The Economist

The EconomistJuly 21 st 2018 45

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I

N JAPAN it is hard to avoid the disturbing

spectacle of young girls being treated as

sex objects. Rorikon  an abbreviation of

“Lolita complex” is ubiquitous. In M’s Pop

Life a sex shop in Tokyo’s Akihabara dis-

trict known for its pop subculture life-size

models of girls their breasts at various

stages of puberty are openly on sale. Else-

where big-bosomed cartoon girls are

splashed across posters; children (or

grown-ups made to look like children)

pose in magazines in bikinis.

Rorikon is a peculiarly Japanese phe-

nomenon. But across the world there are

growing concerns about children being

portrayed sexually and the effects on the

children themselves. This comes in two

forms. The first “direct” sexualisation in-

cludes advertising television programmes

and magazine content that portray chil-

dren especially girls as sexually aware or

active. It also includes goods aimed at chil-

dren who are seen as tryingto make them-

selves “sexier”—such as padded bras or

hot-pants make-up or pole-dancing toys.

The second is “indirect”—the worry that

thanks to the internet children witness

ever more depictions of sexual activity.

They are likely to see far more pornogra-

phy than earlier generations and at a

younger age. In Britain for instance

around half of 11 - to 16 - year-olds have seen

Across Britain the police received almost

30 000 reports of sexual assaults by chil-

dren on other children over the past four

years including 2  625 allegedly on school

grounds. And “sexting”—sending explicit

images—is widespread. It can ruin young

lives. A boy who opens a forwarded sext

might find himself on a sex-offenders’ reg-

ister. A girl whose intimate photo ends up

widely shared online may be driven to de-

spair oreven suicide.

But it is not known whether all this is

really linked to the sexual content children

are exposed to. Theiryouth precludes most

research. And Deevia Bhana a South Afri-

can academic says that some of the con-

cern stems from moral attitudes about the

way children—almost always girls—should

act rather than from actual evidence of

harm. In fact in some ways risky behav-

iour is decreasing. Surveys show that in

much of the rich world young people are

waiting longer to lose their virginity. Teen-

age pregnancies are falling.

Precocious sexualisation however is

recognised ascausingsome formsofharm.

One is to mental health. Sharon Lamb a

child psychologist and professor at the

University of Massachusetts Boston says

she sees children mainly girls losing self-

esteem when they feel that the only way

they are valued is if they act sexually. This

feeds into problems such as eating disor-

ders and can affect future relationships.

Boys suffer too. Ms Lamb says stereotypes

portrayingthem as alwayswantingsex put

them underpressure to actin a certain way.

Asecond possible type ofharm is thata

sexualised pornographic culture may give

children damaging ideas about sex. Ms

Hulme reckons that the increase in chil-

dren inappropriately touching each other

pornography online mostly by accident

according to a 2016 study by the NSPCC a

British children’s charity.

Japan has belatedly been reining in

some excesses. In 2014 it banned the pos-

session of child pornography—although it

is still a hub for making and selling the ille-

gal stuff. Last year the Tokyo metropolitan

government banned under- 18 s from work-

ing in the JK(joshi kosei  schoolgirl) indus-

try where men pay for example to go for a

walk with a schoolgirl or to lie down next

to one (or under the new rules a woman

pretendingto be one). This year after a few

customer complaints Aeon a big retail

chain said it would stop stocking porno-

graphicmagazines in some ofitsshops. But

theyremain widelyon sale in convenience

stores. Keiji Goto a police officer turned

children’s-rights lawyer says “Japan re-

mains behind othercountries.”

Don’t growup

Indeed across the rich world countries are

grappling with how to deal with the over-

sexualisation of children. The assump-

tion—often unspoken—is that exposure to

sexualised images is linked to a growing

number of sexual incidents involving chil-

dren. Amanda Hulme the head of a prim-

ary school in north-western England says

it is seeing more peer-on-peer abuse.

The sexualisation of children

Innocents and experience

TOKYO

In manycountries parents and governments are fretting about the premature

sexualisation of children. Butmanyignore the root causes

International