The mainstream mass media (television, magazines, music, movies, and the internet) provide increasingly frequent portrayals of sexuality. We still know relatively little about how this content is used and how it affects sexual beliefs and behavior. The few available studies suggest that the media do have an impact because the media keep sexual behavior on public and personal agendas, media portrayals, reinforce a relatively consistent set of sexual and relationship norms, and the media rarely depict sexually responsible models.
The mass media are increasingly accessible way for people to learn about and see sexual behavior. The media may be especially important for young people as they are developing their own sexual beliefs and patterns of behavior and as parents and schools remain reluctant to discuss this topic.
In the United States young people spent 6 to 7 hours each day on average with some form of media. A national survey in 1999 found that one third of young children (2 to 7 years old) and two thirds of older children and adolescents (8 to 18 years old) have a television in their own bedroom.
Sexual talk and displays are increasingly frequent and explicit in the mediated world. One content analysis found that sexual content that ranged from flirt to sexual intercourse had increased from slightly more than half of television programs 1997-1998 to more than two thirds of the programs in the 1999-2000 seasons. Depiction of intercourse (suggestive or explicit) occurred in one of every 10 programs.
One fifth to on half of music videos, depending on the music genre portrays sexuality or eroticisms. Two thirds of Hollywood movies made each year are R-rated; most young people have seen these movies long before they are required 16 years old. Although teenage girls’ and women’s magazines have increased their coverage of sexual health issues over the past decade, the majority of advertising and editorial content in these magazines remains focused on what girls and women should do to keep their man.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth rarely finds themselves represented in the mainstream media. Although a few of the young-targeted programs such as “Will and Grace” have included gay characters, what some have called compulsory heterosexuality prevails.
The internet has dramatically increased the availability of sexually explicit content. Computer and internet use is diffusing more rapidly than any previous technology. The word sex is highly ranked between the most searched words on internet today.
The question is how does all of this affect us? Will this increased availability of sex through all media turn us all into weird and twisted sexual perverts or will it become less interesting and provoking than it used to be? In my opinion it might go both ways. Soon it might become usual to express your sexuality in public places or to insist on some extreme forms of sexual behavior just to “spice things up” and to stand out from the crowd. On the other hand, I believe that conservatives will rise up and go even more conservative and insist on purity, chastity and sanctity.
We all witnessed the revolution in Anglican Church and saw the first woman becoming a priest. The revolution was now raised not as a result of persistent demanding of social equality or request of economical justice, but as a question of sexual equality. There was also the question of gay priests and their aptness for the job.
Maybe in the future, the sex and the sexuality will be the most important question in all social aspects, and maybe this will be the most important subject in our lives. Not the family or the government or the social question, but the sex.
Author: Sanela Todjeras @ sessionmagazine.com
images source: http://mazstudios.deviantart.com
