Sex, Anyone?

"Sex, Anyone?"

In 1999, 50% of high school students (52% of boys and 48% of girls) have had sexual intercourse. Why is this so? Media plays a very important role in society - a type of relaxation for some people or entertainment for others, but is portrayed in a "sex sells" ideology. Three ways that the media persuades us in believing this are through advertising, entertainment (television and movies), and music.

Advertising catches the attention of everyone - both young and old - but seeking to "feast" on the most vulnerable - the young. With the young seeking adventure and wanting to learn and become experienced, they are captured by everything they see and hear, whether the information is ethical or unethical. Over the years, sex has become an important part of the media through advertising and sales in a world where sex is important. An idea was proposed to allow the advertising of contraceptives - condoms, birth control pills, cervical caps, or a diaphragm (looks like a cervical cap), but television networks do not allow such advertising. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American children have viewed an estimated 360,000 advertisements that have sexual innuendos on television before graduating from high school. The advertisement becomes a great teacher for how society should live, and what is acceptable in today's world if you want to be with the "in-crowd". No one should deprive himself or herself by guessing and wondering what lies beyond ethical behavior or spiritual beliefs. Through advertising, sex is a new "territory" that must be explored, in a society that condemns a person for being a virgin.

Today, when people turn on the television to watch their daily favorite shows, one in four television commercials include some type of sexual attraction as the base for the message. The media can offer perceptiveness or reinforce norms and turn it into different ways of thinking. Television used to be an innocent and safe way to learn and to entertain oneself (i.e. Sesame Street), but is now about the attraction that two people can have and how they deal with it - sex. Television has portrayed sexual intercourse as an important part of life. The way the media depicts sexual content has a profound real-life effect (researchers who study the media and sexual content in the American society). According to the AAP, teen sex is considered to be a major health problem because a person can go through physical, emotional, and social pain and consequences. In a study of reality shows that was conducted from January 1, 2001, until May 1, 2002, the number of sexual activity depictions was 0.7 per hour and the number of sexual references was 0.9 per hour. When any presentation of sex appears in a television show, it is presented in a casual non-risky activity that does not involve consequences. In fact, sex does involve consequences in many teens across the country. In Canada the two most popular sexual transmitted diseases (STD) are Chlamydia and the human papillomavirus (HPV - genital warts). In 2000, 38,600 teen mothers between the ages of fifteen and nineteen had given birth. There has been no study that can answer why or how watching sex on television influences teenagers to have sex.

Music Television (MTV) is another way in which sexual messages are delivered to the youth. MTV is a commercial free network that displays numerous music videos - about 75% sexual - with stereotypes of males and females. Females are seen through sexual images that portray females through short, and sharp shots of intense visual pleasure (Sut Jhally - "Intersections of Discourse" - 153). This portrayal of females is used to keep the viewers focused and watching so that the viewers do not miss a thing. Some researchers (Greenburg and Hofschire) have come to believe that the MTV sexual content has influenced viewers and his or her beliefs on sex and the sexual behaviors of society. The images used in music videos model the world and have created an identity for teens. During spring break