Media Influence On Sexuality

Sexuality can defined as “the ways in which we experience and express ourselves as sexual beings.” (Rathus, Nevid & Fichner-Rathus, 2014). Throughout history, the definition of sexuality has been defined through our society, thus shaping people’s perspective on social norms and stigma regarding sexuality. Sexuality also exists with the influence of one’s culture as sexuality is a phenomenon that can be shaped socially, thus it can be dependent on one’s surrounding. One large influence on sexuality is the media, which plays a large role in people’s everyday lives. Media, being one of the most easily available source can be able to shape one’s everyday behaviour hence influencing one’s sexuality over time as it introduces what is the social norm

Historically speaking, the expression of women’s sexuality throughout the media is stereotypically portrayed as being sex objects to fulfil men’s sex drive, since women are depicted as being more submissive than men. This is shown in the film A Doll House (1973), which was originally a novel written by Henrik Ibsen, set in the late 1800s Norway introduces a female character Nora Helmer who is suppressed by the societal stigma during the Victorian era, in which women were stereotypically made to please men’s sexual desires as mutual sexual pleasure among male and female was a behaviour that did not comply to the social norm in the society. Therefore, this suggests that women’s sexual behaviours relied on the authority of the male (Victoria and Albert Museum, Online Museum & Web Team, 2013). As Nora Helmer refuses to have sexual intercourse with her husband during the film, her husband replies with “Won’t! Won’t! Am I not your husband…?”, portraying his shock and disbelief by Nora’s behaviour. This suggests that women’s sexuality heavily relied on men’s desires, portraying the existence on sexual roles between women throughout history (Victoria and Albert Museum, Online Museum & Web Team,

With media being the most accessible source of information, this questions how easy it is for one to turn to media for information surrounding sexual content. Taking pornography for instance, where women are commonly portrayed as playing the submissive yet subordinate roles whilst men are depicted as being more authoritative, the exposure to explicit sexual content can lead to activation of one’s sexual gender role schemas (Bogt, Engels, Bogers & Kloosterman, 2010). Furthermore, in the study by Bogt, Engels, Bogers & Kloosterman (2010) which investigated the effect of exposure of youth media on sexual attitudes and stereotypes regarding gender among adolescents, researchers found out that the portrayal of sexuality in the media, in terms of sexual obsession being common among men, and sexual objection of women being normal can negatively influence adolescent’s perspective of ideal sexuality in a relationship. This suggests that the media can have an influence on the target audience’s ideal of normative sexuality and what is being seen as being excluded from the social norm surrounding one’s