Sexuality in the Mass Media:
How to View the Media Critically

The mass media has become an extremely pervasive and omnipresent institution, especially in American society. The Committee on Public Education reported last year that young people spend more time in front of the television than they do in school or with their parents, and by the time the average 18 year-old graduates from high school, he or she will have spent 15,000 hours watching television. It is no longer possible, considering the enormous degree of media-saturation in our culture, for the media to have zero effect on any aspect of human life, including human sexuality.

The changes in media representations of sex and sexuality over the last fifty years are astonishing. The media industries are no longer forced to portray husbands and wives occupying separate beds, and scenes of sexual activity are rarely avoided or quietly inferred. Sex in the mass media, especially on television, is becoming increasingly frequent and explicit, as many advertisers have come to the realization that