Too much sex, says student

By Jacob Wingard
Columnist

The media today has become swamped with sexuality.  Having been unable to turn on my television for the last few weeks without seeing something relating to the act, be it an ad using sex to get me to buy a product, some sitcom using sexual tension to increase viewership or just watching the latest movie trailers, I can’t seem to get away from the stuff.

While sex is what consumers seem to clamor for these days, it is unmistakably a shallow form of media which has become too pervasive in our culture.  Sex is selling, but when it comes down to it, this goes against the social etiquette everyone is taught as a child.  

Of course the old statement that: “Sex is bad, never do it or bad things will happen to you,” is taking things too far, the alternative is no better.  

Humans were designed for sex and to use it as a biological need, but does that really mean we have to glamorize it or  desensitize the masses to the importance and intimacy of sexuality?  In my opinion, we shouldn’t be treating sex as a marketing ploy in order to draw in consumers; further, we shouldn’t be making one of the most intimate and loving parts of life a cold statement.  

The most recent movie in memory I can recall watching was The Mechanic, a movie starring Jason Statham and directed by Simon West, where the two main characters are hit men.  Still at least twice throughout the movie there were scenes depicting intercourse as quick, dirty and violent means of gratification.  

Is this really what we want our perception of sexuality to be, a cheap thrill with a complete stranger in the back of an alleyway?  Media’s perception of sex is one that I can’t see myself accepting nor do I really want it to be there.  If sex needs to be portrayed in order for the show to continue, then it is already over the edge of being a lost cause; sex for the sake of sex doesn’t add anything to a film or book.  Intimacy and characters’ reactions to it adds depth and characterization eons beyond what a one-night stand will tell you about anyone.  Granted, this opinion is one that isn’t shared by the masses, as media wouldn’t keep shoving the same thing down our throats if people weren’t clamoring for it.  

Yet, I don’t believe that people understand what watching such things do to their perceptions.  

Over time what humans watch, listen to and see shapes how they act and understand various stimuli in nature; for example soldiers eventually become desensitized to violence over time in order to cope with the trauma of shooting another human being.  In this case, society is viewing so much sex and seeing it as a measure of what sex should be and how gender politics works.  Next time you find yourself with your friends, ask them some words they associate with sex; most likely you’ll end up with violent words like: pound, screw, nail, bang, plow and the list goes on.  

Media has already changed the tide of how we perceive this event, but shouldn’t that be the job of our family or better yet our own experience?  Writing about sexuality is fine and illustrating how characters act in those situations is another thing I’m alright with, but lately I just find there to be no point in the hideously misplaced ideas that are going into society.

I suppose what I’m getting at here is that Sex for the sake of Sex is a pointless venture that adds nothing to literature or television.  If it is really necessary as part of a character building arc or anything else, then its perfectly fine so long as the act isn’t portrayed as being some violent one-night stand.  That does nothing but degrade two characters at once in a pointless venture to make the show ‘edgy.’ Regardless, the media is always going to contain sex due to the overall demand for it; consumers want it and media will continue to dish it out, so long as there is a demand.