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Sex and the Media


Johnson Leonardi
Pasadena City College
Professor David Truby
June 26, 2014






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Introduction
With the advancement of technology and the availability of the internet today, people can
access information with convenience and ease. One of the biggest contributors of information in
the media industries today includes magazines (e-magazines or physical), TV broadcasts and
online news websites. As the media industry strives, people are constantly looking for more news
in a faster pace. This demand pushes the media industry to spread out and find more variety of
news they can offer to consumers. One of the biggest factors whether the news is worth covering
about is equivalent to how much controversy it has in the topic. Thus, one of the varieties that
media companies have to cover is probably the most controversial topic in the public today, sex.
Before, sex was considered inappropriate to talk about in the public as the topic is very
sensitive. However, as the media covers sex in the news, TV shows or magazines, people start to
talk about sex more openly. As much as the media tries to contain the topic exclusivity among
adults, adolescents will be curious and find their ways to gain access to information regarding
sex. With the development of sexual tension among adolescents today, youths have developed
their sexual deviancy at young age that will push them to perform sexual activity with one
another or even worse cases such as criminal acts such as rape. With their development of sexual
deviancy, adolescents will try to perform sex with one another while they are not financially or
mentally ready for the consequence which is pregnancy.
Consumers today are not aware that exposure from sexual content in the media towards
adolescents will change their psychological aptitude regarding sexual activity and will push their
curiosity to perform sex which develops their sexual deviancy in a young age. There are things
that the media industry do such as censorship to prevent adolescents to access sexual contents; is
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it effective? Then again, the public would question the act of sex itself, is it really a morally
wrong thing to do to have sex in a young age? This has been a question that has been debated for
a long time, and I would attempt to answer this in my paper with the retrospect of the
consequences instead of asking the essence of rightness and wrongness of sexual acts in young
age. As the media glorifies sexual activity and deviancy, adolescents will potentially increase
unwanted pregnancy and developing sexual deviancy in young age and, potentially, criminality
in the future.
Literature Review
Problem
With the growth of technology, information spreads at a faster pace, pushing the media to
gather news faster. With the lack of news variety, the media industry has to cover a wider variety
of information. The Western media industry has constructed sex as something that is healthy and
open minded. Sex is glorified and having sex is portrayed as part of having a good life (Boynton
& Callaghan p. 334). However, the coverage of the sex industry does not consider choice of
individuals rather it is something that the media just arbitrarily decide to cover to make the
articles more interesting (Boynton & Callaghan 2013 p. 334). The sex industry has a wide
variety of topics such as sensual images, sex advices, pornographic content and etc.
The progress of media allows the public to access information quickly; therefore, media
has to keep up with the people as they demand more information in a shorter period of time.
With the easy accessibility of media, statistics show that adolescents are part of the biggest
consumers in media. Adolescents are active consumers of messages broadcast on radio and
television, printed in magazines, distributed on the Internet, and presented in video games. As
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technology has advanced, access to these varying types of media has become common in U.S.
households: 98% have at least one television, 70% have more than one television, 70% have
cable, and 51% of households with children have a computer (Werner-Wilson et al, 2004, p.
303). As people demand more information, media has to be more aggressive with gathering
information and also expanding the variety of information portrayed to the public. This has led
the media to expand their coverage to the world of sex that could potentially lead the public
towards more sexual deviancy and unexpected pregnancy. According to my research, The
majority of sex coverage gives greater status to the West, and constructs sex as something for the
young, healthy, independently wealthy, urban living, open-minded, usually monogamous and
heterosexual (with the occasional foray into threesomes or swinging), who are interested in
improving their sex lives (Callaghan & Boynton, 2006, p. 334). This has shown that the media
is covering sex as something that is acceptable and the majority has seemed to enjoy this specific
topic. Journalists generally do not value sex as a topic, whilst those working within the eld of
sex do not hold the media in high regard. The public, however, rely heavily on the media for sex
advice. After friends, family and formal sex education, the media is a staple public sex
information source (Callaghan & Boynton, 2006, p. 334). This shows that the public do rely on
sex advices more from the media leading them to be influenced more towards the sex coverage
of the media.
With the expansion of technology, the media expanded their coverage to the sex industry.
With their expansion to the sex industry, a wider variety of audience will be able to access that
information. This results in adolescents who have access to the information with the possible
increase of sexual deviancy and unwanted pregnancy. Research shows that over the majority of
adult sex offenders began their sexual deviancy before the age of 16 (DiGiorgio Miller, 2007
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p.111) It is also found that with their sample size, over 29% of pedophiles attain their sexual
deviancy prior to the age of 20. (DiGiorgio Miller, 2007 P.111)
Sexual deviancy is a problem as it might lead adolescents to potentially turn into a
criminal. However, unwanted pregnancy is also a big problem for adolescents to encounter.
Unwanted pregnancy can lead adolescents to make hard choices such as going through the whole
pregnancy which would potentially harm the mothers or the infants livelihood or undergo
abortion where they will potentially suffer psychological and physical trauma. Unwanted
pregnancy occurs the most in teens who have sexual intercourse at a younger age (Chandra et al,
2008 p. 1048) Media also plays a part in unwanted pregnancy due to the lack of emphasis on
people using contraception which occurs in over 10% - 15% of programs containing sexual
content (Chandra et al, 2008 p.1048) Sexual content exposure plays a big part in unwanted
pregnancy, as study shows that youth that have high exposure of sexual content are most likely
to cause unwanted pregnancy in comparison with those who have low exposure to sexual content
(Chandra et al, 2008 p.1052)
Solutions
To fix this problem of exposed sexual media coverage, we can turn to a well-known
method that has been used many times before: censorship. When television first appeared in the
mid-1900s, there was much controversy over which contents were suitable to show in an
American home. Since television was fairly new at this point in time, many of its shows were not
peer-reviewed or examined before they went on air. The result of poor filtering of the media
industry can be viewed from the early television shows. Many of televisions early shows were
based on the vaudeville style variety shows. Vaudeville humor was not shy in addressing sexual
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topics that included homosexual gags and routines, and were based on racial, ethnic, and gender
stereotypes (McCracken, 2013, p. 356). People usually think of their homes as a place more
closely tied with their personal lives and their personal selves. When these sexual references and
crude comedies were being shown on television, many people deemed them unclean and
improper to show within their homes, because the home is thought of as a sacred and safe place
for ones families. Although the Vaudeville shows were popular to watch in theaters and live
plays, certain subjects and types of jokes were unacceptable for a broadcast medium that would
enter peoples homes (McCracken, 2013, p.356). Since these variety shows were improvised or
made-up on the spot, the CAD often had trouble with comedians ignoring the CADs requests
or adding unapproved material (McCracken, 2013, p.360). Because of the complaints from
viewers and watchers of the shows, the television companies had to revise the content that was
being shown to the audience otherwise, they would lose money due to the loss of viewers
watching their materials. Since they were losing profit, these companies decided to take on a
different approach to television, and started censoring their topics. The company NBC was one
of the first television broadcast companies to implement this change. Censorship became really
popular during this time, because television companies had to rewrite and reproduce all their
shows to make sure that they were in line with the audiences values and standards. Many other
companies also based their censorship policies on these guidelines.
As of today, these censorship policies have evolved and have become fairly strict. There are
government regulations to abide by and any violation of these rules can result in a lawsuit or in a
worst case scenario, jail time and government intervention. Because of the uproar from the
audience, companies realized that what was often suitable for outside entertainment was not
tolerated in peoples homes. Inside a persons home, they wish to feel relaxed, safe, and
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welcomed: a place where they could be protective of their children. Television companies had to
learn that what people wished to see outside was not always welcomed inside the home
atmosphere, due to the home having a different aura or mood compared to entertainment outside
of homes. However, times are changing and what was once deemed unacceptable is now
becoming more and more accepted into society. Therefore, with less available access to sexual
materials, censorship is an acclaimed process proven to work against unwanted pregnancy and
sexual deviancy.
Another solution to the problem of sexual deviancy is in fact a completely opposite
approach to censorship. This method is called selection, which is to choose things that society
deems better for society and praising them to implement cultural norms, while ignoring the
things that the community deems unsuitable to learn. While historically censorship has worked
as expectedsuppressing books and ideas or limiting their circulationit now often ensures
wider access to said books and ideas, thanks to the counter discourse of anticensorship. Despite
differences in aim and attitude, prizing and censorship frequently achieve the same end result of
greater publicity and symbolic capital (Kidd, 2009, p.199). Kidd argues that both selection
prizing and censorship work in favor of the unwanted media, because attention is being focused
on those messages, whether it is positive or negative. True, negative attention will most likely
disgust viewers into avoiding those undesirable topics; however, any type of attention, even ill-
favored attention, alerts the public to notice that information. Therefore, as a result, it becomes
infamous and people will know of it whether they like it or not. By using prizing, the attention
will be forced onto things that the community presumes is more beneficial to society, and the
things society does not want us to know will be swept under the rug. On the other hand, by
openly ignoring things we dislike and not making a big deal of them, prizing attract less attention
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to those ideas, which results in other people ignoring them due to ignorance or conformation to
social standards. It is a type of reverse psychology, and uses peoples emotional attachment
against them. This process of social engineering is based on the human desire to feel accepted,
and because of this, we usually want to accept things that others have accepted before us.
Therefore, by putting the hype on ideas and social norms that we want others to focus on, it
essentially persuades society into wanting and accepting the same ideals and values, and distracts
them from noticing unwanted information, like sexual content.
Obstacles
Although censorship and selection prizing both are useful procedures in avoiding and
decreasing sexual deviancy in media, obstacles have continuously hindered prevention methods.
Recently in the past few years, our society has been leaning towards encouraging children to
have sex by handing out condoms in classrooms, and claiming that teenage sex is actually
beneficial (Williams 1). Because of these messages, sexual activity in teenagers has risen and
the nations teen birth rate rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006, which was the first increase in 14
years, and births to unmarried mothers hit a record high (Williams , 2007, p.1). If adults are
supporting sexual activity of teens, not only will this distort the views of young adults on sex, but
it will also lead them to thinking that sex is safer than it really is. With all our modern technology
of abortions, birth control pills, and other pregnancy fail-safe methods, sex is now seen as
something less threatening or serious; we have all these safety nets in case something goes
wrong. With this mindset that getting pregnant isnt that troublesome, more and more teens are
now falling into the trap of their sexual desires.
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Another obstacle to this problem is that kids are not getting enough sexual education.
Keeping kids in the dark about sex is no answer. It is ignorance rather than knowledge which
leads to unwanted pregnancies and sexual diseases. It is intrinsically linked to poverty, social
disadvantage and poor education (Feldman, 2004, p.2). Sexual education has been deemed
unsightly and inappropriate to teach in the classrooms; however this can backfire as teens are
curious and attempt to figure out these things for themselves. With sexual education in the
classrooms, many early pregnancies can be prevented. Although sexual education in schools
works well as a prevention method in some parts of the world, for many others, sex education in
schools is simply not working. Adolescents who are not used to discussion of intimate matters,
or who have been brought up to think of sex as wicked or dirty, are the very ones most likely to
balk at earnest attempts to inform them about something so alien to the confines of the
classroom. And that's why the magazines play such a crucial role (Feldman, 2004, p.3).
Different countries have different cultures, and some parents and schools are less open to
discussing these topics with their kids and students. However, there are many ways to gain
information, and without proper education, many teens will turn to the Internet to ask questions.
If parents do not wish for strangers on the Internet to influence their children in a way that is
different from their own values, it is extremely important for them to teach their kids themselves.
Although education is one of the most powerful tools used in preventing teen pregnancy, the
consequences and side effects that it brings should not be experienced first-hand by children at a
young age. Instead, both adults and teenagers should take precautions to educate themselves
about the consequences of teen pregnancy and sexual deviancy.


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Argument
As the media industry grows, people are able to attain more information in a shorter
period of time. This growth allows the media to reach out towards a wider variety of audience
with ease. However, with a wider variety of audience, the media industry has to be able to appeal
to the public interest. This need has led the media industry to expand their coverage towards the
sex industry. However, their expansion to the sex industry will potentially expose adolescents to
sexual contents in the media. Adolescents ability to access sexual contents through media will
potentially increase the risk of adolescents being sexual deviants or having unwanted pregnancy.
The media has addressed to this problem by increasing censorship and restricting adolescents to
access sexual contents. However, censorship can sometimes backfire as rather than restricting
them, censorship emphasizes the censored areas arousing curiosity among adolescents. Media
causes adolescents to gain access to sexual contents pushing them towards early sex. One of the
countermeasures to prevent unwanted pregnancy is handing out condoms in schools. Handing
out condoms encourages students to practice safe sex to prevent unwanted pregnancy. However,
this action implies that its okay to have sex at a young age leading, students to develop sexual
curiosity and potentially develop a sexual deviance in the future. As the media glorifies sexual
activity and deviancy, adolescents will potentially increase unwanted pregnancy and develop
sexual deviancy and, potentially criminality. Therefore, my argument is that the media should
limit the amount of sexual exposure and educate the public regarding how having sex as
adolescents could impact their future and, potentially, the rest of their lives.
It is hard to agree whether having sex as adolescents is morally right or wrong. However
I will argue that the notion of having sex as adolescent itself as harmful as it could impact the
adolescents future. With the increased sexual tension among adolescents caused by the media, it
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is hard to prevent sexual content from youth, as the media is everywhere. This exposure causes
youths to have sexual activity resulting in an increase of unwanted pregnancy. Society has taken
action to increase awareness among teenagers to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Schools give out
condoms to youths and educate them that having unprotected sex are bad. But the problem is,
what about the notion of having sex as an adolescent itself? What media and society has failed to
do is increasing the awareness that having sex while youre not ready (financially and mentally)
could potentially risk your future. The notion of their having sex is already a risk and taking a
risk while you are not ready to take responsibility is harmful; this is what the media and society
has failed to educate youths today.
My argument focuses on the standard of exposure that the media is giving out to the
public. I believe that only the media has a standard or awareness of sexual content coverage.
The media has shaped societys view regarding sex, allowing adolescents to have sex before they
are financially and mentally ready. With a standard of exposure, the media will be able to control
the amount of information it gives to the society. However, this standard will deem to be too late,
as the societys mindset has been shaped by the current sexual content of the media. The amount
of sexual content should slowly yet surely dissipate from the media. This decrease will stop the
media from glorifying sexual activities and slowly shift from sexual content, allowing society to
pay less attention to sexual activities and leaving the adolescents less influenced by these
activities.
However, some disagree with my argument, claiming the competition among media
companies is really strong, pushing media companies to have wider and alluring programs or
information to provide the public. The lack of sexual content, will more the media less
interesting, giving another media company an opportunity to dominate the industry. This
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competition will cause media companies to face a dilemma; pull out sexual contents and
potentially result to the downfall of the company or try to be part of the competition. This
dilemma raises a question, is sexual content the only redeeming value in media and does it
determine whether it media is interesting? The fundamental of any kind of business in the world
is providing people something different and giving consumers a choice. However, providing a
consumer with something more is what makes a business successful. Media companies have a
choice what to focus on, and by being different doesnt mean that they will be unsuccessful.
Therefore, companies should realign their focus and pull away from sexual content and think of
something else that will attract customers, making them a successful media company. Pulling
away from sexual coverage will allow media companies to have more funds and manpower to
allocate their focus on giving their audience a specialty that serves as their biggest competitive
advantage over the market.
We know that sexual content is unnecessary and without it, the media industry will still
strive and still do great in attracting people. Media should be educated regarding their
responsibilities in the societys mindset, as they are the frontlines of setting a standard of morals
of the people. The reduction of sexual content exposure to adolescents will lead to less sexual
deviancy and unwanted pregnancy.
Another solution is having the government intervene with the media industry and make a
standard of exposure of sexual content. I believe that the government should intervene with this
problem as it involves the mindset of the nation as a whole. With the increase of sexual
deviancy, adolescents have a high potential developing into deviancy leading to a high crime rate
among youths. Also with the increase of unwanted pregnancy, more unskilled workers will look
for jobs, causing this nation to have more unskilled workers, reducing or stalling growth in both
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individual companies and economy as a whole. If the mindset of society has been tainted, the
government will have to lead and take control of this situation that creates high crime rates or
increases in unwanted pregnancy and potentially slows growth in the economy.
The disadvantage of these standards is that the people will probably be enraged regarding
the deferred information from the public. However, after a while, the public outrage subsides by
itself. If it doesnt, the public should be educated about how sexual contents in the media will
harm the adolescents and the future of this nation.
I believe that freedom of speech is important part of this nation, but I believe that the
well-being of the people is more important than having freedom of speech. The governments
intervention with the media will slowly reduce the sexual content. With this, I pray that this
amazing nation will move forward and progress even further without worrying about what our
next generation is exposed to.
Conclusion
As the media lowers their coverage regarding sexual contents people will be less exposed
to sexual contents, lowering sexual tension among adolescents. However, media companies are
really aggressive regarding their coverage of sexual content and integrating sexual content into
TV shows, advertisements and etc. Sexual contents will lead to an increased sexual tension,
which will lead towards a downfall of this nation with high sexual deviancy or crime rate and
high levels of unwanted pregnancies. I believe that this problem should be addressed with haste
as the more that this is left alone; the more aggressive the media companies will be to a point
where societys mindset cannot be changed.
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I believe that my research paper has addressed most of the research question I started
with. However, there are still some areas in the study that require more study upon. I come from
Indonesia and the media industry does not include sexual content in the media. My country has a
Muslim government and it has a strong disposition regarding sexual content in the media.
Therefore, any sexual content that is released to the public is banned. With no sexual content in
the media, it does not have any study regarding the sexual deviance rate of the public. It is very
important that someone would look into how banning sexual content in the media impacts the
people making a strong correlation between sexual content in the media with the sexual deviancy
of the people exposed.
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prevention campaign for pre-teens. Journal Of Community Practice, 10(3), 1-22.
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Kidd, K. (2009). Not censorship but selection: censorship and/as prizing. Children's Literature
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p. 13.

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