Learning Unit 9:

Sexual Contents in Mass Media

Introduction

In the previous learning unit, we discussed the effects of violent media contents on audiences. Violence has been the primary concern of communication scholars because it is omnipresent and, most importantly, accessible to children in popular movies, TV shows and videogames. The next concern of the academic community has been the study of the effects of sexual contents. Communication scholars tried to establish a relationship between the exposure to such contents and social phenomena, such as teen pregnancy, venereal diseases of the decline of traditional family values. Mass Communication research always tries to establish causal correlations between media contents and social streams. For instance, does the reported homosexuality positively correlate with the increase of homosexual characters or homoxesual activity in media?

Sexual Contents Defined

As we did in the previous learning unit with the concept of violence, we will start trying to define what “sexual content” means.

The main problem that we have to measure the effects of sexual contents is that this concept is vague and very broad. A music video clip with an attractive woman sensually dancing or an intense kiss in a romantic movie could be considered sexual content, as well of explicit sexual acts in hard core porno movies. Thus, when we study effects is important to establish the degree of explicitness of those media contents.

In the mainstream film industry, movies that contains nudity are rated “R”, which implies that they are appropriate only for mature audiences. Explicit sexual relationships are normally banned from mainstream movie theaters.

In the reading suggested for this chapter, you will find some interesting numbers that can help us understand some aspects of the issue and also the impact of new digital technologies on this topic.

  • As to what the main source of information about sex among teenagers is:
    • 30% TV
    • 45% Friends
    • 7% Parents
    • 3% Formal sex education
  • 6 of 10 girls, 9 of 10 boys had watched at least one pornographic movie by the age of 18.
  • Internet – Every 39 minutes a new pornographic movie is created.
  • Pornographic Web-sites make 12% of all Web-sites.
  • Revenues from pornography world-wide went over $97 billion in 2006.

Pornography and Obscenity

To understand what these two concepts mean, and what is the difference between them – if there is any different at all, is one of the goals of this learning unit.

With the help of the reading material you should be able to answer the following questions:

Are all the sexual contents necessarily pornographic?

Are all the pornographic contents in mass communication necessarily obscene?

Does culture have any influence in determining what we consider to be pornographic or obscene?

Extent of Sexual Content

In the next section of our readings, you can find some figures that will help you understand the depth of the issue. Here follows a brief summary:

  • Sex magazines are in decline – still, during the 1990s, sexual contents exploded in the media.
  • Rental videos, suggestive music videos, cable or pay per view pornography, Internet pornography, sexting.
  • Music videos:
    • 3 of every 4 videos offer sexual contents with different degrees of explicitness, with an average of 5 sexual acts in every video. 80% of those videos also contained violence.
  • X Rated Videos:
    • 450 explicit sexual acts in 45 films studied.
    • High levels of aggression (verbally or physically) / latent racism.
  • Television:
    • Network and cable TV – 65% included talk about sex / 27% sexual behaviors
    • Unmarried vs married: 6 to 1 in TV programs; 24 to 1 in TV soap operas; 32 to 1 in R-rated movies.
  • Internet:
    • Deep abyss
    • 42%, age between 10 and 17, have been exposed to sex in Internet (Pediatrics, 2007)

Effects of Exposure

As we did with the study of media violence, we will establish possible effects of sexual contents in different areas of the individual psyche or behavior:

Sexual arousal

Changes in values and attitudes

Changes in behavior

Sexual contents and aggressive behavior

A very important factor to understand the effect of sexual contents is that the authors call the “prevailing tone”.

After reading the attached material, are you able to explain what that means?

The prevailing tone, according to Harris, has to do what the author calls “contextual variales”

How might following variables affect the perception of sexual contents?

    • Seriousness or triviality of the treatment
    • Artistic value or intent
    • Necessary to the plot
    • Degree of explicitness
    • Context of viewing (in which situation, with whom, …)
    • Cultural context
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