In the past few decades, young girls and boys increasingly have been sexualized in dance and performance arts with erotic moves and sexually explicit music. “Young girls look and act like mature women,” according to Dance Awareness, an organization committed to “bring awareness and education to adults in order to stop the hypersexualization of children in dance.”
The group cites many effects of the sexualization of children, including eating disorders, poor academic performance, teen pregnancy, higher risk of abusive relationships and co-dependence, among others.
Dance Awareness leads a movement to protect children through resources including the ebook Healthy or Harmful Children’s Dance and social media. It began as an offshoot of SonLight Dance, a studio created to honor John 12:35-36 (NIV): “The man who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going; put your trust in the light while you have it so that you may become sons of light.” Dance Awareness later spun off, while SonLight became Soul to Sole Choreography.
