"New" Sex Culture?

In the past week I’ve been doing more research to try to answer my question about the sex culture of today. When I first started, my question was: why is there an obsession with sex in our culture today and how is it affecting young people.  As I looked into it more I’ve started to question whether there even is a so called obsession. Is there an obsession with sex in our culture or are we led to believe that by pop culture media? What does this mean for sex education? I still need to refine my research question but that’s roughly the direction I’m going on the issue.

We are considered part of the “hook up culture”. The implication is that people now are more inclined to participate in sexual activities, or anything related to it, even something as simple as  kissing, without an expectation of a relationship or any kind of commitment in the future. With this “new” method, traditional dating and romance is in danger of being extinct. There is also a high risk of getting STDs for participating members and there may be unforeseen emotional consequences, mostly for young girls.

To me, this all sounds very familiar. If we go back in time to the 60’s, we find ourselves in an era of “free love”. Women began to assert their sexual freedom and thus began the hippie movement. Magazines like Cosmopolitan made an entrance into public view and led the way to openly talking about sex. Young people participated in casual sex and this was where STDs really began to affect a big part of the population. Some trends do eventually make their comebacks and I think the same rule applies to sex culture.

I’m not entirely convinced that there is a “big problem” with the “hook up culture”. The problem lies in sex education, or lack thereof. I can’t deny that pop culture media is overly sexual, since I’ve seen it for myself. Songs are getting more explicit, people become famous from their sex scandals, and TV shows like The Jersey Shore existed. However, the fact that young eyes are exposed to this everywhere they look, should spark some serious discussion about educating them on sex.

Sex in Popular Culture

We live in a generation that lives in the so-called “hook-up culture”, where dating is almost extinct and is instead replaced by no commitment, short-lived hook ups.  The main focus is no longer finding your soul mate or starting a family, it’s now all about sex and just doing what you want because you want to. When did this mentality begin and what are the consequences of living in this kind of culture? What can we expect of this for future generations?

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind behavior make up a culture. It all began in the 60s and early 70’s where it was all about “free love”. In that time, women expressed their sexuality more openly than ever before and the feminist movement began to sprout. Along with this new attitude however, erupted negative effects, such as STDs. The hippie culture changed things forever.

Before then people were very conservative about their personal lives. Even adult shows were very PG; the most you would ever see was a passionate kiss. One famous TV couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, weren’t even allowed to be filmed lying in the same bed, even though they were married on the show, as well as in real life. Bedrooms were hardly ever seen on most shows.

Today sex is a very common subject all over popular culture. Music now contains very explicit lyrics, ads use sometimes controversial sex appeal as a means of persuading viewers, and TV shows sometimes have a sex scene here and there (or like “The Affair”, where the entire show is based on sex). It’s not all bad however, since now there seems to be more of a push for sex education. There are also public service announcements and ads promoting safe sex.

I’m sure I can find a lot of examples in popular culture to back up my statements. I think my main focus should be on researching the effects these things have had. I need to compare statistics on teen pregnancies and maybe compare it to the statistics from other less-sexualized countries. Organization is also something I really need to work on, although this was more of a free write to get my ideas down.

Television Outline

The television was first invented in the 1920’s by Philo Farnsworth and Charles Francis Jenkins after years of work and contributions from many scientists. Since then it’s become one of the biggest contributions to popular culture. From the news, to entertainment, to advertising, television has been used for many purposes, both good and bad.

            The only sources of news before television were newspapers and the spoken word. It used to take days before you found anything out. Now news is almost instantaneous...

            Entertainment has changed drastically since television has been around..  

Intro: Brief history of Television

P1: News

P2: Entertainment

P3: Information

Conclusion: Impact on pop culture

SimpsoncalifragilisticexpialaDO’Hcious- Very Rough Draft

            The show of the infamous dysfunctional TV family, The Simpsons, is the longest running animated series of all time. What was concocted by Matt Groening in the lobby of James L. Brooke’s office has now become a pop culture phenomenon. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and even Maggie, have managed to touch the hearts of millions since their very first appearances in the Tracy Ullman Show, when they were just part of a 10 minute skit. It wasn’t until 1989 that they branched off into their own 30 minute spin-off, The Simpsons. Since then, The Simpsons have had over 400 episodes, a movie, video games, and produced award winning shorts, like Maggie’s segment “The Longest Daycare”. The show and its contributors have won a total of 136 awards and been nominated for another 195. It’s been 25 years since its pilot episode and it’s still going. It seems like, as it was stated in the song played during the episode ‘Gump Roast’, “they’ll never stop the Simpsons” (a parody of Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire”).

            The show began with Matt Groening’s goal to provide audiences with something different from the “mainstream trash” they were watching. The family was nothing like what was on TV at the time of its creation. They were (and still are) violent and dysfunctional, to say the least, but it was their imperfections that brought viewers closer to those yellow characters on a personal level. Homer struggled, as a father and husband, to keep his family together. In the first full-length episode, The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, Christmas for the family was on the verge of being ruined when Bart had a run in with the law and Homer’s boss, Mr. Burns, announced that there would be no Christmas bonus. He struggled along with the millions of fathers to provide for his wife and kids. Viewers saw a man determined to instill his values in his children and give them what he was never given as a child. In later episodes, his character changed into the dimwitted drunk but he always kept his sweet side.

Bart is a typical boy: rebellious, struggled with bullies, overall just trying to fit in. He related to the teenagers of the 90’s with his spiked up hair do, riding around the town of Springfield on his lime green skateboard. Eventually, his face was everywhere from t-shirts to cereal boxes. He even came out with a music video and later an album featuring his hit song, ‘Do the Bartman’.

Lisa first started out as Bart’s female counterpart, playing the role of his bratty little sister, but later branched out to a more in-depth character. At the very young age of eight, her intelligence surpassed that of the majority of the students in her school (and very likely that of many Springfield citizens). That, along with her maturity, made her an outcast in school. She struggled to find her identity, until her saxophone helped her express herself through her music. Lisa is an inspiration to many young girls, including myself.

Marge, woman with the iconic blue hair, started out as the stereotypical nagging wife but became Homer’s moral compass. Her role of wife and mother proved to be just as challenging as it is in the real world. In some cases it became too overwhelming, a feeling mothers know all too well…

Maggie is the sweet little baby that completes any family. Although she was mostly seen in the arms of her mother, she turns out to be a very dynamic character. At first, her adventures came in small clips of her and the household pets, Snowball II and Santa’s Little Helper. However, her character proves to be more profound than the babies of other cartoon families. Maggie proves to be smarter than given credit for; she’s saved Homer’s life several times but also turns out to be the shooter in the two part story ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns?’ This is a baby that is anything but two dimensional.

*Note: This is an extremely rough draft, a lot will be cut, moved and added.