Youth & Sexualization Project :
innovative approaches to intervention
In Quebec, as elsewhere in the world, the media is constantly sending sexual messages through advertising, music, magazines, etc. Together, these messages create a “sexualized culture” that is often called “hypersexualization”.
Sexualization is a process that gives a sexual connotation to something that wouldn’t necessarily have it otherwise. It results from the trivialization and overwhelming presence of sexuality in the messages children and youth receive from the media.
Our research project on sexualization aims to develop pedagogical tools and training programs to counter its effects.
So far, we have developed a training, edited an activity kit as well as a guide and collaborated to produce the film Sexy Inc. Our children under influence (adult version and youth version with a facilitation guide). We have also collaborated to produce the new documentary of the NFB Staying Real: Teens Confront Sexual Stereotypes (to be released September 2010).
The training tour has enabled us to meet over 500 people and more than 220 organisations throughout Quebec between 2009 and 2010. During the trainings and the projections in schools and community organisations, the film Sexy Inc. Our children under influence was an essential tool for prevention and sensitising people to the phenomenon of the sexualization of youth and young adults throughout Québec.
