Beyond Concern: The implications of sexualization for the study of sex, the media and culture

This project examines the widespread interest in 'sexualization' in the media, popular books, government policies and academic research.

Sexualization is often seen as indicating a problematic use of media and popular culture by young people and associated with permissive sex practices. Academics have noted that sex is more visible in culture than in the past, that there appears to have been a 'pornographication' of mainstream culture, and that pornography is now more diverse and much more accessible than in the past. It has been argued that all these developments can be understood as part of the development of a 'striptease culture' in which private life, intimacy, commerce and media are no longer understood or experienced as separate as they may have been in the past.

In the last few years, sexualization has become a subject of real fascination - in the UK there have been no less than three major reports in the last two years - and it has become the focus of many campaigning groups who object to pornography and 'porn culture'. Sexualization is also increasingly a theme in academic work across a range of academic disciplines including law, sociology, psychology, media and cultural studies.

This project seeks to investigate the phenomenon of sexualization and the concerns it has raised in more detail. It examines what the sexualized imagery found in contemporary art, pornography, 'shock' imagery, and other 'extreme' representations have in common. It considers how concern has increasingly focused on young people's use of technology. It explores the ways that ideas about gender, sex and age-appropriate behaviour are changing, and how these are related to the development of a range of technologies and to the changing nature of society in the twenty first century.

Debates about sexualization are of enormous public interest, the regular subject of media coverage, and the focus of many policy reports, in the US (APA 2007) and Australia (Australian Senate 2008), and in the UK where there has been a Home Office Report (Papadopoulos, 2010), a Scottish Parliament Report (2009), and an independent Review (Bailey, 2011). Sexualization is assumed to be a matter of urgent and widespread public concern and has clear implications for those who work in the media and in cultural production more generally, as well as in the related areas of policy and regulation; for professionals who work in sexual health and sex education, and, as sexual mores shift and new legislation aimed at sexual practices and representations emerges, for those who work in the legal profession. As media literacy and sex education are increasingly seen as integral to contemporary citizenship, sexualization is also of increasing importance for the public in general, particularly for parents and young people.

I am already involved in working with groups beyond academia; especially in health, education and the law. Some of my recent work is explicitly focused on developing innovative research around young people's sexual health in a context where the media are becoming more central to their knowledge about sex. I have spent a number of years developing links between academics and health, education and youth workers. My project, 'Investigating young people's sexual cultures' funded by the British Academy, focused on a series of discussions in this area to pinpoint the most productive areas for collaboration between these groups. A symposium in 2010 and a special issue of Sex Education journal (2011) pursued this topic in more detail. In a current project, funded by JISC, I am the Principal Investigator on 'Codex', which involves the building of a wiki resource on sexual health issues for educators working with young people; drawing together academics, FE college lecturers and sexual health practitioners. As part of the Onscenity Research Network I am organizing events aimed at sexual health practitioners and lawyers, and presenting research on sexualization to the Family Planning Association (FPA) and the College of Sex and Relationship Therapists (COSRT). I meet regularly as part of small group of academics from Cultural Studies, Psychology and Health with particular interests in knowledge transfer. Our current projects involve the production of a set of information sheets on a range of topics concerned with sex, media and technology, and on guidelines for media professionals reporting on these issues. We are also planning a book for the general public on these issues.

My work during this period of award will enable me to develop this aspect of disseminating research on sexualization more thoroughly. I will focus on developing the work I have started in the Codex project for educators, using my work to inform a series of posts on the wiki.

I will also draw on the project to disseminate research on sexualization for journalists and media professionals, and to a more general audience. I will produce a set of guidelines for media reporting in this area. I will also write a 10 page report summarizing my findings. These will be circulated on the sexual health lists I belong to, as well as to journalists who regularly cover these issues in the media. Finally, I will write two 'Comment is Free' articles for the Guardian newspaper, based on my findings.

The forms I have chosen - wiki posts for educators, reporting guidelines for media professionals, a short report for sexual health professionals and journalists, and news articles for the general public, have been chosen as the most appropriate for disseminating the research beyond academia.