Sex in music videos

Here's a Report on growing sexualisation of young people also suggests public billboards should be vetted for offensive images

Broadcasters should not be allowed to air music videos that feature sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics before the 9pm watershed, according to a Home Office review published today.
The report on the growing sexualisation of young people also suggests local authorities should vet public billboard advertising to ensure images and messages are not offensive on gender grounds.

The research, carried out by London Metropolitan University psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, argues that the growing prevalence of sexualised images in magazines, television, mobile phones and computer games is having a damaging effect on children and young people.

The report also calls for "lads' mags" to be confined to newsagents' top shelves and only sold to over-15s, as well as a ratings system on magazine and advertising photographs showing the extent to which they have been airbrushed or digitally altered.

The report in particular criticises lyrics by N-Dubz and 50 Cent for their tendency to sexualise women or refer to them in a derogatory manner, and singles out the rap artist Nelly for a video showing him swiping a credit card through a young woman's buttocks. But it adds that, while degrading sexual content is most apparent in rap-rock, rap, rap-metal and R&B, it is to be found across all music genres.
It argues that such sexually provocative music videos are commonplace and easily accessible by children through TV and DVDs. A loophole exempting music videos from the 1984 Video Recordings Act should be closed as well as requiring broadcasters to ensure they are only shown after 9pm.
It argues strongly for the curbing of what it dubs "increasing pornification" and the "mainstreaming of the sex industry", and suggests jobcentres should be banned from advertising vacancies at escort agencies, lapdancing clubs and massage parlours.

Papadopoulos said: "As a psychologist and as a parent, I welcomed the opportunity to take a critical look at the sexualisation of young people. I have spoken to young people, parents, teachers and professionals and it is clear to me that this is a very emotive issue."
The home secretary, Alan Johnson, welcomed the report, saying government was already committed to some of its recommendations: "Changing attitudes will take time but it is essential if we are going to stop the sexualisation which contributes to violence against women and girls."
A lack of clothes is not the problem with music videos today
A newly released report says videos with scantily clad women or 'sexual posing' should be relegated till after the watershed. How about insisting on decent storylines instead?

Hurray! The ruination of childhood innocence and degradation of society in general can, it seems, be slowed after all, by prudent scheduling, and/or Lady Gaga putting a nice big woolly jumper on.
Videos featuring underdressed women or "sexual posing" should be kept off television screens until after the watershed, according to recommendations in a report written by Dr Linda Papadopoulos, a noted television-friendly celebrity psychologist. The report also seems to suggest that young people watch up to two and a half HOURS of music videos a day, which certainly raises more questions about effective time management – and how they can possibly find that volume of music video on television these days – than possible early-sexualisation.

Yes, there are many videos where women are objectified, represented as prey or easy pickings, or as something as commonplace and moist and underclothed as a mostly-peeled overripe satsuma. But to suggest the solution to this is blanket bans and sweeping overstatements is ridiculous. Singling out videos with skimpily clad women doesn't only affect the backing dancers of particularly misogynistic rap promos. Wouldn't the iconic video for Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head fit that bill too? And most of Madonna's videos? What about Beyonce? She's usually quite well covered, but in things so super-skintight that you can just about make out the outline of her appendix. Shouldn't artists be able to appear just as they damned well please? Or should all female artists risk nothing greater than a Victorian-baiting flash of ankle from now on?
What is this "sexual posing" that is referred to? And who gets to decide what's sexy and what isn't? Because, really, if the problem is that the songs that the videos are promoting are themselves sexual, why target the end product rather than the radio stations and record companies that market these artists and songs to the public – rather than the songs that deal in safer subject matters, like bunny rabbits and breakfast cereal.
Sex and music are intertwined – sex and music videos are too. And while this clearly doesn't mean that all promo videos should be shots of the Pussycat Dolls rubbing body glitter on their inner thighs (particularly if the video is publicising, say, the new Coldplay single), it's equally naive to think you can separate sex and the music video world entirely.
The main problem with music videos these days is that they tend to be lazy, tossed off as an afterthought with a ridiculous lack of imagination and quality control. With most of the young people watching music videos they find on the internet, record companies seem to think that – since people will have come looking for them anyway – there's no real reason to impress them once they've found it.
Which is just rubbish. And dangerous. Because teaching children that there's no point in trying is surely as dangerous as teaching them that having a firm, rounded bottom like two bald men hugging should be their natural expectation in life, isn't it? Well, almost as dangerous, then.
And once you decide that all artists (particularly female ones) should be allowed to wear whatever they want, and that the problem is not with the end product but with the general malaise of music – and that there are precious few music videos pre- OR post-watershed so it's all much of a muchness anyway – it is easy to decide on some new recommendations instead of these silly quotable but illogical and unworkable ones.

1. Make better music videos
2. Make them with storylines and coherent structure. Make them things that are good, not just things that are a duplicate of every other video of their genre.
3. Be innovative. If music videos (all two and a half hours of them per day) are so very influential, at least you could help children think of things in a new and exciting way.
4. All artists and their bands are only allowed the same amount of material in their costume as the most skimpily dressed dancer in their video.
5. For every video that a band and/or artist makes involving suggestions of sex, they must make three involving one or all of: committed loving relationships, career advice, responsible pet-ownership.
6. Any suggestive contact between members of the opposite (or same) sex must be played by people the same age and physical attractiveness of the target market's parents.
That should do it.