Much of sexuality is influenced and shaped by popular culture, especially the mass media. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the media are among the most powerful forces in young people's lives today. Watching television, playing video games, texting, listening to music, and searching the Internet provide a constant stream of messages, images, expectations, and values about which few of us can resist. For those concerned about promoting sexual health and well-being, understanding media's prominence and the role it plays in people's lives is essential. Advertising and all media uses sex to sell, promising sex, romance, popularity, if only the consumer will purchase the right product. In reality, not only does one not become sexy or popular by consuming a certain product, the product itself may actually be detrimental to one's sexual well-being, as in the case of alcohol or cigarettes. Media images of sexuality permeate a variety of areas in people's lives. They can produce sexual arousal and emotional reactions, increase sexual behaviors, and be a source of sex information.
Sexuality was once hidden from our view in culture, but over the past few generations, sexuality has become more open. Not only is sexuality not hidden from view, it often seems to surround us. In this chapter we will discuss why we study human sexuality and examine popular culture and the media to see how they shape our ideas about sexuality. Then we will look at how sexuality has been treated in different cultures and at different times in history. Finally, we will examine how sexuality is defined by various aspects of our society and deemed as natural or normal.
Being sexual is an essential part of being human. Sexuality can be a source of great pleasure and satisfaction. Sexuality is the means by which we reproduce, bringing life into this world and becoming parents. Paradoxically, sexuality can also be a source of guilt and confusion, anger and disappointment, a pathway to infection, and a means of exploitation and aggression. Throughout our lives we make sexual choices based on our experiences, attitudes, values, and knowledge. Our sexuality evolves as we, ourselves, change.
Students begin studying sexuality for many reasons: to gain insight into their sexuality in relationships, to become more comfortable with their sexuality, to explore personal sexual issues, to dispel anxieties and doubts, to validate their sexual identity, to resolve traumatic sexual experiences, to learn how to avoid sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy, to increase their knowledge about sexuality, or to prepare for helping professions. Many students find the study of sexuality empowering. They develop the ability to make intelligent sexual choices based on their own needs, desires, and values, rather than on ignorance, pressure, guilt, fear, or conformity. The study of human sexuality differs from the study of other disciplines because human sexuality is surrounded by a vast array of taboos, fears, and hypocrisy. For many people, sexuality creates ambivalent feelings. It is linked not only with intimacy and pleasure, but also with shame and guilt. As a result, you may find yourself confronted with society's mixed feelings about sexuality as you study it. Despite their ambivalence, people want to learn about human sexuality. On some level they understand that what they have learned may have been unreliable, stereotypical, incomplete, or unrealistic.
Figure from McGraw-Hill Image Library
Over the past decade, as technology and access to the mass media has improved, our consumption has increased as well. In 1999, the average amount of media exposure among all 8 to 18 year-olds on a typical day was roughly seven and a half hours. In 2009, that number climbed to ten hours and forty-five minutes each day.
Mass media depictions of sexuality are meant to entertain and exploit, not to inform. As a result, the media do not present real depictions of sexuality. The various media present the social context of sexuality, meaning that the programs, plots, movies, stories, and articles tell us what behaviors are appropriate, with whom they are appropriate, and why they are appropriate.
Among all types of media, television has been the most prevalent and pervasive. By the time an American teenager finishes high school, they will have spent more time watching television than in the classroom or sleeping. While the frequency of TV viewing has been increasing, so has the number of sexual references in programs. Television is a major source of information about sex for teenagers, and it contributes to many aspects of young people's sexual knowledge, beliefs, and behavior. In a study by Kunkel, et al. in 2005, found that television shows geared toward teenagers have more sexual content than adult-oriented shows. In the accumulated volume of media research, media content does not reflect the realities of the social world. Rather, the media images of women and men reflect and reproduce a set of stereotypical and unequal, but changing, gender roles. Sexist advertising and stereotypical roles in comedy series and dramas may have an effect on the way some men and women view themselves. Television exposure does not affect all people in the same way, but it's evident that the sexual double standard that does exist taps into our ambivalent feelings regarding sex equality, morality, and even violence.
Unlike audio-recorded music, music videos play to the ear and the eye. Young female artists have brought energy, sexuality, and individualism to the young music audience. Music videos have also objectified and degraded women by focusing solely on their sexuality. Video games often provide images of unrealistically shaped and submissive women in degrading scenes. Men, in contrast, are often revered as unrealistic, violent figures whose primary purpose is to destroy and conquer. Games, such as the Grand Theft Auto series, are won by rising through the ranks of criminal underworld by conquering a city and women through crime and violence. Though many of these video games are rated M or Mature by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, they are both popular and accessible to young people. From their very inception, motion pictures have dealt with sexuality. Sex is often used in the cinema to overcome aesthetic merit of the film as a way to lure moviegoers to view the film. Movies are not that dissimilar from television in their portrayals of the consequences of unprotected sex, such as unplanned pregnancies, or STIs, including HIV and AIDs. Although it is not wise to confuse education with entertainment, it should not be forgotten that the media serves as a source of information for youth, regardless if the information is accurate or not.
Gay men, lesbian women, and bisexual and transgendered individuals are slowly being integrated into mainstream films and television. However, when gay men and lesbian woman do appear, they are frequently defined in terms of their sexual orientation. Teen coming out stories reflect the identity issues of being gay, transsexual questioning, or unsure about their sexual identity. Most stories depict and expose the vulnerability most young people feel in school about being bullied. Still, television and mainstream media have a long way to go in terms of presenting healthy sexual relationships between gay people.
Though social theorists have long been concerned with the alienating effects of technology, the Internet appears quite different from other communication technologies. Its efficacy, power, and influence, along with the anonymity and depersonalization that accompanies its use, have made it possible for consumers to more easily obtain and distribute sexual materials and information than ever before. With the widespread use of online dating sites, the medium has become an acceptable means for individuals to meet new partners. It is apparent that social networking sites, like Facebook, are well ingrained into the daily lives of young adults in the United States. Probably nothing has revolutionized sexuality the way the access to the Internet has. The Internet's contributions to the availability and commercialization of sex include live images and chats, personalized pages and ads, links to potential or virtual sex partners. The spread of the Web has made it easy to obtain information, solidify social ties, and provide sexual gratification. Like other forms of media, the Internet does not simply provide sexual culture, it also shapes sexual culture as well. With thousands of sexual health sites maintained online, new forms of media are also powerful tools for learning. Concerns associated with using new media to learn about sexuality and sexual health include the possibility that the information is inaccurate or misleading, and that those who turn to the media may turn away from real people in their lives.
What we see as natural in our culture may be viewed as unnatural in other cultures. Culture takes our sexual interests and molds and shapes them. Sometimes these cultural views celebrate sexuality, and other times they condemn it. Among the variety of factors that shape how we feel and behave sexually, culture is possibly the most powerful. All cultures assume that adults have the potential for becoming sexually aroused and for engaging in sexual intercourse for the purpose of reproduction. But cultures differ considerably in terms of how strong they believe sexual interests are. These beliefs, in turn, affect the level of desire expressed in each culture. Among the Mangaia of Polynesia, both sexes, beginning in early adolescence, experience high levels of sexual desire. Around the age of 13 or 14, boys are given instruction on how to please a girl. Girls the same age are instructed by older women on how to be orgasmic. Young men and women are expected to have many sexual experiences prior to marriage. The New Guinea Dani show very little interest in sexuality. To them, sex is a relatively unimportant aspect of life, as their only sexual intercourse is performed quickly, ending with male ejaculation. Female orgasm appears to be unknown to them. The Dani are an extreme example of a case in which culture, rather than biology, shapes sexual attractions.
Another example of how sexuality varies among culture and time would be during the Victorian era. In the 19th century, white middle class Americans believed that women had little sexual desire. If they experienced desire at all, it was only for reproductive purposes if they wished to have children. Whereas women were viewed as asexual, men were believed to have raging sexual appetites. Both men and women believed that men's sexuality was dangerous, uncontrollable, and animal like. The polar beliefs about the nature of male and female sexuality created destructive resentments between angelic women and demonic men. These beliefs provided the rationale for the war between the sexes, and have also led to the separation of sex from love.
Between the 1960s and mid-1970s significant challenges to the ways that society viewed traditional codes of behavior took place within the United States. This movement is referred to as the sexual revolution or sexual liberation. This counterculture movement questioned previously established rules and regulations, including individual self-expression and autonomy, sexual activity outside the context of marriage, acceptance of homosexuality, and the rights to sexual education. Furthermore, the counterculture movement legitimized a woman's right to be sexual and questioned traditional, stereotypical gender roles for both men and women. It was during this period that abortion became legal and there was widespread accessibility of birth control. For the first time in history, women had personal control over their own reproduction. Although a significant amount of time has passed since the end of the Victorian era, and the counterculture's attempts to shift values and attitudes about sexuality, many traditional sexual beliefs and attitudes continue to influence us. These include the belief that men are naturally sexually aggressive and women are sexually passive, the sexual double standard, and the value placed on women being sexually inexperienced.
Sexual orientation is the pattern of sexual and emotional attraction based on the gender of one's partner. Heterosexuality refers to emotional and sexual attraction between men and women. Homosexuality refers to emotional and sexual attraction between persons of the same sex. Bisexuality is an emotional and sexual attraction to both males and females. In contemporary American culture, heterosexuality is still the only sexual orientation receiving full social and legal legitimacy. Some other cultures, however, view same-sex relationships as normal, acceptable, and even preferable. A small number of countries worldwide, and a growing number of states within the United States, have legalized same-sex marriage.
Is being male or female solely biological? No. Gender is the characteristics associated with being male or female. It may be difficult for some people to imagine that culture has anything to do with gender, but the possession of certain male or female genitalia does not always make a person a man or a woman. Transsexual and transgendered persons are people whose genitals and identities are discoordinate. In some cultures, men who assume female dress, gender roles, and status are referred to as two-spirits. This is inclusive of references in our culture of transsexuality, transvestitism, as well as a form of same-sex relationships.
The diversity of sexual behaviors across cultures and times immediately calls into question the appropriateness of labeling these behaviors as inherently natural or unnatural, normal or abnormal. Often these labels are value judgments and evaluations of what we feel is right or wrong. To decide if a sexual behavior is natural or unnatural, we must have some standard of nature against which we compare the behavior to. If a behavior is labeled as natural or unnatural, we typically are indicating whether the behavior conforms to our culture's sexual norms. Our sexual norms appear natural because we have internalized them since birth. Additionally, sexual behavior is also described as either normal or abnormal. However, more often than not, describing a behavior as normal or abnormal is merely another way of making a value judgment. Social scientists use the word strictly as a statistical term. For them, normal sexual behavior is behavior that conforms to a group's average, or the statistical norm of behavior. Ironically, although we feel pressure to behave like the average person, or the statistical norm, most of us don't actually know how others behave sexually. People don't ordinarily reveal much about their sexual activities, and if they do, it's often their most conformist sexual behaviors. Are there behaviors, however, that are considered essential to sexual functioning and, consequently, universally labeled as normal? Yes, there is. Reproduction, or the biological process by which individuals are produced, is probably the one shared view of normal sexual behavior that most cultures would agree upon. All other beliefs about sexual expression and behavior develop from social context.
Instead of classifying sexual behaviors according to the traditional sexual dichotomies of natural/ unnatural, normal/abnormal, moral/immoral, and good or bad, sexual researchers view human sexuality as characterized by sexual variation, that is, sexual variety and diversity. The best way to understand our sexual diversity is to view our activities as existing on a continuum. On this continuum, the frequency with which individuals engage in different sexual activities ranges from never to always. The most that can be said of a person is that his or her behaviors are more or less typical or atypical of the group average. Activities diverging from the norm are usually thought of as deviant or dysfunctional sexual behavior. However, these variations, such as exhibitionism and fetishism, are engaged in by most of us to some degree. For example, some people may enjoy sleeping with an article of clothing that belonged to a love interest. This is a degree of fetishism. Additionally, most of the time these feelings or activities are only one aspect of our sexual selves. Behaviors that are not the statistical norm are considered atypical behaviors. Atypical behaviors represent nothing more than sexual nonconformity when they occur between mutually consenting adults and do not cause distress.
The rejection of natural versus unnatural, normal versus abnormal, and moral versus immoral categories by sex researchers does not mean that standards for evaluating sexual behavior do not exist. There are many sexual behaviors that are harmful to oneself and to others. Current psychological standards for determining the harmfulness of sexual behaviors center around the issues of coercion, potential harm to oneself or others, and personal distress. The basic standard for judging various sexual behaviors is whether they are between consenting adults, and whether they cause harm. It is up to the individual to evaluate the ethical or moral aspect of the behavior in accordance with his or her own values, understanding diverse sexual attitudes, motives, behaviors, and values will help deepen the individual's own value system.
In summary, popular culture is a sexually socializing agent that has gained prominence in encouraging and discouraging sexuality. Sexual references across all mediums has increased significantly, but they also tend to be stereotypical, as well as absent of risk and responsibility and lack of diversity in sexual images that are being portrayed. However, it is clear that culture is one of the most powerful forces shaping human sexuality. The variety of sexual behaviors, even within our own culture, testifies to diversity, not only between cultures, but within cultures as well.