Abstract
In Western society sex appeal has become greatly valued and young women actively and publically expose their sexualities in a variety of ways. Those women who embrace and participate in the hyper-sexualized cultural trend are called self-sexualizers. Despite the growing number of empirical studies related to self-sexualization, there is lack of consensus around a definition of self-sexualization among researchers. The concept of self-sexualization needs to be clarified and explained. The primary purpose of this examination is to address the self-sexualizing phenomenon and to define self-sexualization by building upon previous researchers’ approaches. In this research, self-sexualization is defined as the voluntary imposition of sexualization to the self. We adapted the four aspects of sexualization presented in a task force report issued by the American Psychological Association in 2007 to propose the four conditions of self-sexualization. (1) The first condition of self-sexualization is favoring sexual self-objectification. (2) The second condition is relating sexual desirability to self-esteem. (3) The third condition is equating physical attractiveness with being sexy. (4) The last condition is contextualizing sexual boundaries. Description of each condition and related concepts are discussed.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1350-1371 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Sexuality and Culture |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords
- Self-objectification
- Self-sexualization
- Sexual desirability
- Sexual subjectification
- Sexualized culture