It would be naïve to believe that the objectification of girls and the exposure of young people to damaging images does not exist. Today’s teenagers have all seen porn and it has left an impact. We have all been objectified, and we have all been made to feel insecure about our bodies. It isn’t as simple as blaming the teenagers either. It isn’t our fault; if we were to point the metaphorical finger at anyone it would be society.
The increased availability of porn; the glamorisation of unhealthy relationships in popular young adult novels and music, and the undiscussed issue of boys’ self-esteem are all reasons for the twisted views teenagers are beginning to have on relationships.
Society must correct itself and work to protect its children from developing poisonous relationships and suffering from low self-esteem. Only five to ten years ago, if someone wanted porn they would have to face going to the late-night news-vendor to buy magazines; now, real porn is available at any time of any day at the push of a button.
Eleven year old boys who eagerly type ‘boobies’ into Google, five years later need women, crying, bound, on their knees being penetrated multiple times to excite them. This is caused by the neurotransmitters in the brain reinforcing behaviour that gives pleasure, in this case masturbation using porn. To continue receiving the pleasure you need to keep watching the porn. The body, however, builds tolerance.
Maintaining pleasure means discovering more and more extreme acts through porn. Porn is the new sex education for boys who live with these mental images of women; understanding that women exist for their sexual gratification. The practices seen is porn are, generally, not safe or correct either. This means that wrong practice of BDSM is carried out which can be highly dangerous for the parties involved unless done properly.
Porn has also desensitised minds to violent abusive sex. All women know that their male friends and boyfriends both watch porn. The unrealistic pressure this places on girls is catastrophic. Girls know how pornstars look. They have desirable figures in comparison to your slightly under developed bony one. And they never say no. Yes, a girl could ignore this but when their friends are getting male attention, something clicks.
I have been called prudish and a bitch for not getting a boy off. I was thirteen. Groups of boys looking at sexual images of women in front of female friends have become normal. I have witnessed people dismissing consent as ‘non-romantic’. Porn has taught impressionable boys that sex is a birthright and that their pleasure always comes first. It has taught boys that the only way to be masculine is to be violent towards partners, and always, always be in charge. These warped views of sexual relationships are proof of the damage society is doing to teenagers’ attitudes to relationships. The industry is founded on money making with little concern for the actors or the effects on those who view it. Porn is ubiquitous; we cannot get rid of it. Some of its impacts can be lessened, however.
The education of maturing children on the effects of porn and the wrong images it reinforces would de-glamorise it and decrease the consumption. Filters and ratings on porn would also make it more difficult for people who could be easily influenced by the images to watch it. Next are the relationships teenagers are exposed to through music, novels and films. Independent thinking is not endorsed, and early signs of abuse are what teenagers are told to desire. Take two popular examples: Lana Del Rey lyrics and worldwide best seller and film franchise, Twilight. Lana Del Rey perpetuates the damsel in distress image.
She claims her style heralds from Lolita. An educated person knows this novel is not about a woman with an attraction to older men but an older man abusing a young girl. As of September 2014 she has sold more than seven million albums and twelve million singles. Many idolise her. The title track of her second album ‘Ultraviolence’ describes being abused by her lover: ‘He hit me and it felt like a kiss’. These desperate, abusive lyrics are being fed to impressionable people’s minds and glamorised by a celebrity.
The bestselling Twilight novels and film franchise endorses a powerful partner that is highly controlling with significant jealousy problems. Stephanie Meyer champions the stereotypical gender roles and unrealistic expectations. My role model, Lorde, summarises my views of these lyrics and skewed relationships; ‘This sort of shirt-tugging, desperate ‘don’t leave me’ stuff, that’s not a good thing for young girls, even young people, to hear”. Continuing the same theme is the suppression of girls as sexual beings and intellectual people. Society has taught girls to make themselves smaller and not to have too much success so that you don’t threaten men. Society is encouraging a culture where girls regard others as competition, not for accomplishments, but for the attention of men. An example of this is Meghan Trainor’s number one single, ‘All About That Bass’.
The song promotes the idea that girls should love their curves because it attracts men and makes a girl better: ‘skinny bitches’ are not as good women because they aren’t curvy. This again encourages the idea that females exist for male gratification and self-worth is proven by the amount of sexual attention a girl receives. These views are established in young women and carried with them throughout their lives.
Girls must be educated to see themselves as more than competition for men and to measure themselves by their intrinsic worth, not the sexual attention they receive. On TV female characters must be portrayed as multidimensional and self-affirming; holding down careers, builds their own relationships and self-determining all the way. What about the boys? Girls are taught their boyfriend should be built like Adonis, be clever, possessive, jealous, obsessively polite and, putting it bluntly, have a large penis.
Society has given teenagers expectations of their partner and what the relationship should resemble. Some of the characteristics that Edward Cullen possesses are good qualities to which boys should aspire. His respect for Bella’s body and his maturity in taking their relationship seriously should be something that both partners in a relationship should strive towards. Some characteristics, however, that are portrayed as ‘desirable’ are not possible. To be tall, physically fit, and well-endowed simultaneously is impossible for all very difficult; yet expectation for teenage boys to be these things exists.
A boy’s natural genetic make-up has now become something he must all too often strive to defy. The inevitable struggle to change can have similar effects on boys’ self-esteem as it does on girls. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation proves that low self-esteem in young boys can result in low income and difficulty finding employment during early adulthood. Low self-esteem is a factor in the creation of teenage pregnancy, becoming easy targets for bullies, depression and other mental health problems including attempted and actual suicide. Until recently there has been more publicity about low self-esteem in young girls. More must be done to raise awareness of the effect of society on their male counterparts.
Girls must be taught not to expect perfection: it doesn’t exist in themselves or their boyfriends. If society allows these damaging, twisted expectations to continue, generations of your family will be people that you cannot understand. Instead society must re-recognise, model and teach the real value of each human being and the benefit of living with respect for each other’s bodies, minds, and souls.
