Media And Sexuality

Our society’s perception of sex and sexuality is influenced by the media, culture, and religion. The media influences our perception of sex by oversexualizing women and over masculinizing men in advertisements, music videos, television, and film. Female celebrities may be encouraged to dress or act in a provocative manner to gain attention by the media and from men. Female viewers may feel pressured to imitate these behaviors to obtain the same attention and desirability. This creates the perception that you must be sexy to be desirable. Additionally, both men and women may feel unconfident when comparing their body to those seen in the media. Therefore, both sexes may feel inadequate in their appearance, affecting their confidence in their sexuality and during sex. Furthermore, many films contain sex scenes regardless of their genre. Usually these scenes consist of an unmarried couple having spontaneous, unprotected sex. Rarely does the film stop to show the couple using contraception or discussing consent. This may influence viewers to have unprotected sex because they want to recreate the
Musical artists, such as Miley Cyrus, Rhianna, and Britney Spears, often gain media attention due to their shocking, sexual performances and content. Our society even looks forward to watching these performances and determining which artist was the most outrageous. This can be beneficial to the younger generation by bringing awareness to the topic of sex. This may increase people’s willingness to discuss sex in a constructive manner rather than completely ignoring the subject. However, this can be a challenge because young children may be exposed to inappropriate content that is difficult for children to comprehend. This may create misconceptions that affect their sexual value development. They may also imitate these behaviors believing that it is socially