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Teen Tramp Trend Is Media Myth

Girls lust after saucy look, but not so hot for sex

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 14, 2008 4:59 AM CDT

(Newser) – High-profile pregnant teens like Bristol Palin and Jamie-Lynn Spears paint a picture of teenage girls run amok with lust, writes Belinda Luscombe in Time. But while “girls seem to have moved from Easy-Bake to easy virtue” in the last generation, Luscombe argues that the teens are often more interested in trying on the sexy rather than in having the sex implied in the pop culture images that bombard them.

But the media’s sexualization of young girls does have its dangers, Luscombe cautions. Studies show that kids who consume lots of sex-heavy media are more than twice as likely than their peers to have sex by age 16. And the sexing up of tweens poses troublesome questions about the adults driving the media trend, with child-pornography arrests “skyrocketing” in the past decade, Luscombe notes.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (3)]

Miley Cyrus, star of The Disney Channel's series "Hannah Montana." (AP Photo)

The cast of 'Gossip Girl' accepts the Choice TV Drama award at the Teen Choice Awards in Universal City, Calif. (AP Photo)

Hayden Panettiere on the cover of Teen Vogue. (AP Photo)

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Nine-year-old girls do not experience dressing up in a sexy way as a sexy thing. They're just wearing clothes and thinking it's cool to look older. - child psychologist Deborah Tolman

Maybe we believe so readily in notions like a plague of teen sex because they titillate us, the grownups. - Belinda Luscombe

It's mostly not teens who indulge in the voyeuristic obsession with starlets or who use young people to sell products or win votes. It's all of us. - Belinda Luscombe

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Teen Tramp Trend Is Media Myth