spot on, thanks.

Sex sells. Money is god.
Profitability is sacrosanct. Freedom in the marketplace is best.
Freedom to pervert in the name of profits.
The corporation is king, the people its serfs.
Children are just another market, to be bought and sold and anything else that makes the company money.
Advertising uses psychology against vulnerable and defenseless children and is tantamount to abuse.

How to stop it? Get rid of what drives it. Capitalism.

Something has happened to capitalism over the past 30 years, or maybe it has just morphed into the ugliest extremes. We have always lived under a capitalist system and you could always rely on the integrity of corporations and businesses to protect the interests of children for the most part.

It is something more than just capitalism. The capitalist system certainly sucks up and responds to changes in the market place in the pursuit of the dollar, but what other changes in society have essentially made it easier to push the limits in regards to sexualisation of children?

The tendency to corporatise every facet of our lives is increasing and pervades all areas of our life. The economy used to be just one part of the social order, now it is the order and we are under the illusion that it has to control every facet of our lives no matter the consequences.

Most people seem to be asleep at the wheel but thankfully it seems that times might be a'changin' and a few have woken up to the problems inherent in a totally free market.

Thanks Emma. A sickening phenomenon.

Every other species on the planet nurtures its offspring. We, as a society, exploit ours. One of the many reasons we have little future if we don't change. Just a larger perspective, and still recognising that it's really about love.

Regarding comments about "capitalism", there is no single version of capitalism, so it's not very useful just to toss the name out without being more specific. We could have a market-based system that did not exploit children, people, or the environment. We are free to either ban exploitation of children or make it highly unprofitable. The latter might seem distasteful but it would remove the predators from the marginal areas that are hard to regulate. How to do it? Not easy, but we could find creative ways if we had the will.

Anyway, good to see a subject aired that should be a national and global shame, but that passes by hardly noticed in our jaded, manipulated society.

To Emma and all those who think that all facets of life should have a legislative straight jacket;

The point of government and legislation / regulations is not pander to small vocal minorities and implement labyrinthian legislation that is costly to police, (more so for business to implement), of which the benefits are tenuous and the negative impacts on freedom of expression are enormous, and the cost to the consumer (who inevitably pays for it) is considerable.

The sexualisation of children in adverts has so many facets and is so much a matter of perception, that any regulations would be very difficult to define and the policing of which would be extremely subjective and inconsistent.

Even the author has no idea as to the form any possible legislation would take and resorts to the pathetic call for the government to do "something".

Emma rush:

Apart from "not about banning little girls from putting on mummy’s lipstick or playing with Barbies" what do you really want?

I read this article and I don't find anywhere in it the argument that "all facets of life should have a legislative straight jacket". All facets of life of course are bounded by law, and markets only work at all because they exist within a framework of law (property rights, whether individual or communal, are established and protected by law, for example). Markets are not natural phenomena. But to say that Emma wants to put a "straight jacket" (sic) on all facets of life is an invention. Why not read what she says, instead of setting up a complete fabrication and then mocking it?
Helen

Good article Emma- what annoys me is the solution is ridiculously easy and practically fits under existing regulations:

As we already have panels evaluate content in both television shows and commercials for sexual or mature content and restrict them to certain times of the day- we simply rewrite that criteria slightly for these analyzers to work on.

If the companies selling this rubbish loose some profits- too bad, they deserve it.

Pre-schoolers Jack and Jill were playing and Jack whispers to Jill, "Mum found a used condom on the patio this morning".
Jill looks a bit embarrassed, fiddles for a moment then asks, "What's a patio?"

Perhaps it's the Wiggles Emma. I mean "hot potato" is halfway to "hot mama" - made worse by the violent thumping of cute little pudgy fists to train them for the Corporatisation of the "cell-phone-video-playground-fight-industry".

Their video, "Dr. Knicker Bocker": perverse sexualised allusions to underwear with the connotation of nakedness - somewhere in there, I bet. Nekkid children!? Oh no!

And, of course, er... bockers. Dunno what they are, but this Corporate Bockerism of Children must stop. And just what do we "wiggle"? Well! I'm not even going there. Such Corporo-sexuo-music-pedophilia must also stop.

It's a Gateway-Wiggle to Night Club bashings and Big Day Out drug taking, ACDC noise, wild sex and videoed violence. Oh! Tattoos also - one of those Wigglers has tattoos. Quick - cover thy children in loin cloth and take thee to Church!

What next Emma? Attachment Parenting until post puberty. Have a lentil and a lie down on your organic fibered mat under your energy Pyramid.

The real threat here is the constant thrust from the religious right and the bloody right to control community deportment. Referencing USA research is the tell-tale Christo-morality obsessed xenocentrism one expects from our moral police in their desperate bid to force panic onto a public already reeling under "art=porn", "independence=deviance", "leisure=violence".

Why reinvent the wheel Emma? - "Porn's Incredible Powers".
http://libertus.net/censor/rdocs/candle3.html#incredible

Shown to be gross moral panic.

Rush is immersed in the narrow singularity of this "focus group" mentality, and we read naught but the hyping of a baseless fear that began with "stranger danger", and is culminating by attacking the very lifestyle children were forced into initially.

Keep 'em home and safe. Oh no! They play computer games that aren't safe. Keep em away from computer games. Oh my, they THINK stuff.

Perfect! Convince Aussies they must control all thought AND behaviour and the cycle is complete.

Ban Children. It's our only hope.

isabelberners

I have read Emma's posts, and yours, Barbara's, Melinda's and those of the pro censorship movement, and am more than aware of the conservative agenda.

If freedom of expresson was compared to a salami, the conservatives are slowly slicing away way beyond what what the law requires, and deep into the area of sanitizing all thought.

These slices include the "the right not to be offended". You can offend straight white males, but not women, children, minorities, etc. People are being stood down for not being politically correct.

Australia already has one of the most repressive censorship regimes in the western world, and is racing far into the lead.

To quote Mel Brookes acting as Hitler,
"why does everyone hate me? All I want is peace, peace, peace.
A little piece of Poland, a little piece of France ......"

Another major consideration to consider, I just realized, is trying to explain to certain morons who think this is some kind of "Christian" style "oh no kids can't know about sex" issue, that it's actually a different issue more along the lines of selling and promoting a gratifying premature-sex, drugs, peer-pressure culture etc to children, and find was to differentiate the issues and explain it to the audiences who don't get it.

Well said Hazza.

There are many atheists out there who are concerned about the growing sexualisation of children. Having had daughters I along with many friends, found it almost an uphill battle, although generally both parents and teens survived the ride relatively unscathed. A close friend with a boy and a girl worries about not only the effects on her daughter but on her son, the pressures on boys are just as great to buy into the raunch culture.

The influence of the media is stronger than people realise, coupled with peer pressure, especially during the teenage years. For those that think media has no effect just ask a any company if the use of marketing and media is worth the millions of dollars spent on it each year.

Parents above all are to blame for the sexualisation of children. Whether it allowing your kids to watch the spew music clips the ABC insist on showing or to present your 12 year old girl to pose for sick artist, parents are responsible for their children. So many mums either naively or in order to be popular allow their kids to wear the latest sleaze gear. Unfortunately many of the idols that mums allow the kids to copy are nothing more than whores with no shame. Look at how many young girls look up to the likes of Britney or Madonna or Pink. We are doing no more than reaping what we have sown by refusing to accept any decent standards in society. Instead the small minority of 'liberals' or degenerates have been allowed to influence the media and society at large. Freedom freedom is the mantra of the civil libertarians even if thye end result is bondage, bondage when poor young girls are not allowed to grow up as children anymore.

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