What is the backdrop to the nude selfie? First off, there’s the fact that this is a generation which has been heavily armed with technology. The smartphone is an extension of their palms. Documenting their lives in front of their phone cameras is the norm, and then sharing it online.

Albert Bell, a sociologist, said: “Most kids do not understand that Facebook and other social websites are in the public domain. We are living in a virtual bedroom so we have a fine line between what’s happening in private space and in public.”

Also, today’s 18 to 24-year-olds are the MTV generation. When they were younger they’d switch on the television and watch Rihanna gyrating half-naked against a pole while mouthing her lyrics.

They’d watch adverts full of sexual innuendos. An advert for a window sealer, for example, would have a woman wearing a bra and a panty to fix the window using the sealer.

Theirs has been a childhood with constant, if unwitting, exposure to erotic material: the slow sexualisation of society.

Erotic material is now no longer relegated to the top shelves or to grainy Sicilian channels. While our generation’s idea of sex was formed on what we read in books or from smuggled in Playboy magazine, teenagers live on a daily bombardment of sexual images, and are fast becoming the x-rated generation.

Brenda Murphy, a senior lecturer in Gender Studies at the University said:

“The message young girls are getting from the media is one of hyper-sexualisation. Young girls are being told the only way to behave is in a sexual way. We are becoming desensitised to it. Girls are now valuing themselves according to this criterion.”

One solution is to teach children “media literacy”, so they can challenge and critique the messages they are bombarded with daily.

“We need to empower young women and men to think for themselves. The sexualisation of women is just as damaging for men. The message they get is women can be objectified, because the media reinforces this message,” she said.

Then there is the matter of easier accessibility to porn. Which – judging by the porn starry looks of some of the Maltese in the nude selfies – clearly influences the dynamics.

These days young teens – children aged 12, 13 or 14 – go online for sexual information. The problem is they are seeing adult material that up till 10 years ago would have only been accessible from a DVD shop. Now all they have to do is Google one of many porn sites. And it’s free. In full HD.

In a 2005 survey, the National Statistics Office revealed that all students aged between 13 and 16 used the internet regularly, with 25 per cent of these being unsupervised.

The study also showed that 25.6 per cent of these teens accessed websites and/or chat rooms which contain violent content and/or pornography. Nine years down the line, these figures are bound to have increased.

Studies in the UK confirm that teens think pornographic hardcore scenes are normal and they try to copy them when they take their first steps in sexual activity.

Talk to beauticians in Malta and they’ll all tell you that the demand for the ‘Brazilian wax’ among younger women is on the rise. “I have seen 18-year olds coming over to wax all, and they say outright that it’s because their boyfriends can’t bear the sight of hair,” one beautician told The Sunday Times of Malta.

Sexualisation and pornography are topics tackled during personal and social development lessons in secondary schools. Maltese parents, however are still reluctant to play their part.

A 2006 evaluation research by Maud Muscat showed that communication about sexuality by Maltese parents seemed to be lacking as “they feel more comfortable to let someone else discuss sexuality matters”.

The PSD Teachers Association has long been recommending the organisation of professionals parenting skills courses to concentrate on the barrier between parents and their children in discussing sexuality matters.

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