by Robbie Duschinsky
Draft only; Social Politics
The article explores the history of the way the idea of ‘sexualization’ has been problematized – situated as an object... more
The article explores the history of the way the idea of ‘sexualization’ has been problematized – situated as an object of concern – in the USA and UK. My focus here will be on media discourses, having analysed policy and sociological discourses on sexualization elsewhere. I document that, from the early 1980s in the USA, the term ‘sexualization’ came to describe a mal-socialisation which causes the precocious entry by the child into adult forms of sexual subjectivity and desire. I will argue that the media problematization of sexualization has been the result of a ‘discursive coalition’ between a number of conservative and feminist commentators, who for quite different reasons wished to justify measures to protect and regulate the sexuality and morality of young women. Underpinning this coalition is an inadequate account of sexual and commercial choice, as either simply present or absent for young women.
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