Always too much, never enough | Hypersexualization and the blurring of social roles

In association with the professor of sociology at Concordia University Jean-Philippe Warren, Press proposes the dossier: Always too much and never enough – how we entered an era of excess. Fourth text in a series of six.

Richard Poulin
Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa

We talk a lot about hypersexualization today. But what exactly do we mean by such a word?

One could roughly define hypersexualization as the exaggeration of the characteristics of femininity and masculinity, as evidenced by the evolution of the female characters of Walt Disney. Comparing the Little Mermaid, Princess Jasmine (Aladdin) and Pocahontas with Snow White and Cinderella, there is a gendered evolution (clothing, body, attitudes) of female characters. This is also the case for male characters: 30 years ago, superhero figures like Batman were certainly muscular, but that remained within the standards of the human body. This is no longer the case.

This first definition is insufficient. It is also necessary to take into account the growing place occupied by sexuality in the public space and its potential consequences. This phenomenon concerns young people in three areas: the use of their sexualized image in the media, in particular in advertising, the sale of goods and services aimed at young people who use the springs of adult sexuality and the exposure of children to pornographic images.

However, it is even more complex than that. Indeed, hypersexualization also refers to the notion of precocious sexualization, which is defined by the fact that young girls are socially pushed to adopt the attitudes and behaviors of sexy little women and boys, those of machos. In Quebec, there is an alarming rejuvenation of the age of sexual assailants.

This precocious sexualization is parallel while being closely combined with a more general phenomenon, that of a society itself hypersexualized, where the female body is objectified and fragmented and where the value of women is too often reduced to their physical attributes and their capacity to please and seduce. That also of a society of “extimacy”, that is to say of overexposed intimacy in the public sphere, which is amplified by social networks. Likewise, that of a society focused on sexual performance too often modeled on pornographic standards.

A phenomenon that particularly affects women

The 1990s not only saw a global explosion of the sex industries (prostitution, pornography, human trafficking and sex tourism), but also made women’s bodies a temple of the market, the object of transactions and a commercial medium. .

The “liberating” injunction is henceforth individualized and no longer collective. It induces the obligation of a heavy sexualized female maintenance of the body, which has become very expensive: dietetics, cosmetics, clothing exhibition, fitness center, plastic surgery, tattooing, etc. Sales of female lingerie have grown by 10% per year since the 1980s.

The rise of plastic surgery is phenomenal. The obligatory juvenility of the female body infantilizes it: nymphoplasty (“aesthetic” operation of the labia minora), tightening of the vaginal walls, total depilation of pubic hair, etc. At the same time, the upper body must be even more feminine than ever thanks to breast implants, which represents an extremely important market. In fact, the breast is one of the most operated parts of the female body.

With these operations, there is not only an amplification of this part of the body, there is also an amplification of the awareness of the body, of its existence. And this body is doomed to sexuality.

The normative imperatives of beauty, which weigh heavily on women and girls, require work that is constantly renewed. A lot of time is devoted to it. The absolute of thinness and a flat stomach – keeping the figure at all costs – plunges teenage girls into anorexia and bulimia. Added to this are the high breast and full mouth. The hair is long, the hairs are no more. To stay in the game, teenage girls need to develop an anxious listening to their bodies. To feel good about themselves, they must transform it, adorn it, make it attractive (sex appeal) in the eyes of others.

Women’s magazines convey a message about sexuality that is far from subtle. It is, in essence, this: everyone – except you! – has a fascinating and varied sex life. Adopt other sex positions, learn to love the sex acts seen in pornography, have fun with sex gadgets and you will experience sexual fulfillment.

A blurring of social roles

The hypersexualized society never ceases to praise the youth. To be beautiful, a woman, especially, must be young. Women-children and the infantilization of women: a woman who wishes to remain beautiful must imperatively remain young.

But, as a young woman cannot assert herself outside of sexuality, we are also witnessing, in the other direction, the adultification of girls. The child-woman syndrome responds to that of child-women …

These phenomena linked to hypersexualization are not without blurring the social roles. Gradually, the boundaries between groups are blurring and we see more and more children behaving like adolescents and adolescents who seek to behave like adults. Not to mention the number of adults (“adulescents”) who swim in the midst of a teenage crisis …

To read tomorrow: “What will you do if we replace you with a robot?” “