British primary school children are becoming increasingly sexualised, while our over-emotional response to paedophilia grows by the day. When did we get so confused?

By Ian Dunt

Ofsted issued a warning today about the level of sexualisation among primary school children. It found recently suspended pupils as young as four were guilty of touching other children inappropriately and using sexually graphic language.

The watchdog's concerns are entirely justified, but there is a certain irony to the fact they were reported on the same day Rebecca Wade was promoted to the head of News International from her former position as editor of the Sun. Wade's career hit its first political storm in 2001, when, as editor of the News of the World, she named and shamed convicted paedophiles, resulting in mob attacks and the hospitalisation of a paediatrician. The chief constable of Gloucestershire called it "grossly irresponsible journalism" - which is exactly what it was - but she earned herself 95,000 new readers a week.

These twin stories highlight something malign and twisted in our relationship with children. Wade's decision to publish the list of paedophiles is a product of something I have written about before - our cultural habit of treating childhood as an unrealistically innocent and angelic time. This sentiment leads us to adopt a borderline psychotic approach to the problem of paedophilia.

But on the flip side of the coin, we have also pushed the point of a child's sexualisation ever downward. The evidence is all around us, even if much of it is anecdotal. Having coffee with a friend the other day, we were both horrified to see a pre-pubescent girl, walking with her mother, wearing a T-shirt saying 'porn star in training'.

This is not just a UK problem. It's a western problem. Over a decade ago, Britney Spears hit our screens. Her first song, 'Baby One More Time', featured a music video in which she danced seductively while wearing school uniform, around the same time as she gave interviews turning her virginity into a marketing device. A friend of mine who teaches in a primary recently told me she asked the children to form bands and give themselves a name. One of the girl groups called themselves ' the sex kittens'. They have no idea what it means, of course. Neither do I, for that matter. But they understand enough to wish to mimic the world around them.

This comes partly from our obsession with youth. As a society, we've become less deferent, which is certainly a good thing. But age has now become something appalling in our culture, as if it were a living reminder of death. Witness the treatment of Menzies Campbell, a man who was quite evidently of sensible mind, and perfectly capable of doing his job as Liberal Democrat leader. Some, myself included, might even say his experience was a plus. Instead he was hounded from his job by an obsessive and totally unjustified media focus on his age. He was replaced by the perfectly competent Nick Clegg, whose main distinction from his predecessor is his age. Gradually all of our political leaders are becoming younger and telegenic, despite the fact that these factors have no relevance whatsoever to their ability to do the job.

As we increasingly obsess over youth, our ideas of sexual attraction focus on the younger and the younger. And, linked to that, the discussion of sex becomes open and relevant to younger and younger girls. The women offered to young girls as role models are often defined merely by their looks. Take WAGs, endlessly written about in fashion magazines and tabloids, whose primary accomplishment in life entails being pretty enough to attract a footballer. Take pop stars. While men are allowed to look as ugly and odd as they wish - especially in the indie/emo genre - female pop stars must be attractive and reveal as much of their body as possible. The same, to a lesser extent, goes for female actors.

Do we really wonder why our youth have become so sexualised when the society around them has become so obsessed with youth and beauty? They are merely forming the impression we ourselves have given them.

And then, on the flip side, comes our attitude to paedophilia, which is so unhelpful and plain wrong, it does us - and children - a disservice.

The frantic, emotive and vengeful attitude we have towards sex offenders does more harm than good. Children have not become any more threatened than they ever were. There have always been bad people who wish to do terrible things to those weaker than them. We should deal with them through a combination of the penal and psychiatric systems, and whatever empirically verified data we obtain on other measures likely to reduce harm.

We do not deal with them by publishing the names of paedophiles so that we can encourage mob violence. We do not deal with them by instigating a 'Megan's Law', which turns sex offenders - many of whom are trying to change their behaviour - into latter-day lepers or sub-humans. We do not deal with them by suggesting involuntary castration, or any other barbaric pub talk that strikes us as appropriately angry and red-faced.

The threat is there. It is no more substantial than it has ever been. We must control our emotional response to it and proceed on the basis of what will reduce the instances of child sex abuse - not what makes us feel better.

We dug ourselves so far in on either side that we have only a tiny space in which to sit. On the one hand, we desire and envy youth so much we have begun to sexualise our young in a way that should make us all uncomfortable. On the other, we have become so obsessive and foolish about the perfect innocence of children that we have prioritised our anger at paedophilia over our desire to prevent it.

Tabloids and the media are predominantly to blame, of course, in that they spew this contradictory nonsense at us day after day. But the media can't sell what people don't want, and, at some level, these problems are a reflection of a confusion within ourselves.

The West in general has a problem with this, but Britain seems to have a particularly acute version of it. Having an honest, outspoken debate about it is the first step. We need to think about adopting a healthier attitude towards our young.