{"id":30345,"date":"2010-12-15T10:33:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T15:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=30345"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:30:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:30:06","slug":"the-social-construction-of-age-how-old-is-too-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/12\/15\/the-social-construction-of-age-how-old-is-too-young\/","title":{"rendered":"The Social Construction of Age: How Old is “Too Young”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nDelia B. sent along this 80s-riffic, apocalyptic music video featuring Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen singing Make Me Wanna Die. Momsen is a 17-year-old teen idol who strips naked over the course of the video. Her naked body is eventually obscured, but not before we get a good look at her in her bra and underwear.<\/p>\n

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On the one hand, because Momsen is 17, one could argue that this video is encouraging the sexualization of underage girls and child pornography (which involves, by definition<\/a>, children under age 18).<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this video is, relatively speaking, pretty sexually tame. \u00a0I imagine that most Americans would not think that this would incite pedophiles and that many would argue that she’s perfectly old enough, given that she’s an actress\/rock star, to be stripping down to her undies. Not to mention the fact that the average age of virginity loss in the U.S. is about 16.<\/p>\n

The video is a great opportunity, then, to have a discussion about the social construction of age. \u00a0To start: What age is “too young” and what age “old enough”? \u00a0What’s the difference between 17 and 18? \u00a0Is the difference equally meaningful for everyone? \u00a0Should we codify such meanings into law? \u00a0And do today’s laws reflect our contemporary culture mores? \u00a0According to who?<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delia B. sent along this 80s-riffic, apocalyptic music video featuring Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen singing Make Me Wanna Die. Momsen is a 17-year-old teen idol who strips naked over the course of the video. Her naked body is eventually obscured, but not before we get a good look at her in her bra and underwear. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,41,223,2056,15,55,2099,2093,778,23693,120,293],"class_list":["post-30345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-celebrity","tag-childrenyouth","tag-crimelaw","tag-culture","tag-gender","tag-gender-childrenyouth","tag-gender-objectification","tag-intersectionality","tag-intersectionality-gender-x-age","tag-sex","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30345"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59381,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30345\/revisions\/59381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}