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Abstract
According to this account by Cas Wouters, sexualization is part of a broader process of informalization which has been gaining pace in western societies since the late 19th century, one in which social relations between men and women and between adults and children have become more egalitarian and open, and in which a new kind of personality, less subject to external behavioural constraints and more dependent on internal regulation, has emerged. Academic work on sexualization focuses too narrowly on commerce and the media, Wouters argues, missing these deeper and broader shifts in human interaction and relationship. Focusing on manners literature, Wouters’ work also traces the range of ‘laments’ – about the decline of innocence, courtesy, and romance – triggered by these processes as manners shifted, and in particular, as women increasingly participated in public debates about sex and in experiments with sexual relationships and practices. The tensions inherent in these experiments continue to drive debates about sexual matters of all kinds, and underpin the recent protests against sexualization.
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