By: Cassidy Albers
When was the last time you watched a movie with sexual content? I’m guessing it was fairly recent. Sex in movies has become normal, maybe even expected by audiences, but recent studies have proved that the media’s portrayal of sex can affect viewers’ perception of the topic.
One common misperception about sex is that married sex is rare, if not, nonexistent. The media portrays married sex differently from unmarried sex. The most common ‘sexual activity’ among married couples in movies is passionate kissing, while movies with unmarried couples include “implied intercourse” (Dempsey & Reichert, 2000). This implies that sex among married couples is rare and boring compared to unmarried sex. While in some cases this might be true, most married sex occurs around once a week (Weiss, 2014).
Another common misperception is most people have sex all the time. A lot of people believe the frequency at which their peers have sex is a great deal higher than what it actually is. Interestingly, these beliefs correlated with the person’s media consumption (Chia & Lee, 2008). Remember when “Netflix and Chill” was trendy? With this phrase, commonly known as a code for sex, blowing up our newsfeed, it’s no wonder that people believe in a higher frequency of sex.
Overall, the media can skew people’s perceptions of sex through movies, news, etc. It’s important to realize that your perceptions on sex could be false. With the media constantly bringing up the topic of sex, it’s easy to believe certain things when that’s all you see. Furthermore, it’s important to watch out for how much sexual content children are exposed to as they grow up. From the different studies, one can conclude that the media’s portrayal of sex isn’t always true, and it can directly affect a person’s perception and actions.
Dempsey, J.M. & Reichert, T. (2000). Portrayal of married sex in the movies. Sexuality and Culture, 4(3), 21-36. doi: 10.1007/s12119-000-1019-3
Weiss, R. (2014). How Much Sex is Healthy?. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weiss/how-much-sex-is-healthy_b_4214472.html
Chia, S. C., & Lee, W. (2008). Pluralistic ignorance about sex: The direct and the indirect effects of media consumption on college students’ misperception of sex-related peer norms. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 20, 52–73. doi: 10.1093/ijpor/edn005