Television is the most effective and quickest way to convince people to buy products. On it, one can see not only the delicious taste of food that television ads portray, but also the fun one can have when eating at fast food restaurants with friends and family. Television can make one step out in a hurry to grab something to eat. TV is an immediate and hugely popular medium to influence people’s minds and, eventually, their decisions.

If appetite for food is increased with a TV viewer, so is appetite for sex. A significant research has found that sexual content in television programs has doubled over the last few years. This study concludes that there is a strong tie-up between TV’s high sexual content and teen pregnancies, at least in the US where the research was conducted. Data show that the US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates among developed countries.

Advertisers use s** to sell their products and television programmers use it as topic because the theme of s** sends the message of freedom, and that it is worldly-wise or sophisticated to have this kind of life that people are supposed to be having. Media cashes in on the notion that by using the theme of s**, viewers and buyers will surely think that such products and story developments will make them more sexually attractive. Female teens see themselves in those ads and TV stories as pretty, sexy, admired by the opposite sex, and wanted and coveted by them.

What the ads and television shows don’t tell these teens is the fact that everything about those is just make-believe, just an illusion – and has nothing to do with real life, but only the intended sales of the products and pulling up of network show ratings.

Pop culture, or that which is the dominant culture today, makes heroes and celebrities of promiscuous people and those who are not known to promote morality. The fashion, film, television, and music industries (all showcases of pop culture for the youth) are teeming with loose morals and sexual freedom.

Sex education is not capable of debunking the distorted messages about s** and relationships because it merely discusses the subject of promiscuity in the light of sexually-transmitted diseases, and the scientific use of contraception. There is really a general lack of seeing s** education against the backdrop of morality and social psychology – two areas that involve the mind and the heart of human beings.

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Via BBC