The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It

By M. Gigi Durham
Overlook Press

The title concept of M. Gigi Durham’s book The Lolita Effect, is defined as “a gathering of hypersexualized girls whose cultural presence has become a matter of public controversy.” Durham is successful at critically engaging with the mediums of popular culture without coming across as dogmatic or ungrounded in her concerns.

She thinks critically the portrayal of sex in mass media and popular culture, all with a sex positive attitude, and identifies sexual health as more than freedom from teenage pregnancy and STDs. Much of the book’s focus is on education and self-confidence. Critical to the book is Durham's pointed recognition that sexiness in this society has been constructed to mean whiteness, able-bodiedness, and heterosexuality. She also posits the following question:

“One problem with… the sexualization of girls in the media is that it often breaks down into a good/bad dichotomy: you’re either for sex or against sex… So why are we forced to choose between fundamentalist Christian Joyce Meyers and pop singer Shakira as sexual guideposts in the media arena? Why is there no middle ground?”

Thus The Lolita Effect is an exploration of the middle ground. Though her analysis, Durham serves to debunk a number of myths fed to young girls by society at large. All of them are centered around sexuality and gender as she explores insidious yet pervasive norms presented in mass media. Each myth has a chapter devoted to it: "If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It," "Anatomy of a Sex Goddess," "Pretty Babies," "Violence is Sexy," and "What Boys Like." Durham frequently calls upon very contemporary depictions of gender and sexuality, referencing Seventeen Magazine and MTV’s “Tila Tequila,” for starters. These are valuable connections made that legitimize the power of pop culture on the construction of youth culture and identity formation.

While reading this book, I appreciated that Durham takw ideas that could easily be framed in highly sophisticated, overly academic jargon and puts them into easy to understand language. This serves the purpose of reaching a wider audience, thus making her text more accessible. Ideas common to women’s and gender studies classes - such as the male gaze and heteronormativity (the normalizing of heterosexuality as a default sexuality, rendering other sexual preferences and behaviors deviant and/or wrong) - are presented directly without being simplistic. She problematizes the ways in which they send harmful messages to young women while acknowledging and respecting the power in these widespread channels.

Overall, the book was a valuable read. It was educational, informative, and extremely relatable.

Review by Yujean Park

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The Lolita Effect