We can be smart about sex in the media

It is everywhere.

“Life is short, have an affair. ashleymadison.com.”

“It” being sex of course.

Driving down Sunset Boulevard, my jaw dropped the first time I saw the Ashley Madison billboard. I was shocked.

The fact that people were advertising unfaithfulness in broad daylight without even so much as a fine-print disclaimer really threw me.

After driving home in serious contemplation about what love and sex had come down to in marriage, I decided to give myself an afternoon of relaxation. So I poured a drink, grabbed a blanket and popped in my favorite season of “Sex and the City.”

That’s when it hit me.

There was almost no difference in what I was watching on my television and the advertisement on the Sunset billboard, except that the show came first and left less to the imagination.

Don’t get me wrong about using the show as an example ““ I think “Sex and the City” is one of the most relatable and cleverly written shows for women. But I was under the impression that I watched it simply because it entertained me and had never considered the implicit impact it may have had on my life directly.

In all actuality, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had been mistaken.

Sex has been a major factor in advertising and entertainment for longer than I can remember. Like most people my age, I had become so unaffected by sexual content that it took a blatant advertisement for cheating to catch my attention again.

When did sex and the media become synonymous?

Perhaps it had something to do with curiosity stemming from Animal Planet or the incredibly easy access to internet porn, but according to the internet filter review of 2006, 90 percent of all 8- to 16-year-olds have viewed pornography on the internet, mostly while doing homework.

With sex being a less taboo subject now than it was 10 years ago, it is still quite a “bottom shelf, paper bag” topic when it comes to discussions.

Once young people reach that age of curiosity, if their parents are not the ones providing information through conversation and approachability, they will look elsewhere. The media is there to provide, whether that information is accurate and honorable or not.

According to Media Scope in 2001, “(Forty) percent of teenagers have gotten ideas for how to talk to their boyfriends and girlfriends about sexual issues from entertainment media.” Some of the information they receive is accurate, but most is diluted with juicy plot agenda and character conflict.

In addition to media pressure, the increase in sexual curiosity at an earlier age could also be attributed to the fact that the onset of puberty is beginning at a younger age, due to animal hormones in food and other substances.

Although they are the most influenced demographic, children and young adults are not the only people affected by sexual content in the entertainment realm.

In 2006, the word “sex” was searched 75,608,612 times via the internet, and 80 percent of those who did the searching were over the age of 18.

It is no surprise that sex is a fascinating obsession for the human race. If it did not hold that status, it wouldn’t sell, it wouldn’t constantly be deemed a taboo and it wouldn’t matter who was doing it when and with whom.

Compared to earlier times, we as a society have become increasingly more tolerant of sex in TV, film, radio and so on. That acceptance is elevated in such a liberal university as UCLA and such a racy city as Los Angeles.

The fact that you can drive a few miles from campus to your local Hustler of Hollywood, or right by an extra-marital affair advertisement for that matter, could be seen as both a flaw and benefit of our location.

Information, knowledge and freedom of sex are all necessary for an active, safe sex life. It’s just a matter of receiving the correct data and filtering out the trash.

In California, a 16-page document containing obscenity laws dictates what can be deemed as appropriate for viewing. Luckily, it is vague, subjective and always open to interpretation.

The beauty of sexuality stems from this idea of individual perception. What’s considered sexy is all relative to you.

The stigma of society will always attempt to taboo it, but, gloriously shown by the media and our own distinct decisions, sex is in our faces and here to stay.

Love having sex in your media? E-mail Forde at nforde@media.ucla.edu.

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