ou’ve probably heard people complain that "porn is everywhere today." Although it’s a bit of an exaggeration, pornography has been creeping С/ into a variety of new places, including cell phones and video iPods. Analysts believe that in the next few years these will become popular devices for accessing pornography because they are small and […]

There are other forms of media that we have not discussed. Because sexuality pervades our lives, it also pervades our art and our media. Today sex-advice columns run in many newspapers and magazines across the country. There are also thousands of “900 number” telephone lines offering sexual services of various kinds across the country. People […]

The purpose of advertising is threefold—to get your attention, to get you physiologically excited, and to associate that excitement with the product being advertised. The ex­citement can be intellectual, emotional, physical (sports, for example), or visual (fast — moving action, wild colors); but when you think of “getting excited,” what immediately comes to mind? Well, […]

Advertising is a modern medium, and its influence pervades modern life. There is prac­tically no area free from its effects, from mass media to consumer products and even to nature itself—billboards obscure our views from highways, and planes drag advertising banners at our beaches. People proudly wear advertisements for soft drinks or fashion de- signers […]

The irony is that networks have turned to sex to increase their ratings, yet the constant presence of sexual themes on television is beginning to turn viewers away. The majority of Americans want stronger regulation of sexual content and profanity (Kunkel et al., 2005). Portrayal of sexuality in movies has also long been a source […]

Text not available due to copyright restrictions Researchers have begun to ask serious questions about the impact of all this televi­sion watching, especially because television is so inundated with sexuality and sexual stereotypes. For example, children are very concerned with gender roles, and they often see the world in terms of “boy’s” behavior and “girl’s” […]

Earlier we mentioned the number of hours that teenagers watch television. Although most watch 3 hours per day, during a typical school day, teenagers spend 4 hours and 41 minutes in front of a screen of some type (TV Turnoff Network, 2005). By the time to­day’s youths are 70 years old, they will have spent […]

Television offers its viewers sexual information both explicitly (through such things as news, documentaries, and public service announcements) and implicitly (through the ways it por­trays sexuality or gender relations in its programming; Gunter & McAleer, 1990). One im­plicit message of television programming, almost since its inception, has been that men are in positions of leadership […]

As sexually explicit as the visual media have become, they have generally had a very poor track record in their portrayals of certain sexual behaviors, such as same-sex be­havior, and certain minorities, such as the elderly, the disabled, and racial and ethnic mi­norities. Today popular shows such as Six Feet Under, Queer Eye for the […]