Sex in the Media free essay sample

Anyone who turns on the TV today can see that sex is a big factor in TV shows, commercials and just about everything on TV. Even shows that are intended for young children have some innuendos and even show kissing. The media in America has changed and continues to change how the youth and children of America view sex and its value. This paper will use examples of current shows in the media is affecting the youth in America. Back in the 1960’s the first time â€Å"The Brady Bunch† showed the mom and dad sleeping in the same bed there was uproar from the families all around America. When this happened the mom and dad were in their pajamas and were sitting in bed talking and not touching. Since that time sex has slowly become a very prevalent vein throughout the entertainment and even selling points on TV and on the internet. We will write a custom essay sample on Sex in the Media or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Some statistics of this are: * Estimated number of TV homes: 109. 6 million * Average time kids spend watching TV each day: 4 Hours Children spend more time watching television than in any other activity except sleep. Huston and Wright, University of Kansas. Television and Socialization of Young Children. * 54% of kids have a TV in their bedroom. Ibid * 44% of kids say they watch something different when theyre alone than with their parents (25% choose MTV) * 66% of children (ages 10 to 16) surveyed say that their peers are influenced by TV shows * 62% say that sex on TV shows and movies influences kids to have sex when they are too young * 77% say there is too much sex before marriage on television Pulled from http://www. parentstv. org/PTC/facts/mediafacts. asp) If 54% of children have a TV in their room and they watch different shows when alone than when they are with a parent – what are they getting from TV? Teens are saying that their SEX IN THE MEDIA3 friends and peers are being influenced by the shows and movies they are watching. Youth are even stating that there is too much premarital sex on TV. With this much sex being drilled into the minds of our youth there is little hope of them having strong moral values. The rise of social media has also become an issue with children and the increase of sex in the media. CNN reported that the growth of technology and social media has exploded over the recent years. One example used in this report was that by the age of 2 children already have histories online. By age 7 or 8 children are pretty proficient at using the computers. (Clinton/Steyer, 2012) Many adults joke about the fact that if they can’t fix their Smartphone all they have to do is take it to a child and that child will be able to accomplish what they can not figure out. With children being able to easily do so much with technology it is getting ever increasingly harder for parents to effectively monitor what their children are being subjected to when it comes to sex in the media. In TV shows like One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl and many other shows geared towards the teens of America, the characters sleep with just about every other character without much consequence or truly realizing what they are doing. For example, Gossip Girl is about people who live on the upper east side of New York City. This show starts out with the main character having just come back into town. She originally left town because she drank too much and had sex with her best friends boyfriend. Although there is a lot of drama when this all comes out in the show, it is quickly resolved and everyone gets along again before the end of the first season. In this show everyone sleeps with everyone and there are rarely, if ever, long SEX IN THE MEDIA4 term consequences. There are also only a few pregnancy scares and no mention f any Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Even during the day when kids are home there are shows on that are not age appropriate. Most of the time they are shows that are meant for adults to watch after the kids go to bed in the evening but they show the re-runs at all times of the day. And cartoons are not much better. There are even cartoons that are not meant for children, like Family Guy and South Park. In these shows many of these shows they make direct sexual comments and jokes and us es profanity often. Both of these cartoons are crude and are very much meant for adults but being that they are a cartoon, many kids can come across them and end up watching them. Unfortunately, with TV’s being in the bedrooms of over half the American children parents may not be able to provide parental discretion. Not to mention that many parents who have grown up with the rise of sex on TV do not realize that what their children are watching is affecting them. When TV first came into American culture very few shows even mentioned sex. Now, it mentioned regularly in the shows and commercials that we watch. Children younger than 8 cannot uniformly discriminate between real life and fantasy/entertainment†¦ They quickly learn that violence is an acceptable solution to resolving even complex problems, particularly if the aggressor is the hero. †Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ (Parents Television Council, 2005) According to this statistic, Children are being taught that what they see on TV is how real life is and this will inevitably affect them as they grow. To see how the media is changing the view of sex in the youth of America, go to a local high school and observe how the young ladies are dressing. More and more skin is allowed and SEX IN THE MEDIA5 very few of them understand how this affects their image in the world. On TV girls get away with wearing close to nothing and it seemingly does not affect the male characters in the show until â€Å"just the right time† when the girl wants them too. According to an article in Journal of the National Medical Association â€Å"In a study of 75 adolescent girls, in which half the girls were pregnant; the pregnant girls reported watching more soap operas than their non-pregnant counterparts and were less likely to believe that heir favorite soap opera stars used any form of birth control. † (Earles/Alexandar/Johnson/Liverpool/McGhee, 2002) In the media girls see that â€Å"everyone† is doing it but are rarely if ever taught about the adverse affects of â€Å"doing it†. Even when they are shown the adverse affects, everything seems to just work out no matter what. â€Å"In the most recent content analysis of American primetime TV, more than three-fourths of the shows had sexual content; yet less than 15% contained any references to responsible sexuality, abstinence, the risk of pregnancy, or the risk of sexually transmitted infections. (Brown, 2007) The problem with this is that teens are not learning how to be sexually active responsibly; they are just learning that they are supposed to be sexually active. Not only are they not learning the responsibility of the physical things that can happen they are not learning that sex is not just a physical act and that many people are hurt emotionally when things do not work out as they thing that it should and they have been sexually involved with that person. On TV the characters move on quickly and have little or not remorse about the bad decisions they have made and how their decisions usually do not affect only them but also those around them. The media is also not teaching the young men of America how to treat women with respect. In an article in the Academic Search Premier â€Å"Most of the messages concerned men SEX IN THE MEDIA6 seeing women as  sex  objects,  sex  as a competition,  sex  as a defining aspect of masculinity, and  sex  as fun and exciting (Ward, 1995). (Sommers/Gleason, 2001) Women in the media are shown more as sex symbols than as human beings worth the respect of men. In the media it is subtly taught that women should be treated nice but that they are just there for the use of men. Sex is also not usually shown as something that should happen when people fall in love. In the media sex is used as a weapon to gain what that person may need in that moment. Sex is also used to burn off steam and that sex is always fun. For example in the show Grey’s Anatomy a woman sleeps with one man while she is thinking about another man. This is how sex is depicted on the regular TV. There is another aspect of the media that is not only affecting the youth of America but is affecting families and the general public of the American people. This aspect of the media is pornography. Pornography is an industry that is â€Å"generating $13 billion in just the US in 2006†. (Bryant/Oliver, 2009) Pornography has grown from dirty magazines to videos and movies that are very easily accessible. Pornography used to be an industry that was looked down upon and was not socially acceptable. However, now watching porn is something that is almost considered normal for guys to watch. The magazine sales have decreased over the years only to be replaced by channels of porn on cable and pay per view. Then internet is also growing immensely when it comes to pornography. Anyone can go onto Google or any other search engine and just type in the word porn and hundreds of pages come up where a person can view hours of pornographic videos and images. Without parental controls on computers children can easily run across these sites and see images that they are too young to understand. SEX IN THE MEDIA7 Because the media has increased the amount of sex, the view of sex is ever changing in America. This change is not good because it is working for people to see each other as something that they can use. The media is not teaching the youth of America to respect one another or that sex is important. It is teaching that sex is a part of life that feels good but has little to no consequences. This is not a real life outlook on sex and in the long run it is going to severely hurt the morals that the youth of America are already losing on a daily basis.