early 2010, attempted to address some of those criticisms . . . of which, more later.

The Home Office consultation authored by Papadopoulos is no table on several counts: it is very slickly produced, it provides loads of policy recommendations, and to my eyes it is notably
lacking in the qualities that would make good research, for the reasons set out below.