I just finished reading “So Sexy, So Soon,” by Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne . I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out last summer and finally found it on the library shelves.

What I expected was a well laid out argument for the ways that our media, marketing, and social programs have shaped our children into sexualized beings at too early an age. What I didn't expect was to find the blame almost entirely placed on the media.

Levin and Kilbourne are both obvious experts in this field. I've read Kilbourne's “Can't Buy My Love” which established her as an expert in the field of media and marketing (especially to women) in my mind. Levin has done extensive work in the field of education and violence in play and media and that effect on children.

There were several main points that this book made:

1. The problem is sexualization not sexuality.

2. Sexualization in American culture begins almost at birth.

3. A bombardment of sexual images and expectation on children evolves them into insecure and overly-sexualized young-adults.

The book called for parental involvement, school programs, and legislation to put up boundaries on advertising to children (or to abolish advertisements focused at children completely.) They also touched on what was named “Compassion Defect Disorder” - where our children do not learn to give and receive compassion because of an overly sexualized childhood filled with sexual and physical violence and pornography (in the media.)

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