Think of the CHILDREN!

My last post dealt with the way that sex in our society is something kept very much under wraps, dusted under the carpet and kept out of the conversation of everyday life as much as possible. This post however could be said to be completely debunking every point I made in the last one, for today I will be considering the issue of the increasing use & prevalence of sex, sexuality and sexual connotations in society today.

The main people voicing a strong opinion against this trend are, of course, the kind of militant parents who started a war in the South Park movie (good film, see it if you can). They argue that modern media and marketing strategies place a lot of emphasis on the use of sex symbols and sexual connotations, and that these strategies are, more worryingly, being aimed at a steadily younger audience. Young girls in particular are often quoted as being aggressively targeted by clothing companies from as young as 8, companies trying to buy them into the whole ‘looks and clothes are the most important thing ever’ mentality in order to turn them into fashion-obsessed consumers as early as possible.

There’s certainly a lot of evidence to support their theory as to the increased prevalence of sexual symbolism in today’s culture. Sport may be a good place to look for examples- modern female sports stars are nowadays judged mainly by the way they look, and in many sports where men and women have roughly equal exposure (such as tennis) female competitors often have larger sponsorship deals. Is this because they are better at persuading people that sports equipment is awesome? No, it’s because they are capable of advertising perfume by wearing hardly any clothes and exploiting their sex appeal (think Maria Sharapova, whose game suffered heavily in the few years after she won Wimbledon as she turned into more of a model than a tennis player). And then what about tabloid newspapers and their page 3 hooks for readers, ‘lads mags’ that now have enough status to be invited as judges for the nomination of Sports Personality of The Year (not the BBC’s proudest moment), and clothes companies that now market ‘sexy high heels’ at under 10s?

So… where can this be traced back to? Well, if we, as the pressure groups tend to, blame everything on businesses and clothing companies, their reasoning is actually very simple. Firstly, to consider the issue of children being targeted in one way or another, it’s a well recognised fact that kids love to appear grown-up. They get fussy about their ages (“I’m not 10, I’m 10 and a half!”), copy their parents’ habits and what they see on TV, hate not being able to do stuff on account of age or size and might even try on Mummy and Daddy’s clothes when they’re a bit younger. A child’s ultimate fantasy (and probably one shared by a few adults as well) is to live with all the opportunity and ability of an adult, and without any of the responsibility. For them, therefore, all this sexually-related material that permeates their life is not about sex (which they probably don’t understand properly if at all), but about adulthood, and this just screams ‘awesome’ directly at them. We must also remember that it’s not just the kids who’re at it either; parents love it when their children appear ‘grown-up’ and mature because it makes them seem special, a cut above their peers, subtly suggesting to parents that not only are their kids better than everyone else’s, but that they themselves are better parents. Therefore, whilst some parents might be appalled at the sight of a 9 year old in heels and a miniskirt, others might think of her as quite the young woman, and perhaps even be jealous of the maturity that child seems to have compared to theirs.

And then we must consider a fact that countless bits of market research has shown- sex appeal sells stuff. Even if children don’t get the symbolism, their parents do, and whether the stuff they’re buying is for them or their kids, a bright, smiling, good-looking woman is more likely to encourage them to buy something than an advert featuring a dour looking bloke showing no interest whatsoever. This is especially true when we consider fields such as scent, beauty products and fashionable clothing, all of which are selling products actively designed to make you seem more attractive and, according to Freud at least, get you more sex. Even if you don’t make that connection consciously, there’s no doubt that your subconscious mind picks up on the connection, and that’s before we even consider how totally blatant use of sex, such as in tabloid page 3 columns, acts as a straight marketing hook to sell things. Put simply, sex appeal is an undeniably successful marketing strategy that makes perfect sense, from a purely fiscal point of view, to use.

To finish off, I would like to offer just a snippet of a history lesson. The 1920s were a great time for the USA, producing an economic boom thanks to the likes of Henry Ford,  massive growths in cultural areas such as major league sport, and reinventing social mobility. For the first time, women had a degree of social freedom, particularly among those known as ‘flappers’, who would cut their hair short, drink and smoke in direct and deliberate contravention of the classical female norm. The invention of the car gave young people freedom from their parents and invented the date for the first time, and in jazz music the young of the Roaring Twenties had their own music and social scene as well. This lead, among other things, to a huge increase in sexual freedom among the young, and the media of the time reflected this. This was especially true in the cinema, a relatively new phenomenon, which quickly developed the first sex symbols in the likes of Rudolf Valentino and Clara Bow, prompting advertising and marketing of the time to begin exploiting sex appeal as a means to sell their products. Understandably, the older generation went into uproar over this cultural revolution, but it didn’t make a scrap of difference, and a fresh wave of American culture swept across the world.

Sound familiar? It should do- it’s the same thing people are complaining about now, and people have complained in the same way about the changes in every successive generation, be it teenagers in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, or metal in the 70s. Culture changes, and that’s just a fact of life. There’s nothing wrong with being angry about it, but we must remember that society has survived each new wave of culture and come through each none the worse for wear. If you want to uphold society, then forming a pressure group for each successive thing that offends you probably isn’t the bet way to weather the storm. You’ll have far better results just sticking to what you do like, upholding the values you think are important, and trying to pass those off to your children. It’ll be a lot less painful.

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Well, last week’s solution didn’t work…

As I did last weekend, I am feeling like a sad, depressed, lonely bugger for no identifiable reason. Last week this lead to the disjointed and distinctly odd post on the subject of death, murder and assorted weird things, and as a method of letting out emotion it failed truly spectacularly. So today, I thought I might as well instead talk about depression.
I am not, incidentally, going to talk about this in a strict medical sense- I am neither qualified nor able to do so. But just-being-bloody-depressed-and-unhappy-half-the-time is something I have had to cope with for a large proportion of my life, and it is not something I have found to be well understood or, especially, appreciated.
Depression can arise from a wide variety of causes. For some people it’s  getting too philosophical and deciding there is no actual point to life, for others it’s an alternative to anger with the way their life is working out, and for some it’s just loneliness and boredom. The latter is actually an especially interesting scenario- people are generally only depressed when their mind is not occupied. A case in point is Robbie Williams, who for years suffered terribly with offstage depression whilst onstage having the time of his life. One thing, however, crops up when the matter is given thought- depression does not happen to anyone. Some people will never have a reason to, some will always be surrounded by friends, some will spend their entire lives kept too busy to really get depressed, but many simply don’t have the personality for it. Depressives tend to be people who think a lot- they may not necessarily be intelligent, but they will almost certainly be introverted to an extent and self-reflect a lot. The trouble is, bouncing ideas off yourself is not the same as bouncing them off friends, and it is unhealthy for a normal human brain.
The big problem with this is that the kind of people who get depressed are, therefore, those least likely to seek help. If you are an introverted person, you may have an unimpressive social life, perhaps be bad in the company of others or had some embarrassing rejections, and you are often unlikely to feel that opening up is going to help you. Plus… there is something delightfully selfish in wallowing in your own misery. It feels good. While everyone passes by and doesn’t help you, you feel better than them, which for a depressive is often a rare and satisfying feeling (Many depressives have major self-esteem issues; the irony is that these are often completely unfounded, and often caused by obsessive perfectionism or overambitiousness). The natural instinct of a depressive is to revert to their lifelong tactic and turn in on themselves, and it can take a seriously analytical and critical mind to realise that this is what is causing all the mental damage. Some people will never get out of this cycle, and will go to their grave with the same depressed tendencies that have dogged them all their lives, never telling a soul. These people are few- after an extended period of time, only the strongest-willed of depressives will not have thought of suicide, and it’s an option far too many have taken. Herein lies the issue- depressives hide from the rest of the world to prevent it from helping them, but often refuse to help themselves.
I must interrupt the flow here- if anyone who ever ends up reading this suffers from depression, make a beeline for your nearest counsellor. This can feel incredibly defeatist, like you’re giving up on yourself, but some things cannot be handled on your own. Counselling does not mean you are some psycho with mental issues, and counsellors are not psychoanalysts or quacks. Think of a counsellor as a professional friend- someone who you can talk about stuff to with no fear that it’s going to get spread, and who knows the best way to help you. If you really can’t persuade yourself that you should be getting counselling, or just want another tactic, throw yourself into your social life. Focus on a group of mates you’re sure you can trust (disloyal friends are killers to your self-esteem (and possibly wallet), as well as being amoral scum), and focus all of your efforts into enjoyment. Buy the first round, have an extra beer or two, be as wild as your inhibitions will let you. It may not work, but it’s worth a try, and if you manage to get yourself a stable social circle then the fight is as good as won.
However, there is one almost sure-fire way to help a depressive, and that is to break  their idea that introspection is a good tactic- to show them that the world is, actually, a good place full of good people. This not uncommonly happens by accident- the stressed-out worker with entering a spiral of depression receiving a rise and getting back on top of his rent. Many new parents may find coping with a new baby incredibly hard, and start getting depressed after the third night in a row that their little bundle of joy has woken up at 1am screaming their eyes out, and for them the release may come when such episodes stop becoming a nightly occurrence- circumstance too can be a saviour. But for many circumstances may not simply fall their way again, and this is where other people come in. I can speak from experience when I say that nothing cheers up a depressive more than somebody coming up to ask them what’s wrong, and persisting past the initial mumbled ‘Nothing’ or ‘I’m fine’ (although be warned anyone who tries this- make sure you know when to back off, because people who happened to just be staring vacantly that day may not take kindly to you asking deep questions about their mental fragility).  Somebody who genuinely wants to hear your problems and help you out is manna from heaven for a depressive, and there is also something deeply satisfying about knowing you’ve helped somebody else out. Depressives can sometimes be hard people to like- some have a tendency to be clingy while others demonstrate that there is clearly a reason they were out of the social loop. But if treated properly and pointed in the right direction, they are generally as nice enough people as the rest of us.
A little while ago, I heard a story about a schoolboy that I thought I could leave you with. He missed the bus home after school and, since he didn’t live too far away, decided to walk home. On the way back he met a guy in his year who was walking the same way- he didn’t know him well, only really as a face and name (I believe he was new to the school), but he seemed like an OK guy. They got talking, in the way schoolboys do, and spent most of the way back talking about football. It was a Friday, and as they parted the first boy asked his new mate if he wanted to come for a kickabout in the park over the weekend- he’d already arranged it with a few of his mates, and thought they could use an extra player to make up the numbers. The guy agreed, they parted, and met the next day at the football.
About a year later, the two having become pretty close friends, they got to talking about the day they first met. The second boy said that, for all the time he had been going to that school, that was the first time he’d had anyone to talk to on the way home. He also said that in his schoolbag that day had been a length of rope and, for but a missed bus and a few friendly words, he would have hung himself that evening.