The Lolita Effect

The media sexualisation of young girls and what we can do about it.
M. Gigi Durham

"Increasingly, very young girls are becoming involved in a sphere of fashion, images and activities that encourage them to flirt with a decidedly grown-up eroticism and sexuality" p. 21

"Perhaps one reason for our fascination with the sexy little girl is her tricky double role in contemporary society - she is simultaneously a symbol of female empowerment and the embodiment of a chauvinistic 'beauty myth'. She invokes the specter of pedophilia while kindling the prospect of potent female sexuality" p. 24

"The Lolitas that populate our mediascapes are fabrications. They serve market needs and profit motives, and they are powerfully alluring, especially to the young girls whose vulnerability they exploit. They are framed in a clever rhetoric of empowerment and choice." p. 27

This is one example of the sexualisation of children within fashion shoots. This shoot was shot by Sharif Hamzar, styled by Carine Roitfeld and published in the December 2010 edition of French Vogue.

www.runway2reality.com/2011/01/vogue-paris-cadeaux.html

I find the first photo particularly interesting after looking at the hollywood stars of the 1920s and 30s.

Jean Harlow
http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=292