Sexualized social and dress codes of girl performers in the West

3.1 Oversexualization

Whereas TV shows in the 1990s such as Degrassi High, My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek, and Get Real portrayed adolescent girls as fully-fledged characters whose bodies were not constantly “flaunted” – they generally wore baggy jeans, t-shorts, and sweaters – (Holzman 1994–1995; Phillips 1999–2000; Schuyler and Hood 1987–1991; Williamson 1998–2003), since the 2000s and especially the 2010s, adolescent and tween girl performers on both adult and child TV shows have been wearing heavy make-up and tightly fitting clothes showing their breast size, at times displaying breast implants, and short skirts or shorts and bikinis. That is not to say that girl performers were always wearing non-revealing clothes in previous programs, for they might have been pictured wearing more provocative clothing. However, these signs and symbols were usually adopted as part of the storyline: for example, as a cautionary tale in Degrassi High about using one’s looks to win a student election, or to depict rebellion against parents when an adolescent girl lives with her strict father and older brother and decides to “act out,” which leads her to get in trouble and thereafter regret her actions, but also helps her family acknowledge her need for freedom (Hood 1987a, 1987b). Hence, these signs and symbols were not presented as normalized everyday behavior. The shift can be seen in the 2000s and 2010s, especially in Nickelodeon shows created or co-created by producer Dan Schneider, such as The Amanda Show, Zoey 101, and Sam and Cat, the latter featuring Ariane Grande and Jennette McCurdy, which depict girls in tight clothing, in some cases adopting flirtatious poses, and several sexual innuendos that a child might not perceive, but an adult, especially with a sexual interest in children, might enjoy (Fellows and Schneider 2005–2008; Kennedy 2024; Schneider 1999–2002, ). In fact, it is no surprise that several adults working on these Nickelodeon shows were found guilty of sexual assaults on children, possession or distribution of child pornography, sentenced to prison and/or forced to register as sex offenders (Kennedy 2024; Richardson 2024; Saad 2022; Zhou 2024). Ironically, these shows were aimed at children and under the “family” and “comedy” categories. The same oversexualization can be observed in western magazines. Studies indicate a strong increase in “low cut clothing, tight clothing, and high heels” between the 1990s and 2010s (Kelly and Garmon 2016: 202). As for the music industry, the late 1990s experienced a shift in placing young women performers as “ornaments” in hip hop music videos, showing their bodies in tight clothes and adopting provocative demeanor, while the men are fully clothed and appear to be “in control” (Vandenbosch et al. 2013: 190). The oversexualization of girls has also permeated western videogames, some of which even portray violent acts on girls and women, such as rape, for example Grand Theft Auto V (Houser et al. 2013). Sanbonmatsu notes that in many of these games “exaggerated sex stereotyping, misogyny, and simulated violence against women are norm,” and cites Grand Theft Auto as inviting the player to “exploit women sexually” (Sanbonmatsu 2011: 427–428). Studies have shown that female characters in western games are usually more sexualized than male characters, and given minor roles in the storyline (Gabbiadini et al. 2017: 2462). Aroni (2022a) explains that the visual semiotics of digital games impact narration as well as gameplay, and thus how players relate to games. Moreover, these virtual depictions elicit strong emotions in players. Indeed, whereas a movie is usually under 3 h, and generally under 1.30 h, players spend a multitude of hours immersed in a videogame, thus its visual portrayals of characters is likely to penetrate the subconscious mind (Gabbiadini et al. 2017). Players can be so involved that they participate in taking pictures, or more accurately screenshots, of virtual environments, which has led to questions as to who owns the copyrights of certain images in games (Aroni 2023). The portrayal of girls and women in videogames thus constitutes a significant semiotic sign within the entertainment industry.

Of particular concern is the promotion of child beauty pageants involving toddler girl performers dressed in provocative clothing. Very young girls are placed in the center stage in reality television shows such as Toddlers with Tiaras on TLC (USA), in which girls, including literal toddlers, participate in beauty contests, or The Voice, in which children, including girls, are involved in singing competitions (Kelly and Garmon 2016; Tamer 2011). These “Glitz Child Beauty Pageants,” as opposed to “Natural Child Beauty Pageants,” are characterized by the oversexualization of young girl performers: they are covered in heavy make-up, spray tanned, wear false teeth, and are dressed in bikinis and high heels (Kelly and Garmon 2016: 201). In one competition, a three-year-old girl wore the same clothing as the main character, a prostitute, in the movie Pretty Woman: a short tight leather skirt and high leather boots, and in another, a girl danced to the song “Sexy and I know it” in a manner described as “sexual and provocative” (Kelly and Garmon 2016: 202; Wolf 2012: 430). Tamer summarizes the image of girlhood as portrayed on these competitions:

Wearing tiny, tight hot shorts and a cut-off top bearing her midriff, Candi … is coached to “shake that bootie” and “work it.” Everything naturally beautiful about Candi is gone. She has fake hair, a fake tan, fake eyelashes, fake nails, and fake teeth. Scantily clad and covered in makeup, she walks out on stage … Candi plasters on a fake smile and waits for the curtain to rise. She has already done the sexy policewoman, cowgirl, and nurse. This time the theme is “schoolgirl.” The music starts. Wink, booty pop, raised leg, and a shimmy … Candi is a six-year-old beauty pageant princess. (Tamer 2011: 85)

The semiotics of girl child beauty pageants are so obvious that any person with common sense would understand their underlying meaning, and potential target audience: pedophiles (Tamer 2011). While boys are also exploited, girl performers are sexualized twice as much as boys in the entertainment industry, which increases the likelihood for sexual exploitation (Centre for Scholars and Storytellers 2019: 17; Durham 2009; Gerding Speno and Stevens 2018: 640; Johnson 2012: 866). Durham notes that boys are rarely “the objects of the gaze” while girls are “bombarded with the myth that semi-nudity constitutes ‘girl power’” (Durham 2009: 61).

The portrayals of girlhood are not limited to the entertainment industry: they are in turn emulated in everyday life across schools, notably in North America. The clothing and cosmetic industries have been selling lingerie, make-up, and perfumes targeting prepubescent girls for over fifteen years (American Psychological Association 2007: 13–14). The American Psychological Association refers to the “trickle up” and “trickle down” framework concerning young girls and adult women whereby the former are “adultified” and “dressed up” as adult women and the latter are “dressed down” to look like little girls (American Psychological Association 2007: 12). Indeed, beauty pageants occur “in real life” across countries such as the US and Canada, and are becoming overly sexualized; they constitute a five billion dollar industry comprising thousands of participants yearly (Tamer 2011: 85). In fact, fashion shows are replacing other extra-curricular activities in schools (Kelly and Garmon 2016; Murphy 2012; Tamer 2011). Murphy stresses that fashion shows are organized by teachers and children in many high schools, and are now trickling down into elementary schools, thereby placing an emphasis on the physical appearance of young girls (Murphy 2012). Finally, the relatively new phenomenon of “sharenting” whereby parents share everyday events of their children, has also been accompanied by the oversexualization of children, especially girls, by their own parents on social media (Blum-Ross and Livingstone 2017; Llovet Rodríguez et al. 2022; Marasli et al. 2016; Siibak and Traks 2019; Steinberg 2017). Steinberg notes that naked photos of children, or children wearing a bathing suit or “similarly scant attire” are easy targets for pedophiles, and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner notes that nearly half of all images recently retrieved from pedophile image sharing sites were posted by parents on social media and family blogs (Steinberg 2017: 881). In fact, some parents offer photos for purchase of their preteen daughters and friends in “midriff-baring attire,” clearly aiming for a special clientele, i.e., pedophiles (Rachini 2023).

3.2 Unhealthy beauty ideals

The second main component of sexualized social and dress codes is the promotion of unhealthy beauty standards. Since the 1990s, the female ideal body advertised is a physical anomaly: she has a tiny waist, thin arms and legs, yet voluminous breasts, and her face has very delicate features and a tiny nose, yet very large lips. Vandenbosch et al. (2013: 190) observe that treating women and girl performers as simple “bodies” increases the internalization of beauty ideals and self-objectification in girls, who “endorse the view that their body is the sole ‘instrument’ they can apply to attract a boy.” The same situation occurs in most western videogames. Gabbiadini et al. (2017: 2462) deconstruct the “female body” portrayed in games, noting that “[f]emale characters often have a huge bust with disproportionally small waist and hips.”

A recent, and significantly more powerful instrument for the promotion of sexualized social and dress codes is so-called social media “influencers” defined as “usually young, attractive users who have thousands, if not millions of followers, and are then imitated by other users” (Bissonette and Szymanski 2022: 206). As the name indicates, these new girl celebrities significantly “influence” viewers, including girl children, with a budget that went from two to fifteen billion in marketing spending between 2017 and 2022 (Ah Lee et al. 2022; Brown and Tiggemann 2016; Scholz 2021: 510). For example, a recent trend in cosmetic plastic surgery has seen girls and women “requesting specific body parts of celebrities,” such as the eyes and jawline of Kim Kardashian, an influencer “famous for being famous” (Brown and Tiggemann 2016: 37).

3.3 Glorified prostitution and violence

Sexualized social and dress codes treat girl performers as commodities, and moreover promote sexual exploitation and violence against them by peers and adults, including via online pornography. In recent years, online pornography involving young women and girl performers on platforms such as OnlyFans has been marketed as “girl empowerment” on the grounds that young women can earn “easy money” in a “safe setting” (Rubattu et al. 2023; Sanchez 2022). It is worthy of note that advertisement campaigns of OnlyFans were well-coordinated on mainstream and social media platforms to promote its so-called “empowering” features: from earning fast, easy money, to removing the stigma from “sex work,” to its “healing” powers for the young women selling their bodies, and even as a pathway to raise money for charity (Greig 2020). Hollywood celebrities vouched that they would join this site and happily undress for strangers (Greig 2020; Respers 2020; Russon 2020). An interesting case study is that of actress and singer Bella Thorne. At the time, she epitomized the “girl child” performer image as a former child actress for the Disney channel, a medium officially dedicated to content for children and families. As soon as Thorne joined OnlyFans, the mainstream media advertised that she earned over one million in a single day, and two million within a week, thereby implying that this platform enables “content creators” to earn easy money (Respers 2020; Russon 2020). The mainstream media, including renowned corporations such as the BBC, referred to young women who partook in pornography on OnlyFans as “content creators,” a term that does not seem to encompass all the complexities of selling one’s body to strangers online (Russon 2020). Thorne was quoted as saying “How far are you willing to go, and how far do you WANT to go? You can be me, or this talented girl from Montana, and OnlyFans could change your life – if you want it to, of course” (Respers 2020). The “sense” of Bella Thorne’s quote is particularly interesting from a semiotic viewpoint. Indeed, Thorne refers to “girls,” not adult “women” in the context of nudity on OnlyFans. While this platform, which features prostitution, is officially illegal for minors, the actual advertised product is “the girl child,” not the adult woman. Another male celebrity, very popular among young women and girls, Michael B. Jordan, stated that he would join OnlyFans “for charity” to raise money for a barber school, thereby linking this platform to helping the community, and thus for good charitable values (Greig 2020). Online pornography has also been associated, by the mainstream media, with “therapy” and “healing” for the young women involved in selling their bodies. An interesting case study is that of Steven Spielberg’s daughter, Mikaela, who was quoted by the media as saying that appearing in porn had been healing and self-affirming for her, while OnlyFans reported that her channel involved full nudity and various sex toys (Day 2020; Sparks 2020). Indeed, this is not a young woman raised in poverty, but the daughter of a famous movie director and producer, and key figure in the western movie industry, especially for movies targeting children. Accordingly, having the daughter of such an iconic western celebrity join online prostitution was especially impactful for fans. However, in this powerful advertisement campaign, linking celebrities to OnlyFans was not sufficient. Another important element of sexualized codes was necessary to recruit everyday girls as performers: the success stories of unknown young women also known as “content creators” claiming to earn generous amounts of money with very little work involved. For example, the Business Insider wrote that:

For many OnlyFans creators with business acumen and a serious work ethic, turning a side hustle into a full-time, high paying job is a real possibility … A number of successful OnlyFans creators – who largely create adult content – have become multimillionaires, even after the platform’s 20% cut. OnlyFans, launched in 2016, had paid creators more than $8 billion as of September 2021, and its revenues swelled 160% to $932 million that year. (Mangalindan 2022)

The young women featured in those stories are presented as “the girl or woman next door”: a former real estate agent in New York, or a wholesome pharmacy technician from Missouri; they share their advice and success stories, referring to themselves prior to partaking in online pornography as “self-admitted newbies” who acquired knowledge, experience, and significant revenue by selling their bodies online (Mangalindan 2022). These ad campaigns for online prostitution, under the guise of information and entertainment on news outlets, from the BBC to Fox News, epitomize the power of sexualized social and dress codes to promote the objectification of girl performers as a form of “entrepreneurship” (Day 2020; Respers 2020; Russon 2020; Sparks 2020). Simultaneously, it was important to accompany the promotion of sexualized codes in the media with the approval of experts, i.e., academics. In this regard, several academic publications have argued in recent years that online pornography, such as that on OnlyFans, increases the agency of the products sold, i.e., young women, as a form of “sexual e-commerce,” as 1) women can join these services without “third-party management like pimps or pornography directors,” 2) have the autonomy to offer their own schedules, and 3) in a consensual transaction in which monetizing one’s “sexuality” is empowering because “[s]ex workers offer consensual sexual services or erotic performances in exchange for money or goods” (Comerford 2022; McKee and Lumby 2022; Rubattu et al. 2023; Sanchez 2022: 4, 5, 7).

Yet, contrary to the idealized depiction of online pornography on platforms such as OnlyFans, by the mainstream and social media as well as academia, the real young women and girls on these sites are treated as mere objects: they undress and perform sexual acts, including very degrading ones with “sex toys,” under the order of (presumably male) customers. Those customers can be acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, fellow teachers or students, and even, family members. And contrary to the ad campaigns claiming that being an online “sex worker” is an empowering career choice, the reality is that such films and images tarnish the reputation and even the future of these girls and women, preventing other career paths, and leading to stalking and harassment from customers and pimps (Fritz et al. 2020; Rubattu et al. 2023). Additionally, reports have shown that some of these “camgirls” are actually girl children, i.e., under 18 years old, including sex trafficked and missing girls under the control of a pimp and/or organized crime, and thereby actually enslaved; hence, the very opposite of the stories promoted in the above discussed mainstream media marketing campaigns (Titheradge and Croxford 2021).

While platforms such as OnlyFans raise serious questions, the content offered on pornography sites such as Pornhub is especially problematic for girls. In their study, Fritz et al. (2020) observe that 45 % of Pornhub and 35 % of Xvideo.com scenes contain at least one act of physical aggression and that women were the target of nearly 97 % of all physically aggressive acts in the samples from both sites (Fritz et al. 2020: 3041, 3046, 3047). The violence featured was mostly spanking, slapping, and “gagging.” Moreover, the women performed self-aggressive behaviors such as slapping their own breasts and spanking their buttocks, while “there were almost no acts of men aggressing against themselves or other men” (Fritz et al. 2020: 3046, 3047). And once again, while these platforms officially only feature adult women, the actual product advertised is the girl child. Reports indicated that Pornhub has suggested a series of key words targeting girls and children more broadly to its customers under “related searches,” such as “young tiny teen,” “extra small petite teen,” “Asian teen” and “young girl” (Kristof 2020a). Hence, while these sites do not officially display the rape of girl children but only “fictional” rapes of adult women, they aggressively advertise that the females portrayed on screen are girls, thereby normalizing sexual violence against girl children. Moreover, some content featured on the Pornhub channel has been entitled “exploited teen Asia” and playlists “less than 18” and “under-age” and has included content from spy cameras in toilets or changing rooms that show children only eight to 12 years old as well as videos from the GirlsdoPorn.com channel (Cole 2019; Kristof 2020a; Limehouse 2024). The semiotic “sense” of the channel named “GirlsdoPorn” is itself significant. It demonstrates that the target product is the girl child rather than adult women, and moreover, it is notable that the owners of this channel did not have to hide behind technicalities: they straightforwardly gave a name to their channel, GirlsdoPorn, that if true, would be considered a crime: the sexual abuse of a girl child. Pornhub has featured videos that involve underage girl children, including victims of sex trafficking who had been reported as missing by their families, and extremely violent and degrading gang rapes of these girls (Kristof 2020a; Lati 2021). Other popular porn sites, such as Xvideos, offer suggestions such as “really young” and “she’s not adult,” thereby clarifying once again that the product advertised is the girl child (Kristof 2020a, 2020b). Of particular concern are suggestions such as “pre-teen” and “11yo,” which clearly do not concern adolescent girls but rather young girls (Kristof 2020a, 2020b). Also, searches for “middle school” on this site lead to “elementary school,” thereby referring once again to prepubescent girls (Kristof 2020b).

In spite of serious sex trafficking and sexual slavery concerns, Pornhub, which originated in Canada, has operated globally and been extremely successful (Exodus Cry 2020). It reported 42 billion visits worldwide in 2019, with an average of 115 million visits per day, and Pornhub itself stated: “One-Hundred-Fifteen Million – that’s the equivalent of the populations of Canada, Australia, Poland and the Netherlands all visiting in one day!” (PornHub 2019). Business Insider observes that as of 2024, the website boasts 100 million visits per day (Italiano 2024). Of particular concern were the “Top Gaining” categories in 2022, such as Gangbang (+88 %); Babysitter (+155 % – the site specifies the latter are 18 and over, yet how can this be ensured?); and the viewers age group 18–34 increased by 2 %, which signifies that such platforms impact young men (PornHub 2022). In its recent report, the newspaper La Presse observed that violent and degrading material against women and girls is still omnipresent on Pornhub, and even recommended, via algorithms, to its users (Péloquin 2023). Furthermore, Pornhub has recently protested against age verification laws implemented to protect minors (Oxenden 2023). From a semiotic perspective, it is notable that the company that now owns Pornhub and MindGeek is named “Ethical Capital Partners” (Benchetrit 2023), given that its practices appear to be located at the extreme opposite of the very definition of ethics. Child pornography on platforms such as Pornhub is especially traumatic for the victimized children, including girls, as it propels a perpetual trauma: the images and videos of their abuse are eternally “out there” and many survivors explain that they “live in constant fear about when, how and if they would surface,” wondering if colleagues, family members, their own children, or even passersby might recognize them, or whether “the images would be used by sex offenders for masturbation or to entice other children into abusive situations” (Gewirtz-Meydan et al. 2018: 244, 246). In this regard, Gewirtz-Meydan et al. (2018: 244) observe that survivors are triggered daily by the fear that someone might recognize them and expose their past, and as a result many have cancelled possible careers in public office or any employment of a public nature, such as teacher or nurse, while many are unable to simply leave their homes. The same issue arises with the young and older women whose videos were posted on these platforms without their knowledge or consent, or via manipulation or as “sex workers” in financial need, a reality ever increasing given how these sites operate: allowing users to post videos directly, or through industry companies that in turn upload these videos (Cole 2023; Limehouse 2024).

Sexualized codes not only blur the lines between sexual empowerment and online prostitution on platforms such as OnlyFans, but also “sex work” in strip clubs and physical prostitution whereby clients have actual intercourse in-person with girl children. Some news outlets from the western mainstream media have recently argued that physical prostitution brings “inspiration” and “value” to the commodified young women. In Canada, the public state broadcaster, CBC News (2019), published an article interviewing a sex worker on her positive experiences. In this interview, the public broadcaster went as far as stating that this person involved in prostitution “continued to find value in it even after being sexually assaulted” by her customers (CBC News 2019). There is currently a debate between scholars and members of the mainstream media, who in line with sex trafficking survivors, consider that online pornography and prostitution constitute forms of sexual exploitation (Adarsh and Sahoo 2023; Dines 2017; Fritz et al. 2020; Sharma 2019), and others who regard the latter as “sex work” and moreover, as “empowering.” For example, Pornhub has argued that the movement to cancel its videos was causing “deep harm to the adult industry and the thousands of performers who make their livelihoods from it” and academic and newspaper publications have implied that attempts to regulate sites such as Pornhub could be doing harm to sex workers, and/or questioned the character of individual advocates campaigning against child sexual exploitation on these sites, claiming that the latter are “anti-pornography campaigners” guided by a “puritanical agenda” or the desire to “gain notoriety” and somehow linked to individuals or institutions that have in turn been related to “anti-sex work” (Comerford 2022: 1184; Marcus 2024; McKee and Lumby 2022: 466). Another strategy is to re-qualify feminists who oppose online exploitative platforms as “neo-anti-porn feminists,” thereby distancing these advocates from mainstream feminist groups (McKee and Lumby 2022: 471), or arguing that most fourth wave feminists are “explicitly pro-sex worker” (Comerford 2022: 1193). These reactions from mainstream and social media as well as academics epitomize the promotion of sexualized social and dress codes in society: criticizing the latter, even its extreme forms, i.e., pedophilia, can lead to ad hominem attacks rather than examining the substance of the argument: the necessity to abolish violence and exploitation against girls on these platforms. The semiotics of the term “sex work” as opposed to “prostitution” is also relevant in the case at hand, as it implies that online and physical pornography constitute a form of work like any other. For example, Bella Thorne was quoted as saying that by joining OnlyFans she “wanted to remove the stigma behind sex work” (Russon 2020). Instead, prostitution is defined in the OED (2011) as “the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment,” which clearly applies to women who sell their bodies. Sanchez argues that the term “prostitution” can be viewed as stigmatizing in implying criminality and immorality, while acknowledging that “[l]ike any other form of labor under capitalism, people trade sex for reasons that exist on a continuum of choice, circumstance, or coercion. Most sex workers trade sex because of circumstance” (Sanchez 2022: 4). Indeed, as pointed by Sanchez, most sex workers trade sex because of circumstances, namely, financial need, a past of abuse normalizing sexual violence, and/or manipulation from organized crime, and even then, several have expressed that they were coerced into filming, or regretted it afterwards, and lost control over their images (Cole 2023; Lee 2020; Limehouse 2024). For example, in some of the lawsuits against GirlsDoPorn, the adult women were lured into what they believed to be modeling sessions, or agreed to make an erotic or pornographic video on the condition that it not be distributed, and did so because of financial need; they certainly did not agree to being violently sexually assaulted and barricaded in a room for over 10 h, nor to have those videos posted online and available worldwide (Cole 2019, 2023; Limehouse 2024). Moreover, it is important to explain that the content featured on sites such as Pornhub involves extreme violence and degradation against women and girls that would perhaps be impossible to even conceive for the present reader, resembling that of the torture porn genre of film series such as Saw, The Collector, and Hostel (Dunstan 2009; Roth 2005; Wan 2004). The present article acknowledges the unequal bargaining power of women who engage in online and in-person prostitution as defined in the OED, i.e., engage in sexual activity for payment, and the exploitation it involves. We consider that regardless of one’s viewpoint, the sexual exploitation, sexual violence, rape, and kidnapping of children and adults featured or related to the abovementioned pornographic sites and platforms, constitute serious violations of human rights, and are in fact crimes. Finally, to conclude this section on the sense of sexualized social and dress codes, it is notable that its three main elements: 1) oversexualization, 2) unhealthy beauty ideals, and 3) glorification of pornography and even prostitution are interconnected, as the mainstream and social media will often operate two or more of these elements concurrently. For example, a music video will display oversexualized girl performers dressed provocatively as ornaments, and simultaneously promote unhealthy beauty ideals by selecting girl models who underwent significant cosmetic surgery and experience eating disorders.

3.4 From the west to the east

Although sexualized social and dress codes originated in the west, they have permeated most regions of the world with the advent of globalization, including the Bollywood, Nollywood, and K-pop industries (Endong 2019; Ghaznavi et al. 2017; Girija and Basavaraja 2019; Gooyong 2017; Jain et al. 2019; Kaya 2019; Rahman and Zannat 2021). In this regard, sexualized social and dress codes constitute a manifestation of globalization, defined in the OED as “the action, process, or fact of making global, especially the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale, widely considered to be at the expense of national identity” (OED 2011). For instance, the very popular Bollywood, Nollywood, and K-pop industries increasingly promote a fair complexion and the cult of thinness, which requires significant cosmetic surgery for the girl performers involved, especially in actresses and singers respectively, as well as oversexualization (Endong 2019; Girija and Basavaraja 2019; Gooyong 2017; Jain et al. 2019). Girija and Basavaraja (2019: 38) note that skin whitening creams have gone up from 27 % to 77 % in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, and many of these products contain steroids and mercury that are dangerous to health. The K-Pop industry has been promoting beauty ideals that require significant cosmetic plastic surgery to “westernize” Asian girl performers, and these codes moreover sexualize girls as “innocent” yet “provocative” dolls. Gooyong underscores that these codes are “carefully crafting eroticized cuteness and playful sexualization, meeting expectations from both patriarchal gender hierarchy and neoliberal commercialization of sexuality: being innocent and sexualized at the same time is a hallmark of K-pop female idols’ positionality” (Gooyong 2017: 2376). Moreover, Kaya observes that Turkish television programs have used gang rape scenes to attract more audiences, noting that “[t]he images of female characters brutalized and raped become part of prime-time episodic television and we are surrounded by these brutal representations of girls and women” (Kaya 2019: 689). However, the glorified “online and in person prostitution” component of sexualized social and dress codes does not appear to have reached the east nor the global south as profoundly as the west, as shall be examined in the Significance section.

4.1 Body image

First, unrealistic beauty models undermine girl children’s self-worth, thereby leading to depression and digitized dysmorphia (Brown and Tiggemann 2016; Kleemans et al. 2018; Maes and Vandenbosch 2022; Pedalino and Camerini 2022; Verrastro 2020). As previously mentioned, the beauty ideals currently promoted, that is, a very thin body with huge breasts and buttocks, cannot be reached naturally (Logrieco et al. 2021; Seekis and Barker 2022; Wallner et al. 2023). In order to meet these ideals, girls resort to life-threatening eating disorders notably anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, i.e., mental disorders characterized by an unrealistic fear of weight gain and a distortion of body image (Logrieco et al. 2021). The World Health Organization notes that the constant promotion of thinness as the ideal body habitus in the mass media during the past sixty years has played a central role in both triggering and further strengthening the occurrence of eating disorders (Delisle 2005; Patel 2004). The WHO stresses that the cult of thinness has been cited as the key reason behind the rise of eating disorders, noting that countries that have been relatively immune to such beauty propaganda, such as the Republic of Fiji, have low rates of these disorders (Patel 2004: 20). Additionally, eating disorders are becoming more prevalent and observable across cultures (World Health Organization 2003: 4, 2022). Initially confined to the most highly industrialized nations, unhealthy dietary practices have been on the rise with the advent of globalization (Patel 2004: 20; World Health Organization 2003: 4, 2022).

Sexualized social and dress codes, combined with peer pressure, can also lead girls to “sculpt” their body as a reified object by undergoing cosmetic plastic surgery (Kleemans et al. 2018; Seekis and Barker 2022; Verrastro 2020; Wallner et al. 2023). Presently, girls and women outnumber men and boys in cosmetic plastic surgeries, for example, liposuction (85 %), eyelid surgery (77 %), rhinoplasty (75 %), fat grafting (82 %), brow lift (80 %), and facial bone contouring (73 %; International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery 2023: 60). Moreover, the types of cosmetic plastic surgeries advertised are constantly broadening. For example, the pornographic industry has been promoting an ideal “vulva,” which has led to a significant increase in a western form of female genital mutilation: labiaplasty (Drolet and Drolet 2019; Maki et al. 2023; Runacres and Wood 2016). Hence, the expression “dress codes” in “sexualized social and dress codes” also refers to the pressure to modify the body itself, whereby girl children are compelled to carve inhuman features onto their human bodies through eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries, including rhinoplasty, breast implants, buttock surgery, and female genital mutilation such as labiaplasty (Drolet and Drolet 2019; Logrieco et al. 2021; Maki et al. 2023; Runacres and Wood 2016; Seekis and Barker 2022; Wallner et al. 2023). The present article thus employs the expression “dress codes” to encompass the modifications of the body as a “reified piece of clothing.”

4.2 Internalized violence and rape culture

Secondly, girl children integrate these standards of behavior and emulate sexualized images promoted in the media. Accordingly, many girls adopt sexualized dress codes and provide sexualized presentations of themselves on social networks and platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, including “sexualized dance moves” and tight clothing (Bissonette and Szymanski 2022: 206). In addition, girls take part in virtual sex-related activities, such as sexting, i.e., sending sexual messages or images of themselves to others (End Prostitution and Child Trafficking [ECPAT] 2016; Ringrose et al. 2012). The objectification and hyper-sexualization of girls in the media also strengthen sexual harassment and sex coercion as well as the acceptance of rape myths and sex role stereotypes (Dardis and Richards 2022; Harde 2021; Stubbs-Richardson et al. 2018). Indeed, these sexual codes dehumanize girls in the eyes of others to the extent that sexual violence perpetrated against them by peers, notably boys, and adults, is banalized, a phenomenon described as “rape culture” (Harde 2021; Stubbs-Richardson et al. 2018). Many girls are coerced into sending sexual images of themselves to male peers, and sexting is linked to harassment, bullying, and even violence (Maddocks 2022). UNICEF reveals that nine million adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years will experience forced sex in a given year. Most of the sexual coercion is perpetrated by peers, including the intimate partner (UNICEF 2017: 7). This violence is recorded and shared on social media as a trivial event. To wit, the US Steubenville Rape Case in which adolescent boys repeatedly and publicly sexually assaulted a girl and documented the crime, while other adolescent bystanders did nothing to protect her, and instead took pictures of the assault while posting denigrating comments about the victim on social media (Kosloski et al. 2018; Moody-Ramirez et al. 2015). The recent rape case of a 15-year old girl by an 18-year old young man at the St. Paul elite boarding school in the US illustrates that girls belonging to a privileged social class are also victimized by their male peers (Buncombe 2015; Dewitt 2021). It lifted the veil on the “senior salute” tradition whereby graduating boys allegedly compete to take the virginity of as many younger girls of the school as possible, employing vulgar and demeaning references to girls as “conquests” on walls and online, and rewarded accordingly by gaining status among male peers (Bidgood and Rich 2015; Buncombe 2015). This culture of violence against girls is pursued in higher education, as demonstrated by numerous sexual assault cases reported in universities, including ivy league universities in North America (Muehlenhard et al. 2017; Ricci and Bergeron 2019; Simard 2021; Steinhauer and Joachim 2014).

4.3 Pornography, prostitution, and child sex trafficking

The third consequence of sexualized social and dress codes is that they normalize and promote online pornography involving increasingly young women and girls, leading to very popular and lucrative platforms such as OnlyFans and Pornhub, which, as previously discussed, have featured pornographic material involving girls, including violent, degrading, and criminal videos such as gang rapes of girls perpetrated by adolescents and adult men (ABC News 2022; Fritz et al. 2020; Lundstrom and Henderson 2024; Marcelo 2023; Rubattu et al. 2023; Sharma 2019; So et al. 2024; Titheradge and Croxford 2021), and to an increase in the overall demand for child pornography and sex trafficking of girls globally (Dines 2017; Flood 2009; Giammarinaro 2020; Lim 2016; Singhateh 2021; UNODC UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2020: 122). Fritz et al. (2020) warn that such scenes endorse a sexual script “suggesting women enjoy and welcome aggression” or that the woman is “not even engaged with the sexual aggression against her,” whereby male viewers may assume that women “either enjoy aggression or that their feelings or feedback regarding aggression is simply not important,” and girls watching this content may internalize that they should “ignore any discomfort they do experience” (Fritz et al. 2020: 3050). Adarsh and Sahoo explain that pornographic material, as presented, rewires the brains of consumers, which is especially disquieting for boys:

Pornography can excite the brain’s reward system, which can lead to severe brain alterations akin to those found in drug addictions … By showing an absence of emotional connection between consensual couples, unprotected sexual contact, and, occasionally, violence and rape, pornography normalizes sexual harm. Male adolescents may learn that it is okay and even desired to act violently and aggressively toward and degrade their female partners from the aggressive and violent depictions of women that are prevalent in much of today’s popular pornography. (Adarsh and Sahoo 2023: 37)

Dines observes that porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon, and X/Twitter combined, thereby impacting a significant amount of the population, and that “[w]hile girls are not the major consumers of pornography, they suffer the consequences because they engage in sexual relationships with boys and men who have had their sexual templates shaped by mainstream online violent pornography” (Dines 2017: 2, 4). In this regard, Adarsh and Sahoo (2023: 37) note that “[w]atching more hardcore pornography containing abuse, rape, and child sex is associated with the normalizing of this behavior.” Moreover, Pornhub has operated as a user-generated platform whereby pornographic videos are uploaded directly by users onto the site, who earn a percentage of the benefits from views generated by each video (Kristof 2020b; McKee and Lumby 2022). The origin of these videos, including whether the persons consented to being filmed or to the sexual acts, or were adults or children, is thus difficult to verify, especially in real time. McKee and Lumby argue that in this context, filtering child rape via content moderation, especially given the small number of moderators, can amount to an “impossible job” because “[a]utomated systems … cannot tell the difference between a naked photograph of someone who is 17 years old (illegal) and someone who is 18 years old (legal), meaning these decisions have to be made by human beings,” although these authors fail to address the issue of rape per se of adult females, i.e., whether the person depicted was sex trafficked or a “willing sex worker” and moreover, whether this sex worker consents to such image or video being shared (McKee and Lumby 2022: 471). For example the GirlsDoPorn.com website, accused of featuring trafficked girls and sexual assault, as well as the rape of young women, was also hosted on the very prolific Pornhub international website as a premium partner (Cole 2023; Lee 2020; Limehouse 2024; Rodeschini 2021).

Sexualized social and dress codes thereby increase the demand for sex trafficking and child pornography featuring girl children. The APA study indicates that when girls are dressed as adult women, “adults may project adult motives as well as an adult level of responsibility and agency on girls,” and Tamer observes that “the images of child beauty queens may serve to foster and validate a pedophile’s desires” (American Psychological Association 2007: 34; Tamer 2011: 89). Cino warns that constant sexualized portrayals of girlhood may normalize pedophilia in wider society: “the adults may, as well, get used to children’s bodies being sexually eye-catching and end up with finding them normal, if not interesting, regardless of an abnormal sexual behavior or ‘paraphilia’” (Cino 2017: 277). Hence, men and boys are unknowingly “trained” to be attracted to children, especially girls. In Canada, the possession and distribution of child pornography increased by 233 % between 2006 and 2016 (Keighley 2016: 20). Presently, sex trafficking of girls represents over 16 % of all forms of human trafficking worldwide, and 72 % of trafficked girls are sold for sex trafficking. The average price for a girl child for sexual exploitation is between 10,000 and 15,000 US dollars (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2020: 33, 36, 49).