It’s No Wonder Teen Girls Hypersexualize Themselves When This Is How Media Portrays Them
Down the rabbit hole of this increasingly common phenomenon
A few days ago, I started watching the second season of Euphoria. It’s the latest HBO coming-of-age TV series.
And just like any other teen drama — think Skins, Degrassi, 90210 or Gossip Girl — it depicts heartbreak, drug use, mental illness, sexual exploration, and a lot of underage sex. Nothing new there.
But unlike all these other shows, I found it to be a deeply uncomfortable watch.
While all the actors who have sex scenes are at least 23 years old, the characters they play are 16 or 17 years old. And many of them, especially the female ones, are hypersexualised to the point it feels wrong to watch it. But this hypersexualisation is more than just characters having sex — it’s also how they act, talk, present themselves, and how they are viewed by others — including adults.
The result?
An exacerbated, violent and even perverse adolescent sexuality.
While hypersexualised images of young women have been commonplace in mainstream media for a while now, lately, it seems like the entertainment industry tries to push back the boundaries of young…
