Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA10456 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 14 Jul 2000 13:32:19 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745923@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 13:30:24 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
You're quite right that the UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies
in Europe. One knee-jerk response it to blame a highly mediated culture
where, for example, magazines aimed at girls in their late teens with lots
of sex advice are read by girls in their early teens (of even younger) and
as such their knowledge and expectations are affected.
Economics undoubtedly have a major impact. In inner city areas of places
like Leeds and Sheffield, teenage pregnancy rates are even higher, and
teenage mothers there, do often deliberately have children for reasons such
as it being a means to acquire financial benefits from the state, and also
to achieve some level of control over an aspect of their lives which they do
not see coming from things like education or employment, neither of which
offer much to many of these girls. Some of the young mothers say this
explicitly, and I don't say this as a generalisation or as a condemnation of
them.
A similar story goes on with things like anorexia, so often linked to the
media, where sufferers often describe what they do as a means of achieving
control over their lives in situations where they feel they have no control
over any other aspect of their lives. (A recent study reported in New
Scientist showed that anorexia was present amongst schoolgirls in Ghana,
despite the lack of the kinds of media images prevalent in the UK, and
elsewhere).
Perhaps even more important though is sex education, both in schools and the
home. Compared to say Holland, Britain's sex education in schools is
archaic, and inadequate. Children aren't taught anything about sex until 11
years old, at the earliest, and detailed information doesn't reach students
until they are already teenagers. Compared to Holland, kids in the UK have
their first sexual encounters far earlier, young couple are far more likely
to engage in sex, and teenage pregnancy rates are far higher.
Undoubtedly the memes about sexuality that are circulating in the UK are
having clear impacts on sexual behaviour, but too often the attention of
those trying to understand the causes, and thus develop 'cures', for that
behaviour look superficially at obvious targets like the media. Currently,
for example, concern about high rates of eating disorders has prompted the
government to set up a 'Body Commission' who are in turn commissioning
research into body sizes (of women) in the media. Now, I'm not saying that
such images have no effect, but their effect has to be placed in a context
of other things going on in people's lives, such as familly and peer
pressures, schools, churches, financial pressures etc. etc. I would guess
that with at least some sufferers of eating disorders, images of super-thin
models (like Kate Moss) do not put pressure on these girls to think they
must be thin to be normal, rather that what they see is that these women
appear to be in positions of status and power and self-determination because
of their physical appearance. In their own lives the sufferers either do
not have, or feel they do not have, status power or self-determination and
the only thing they have control over is their own body. Now it seems to me
that this feeling cannot come entirely from media images, but has to come
from the personal psychology/experience of the sufferers.
I'll stop there, because I'm sure I've gone way off topic and onto my own
particular hobby-horse (again).
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kenneth Van Oost
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 7:37 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Memes and sexuality
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 4:32 PM
> Subject: RE: Memes and sexuality
>
>
> > Yes... the name of the song escapes me also, but a fuller version of the
> > lyric goes-
> >
> > 'You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals,
> > So lets do it like they do on the Discovery Channel'
> >
> > It's good to see todays teenagers being encouraged to watch educational
> > programming :-)
> >
> > Undoubtedly there is an evident line of thought where people try to
> > avoid/deny acknowledging that humans are animals, e.g. creationists, but
> > many religions regard animals as gods/sacred/powerful etc.
> >
> > Also sexual taboos are really rather recent in many ways. I saw a
> programme
> > recently that got me very cross indeed because it said that the trend
> for
> > children entering puberty at younger and younger ages was primarily due
> to
> > the sexualised, mediated environment kids grow up in.
>
> < Snip >
>
> <<Younger you say !?
> Can we say " faster in growing up " ? If is that the case, than it is
> memetic !
> Somehow memetical processes urged up the genetic environment so that
> girls/ boys are at a younger age sexual active.
> That is memes speed up behaviours, the social environment, technology etc.
> in order to propagate themselves " faster " that is here in this context,
> ' younger ' !
>
> I think puberty is not earlier reached but we have to suppose due to the
> fact of the mediated environment where kids do grow up in, that it is more
> easily for them to get the info about ' how it is done '.
> That is, the possibilities to imitate certain behaviours are legio.
> Remerber, 40 years back, more then now, to speak of sexuality was no
> obvious subject.
>
> By the way, we mustn ' t be naive_boys and girls are at a younger age
> sexual
> active.
> I heard once a story of a 12 years old girl, who had a friend of 15.
> After 3 days the girl was getting very upset, because the boy didn 't yet
> ' touched ' her ! She assumed that the love of her life, ' didn 't liked
> girls '!
>
> Something memetic or would it be genetical is surely going on here !!
> Something is changed in the memetic approach to deal with such beha-
> viour_due to the fact that memes has ' new hosts ' to propagate
> themselves
> trough !?
>
> > the programme ploughed on with its 'the media's to blame' line without
> ever
> > acknowledging how sexualised many cultures in the past have been, not
> least
> > the cultures of the Ancient World, nor of the censoriousness of
> contemporary
> > Britain with regard to sexuality. (e.g. a programme in the same series
> > discussed a controversial sex education film from the early 1970s, but
> had
> > to cover up an erection and intercourse, despite it being nearly 30
> years
> > on, after the 9:00pm watershed- when more adult material is allowed to
> be
> > showed).
>
> <<Vincent, how over-sexualised is England !? I read here in the papers
> that
> England has the most children (under 15 I think) who did became mother !?
> Wouldn 't that be related to a poorer social environment, or is that
> grotesk
> !?
>
>
> > Eygptian beliefs involved the masturbation of the universe into
> existence
> by
> > Amun, and statues and depections of the creation god (at least before
> > christian European archaeologists got there) showed him with an
> erection,
> > for example. In Ancient Greece, at the time of the city-states, homes
> > include plaster phalluses on the walls which were garlanded during
> religious
> > festivals.
>
> << Didn 't they found the remains of a whorehouse and what was left of
> the direction-signs to go there in Pompei !? Or was it somewhere else !?
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
> (I am, because we are)
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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