Extra Credit: Youth Sexuality in Media

[http://current.com/items/89589757/teen_banned_from_wearing_christian_purity_ring.htm]

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091901/Teenager-banned-wearing-Christian-chastity-ring-school.html]

Jonas Brothers were seen wearing purity ring making a promise to remain a virgin until they are married. At VMA award show,the host Russell Brand made fun of the Jonas Brothers for wearing the purity ring and he made the remark saying that "Well done the Jonas Brothers. Each wear a ring to say they are not going to have sex, I’d take them more seriously if they wore it around their genitals." He basically is poking fun at them for making the decision to remain a virgin and not having sex until they are ready. Media is the most influential way of communicating what is going on and sex is one of them. In the reading "A Content Analysis of Sexually Transmitted Dieases in the Print News Media," media educators see that mass media itself if becoming more and more effective on how audiences acts. "...media literacy is believed to lead not only to a greater understanding of the stories (including sexual scripts) that media tell and the sources they use but also may result in personal changes, such as improvements in self-esteem, taking responsibility..." The above image is a teenage girl wearing a purity ring. The article is about how her school have discriminated against her faith and banned her from wearing a purity ring. She was inspired to wear her purity ring after seeing the band Jonas Brothers wearing them. Media can be very effective when it comes to important issues like sex. When audiences look at different programs, it is for the entertainment but also for learing what is the norm. Especially the youth, they can be influence by seeing their favorite band wearing certain types of clothes, the way they talk and even be inspired by them to make a change, like the 12 year old girl that was inspired by Jonas Brothers.


[http://bookninja.com/magazine/winter2007/annickint.htm]

Teenagers at a stage where they feel like they are grown enough to make their own decisions but still need an adult guidance to fully understand the things that they are going through, an example of this is sexuality. It is at the age where they want to explore and understand what sex is but talking about with their parents is to them, "embarrassing" and little too personal to talk about. So where do teenagers get the information that they need about sex? They either talk to their friends or through media. This book, " The Little Black Book for Girlz: A Book on Healthy Sexuality" by St. Stephen's Community House, which looks at not only sexuality but also girl culture by teenagers. The book is a community youth project who had questions about sexuality where teenage girls got together and made a book on what sex is about. They collected poems, stories and art works to answer the questions that they had. The topics that they have are relationships, periods, sex, birth control, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections/AIDS and sexual assault.


[http://www.newsweek.com/id/124098]

[http://www.psfk.com/2008/09/racy-chilean-teens-and-the-web.html]

This is an article from NY Times. It is talking about how Chilean teenagers are "not so quietly forming "sex rebellion" raging on among Chile's party hard youth." According to NY Times, Latin America are known for being sexually conservative is now becoming sexually open in public. The teenagers can be seen in sexual acts starting from making out to things that is too graphic to talk about. "...some doctors, academics and other experts are pointing to the rise of the popular website Fotolog as one of the movement’s main drivers/enablers (NY Times)." "Dr. Arias did a study of the Fotolog phenomenon, scrutinizing the kinds of photos teenagers are posting, even the angles and distances of the pictures — all of which are part of an “identifiable” language, he said. “The kids of today are expressing their sexuality in erotic ways for the whole world to see (NY Times).” Sharing photos at a website is only the half of the story. With the evolving culture, they do not provide the educations that teenagers need and to learn about sex.

Final Blog: Heterosexism vs. Homophobia

Popular media provides many examples of the power play between herteronormative ideals and homosexual culture. In society there is a struggle of power between the people who have it, and the ones that don’t. In this battle for social power, the media acts as an arena for the public to view the fight. However, some participants fight dirty, even if you don’t see it. While the media doesn’t always advertise hate, it does often use subliminal messages to reinforce the heteronormative ideals of what is acceptable. This means that the heterosexism in media perpetuates homophobia. This can be done in many ways, including the over-feminization of homosexual characters, the use of gay characters as plot devices or catalysts, and over-exaggerations of heterosexuality in order to deny possibilities of homosexuality. This is a social issue and it is worthy of discussion because of the media’s proven influence on culture. These types of messages encourage homophobia and do not address actual issues, and this leads to reinforcement that while homosexuality is struggling to gain presence, validity, and recognition as a normative lifestyle, heterosexuality is innately superior.
When a homosexual character appears in popular media, they are very frequently over-feminized. This includes gay males and lesbians. Gay males are often feminized in the way they talk, the activities they participate in, the way the dress, and their general mannerisms.

This over-feminization puts the gay male into a category with females. This de-masculinizes them and lowers their threat level.

This occurrence is used as a tool to maintain the traditional male power. By feminizing gay men and grouping them with women, they are no longer a threat to straight males. In the article “Reinventing Privilege: The New (Gay) Man in Contemporary Popular Media”, Shugart points out about gay males:

...that their entrée into heteronormative culture is ultimately guaranteed by strategies apparent in a second, subtler subtext, one that features increased sexual access to, license with, and paternalistic control of women, all of which accordingly reframe gay male sexuality as an extension of heterosexual male privilege predicted on control of female sexuality (Shugart, 80).

Lesbians are also frequently over-feminized for the same reasons. A masculine lesbian is perceived as threatening, and an ultra-feminine lesbian remains inferior to straight men and is also perceived as “hot” and adds flare to the straight male gaze.

This works as a tool to objectify them and push them further down the social hierarchy. Straight males are often hyper-masculinized in order to reinforce their heterosexuality, especially when they are placed in situations that may lead to the questioning of their sexuality.

Another phenomenon that takes place in popular media is when a gay character is introduced to a plotline purely for entertainment or as a catalyst for a dramatic plot. The sexuality of the character is often made fun of or lightly discussed, but no real in-depth examination is done into the character’s life or issues surrounding their sexuality. This occurrence uses the individual homosexual as a tool to feed the plot and denies any individual identity from the character and aids in the holding of homosexuality at an inferior level to heterosexuality.

This also presents a message to media participants that homosexuality is funny or dramatic. Therefore, people think that it is ok to make fun of gay people in real life and that gay people are the frequent cause of problems in the world.Also in the article, “Reinventing Privilege…” the concept is pointed out:

Gayness is seen through the eyes of the confused heterosexuals, struggling with their own reactions and feelings. While I applaud the attempts to reckon with heterosexual fears and homophobia, I am afraid that this focus can further marginalize gay people, set them aside as vehicles for straight enlightenment, much in the way that people of color serve as avenues for white understanding of race (Shugart, 70).

This keeps the main focus on heterosexuality and eases anxiety about gay people being a threat to heteronormative values. It promotes a tolerance and acknowledgement of the gay culture, but does not delve into it in a way that equalizes it or validates it. This also inhibits the strength of homosexuality in the power struggle.
Heterosexism is a systematic way of enforcing heterosexuality as the cultural norm. It’s accomplished in media by clearly showing heterosexuality and justifying any homosexual subtext as part of that heterosexuality.

If there is an advertisement that has two men, they either have to being playing sports to justify their physical contact, with a woman to reinforce which sex they are attracted to, and if part of the ad is unclear, they are hypermasculinized to compensate for any uncertainty.
Homosexuality doesn’t threaten heterosexuality unless it’s perceived as threatening. Perception is subjective; just because something exists, doesn’t mean that it exists to rival something else. Without homosexuality, heterosexuality doesn’t exist. Homosexuality validates heterosexuality by contrasting against it. The media influences culture by showing examples of what the world is supposed to be like, and since most media is heterosexist, it continues to create homophobia in the public’s eye. This favoritism gives heterosexuality an advantage in the social power struggle.

We have also arranged our images within "The Box" that represents the power struggle between the different mediated examples. The examples that use homosexuality but are excused because of sports and other scapegoats are at the top because they are still heterosexual, where as the further down you go, you see more examples of pure homosexuality which have less power.

>> Click here to see "The Box"

Peers Blog Critic

http://ifyouseekamyinthemedia.blogspot.com/

When he was talking about the image above, I did not understand what he was trying to say. It was for the topic "Examples of Socially Constructed "Appropriate" Sex." When he was explaining the image, he talked about how the image is "implicitly telling us that oral sex occurs and need condoms for protection."

What I got from this image is that, "you can have a good time but if you want sex be safe about it." The image has champagne and a heart shaped box with chocolates in them which shows signs of romance but with the condoms it means there is something more. Because it has a romantic feeling, it is showing sex should happen with someone that you love and care about. Socially that is how people understand sex but in reality that does not happen. For example guys usually show how masculine they are through how many times they have slept with women. Also socially people know that they should wear condoms when having sex but that does not happen. Even though there is a solid meaning of what sex is, it seems that people do not want to see it fully. In media, when couples have sex there is no consequences that happen. Audiences that watched the movie is not going to think that they had worn a condom that is why nothing happen after. People are going to think that the couples who had unprotected sex have nothing happen to them so why should they?