Sexuality and gender in magazines for Brazilian adolescents

Abstract

The change in the relation of space and time caused by new technologies and by the media expansion, in the globalization that has derived from the late modernity, has modified the identity and reflexivity of the "self". The security foundations that constitute the identity are dynamically altered as the social relations are modified. Today the identity cannot be regarded as immutable. Thus, it becomes increasingly convenient to support it by means of recipes of lifestyles, produced by various social sectors that create and disseminate, through the media, manuals on how to develop a self-identity. Our objective was to analyze the ideals of femininity in articles published in two magazines for Brazilian teens, considering aspects of sexuality, sexual health and relationships between genders. We performed a qualitative study based on a gender perspective. The research corpus was composed of articles extracted from 22 issues of the magazines Capricho and Todateen. Three groups were identified in the following themes: Kiss and squeeze, Beginning of sexual life, and Sexual Practices. Both magazines approach ideals of relations between genders that perpetuate traditional dichotomic standards. The articles prescribe feminine attitudes and behaviors, which despite seeming different and advanced, are designed to maintain a gender standard in which the feminine initiative involves the "jeitinho feminino": indirect actions of manipulation that can give the boy the impression that he was the one who had the idea that was put into practice. These data seem particularly important when we think of health programs targeted at this segment of the population.