M. Gigi Durham: The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and Five Keys to Fixing It

Abstract

Young girls are supposed to be viewed as precious little people; unfortunately, throughout the media they are shown as sexualized beings. In writing The Lolita Effect, M. Durham seeks to find a way to understand sexuality as a normal, healthy and important part of girls’ development. While doing this, she also explains the exploitive and distorted ways in which girls’ sexuality is represented by the commercial media. As Durham argues, matters of sexuality are not something that can be described as either good or bad; the reason for this is that there is so much social and cultural construction dealing with sexual matters. This view led Durham to write this book not only for adults who care for young girls but also for the young girls themselves. She hoped to form groups that would stand up against the ideas of the mainstream media. Durham argues that sex is a vital part of being a human being and growing up and girls need to fully understand sexuality in accurate, positive and healthy ways, as she points out that much evidence proves that the media does influence children’s behavior and if the media is showing young girls that they need to be ‘‘sexy’’ than that is what they are going to do. She argues that the messages about sex that the young girls are receiving from the media are becoming more hurtful than helpful. In the introduction, Durham explains how the term ‘‘Lolita’’ originated from one of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels. In that novel, the character Lolita was a sexually curious adolescent who has no control over her relationship with an older man, Hubert, who is manipulative and abusive. In today’s world, a Lolita is a cultural reference to a young sexual girl, who by legal standards is not an adult and unable to be involved in sexual activity. They are defined as being deliberately provocative, and causing adults to think of them in a sexual way. According to Durham, ‘‘our media and our culture have produced a gathering of ‘prostitots’—hypersexualized girls who cultural presence has become a matter of heated public controversy. This is the Lolita Effect’’ (p. 27). Research has shown that, as a result of watching sexualized media, girls are more likely to engage in sexual activity. The amount of sexual content on main stream media has been constantly increasing over the years. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, found that 8–18 years olds spend 6 h a day on average with some sort of media. Durham points out that the problem with media and sexual content is that there is no middle ground. Sex is either portrayed as being good or bad, with nothing in between. To help adults and young girls properly understand sexuality and not be inappropriately influenced by the media, Durham has identified 5 ‘‘myths of sexuality’’ that are involved in the Lolita Effect. She looks closely at the 5 myths and dicusses ways to change them. The myths talked about in this book are: the myth of girls’ exhibitionism, the myth of sex in terms of an idea body type, the myth of sex as linked to youth, the myth of sex as violence against women, and the myth of the male gaze. In chapter one, Durham discusses how long hypersexualization has existed. Research has shown that in the United States, sexual activity is known to start around 11 or 12 years old. One in five adolescents under the age of 15 have had sex and even more have engaged in oral sex. Due to sexual activity’s starting younger, the rates of teen pregnancy and STDs are deemed to be constantly on the rise. The increase in sexual activity may be due to the increase of sexual content on television. As Durham notes, a Kaiser Foundation study has found that 1 in 9 television T. Wollek (&) Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: Twollek@indiana.edu