« Le fléau ». Sexualité adolescente, Internet et panique morale "The Scourge": Teenage Sexuality, Internet and Moral Panics

Résumé

Au Québec, en ce début de XXI^e siècle, les médias véhiculent un discours populaire sur la sexualité adolescente qui s’énonce sur le mode de la panique morale et fait grand cas de l’usage d'Internet à des fins sexuelles par les adolescents — généralement pour en décrier les nombreux risques pour leur santé mentale et physique. Deux exemples seront discutés ici en parallèle: nous nous pencherons d’abord sur des reportages produits pour l’émission Enjeux au sujet de la pornographie adolescente sur Internet, puis sur des discours à propos du prosélytisme pédophile sur Internet, deux exemples qui mettent en évidence un imaginaire de la souillure indiquant un interdit en ce qui concerne les usages sexualisés du corps. L’analyse révélera que le problème de la sexualité adolescente sur Internet n’est pas celui de la légalité, ni même de la nature potentiellement violente des représentations sexuelles qui y sont véhiculées. Terra incognita, Internet serait plutôt le lieu où la culture québécoise sent son ethos se diluer, et ses jeunes se perdre.

Abstract

Among the numerous aspects of sexuality discussed publicly throughout the twentieth century, teenage sexuality, characterized by an unprecedented engagement with technology, the adoption of seductive fashion trends, and the development of new modes of relation to the body and caring for the body, has emerged as one of the great sources of public debate in the latter half of the century. Such a discourse has culminated, at the turn of the twenty-first century, in a form of moral panic. In fact, since 2000, sexuality has consistently been displayed in Québec public and popular media as a source of health risk both physical and moral for adolescents, due in large part to their use of internet as a means to engage in sexual contact. In this article, two examples of discourses central to the formation of the moral panic are discussed. We will first present television reports produced in 2000 and 2003 for the public affairs program Enjeux, which present the dangers of pornography on the Internet. We find that these reports, through their choice of vocabulary pertaining to "adolescents "on the one hand and "adolescents on internet" on the other hand, express a particular image of internet as a source of stain, a specific form of imagination which, according to Ricceur, is associated with the presence of a prohibition. We then look at discourses about pedophilic proselytism on the Internet as a second building block in the formation and perpetuation of the moral panic. Our analysis of these discourses, while it keeps the focus on imagination of the stain and forms of relation to the body, reveals that the "problem" with teenage sexuality and the Internet has little to do with legal matters or with the risk of encountering violent sexual partners/sexual imagery. Rather, it reveals that Internet is portrayed as the ultimate terra incognita, where a specifically Quebecker ethos can no longer hold itself together and from which, most of all, Québec teenagers might just not "come back".