Sexualistation of Young People

Sexualisation of Young People Review
48
game Rape-Lay, which was for a while
available to buy online via Amazon.com’s
marketplace platform, players take on
the role of a rapist who stalks a mother
before raping her and her daughters.
There has also been a marked increase
in the number of games depicting various
forms of sexual abuse. 233
Many popular video games effectively
reward children for engaging in violent,
illegal activity, albeit virtually. The potential
negative effects are compounded by the
fact that so many children are playing
these games alone. The point was made
during the evidence sessions that, while
most parents are unlikely to let their child
watch an 18-rated film, their attitude
to age-inappropriate games is more
lenient, perhaps due to their own lack of
understanding of the games’ themes and
content.
The link between violent content and
aggression has been cited in several
studies 234 and although it is overly
simplistic to make a direct link between
cause and effect, Byron concluded it is
widely accepted that exposure to content
that children are either emotionally or
cognitively not mature enough for can
have a potentially negative impact. 235
This is backed up by children themselves:
in a recent Ofcom survey, two-thirds
of 12–15-year-olds said they believed
that violence in games had more of an
impact on behaviour than violence on TV
or in films. 236
Several studies in the past have suggested
that violent content can impact behaviour
233 Martinez and Manolovitz (2009)
234 Anderson and Dill (2000); Freedman (2002);
Deselms and Altman (2003)
235 Byron (2008)
236 Ofcom (2008)
increasing aggression in children and young
people. The same learning processes that
underlie these effects are also likely to
work with sexualised content affecting
sex-role beliefs, emotions and behaviour. 237
Mobile devices
The proliferation of media and the
increased accessibility of all kinds of
content is nowhere better illustrated
than by the growth in the mobile phone
market. By the age of nine, 52 per cent
of British children have a phone; by the
age of 15, that figure has risen to 95 per
cent. 238 Mobile phones allow young people
easy access to all kinds of online content,
regardless of whether or not it is age
appropriate.
The mobile porn industry
The global mobile porn industry
is currently worth an estimated
$2 billion. 239 Figures show that, in 2007,
mobile phones were the UK’s biggest
distributor of pornography. 240 Globally,
telecoms companies made $1.7 billion
from ‘adult content’. Evidence suggests
that a high proportion of queries
made via mobile phone relate to
241, 242
adult content.
239240241242
The use of mobile phones as a tool for
bullying, controlling or monitoring a datingpartner
has attracted considerable media
attention recently, and was frequently
raised during the evidence sessions held
as part of this review. 243 Mobile phones
are also being used for so-called ‘sexting’
237 Dill and Thill (2007)
238 Ofcom (2008)
239 Juniper Research, cited in Daw and Cabb (2009)
240 Juniper Research, cited in Daw and Cabb (2009)
241 Kamvar and Baluja (2006)
242 Church and Smyth et al. (2007)
243 Evidence Hearing Sessions for the Review
(May 2009 – July 2010)