Society needs to stop pressurising young girls to be sexually available in an increasingly “pornified culture”, a Times columnist has warned.
Janice Turner said: “It is clear now that several generations of teenagers have grown up absorbing the script of pornography” and: “It is time to offer an alternative”.
She made her comments in light of media reports that two middle-class girls had become call girls and sold their bodies to a prominent footballer.
Pornified
With reference to one of the girls, the columnist wrote: “There has been much handwringing this week about how a pretty girl, blessed with a private education, an oil executive father, detached home in the leafy suburb, etc, needs to sell her body.”
She commented that jobs within glamour modelling and the sex industry were once rarely taken up, but she expresses concern that now “there is no shame, only fame”.
She blamed ‘lads mags’ for encouraging boys to send in naked pictures of their girlfriends, saying: “Glamour modelling, or some amateur facsimile, is now merely an acceptable part of the preening and peacocking of youth.”
Parents
The Columnist also slammed so-called modern parents who, desperate to prove they are not “prudes”, claim they are “liberated” enough to support their daughters when they take up jobs in the sex industry.
She expressed dismay saying: “Young people might be expected to suck up the messages of a pornified culture, but the collusion of their parents is mind-boggling.”
Last week a children’s author blamed Britain’s sexualised society for causing two middle-class girls to become call girls and sell their bodies to football stars.
Sleaze
Bel Mooney, writing in the Daily Mail, attacked popular culture that promotes female promiscuity as ’empowerment’ and perpetuates the ‘happy hooker’ myth.
She also warned about the ‘pornification’ of teenage boys whose attitude to sex comes from viewing pornography on the internet.
She said: “Little by little, the gutter has become the cultural main street”.
“So many aspects of popular culture — from fashion, to pop lyrics and videos, to advertising, through to TV programmes like Big Brother and The X Factor — peddle a combined message of sleaze and greed.”
Sexualisation
The author also hit out at those who push a glamorised view of prostitution.
The coalition Government has promised to tackle the commercialisation and sexualisation of Britain’s children.