Sex, Gender, and Popular Culture, Essay Example

Introduction

The American pop culture has changed the way people perceive sex especially in the last three decades. DeLashmutt considers these changes to be both paradoxical and intriguing (43). Many efforts are being made by different groups in society to campaign for abstinence as well as sexual norms that are more stringent. Young adults and teenagers are the ones who are most influenced by the reconstruction, provision of information and dismantling (and sometimes reinforcement) of existing sexual norms.

Changing Sexual Norms: Impact of Popular Culture on Sexuality in America

The greatest source of influence to young adults and teenagers comes from adult media. In the adult media, explicit sexual references are made and figures and images, who are then popularized on this account. This creates excitement among the target audience, whose understanding of sexuality takes shape under the influence of these popular culture themes.

The main effect of reconstruction of sexuality on the popular culture arena has been making human sexuality appear like a commodity that is separated from the human body. Many American movies and songs have been fuelling controversy for so long that nowadays, this issue no longer seems as important discussion theme in high-level platforms as it once used to. For this reason, an academic approach has not been introduced into analysis of American sexuality as portrayed through pop culture.

Commercialization of popular culture has had a great influence on how Americans are presented with the images of sexuality. In most cases, such images are distorted in order to serve the commercial interests of the day. The individuals who create popular works of art are interested in earning some more bucks in the heat of controversy. Sexual controversies become a hotspot for triggering controversy is in the mainstream media.

Young people tend to appreciate sexuality as depicted through popular culture since in most cases it reflects their predicaments and therefore brings out the reality that makes some people in the society feel uncomfortable. The greatest influence resulting from the emerging sexual norms affects teenagers. With time, these norms become entrenched into the social fabric such that considering wiping them out will be taken by majority as merely wishful thinking.

Has Popular Culture Redefined Sexuality in America?

Since pop culture texts are able to permeate the society in a way that academic texts cannot, the former medium always carries the day. Films are not merely forms of entertainment; they are also sources of insights into man’s challenges in everyday life. Lipsitz believes that by explored matters of sexuality at length, films have introduced new concepts and made Americans define their sexual interactions in a new, often liberal way (39).

Intersections between sexuality and race, education and class are not as straightforward as they are depicted in popular culture. It is one thing for a youthful pop singer to lament about racism in a song; it is a completely different thing for a black professor to express the same sentiments in a university journal. Although these two different people may draw from similar other’s experiences, they approach the same issue from completely different perspectives. When it comes to sexuality, the same thing applies in the comparison between how sexuality is perceived by young and old people. Older people are not ‘severely’ affected since they already have some established views about sexuality.

It is difficult to draw a conclusion on whether film, for example has been used by some sections of the American population as an escapist medium, as it is claimed in some quarters. If some people tend to associate major players in the film industry as uneducated people who have no regard for sexual morality, then, this contention requires a detailed research. The outcome of such research would be expected to shed some light on sentiments relating to social inequalities. The main areas of focus would undoubtedly be education, class and race. In the face of these inequalities, the affected young American population is left with no other way of making an impression than through expressing sexually explicit sentiments in order to attract attention and reinforce a macho self-image.

The most obvious way through which popular culture dismantles existing sexual and gender themes in the American society, according to Lancaster, is through taking a casual approach to serious matters that are at the heart of human sexuality (331). Since popular culture is not considered a serious discourse, it is never criticized by policymakers and for this reason, it continues to thrive and extend influence. The farthest that policymakers go towards asserting authority is censorship.

As long as federal administrators and scholars continue to turn a blind eye on progressive and interactive criticism of popular culture, people in this industry will continue to be perceived as rebels who have not cause owing to the sexually obscene themes that they perpetuate with utter disregard to their effects on the young population.

In the education system, it would not be surprising for a research to reveal the gravity of confusion that high school students are embroiled in when it comes to matters of popular culture. The same confusion extends to matters of sexuality in which case young people have to piece together bits of information gathered from wise counsel from parents, teachers and religious leaders, misleading advice gathered from peers and the profanity of popular culture.

Conclusion

Since the commercial pursuits of players in the popular industry pay off handsomely, the sexual norms that are perpetuated in pop culture become popular and seemingly acceptable to inexperienced youth. As the youths mature, their newly acquired social norms become part of the social fabric. This is what has taken place within the last three decades for sexual norms in the country to undergo drastic change.

Works Cited

DeLashmutt, Michael “The sexualisation of popular culture: towards a Christian sexual aesthetic” Crucible p. 42-56, 2006.

Lancaster, Lodger. The trouble with nature sex in science and popular fiction. Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2003.

Lipsitz, George. Time passages: collective memory and American popular culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota press, 2001.