This is absolutely something I've observed as well and have been called a misogynist for it. I wrote a post a few years ago on some of the effects of it on BTS/K-Pop fandom. There's nothing wrong with being an older fan but there's something really wrong about older women hiding behind a screen of teenage fans. I know it's not the Gen Zs and Alphas who are laundering cash to buy mp3s for the Billboard charts.
Take Ya Home by Lil Bow Wow feature a chorus sung by adult women who want to effectively commit statutory rape against him (he was 14) — so it’s been a trend.
Chuckling, my old line manager wrote that GQ cover.
WRT to the general topic, though, I think it's fairly simple: there has always been an easy assumption that teenage boys are *so* horny, they can't ever be sexualised. That all and any attention must be great, for them. And teen boys certainly do perform that persona, certainly, though scratch the surface and you generally find someone much more vulnerable and less confident. Wrapped up in this is perhaps also the fact that after puberty, 90% of boys will be physically stronger than 90% of women, so there's less of a perceived vulnerability to actual predation (and maybe there is, in that sense! Though it rarely works like that). Both those points, I reckon, make it much less loaded to joke about sexualising young men in the public eye.
On a semi-related note, I think previous generations would be surprised at Harry Styles, a boy of 19ish, being quite so discreet about his sexual partners. You wouldn't be mad to assume that the average teen boy who had (I presume) shagged around a lot would love the chance to boast about his exploits.
I'm honestly surprised I haven't gotten any pushback (yet?) claiming that teen/young boys love this type of attention, since that's so commonly the perspective.
You might be the person to ask: do you think this is a particularly British phenomenon? This didn't fit into the piece, but I know Take That were highly sexualized at first and launched specifically at gay clubs. Whereas BSB/NSync had a veneer of innocence and (from what I could tell) didn't outright seek out the sexualized image.
I don't know... there's a long(ish) tradition of irreverent pop interviews and also of risqué tabloids in a way that as far as I can tell, other countries may have less of (imagine half your print newspapers were the New York Post). The Sun, the Mail or the News of the World would all have happily printed any lurid story about young celebrities in the 2000s, no matter how untrue. Stephen Gately had to come out as gay in 1999 as he learned he was about to be outed in the media here, that was quite high-profile. Basically your personal life is fair game.
I also think that extended to music journalism, somewhat. In music specifically, we had Simon Amstell on Popworld, still have Never Mind the Buzzcocks etc. We had the NME, Kerrang!, various other magazines in the 2000s. I think there was a sense of ownership of the artists they covered, and they could be fierce and cruel on occasion. They would never consciously sexualise the acts though, certainly not explicitly.
I also think we don't have a strong tradition of public abstinence or declared celibacy among teenagers – I really cannot imagine the Jonas Brothers or any Christian act who practiced celibacy emerging from the UK. Not that they couldn't be popular (JBs were massive), but because there just isn't an evangelical movement to speak of. Again, I don't think that would necessarily mean there would be a bawdiness to the interviews or treatment of adolescent men in media, though.
I'd guess it's more down to that irreverent, tabloid sort of tradition?
I think you're on to something with the ownership--when I was doing my research into the mainstreaming of slash I was surprised it was covered in NME, for example, for bands like Libertines/Franz Ferdinand. And yes, the tabloid tradition is... something.
I am glad you mention Take That - they straddled an odd line of being both over- and under-sexualised. They were launched in gay clubs but by the time they were being aimed at a teen audience that history was brushed under the carpet in official band histories, and they were considered a ‘Lilly-white boyband’, ‘nice clean boys you could take home to your parents’. Their manager actually lied about Howard and Mark’s ages to make them younger, and they officially were not allowed to have girlfriends or date girls by their manager. But then they would produce highly sexualised imagery and respond to interview questions about not being allowed to date by saying ‘our manager’s not here today’. So it was this odd mixture of projecting innocence while wink-wink-nudge-nudging their audience, and overtly sexualised images. In actuality they slept with loads of (older) fans - more than a modern boyband would get away with because the stories would be all over social media - and had secret girlfriends pretty much the entire time.
Age of consent in the U.K. is lower than the US, I believe - 16 rather than 18 - which means that teenagers are ‘fair game’ at a younger age. Also, ‘cheeky’ (which I am not sure is really understood as a concept in the US?) and seaside ‘kiss me quick’/‘Carry On’ humour means that sexuality is more linked to comedy - and not to be taken so seriously as it is in the US.
If you are talking about the 90s pop bands you need to be looking to Smash Hits, TOTP magazine, Fast Forward magazine, etc, not the NME and Kerrang!
Just wanted to add: I think that in that sign from Northern Ireland, the "nanny" might well mean the kid's grandma, right? Rather than like a caregiver?
Around the early 2010s, Mariah Carey did a crappy Christmas song with one of those teen idols (Justin Bieber? Aaron Carter?) and in the video he’s leering at her. Seemed really gross. Didn’t realize until reading this how widespread that sort of thing was.
If you look back at the original x factor season in 2010, Harry Styles was sexualized by the producers on the show. They had jokes about him "snogging" multiple girls, had staged scenes of girls ... mostly older than him... fighting over him. The golden thong as well as him running around nudes were part of the show. They intentionally sexualized him to promote this boy band. The branding started day one with that group of boys.
This is absolutely something I've observed as well and have been called a misogynist for it. I wrote a post a few years ago on some of the effects of it on BTS/K-Pop fandom. There's nothing wrong with being an older fan but there's something really wrong about older women hiding behind a screen of teenage fans. I know it's not the Gen Zs and Alphas who are laundering cash to buy mp3s for the Billboard charts.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7g2UBdFSfM
Take Ya Home by Lil Bow Wow feature a chorus sung by adult women who want to effectively commit statutory rape against him (he was 14) — so it’s been a trend.
Perhaps even since The Jackson 5.
Chuckling, my old line manager wrote that GQ cover.
WRT to the general topic, though, I think it's fairly simple: there has always been an easy assumption that teenage boys are *so* horny, they can't ever be sexualised. That all and any attention must be great, for them. And teen boys certainly do perform that persona, certainly, though scratch the surface and you generally find someone much more vulnerable and less confident. Wrapped up in this is perhaps also the fact that after puberty, 90% of boys will be physically stronger than 90% of women, so there's less of a perceived vulnerability to actual predation (and maybe there is, in that sense! Though it rarely works like that). Both those points, I reckon, make it much less loaded to joke about sexualising young men in the public eye.
On a semi-related note, I think previous generations would be surprised at Harry Styles, a boy of 19ish, being quite so discreet about his sexual partners. You wouldn't be mad to assume that the average teen boy who had (I presume) shagged around a lot would love the chance to boast about his exploits.
I'm honestly surprised I haven't gotten any pushback (yet?) claiming that teen/young boys love this type of attention, since that's so commonly the perspective.
You might be the person to ask: do you think this is a particularly British phenomenon? This didn't fit into the piece, but I know Take That were highly sexualized at first and launched specifically at gay clubs. Whereas BSB/NSync had a veneer of innocence and (from what I could tell) didn't outright seek out the sexualized image.
That's such a good question.
I don't know... there's a long(ish) tradition of irreverent pop interviews and also of risqué tabloids in a way that as far as I can tell, other countries may have less of (imagine half your print newspapers were the New York Post). The Sun, the Mail or the News of the World would all have happily printed any lurid story about young celebrities in the 2000s, no matter how untrue. Stephen Gately had to come out as gay in 1999 as he learned he was about to be outed in the media here, that was quite high-profile. Basically your personal life is fair game.
I also think that extended to music journalism, somewhat. In music specifically, we had Simon Amstell on Popworld, still have Never Mind the Buzzcocks etc. We had the NME, Kerrang!, various other magazines in the 2000s. I think there was a sense of ownership of the artists they covered, and they could be fierce and cruel on occasion. They would never consciously sexualise the acts though, certainly not explicitly.
I also think we don't have a strong tradition of public abstinence or declared celibacy among teenagers – I really cannot imagine the Jonas Brothers or any Christian act who practiced celibacy emerging from the UK. Not that they couldn't be popular (JBs were massive), but because there just isn't an evangelical movement to speak of. Again, I don't think that would necessarily mean there would be a bawdiness to the interviews or treatment of adolescent men in media, though.
I'd guess it's more down to that irreverent, tabloid sort of tradition?
I think you're on to something with the ownership--when I was doing my research into the mainstreaming of slash I was surprised it was covered in NME, for example, for bands like Libertines/Franz Ferdinand. And yes, the tabloid tradition is... something.
I am glad you mention Take That - they straddled an odd line of being both over- and under-sexualised. They were launched in gay clubs but by the time they were being aimed at a teen audience that history was brushed under the carpet in official band histories, and they were considered a ‘Lilly-white boyband’, ‘nice clean boys you could take home to your parents’. Their manager actually lied about Howard and Mark’s ages to make them younger, and they officially were not allowed to have girlfriends or date girls by their manager. But then they would produce highly sexualised imagery and respond to interview questions about not being allowed to date by saying ‘our manager’s not here today’. So it was this odd mixture of projecting innocence while wink-wink-nudge-nudging their audience, and overtly sexualised images. In actuality they slept with loads of (older) fans - more than a modern boyband would get away with because the stories would be all over social media - and had secret girlfriends pretty much the entire time.
Age of consent in the U.K. is lower than the US, I believe - 16 rather than 18 - which means that teenagers are ‘fair game’ at a younger age. Also, ‘cheeky’ (which I am not sure is really understood as a concept in the US?) and seaside ‘kiss me quick’/‘Carry On’ humour means that sexuality is more linked to comedy - and not to be taken so seriously as it is in the US.
If you are talking about the 90s pop bands you need to be looking to Smash Hits, TOTP magazine, Fast Forward magazine, etc, not the NME and Kerrang!
Just wanted to add: I think that in that sign from Northern Ireland, the "nanny" might well mean the kid's grandma, right? Rather than like a caregiver?
That wouldn't surprise me because fandom at the time was also full of jokes about how grandmas could land him.
Around the early 2010s, Mariah Carey did a crappy Christmas song with one of those teen idols (Justin Bieber? Aaron Carter?) and in the video he’s leering at her. Seemed really gross. Didn’t realize until reading this how widespread that sort of thing was.
If you look back at the original x factor season in 2010, Harry Styles was sexualized by the producers on the show. They had jokes about him "snogging" multiple girls, had staged scenes of girls ... mostly older than him... fighting over him. The golden thong as well as him running around nudes were part of the show. They intentionally sexualized him to promote this boy band. The branding started day one with that group of boys.
https://pagesix.com/2025/09/09/celebrity-news/creepy-catherine-zeta-jones-called-out-for-inappropriate-comment-about-minor-fan/