Media Depictions of Sexual Attitudes

Abstract

Over the last 3 decades, content analyses have documented large amounts of sexual content in mainstream entertainment media, on television and streaming services as well as in films, music, and video games. Most sexual content is conveyed through conversations about sex and, to a somewhat lesser extent, through the portrayal of sexual behaviors, primarily passionate kissing and suggestive actions. Attitudes—evaluations linking attributes to objects—are often presented in the media and may also be the outcomes of media exposure to sexual content. In the context of sexuality, some commonly studied attitudes include attitudes toward casual or extrarelational sexual encounters, attitudes toward contraception use, and attitudes toward sexual abuse or the acceptance of rape myths. Among the most prominent theoretical perspectives examining the links between media exposure and audience outcomes are theories of script building and activation, theories of a worldview cultivation, and theories of cognitive learning of social behaviors, and the attitudes and emotions that underlie them. Sexual attitudes can be conveyed through mainstream entertainment media content in diverse ways. First, the mere presence of certain topics in the content (e.g., casual sexual encounters) might convey an attitude about the behavior’s importance and relevance to people’s lives. At times, such inclusive depictions can empower audience members. The opposite—the exclusion of certain sexual topics from media content (e.g., sexual minority characters) might undermine the serious attitude with which they should be addressed. Second, attitudes may be conveyed through the focus placed upon them in the mediated content. Sexual health, recognized as intrinsically associated with sexual behaviors in the real world, is largely missing from media depictions. The rise in the prevalence of sexual crime storylines, especially in television law-and-order crime drama series, has introduced diversity in the attitudes conveyed toward this topic in the media. Sexual consent is another topic that has received more attention in entertainment media in the last couple of decades; the attitudes most commonly depicted about sexual consent seem to be the minimization of its importance through the portrayal of either altogether absent or implicit and nonverbal consent cues. Third, sexual attitudes in mainstream entertainment content may be depicted through the portrayal of consequences of sexual references and behaviors and through the depiction of the emotions associated with them. Research finds that portrayals of sexual consequences are relatively rare in entertainment narratives but when present, they tend to focus on the emotional and negative outcomes of sex. Fourth, sexual attitudes are often depicted in the media in the context of humor. Humor in its many forms may communicate a lighthearted, discomfort-easing attitude toward sex, but it might also trivialize the behavior and endorse a less serious attitude toward the decisions it entails. Finally, sexual attitudes are often depicted through stereotypes in media content. Common stereotypes in entertainment media include the narrow and biased presentation of sexual minority characters, which tends to marginalize their sexuality and support a heteronormative attitude. Other stereotypes include sexual gender roles and the sexualization of female characters, both communicating demeaning and nonvalidating attitudes toward women and their sexuality.