Gandara 1

Manuel Gandara
English 114B
John Kubler
September 20th 2015
Sexualized Society
It is no secret that the censorship of American media has come a
long way over the years. Today the media is less censored than it has
ever been. In other words, there are many things being shown on
television and the internet that have not always been usual content
that one would see openly in public. One of those things is the wide
exposure of sex. Most of todays popular music revolves around sex.
From music videos to live performances, it is always somehow sexually
related. There many other things in society that uses sex as a way to
gain popularity and money like most businesses. Many businesses use
sex in their advertisements in order to sell their product. Evidentially,
this high exposure of sex to the pubic has become quite the norm in
todays society. For example, in the 1950s sitcom I Love
Lucy, the married couple Lucy and Ricky did not sleep in the same bed.
Things were much different then than the way they are now.
The reason for this change is because of the high human value of
sex. As humans, we find sex as pleasurable and it gets our attention
wherever we encounter it. As a result, many media sources like
television, social media, and the Internet are always used to display

Gandara 2
and empower sex. The question is, is our hyper sexualized society
bringing us up or down? I believe that it brings more negative issues
than positive ones. Some of those issues are the negative views of
woman and the effect that sex has on young children.
I dont see how something could be seen as a good thing in
society if it degrades and disrespects women as a whole. Most of the
sex that is shown through the media, it is nude women with exotic
sexual behavior. Many females pop stars for example, gain extreme
popularity because of their sexual personalities. Their music videos
and performances are full of female nudity. All of these aspects enforce
the idea of misogyny, which is the idea of seeing women as sexual
objects. Women are being glorified only because of their bodies and
this wrong. According to professor Thomas Keith, creator of the
documentary Generation M, its turning women into objects, turning
them into sexual objects, as second class citizens and of course actual
violence against women.(Keith, 1:30) Professor Keith lists ways in
which a hyper sexualized society effect women by the idea of
misogyny. In other words, women are being objectified every time they
are exposed for their bodies.
The music itself is something that is degrading women itself not
just the pop stars. A great majority if this new hip-hop music is very
misogynistic towards women. . Many rappers use words that are
offensive towards woman in their songs. Through the use of these

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words, women are being disrespected and degraded. The problem is
that people do not see it as disrespectful because of the normality of it.
In other words, people see it as something popular and approved by as
a society rather than something bad. Keturah Hancock, a writer for the
NY Times, states, I find it even scarier when I see teenage females
reciting these lyrics, as if they are content with the way females are
being described. Society is raising males who want to degrade women
and raising females who are fine with being degraded. The children,
who grow up watching this on social media, begin see woman as sex
objects as well.(Hancock 3) Hancock is clearly describing to us what is
going on. Men are being taught to disrespect women and women are
being taught to be okay with it.

As a result of the high sexual exposure of women in the media, it

affects other women with their self-esteem. Women see how skinny the
models are on television and they see how they are described as
beautiful. Women compare themselves with these models and they
dont see themselves as beautiful because of the examples that have
been set by our sexualized society. These models on the media have a
greater effect on children especially young girls. In an article by Lyba
Spring, a researcher for the Canadian Womens Health Network,
describes this influence on girls as life changing because, We expect
pre-school children to explore gender roles by dressing up; but girls are

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doing more than dressing up. Their sexual development is being
hijacked: department stores offer them alluring clothing and sexy toys;
the media invite them to imitate the porn-style dance moves of their
favorite stars.(Spring 2) In other words Spring is trying to say that
clothing industries are designing very revealing clothes for a young
age group because they know these young customers will buy them.
Young girls find these pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera
as role models so they imitate their sexual style. This hyper sexualized
society is forcing young girls to become sexual while they should be
enjoying gather childhood years.
While one might say that it is the parents responsibility to keep
their children away from such sexual content, I would say that it is
impossible to that in todays culture. This brings up another big issue
when it comes our hyper sexualized society, hardcore pornographic
videos. I believe that the simplicity to access pornography videos is
too high. This is giving young men a psychological change since they
are the majority, of whom which watches the videos. An article by the
Child Refuge Organization, states that when young men watch these
pornographic videos, They fail to accept it as something thats bad for
them. Instead, they consider the stuff they see in them as something
worth imitating. This mentality even reaches to a point where they
begin to model their own behavior in the real world to that of what
they usually see in the videos.(CFO 5) In other words, these young

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boys feel as if this is what sex really is so they imitate what they see in
the videos. This is also contributing to the issue of women being seen
as sexual objects. Young men perceive women as sexual objects. They
seem them as only being good for being sexual models and they carry
this idea with them further into their lives. This is another reason how
our hyper sexualized society is bringing humanity down.
I believe that it is okay for adults to have access to pornographic
videos. They have every right to be entertained by whatever they wish.
Its okay for adults to see nude performances by pop stars if they are
intrigued by it. However, when children see it they are being
brainwashed into seeing women as objects and they see sex as
meaningless. This problem occurs when sex is placed on the hands of
children and it is our hyper sexualized society that is handing it to
them.

Works Cited
"MusicVideosPromoteSexualityandProfanityandTeensLoveIt."MusicVideos
PromoteSexualityandProfanityandTeensLoveIt.N.p.,n.d.Web.17Mar.2015.

"HowPornographyHarmsChildren."HowPornographyHarmsChildren.N.p.,n.d.
Web.17Mar.2015.

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Spring,Lyba"SexyGirls:TooMuchTooSoon?"SexyGirls:TooMuchTooSoon?N.p.,
n.d.Web.18Mar.2015.

Hancock,Keturah"LoveandHiphop...really?"NYDailyNews.N.p.,n.d.Web.18Mar.
2015.

Tomas,Keith,"GenerationM:MediaintheLivesof818Yrolds."GenerationM:Media
intheLivesof818Yrolds.N.p.,n.d.Web.24Mar.2015.