Saturday, October 9, 2010

Music Porn: How the Music Industry Sexualizes Your Children

Rebecca Hagelin has written an important article alerting parents to the on-going extensive sexualizing of young children through the music industry. Citing the over 1.5 billion dollars being raked in by the music industry in the US alone, Hagelin wrote that the industry is “no longer primarily about music” but rather it has become another avenue for selling porn. Increasingly younger and younger children are sexualized in the process.
An unexpected voice, drawing attention to this epidemic, is Mike Stock, one of Britain's top songwriters and producers. According to Stock, “music industry has gone too far” and now markets “99% soft pornography." Only a few years ago, Stock himself had been a purveyor of unwholesome explicit lyrics.
Much of the music's not just raunchy anymore--it's explicitly sexual. And it's only a download away from limitless play on your child's iPod. Hagelin’s article avers that nearly every major pop star produces pornographic music videos which are pushed to children through Facebook fan pages (new videos generate tens of thousands of hits in just hours) and YouTube videos, plus MTV. Live concerts are often worse, and a recent appearance by Rihanna at New York' reportedly included simulated sex and masturbation before an audience full of pre-teen and adolescent girls.
The example is cited of pop star, Katy Perry, wildly popular with the pre-teen set, whose latest album titled “Teenage Dream” reportedly features blatant pornographic romps which, she later revealed, even the recording company was not comfortable with. Well, this same Kate Perry (who rose to stardom from a Christian background) is being forcefully recommended to the pre-teens by being featured on such platforms as Nickolodeon's "Kid's Choice", Sesame Street, and the 2011 kids' movie, The Smurfs.
Hagelin warns that the music industry has perfected a “purposeful, deliberate, crossover marketing”, deliberately reaching out into the children’s market in other to cultivate new fans, create brand awareness among even the youngest children, and thereby ensure future success and million dollar revenues.
On what to do to save your child, Hagelin counseled: that first, parents should understand the problem, especially the well-established fact that exposure to sex on TV dramatically increases the risk that children will become sexually active. Next, parents should also carefully monitor the child’s song lists, refrain from facilitating bad choices and at the same time provide desired alternatives, (rather than ordering a total blockage of entertainment.) Finally, Hagelin advises parents to be consistent. She says: “Don't let battle fatigue wear you down. Our children need to know that we protect them because we love them. And even when we're tired or worn down, that will never change.” Read the full article at
http://worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=6416

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