sexualisation of young teens/kids

hey everyone im new to this forum, just wanted to know what all of u think about tv and its messages to young teens/kids, girls imperticular. do u think tv plays a part in the way young girls are dressing and acting more sexy in this modern age? thanx id love to hear yor answers xxxxxxx

Excellent. Another member joins so that we can do their A-Level Media Studies coursework.

I find it difficult to believe it's an A-Level course.

Don't you need to be able to write BEFORE you start them?

Nah. If Emma Crosby on Sky News is anything to go by, you don't even have to be able to speak properly for Media based courses, never mind write for them.

Hello, I was wondering ... do they ever teach how to use English properly on these media courses?

The short answer is no.

The long answer involves me attacking some parents for blaming anything from TV to schools for their kids faults before taking any responsibility themselves.

British TV has the balance about right - it's better issues are dealt with head on than hidden away under the carpet.

I don't see any problem with sexual issues being portrayed more and more on TV. It's necessary. This country is laughably immature when it comes to talking about sex. Even my parents (who are only in their late 40's) get embarassed when discussing the subject. Sex education is so laughably vague and incomplete that it might as well not exist. Most elderly people still consider it 'disgusting' to discuss sex and belong firmly to the 'fumbling about in the dark' generation. Some idiotics parents actually withdraw their 11 year old children from watching school sex education videos (which are hardly explicit anyway) on the grounds that they feel their children are 'too young' to be exposed to such things.

Yet for all this terribly quaint moral high ground that is the hallmark of British attitudes towards sex, we continue to have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. When sex education finally does appear, it's almost beyond pointless in the way the subject is dusted around and masked behind so many euphamsisms that at times you wonder quite what they're talking about, and is too late for many children anyway.

Unfortunately, it's got to the stage that if no one else is prepared to tackle the subject of sex head on to children, then the TV has to. And personally I feel it should be applauded and encouraged - and should also herald a big wake up call to get proper sex education into schools, delivered at a proper age (and it should also be made a legal requirement and not something that parents should have the right to to 'protect' their children from).

As I've said above, considering the mess that so many children get themselves into over sex in this country - which doesn't happen on anything like the same scale in other countries - continuing to have such an immature 'don't really want to talk about' attitude towards sex is certainly nothing to be applaud, and TV wishing to change this is certainly not guilty of any wrong doing; if anything it's delivering a public service which our public services completely neglect.

I think TV plays a part, but only a small part. Magazines and such like telling girls what to wear are bigger culprits than TV in my opinion. And you can mouth off all you like about parents not doing the best for their children, but at the end of day you cannot force a girl to go out in a polo neck and long skirt every day can you! If you try and stop them doing waht they want to do, it'll only make them want to do it more.

People say that TV causes kids to act this way. But I think it's the other way round. I think that TV just reacts to what's happening in the world and putting such things on TV/drama and stuff. If you see a 14 year old in a short skirt, TV is going to copy it on its programming because they are trying to reflect real life. It's not the other way around.

I think at the moment Sex Education in schools is more than enough. I only left secondary school in 2001, and even then they had fantastic sex education. There was no "Taboo", they even talked about the dangers of "fingering" and using sex toys. So I don't think there's a problem there.

In my opinion, I think it's just kids experimenting with new things and wanting to be rebels, nout else.

You can't discuss Gay or Lesbian relationships in schools.

That's what I have been led to believe (ie. Clause 28 ). However, a friend of mine teaches Sex Ed and he covers gay and lesbian issues.

I would have thought that "sex head on to children" is morally questionable, probably illegal and certainly has no place on British television.

You can. Section 28 doesn't exist any more.