Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

There’s sex and there's love - but not always together

By Barbara Biggs - posted Monday, 13 November 2006


Big players in the music and fashion industries, run by men letting their fantasies rip, are presenting images of even pre-pubescent girls behaving like sexually experienced and aware women. And through these images, young girls are being manipulated into thinking that playing up to male fantasies is what they themselves really want and how they express themselves.

Do we really think that the girls in the children’s clothing catalogues or clips, would really, off their own bat, pout and seduce the cameras? These are children who, presumably, have never even kissed, let alone had sex.

I believe sexually provocative images of children under the age of consent, should be banned. Without such legislative controls the children being used in these ways are becoming ever younger.

Advertisement

Are you comfortable about primary school girls wearing G-strings and pubescent girls feeling like they have to sexually please boys to be cool?

I’m not.

And I’m no conservative moraliser.

What I am is a woman with a lived experience of having swallowed a grown man’s fantasy about what it was to be an attractive adult. I believed that to be lovable, I had to sexually please men. I was told this from the age of 14.

I lived that out, having indiscriminate and therefore bad and unsatisfying sex for a couple of decades. It took a couple of decades to work out how to stop shoving my real feelings about it under the carpet and discovered what it was I really wanted from intimacy.

This, surprise, surprise, was a loving relationship, with someone who respected, honoured and valued me. It took another decade to work out how to break my patterns and discover that the sex in this situation is a knock out.

Advertisement

You don’t need to wear a burkha to find that. But touting your sexuality to passers by isn’t the most sensible way of going about achieving it either.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. All

First published in the Herald Sun on November 8, 2006.



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

34 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Barbara Biggs is a former journalist and author of a two-part autobiography, In Moral Danger and The Road Home, launched in May 2004 by Peter Hollingworth and Chat Room in 2006. Her latest book is Sex and Money: How to Get More. Barbara is convenor of the National Council for Children Post-Separation, www.nccps.org.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Barbara Biggs

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Barbara Biggs
Article Tools
Comment 34 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy