Are we just too saturated by sex nowadays?

[Nikki Sahagin]

Firstly, I'd like to preface my post by saying I'm not a prude before I am accused of being so. I have a beyond healthy appreciation for sex and I don't believe that sex should be demonised.

 

However, since I was around the age of 13 (I'm 25 now), I noticed that culturally sex was everywhere. I grew up in the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera era of pop so most of the music videos I saw were incredibly sexualised (they are more sexualised now), the majority of the songs were about sex, cheating, money, power (I'm talking about mainstream music; the type that most children/teenagers are exposed to). I believe the music videos/music has intensified its sexualised trend in recent years. I've noticed more and more younger children and teens feeling happy to use words like b****, wh***, s**g, s**l, even n***er; in my opinion NONE of these words should be mainstream. If I had used any of these words in my house, I'd have been in trouble!

 

I even noticed a disturbing trend in porn. When you go onto a porn site, how many times do you see little ads promoting affairs, or saying 'don't tell your wife.' When did porn become synonymous with cheating? I found this very worrying. There's also sites like Ashley Madison which actively promote and set up affairs.

 

Many ads, movies and TV shows are centered around sex, and in many ways unhealthily. 'Sex and the City' encouraged promiscuity that in real life I think would be emotionally damaging for MOST women. Even on Facebook and social media people are far more open about sexting, sending sexy photographs to strangers, posing in bikinis etc

 

I remember a good male friend of mine once saying something to me [paraphrased] "The problem now is that men have nothing to work for. Everything men want, they can have when it comes to women and sex. Men think this is good. But it's bad. Men are supposed to work for relationships, for sex, for love. If it's all on a plate, a man can become a dangerous thing. He doesn't appreciate what a woman is because he hasn't had to take the time to understand her, impress her or know her."

 

I can't say if I agree or not as I am not a man dealing with the dating world. But I do think it is difficult for many to have fulfilling relationships because most of us are surrounded by sex.

 

I also remember a comment from a Christian man, again paraphrased. He said, "I want to be a good Christian man, but society makes it hard. It's one thing to make the choice that you don't want to see porn or sexualised images because you want to focus on your marriage. But every time I go out, there's an advert or a magazine. If I turn on the TV, most movies will have an unnecessary sexual scene, even in a movie that doesn't call for it. I believe people should have the freedom NOT to see sex everywhere if they don't want to, but modern culture throws it in our face even when we walk down the street." - Of course, this depends on where you live as well.

 

This all just got me thinking that the sexual revolution has caused a LOT of problems.

 

STD checks and medicines, the right to abortion and contraceptives (although I think all of these things are great), have caused people to become very blase about sex to the point that people do not consider the implications; rape, abuse, disease, unwanted pregnancy. It's like sex has purely become a recreational activity, but actually it can be very damaging.

 

I've had my share of casual sex and also meaningful monogamous relationships. Although I enjoyed my experiences with casual sex, I definitely can see that a sole focus on sex and gratification can be damaging for a person in many ways. I suppose the answer as always is balance, but I personally think sex has become far too much of a commodity.

 

It would be nice to watch a show or music video or see an ad, that didn't make everything so overtly about sex in some way.

 

What do you think?

[ponchsox]

A great, meaningful relationship will always be better than a casual sex relationship. If anything, porn helps be curb my desire to just sleep with women. When I go on a date, I actually want to see if she's a good match for a LTR, not just get in her pants.

[AVarma]

Yes. I mean the fact that people regularly over-exaggerate the amount of sex they think others are having goes to show we are over-saturated with it.

[A O]

There's a lot of all sorts of things in this world....the influence they have on is up to the individual. I can indulge in all manner of things, even LoveShack from time to time, trick is not to overindulge and especially to not make a habit of that.

 

As time goes by fads of one kind or another come and go and society adapts to that, including sex. The so-called sexual revolution started a long time ago and yet society today is not a lot different from the pre-revolution era of the 50's and before. And what differences there are can be put down to many other factors that have shaped society during that time, chief among them the equalizing of the genders. But overall, there's little difference in how the genders relate to each other pre and post sexual revolution.

[regine_phalange]

Some -maybe abstract- thoughts

 

Sex is something natural and has been in many periods of time. There are ancient civilisations where the people literally worshipped penises. But I do agree that sexualization in modern era is somewhat tacky and cheap in presentation. It could be, how to put it? more elegant.

 

About what your male friend said: Men who feel they have to work and "suffer" a bit for a woman or else they don't appreciate her forget that them having sex with her or her flirting with them doesn't mean that they've conquered her. It's a very naive thing to think. They still have to work to keep her.

 

Sharing your sexuality with someone is sharing a part of yourself, but we don't always share ourselves with people we "love". Casual sex doesn't suit me but I can understand why some people do it. It's like how you won't always discuss deeper thoughts with friends you know for life, sometimes you click so well with a practical stranger and something good comes out of it. If you have respect for people in general, then you won't pay less respect to someone who had sex with you or flirted with you because they genuinely felt like it.

[TheGuard13]

The sexual revolution gave people a sense of agency. Those educated enough about sex could now decide what kind of sexual interactions they wanted to have, or didn't want to have, etc. At least moreso than in the past. It's a lot more socially acceptable to choose your sexual destiny. Not entirely, but more.

 

Some people like the things you dislike, and vice versa.

 

I don't think we should condemn an entire culture for presenting more options and accessibility, because that's what it boils down to for me.

 

I think, like many things, it's a good thing in moderation, and even healthy.

[preraph]

The oversaturation of porn is definitely having some effect. I mean, literally anyone's email account will have random porn sent to it. I have mine set on exclusive and still occasionally get it. Every kid out there has access to it.

 

The easy availability of porn has become a habit for a whole lot of guys who find building relationships either difficult or tedious. Some of them simply decide they'll live with that instead of putting forth any effort to get actual women. And on the flip side, because some of these guys actually already HAVE actual women, those women are rapidly beginning not to care of the men ever find their way back into the bedroom or not because at that point it's a cocktail of being compared to the paid-for antics of fake-bodied actresses paid to accept the most degrading treatment and their man's performance suffering due to both getting jaded about what real women want or in some cases porn-addiction impotence, where they're too used to certain scenarios to perform well in an uncontrolled unscripted setting.

 

Porn dehumanizes sex and if that's the main sexual role model a teenager has, he will be very disconnected where relationships go.

 

As far as the sexual revolution, I lived through it and consider it the healthiest sea change in recent history. The advent of birth control, which is what triggered the sexual revolution simply freed women up. Men were already going out and getting STDs from prostitutes. The double standard was the norm. It's not that there were not serious STDs then; it's that those serious ones could be treated for the most part by then. The ones that came about later didn't come about because of the sexual revolution. And when talking about how dangerous STDs are, don't forget that childbirth is fairly dangerous too, and birth control gave you control over that.

 

Abortion was common before birth control because it was the only remedy to teen pregnancy, and it wasn't legal so you had to go someplace and have a backroom abortion, and so it wasn't always safe. We legalized abortion in Roe V. Wade so people could stop going for illegal unsafe abortions. People were having them anyway, so we gave them the right to good medical care. The sexual revolution didn't create abortion and the answer to abortion was birth control pills. People took it seriously back then and no one was stupid about it or uninformed because you didn't have religious zealots trying to keep the school form informing kids about birth control since it was the answer to so many problems. Birth control pills were always in the news because it was a recent thing with new developments, so everyone knew about it. Everyone I knew in the late 60s and early 70s took birth control, regardless of religion or anything else. It was considered the great new blessing and it was embraced.

Edited January 15, 2015 by preraph

[CALOVELY]

We are not too saturated by sex. Look at your examples. Birth control, a Christian man, etc. The day people can be comfortable with sex and not view it as something shameful is the day we have reached saturation. Until that day comes, you will have people who have issues with it trying to ban access to contraceptives, what is shown on television or in print and any other issue du jour because they feel shame about sex and want everybody else to feel the same.

[xxoo]

Speaking for US culture, the attitudes toward sex here are odd to me. A lot of titillation and little satisfaction. And the less satisfaction realized, the more titillation sought.

 

If we were more open about sex and sexuality, it would be less "forbidden fruit", and maybe we'd realize healthier, more satisfying sexuality.

[ponchsox]

From what I hear, everyone is getting tons of sex with beautiful people except me. I've slept with four women and I'm 38. I guess I'm missing out?

[CALOVELY]

Speaking for US culture, the attitudes toward sex here are odd to me. A lot of titillation and little satisfaction. And the less satisfaction realized, the more titillation sought.

 

If we were more open about sex and sexuality, it would be less "forbidden fruit", and maybe we'd realize healthier, more satisfying sexuality.

 

Precisely. There is such shame and "off limits" mentalities that no wonder so many people have the hang ups they do. Sex is incredibly natural and yet it is made to feel perverted and forbidden by a vocal and lobbying minority.

[xxoo]

From what I hear, everyone is getting tons of sex with beautiful people except me. I've slept with four women and I'm 38. I guess I'm missing out?

 

Do numbers and beauty = a great sex life?

 

That's the image promoted, but it doesn't add up.

[ponchsox]

The oversaturation of porn is definitely having some effect. I mean, literally anyone's email account will have random porn sent to it. I have mine set on exclusive and still occasionally get it. Every kid out there has access to it.

 

The easy availability of porn has become a habit for a whole lot of guys who find building relationships either difficult or tedious. Some of them simply decide they'll live with that instead of putting forth any effort to get actual women. And on the flip side, because some of these guys actually already HAVE actual women, those women are rapidly beginning not to care of the men ever find their way back into the bedroom or not because at that point it's a cocktail of being compared to the paid-for antics of fake-bodied actresses paid to accept the most degrading treatment and their man's performance suffering due to both getting jaded about what real women want or in some cases porn-addiction impotence, where they're too used to certain scenarios to perform well in an uncontrolled unscripted setting.

 

Porn dehumanizes sex and if that's the main sexual role model a teenager has, he will be very disconnected where relationships go.

 

As far as the sexual revolution, I lived through it and consider it the healthiest sea change in recent history. The advent of birth control, which is what triggered the sexual revolution simply freed women up. Men were already going out and getting STDs from prostitutes. The double standard was the norm. It's not that there were not serious STDs then; it's that those serious ones could be treated for the most part by then. The ones that came about later didn't come about because of the sexual revolution. And when talking about how dangerous STDs are, don't forget that childbirth is fairly dangerous too, and birth control gave you control over that.

 

Abortion was common before birth control because it was the only remedy to teen pregnancy, and it wasn't legal so you had to go someplace and have a backroom abortion, and so it wasn't always safe. We legalized abortion in Roe V. Wade so people could stop going for illegal unsafe abortions. People were having them anyway, so we gave them the right to good medical care. The sexual revolution didn't create abortion and the answer to abortion was birth control pills. People took it seriously back then and no one was stupid about it or uninformed because you didn't have religious zealots trying to keep the school form informing kids about birth control since it was the answer to so many problems. Birth control pills were always in the news because it was a recent thing with new developments, so everyone knew about it. Everyone I knew in the late 60s and early 70s took birth control, regardless of religion or anything else. It was considered the great new blessing and it was embraced.

 

This is very true. And with sites like Pornhub, guys can find videos that caters to their certain fantasy or fetish. Then they expect women to do the same degrading things in real life. Not all women enjoy anal sex and facials

[Woggle]

I don't know about saturated but there is no balance anymore. That is actually how it is with pretty much everything these days. It's always one extreme or the other anymore. Society needs the yin and the yang to balance each other out but on one side you have the yin and on the other side you have the yang and they are finding it increasingly hard to coexist.

[aMguilts]

nevermind........

Edited January 15, 2015 by aMguilts

[preraph]

This is very true. And with sites like Pornhub, guys can find videos that caters to their certain fantasy or fetish. Then they expect women to do the same degrading things in real life. Not all women enjoy anal sex and facials

 

I don't know one woman who wouldn't be insulted and hostile if she got a "facial," and yet every single porno ends with one. I check every few years to see if anything has changed, and for sure that has not. The final message of every porn film is to degrade the woman.

[somedude81]

Honestly, I think we've always been crazy about sex. Despite us being all civilized, we humans are pretty damn horny. We are one of the very few species of animals that have sex for fun.

 

This whole being "saturated by sex" is simply society finally letting go of its puritan ties.

[No Limit]

I wouldn't mind all the sex if those people who want just that wouldn't go for relationships.

[Toodaloo]

Its not just sex but violence too.

 

Its everywhere. Magazines, TV, advertising... Its not saturation as much as bombardment.

 

TV shows like Eastenders etc have made slapping another person about "normal"... They have made shouting and hollering "normal"... They need to keep ratings up so go for more shock, more horror, more violence, more sex... and all before the watershed...

 

Personally I find it dull and boring...

 

preraph - facials are great if done in a way that "worships" your partner rather than demeans her... Never had a problem with them and even requested them sometimes as its good for the skin and can be fun! But then that is the difference between a long term loving relationship that are open and playful and secure and short term flings... all depends on the preferences and emotions involved...

[truncated]

I do wish people would talk more about sex, especially to their kids, and not just the "tab A goes into slot B" conversation. I wish they'd talk more about the emotional side of it, how wonderful it can be with someone they love, and how porn can be often be unrealistic. Women do enjoy sex just like men do, but for them, it's going to take more than some guy walking into the room, dropping his pants and shouting "all aboard" .

 

I saw a show a while back (I think it was from the UK) and it was heartbreaking. The kids in it were 12 or 13, boys and girls. The boys had easy eacess to porn on the computers, and would watch it a huge amount. While that in and of itself isn't bad, what they were seeing wasn't being balanced with accurate information about the emoitonal side of it. They assumed that the women in it were representing reality, and they assumed that the girls in their life should be ready for sex anytime and everytime they wanted it. They honestly believed that's the way things were supposed to be. When interviewd as a group, there was the usual comments one might expect from a young teenage boy about sex, lots of snickering and giglging and crude remarks, but once they calmed down, it was sad to see that tey really didn't realize that porn isn't reality.

 

Meanwhile, the girls were having sex with them, because they were getting the message that is what hey were supposed to do.

 

When interviewed individually, both the boys and the girls reported that for them, sex was just sort of okay, but not that great. The girls felt pressured into it not so much by the boys, but by what they perceieved to be expected of them, and the guys felt the same way too. Many said that they wanted sex to be better and to feel closer to the person, and that they felt like there was something misisng.

 

They were misisng out on, and no one was telling them about the joy that comes form sex with someone you really love. From what they said, there were no representations of that in the porn they could access.

 

Maybe porn has changed since then, I don't know

 

As for the oversaturation of it, I don't think the abundnace of it has anythng to do with trying to bennifit society or any such altruistic thing. It has more to do with making a buck. As the old saying goes "sex sells"...

 

I also think that humans often need to have boundaries to push against, and push back. They have a need to go outside what is considered mainstream. I wonder how far the boundaries of sex will be pushed.

[hotpotato]

I think the sex has always been around. It's technology that makes it seem more in our face.

 

I've pretty much checked out of pop culture, so I mostly don't notice. I rarely watch cable. I like to watch docs on youtube. Every now and then I go to the movies. Every now and then I see full frontal, but not *all* the time.

 

I agree that porn gives makes men think all women like anal and facials. Also, a lot of men do not understand the concept that anal sex requires a lot of lube, a lot of women don't have loose porno-anuses, and thus, you can't just ram it in. Theres prep that goes into it. An anus is not a vjay.

 

I agree that men don't think about stds like they should. As long as she can't get pregnant, he's fine with it. Stds can happen to anyone. Why not take precautions? Birth control pills do not protect people from diseases.

 

I'm human, and I'm just not that horny unless someone special comes along. I can go years and years without sex. I do get tired of trying to get to know someone, and he's focused on sex. Then he wonders why he doesn't know anything substantial about me.

[preraph]

I am quite sure face-to-face real-life sex was way more predominant before internet. People are spending more time looking for a person on OLD than they are going out and doing it. And then porn is keeping a lot of people from feeling pressure to have a real date. And I guess that's fine in some ways because what woman would want to date someone content with that anyway or too afraid or unemotional to have an actual relationship. I can pretty much assure you anyone wanting to get laid in the '70s was getting laid.

[Ninjainpajamas]

I think the problem is that sex still is this "taboo" risque off-limits conservative situation and topic...so like most things that made to be or feel illegal, it just goes underground.

 

In spite of society supposedly after this sexual revolution, it's still this hush hush topic and something expected by society that should be for the most part private and privatized. Even though nearly every guy has looked at porn and billions look at it, it's still this dark secret, many women resent it or have a disdain for it like some ex-gf they can't get rid of, from their "man's" life.

 

So it's no surprise that celebrities and others would take advantage of exploiting this still unacceptable and taboo social topic but something that's ok in the right context as not to offend or embarrass anyone. Where sex is a terrible thing on one hand but horrible on another depending on who's painting the picture.

 

To me a sexual revolution is legalizing prostitution and making it no longer a bad or semi-criminal behavior unless it's in a conservative or idealistic context. Being able to openly talk about sex and the realities of it...because it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

 

I can guarantee if you legalize prostitution you're going to immediately get a reaction out of men, and women may not have to endure cat calling, men chasing their booty in OLD, and watching porn because they'll actually be getting laid and no longer built up with sexual tension.

 

Casual sex is not a realistic option for sex like it is for most women. You can get laid pretty successfully being fat as a woman but women will roll their eyes and laugh at a fat guy for even thinking he's going to get some. But we still for some reason talk about how unfair it is to women, because the girl in porn or magazines is better looking or more desirable.

 

Sex isn't something that's ever going away, it's a shame that we still run our societies based on very old traditional values that cannot keep up with today's world, much like religion. It's insisting on living in a time where the world was different and under monarchies and strict rules. The saddest part is people cannot handle their own freedom of mind and will, they're still used to blaming somebody else for their problems and call for these overwhelming rules and regulations, to save themselves from the images they create and associate with within themselves...that's the real problem, people are not responsible enough to do what they need to do to make choices for themselves or even do the work for themselves, I mean how many parent's even talk to their kids about sex or even build that kind of open relationship? They don't, they instead get pissed at the magazine's and sluterberties who are just making a quick buck, on the reason their kids are so jacked up on sex and the BS.

 

People fail themselves, but instead of take responsibility, they'd rather say they were under the influence. And people still haven't figured out, you can't fight who you are. Human beings are sexual and there needs to be more alternatives Dr people to have those needs met...then maybe it'll pop off the big screen and out of your face, because it'll just be another regular thing in life.

[Got it]

What is surprising to me in the OP is that a number of the concerns have been around far longer than the sexual revolution. Now, they were geared towards men and it was hush hush with woman but we have had STD since the beginning of sex, abortions, etc. This is nothing new.

 

What the sexual revolution allowed was women to have agency over their bodies. This was pinnacle and absolutely needed. The US has a very much love/hate relationship with sex and it is not like this in other countries. We oversexualize here because of the taboo nature of it. We have turned it into this dirty thing and that has taken away the emotional aspect of it.

 

We have to look at WHY sex sells. Marketers do exactly what the customer is attracted to so why does that work so well?

[CALOVELY]

What is surprising to me in the OP is that a number of the concerns have been around far longer than the sexual revolution. Now, they were geared towards men and it was hush hush with woman but we have had STD since the beginning of sex, abortions, etc. This is nothing new.

 

What the sexual revolution allowed was women to have agency over their bodies. This was pinnacle and absolutely needed. The US has a very much love/hate relationship with sex and it is not like this in other countries. We oversexualize here because of the taboo nature of it. We have turned it into this dirty thing and that has taken away the emotional aspect of it.

 

We have to look at WHY sex sells. Marketers do exactly what the customer is attracted to so why does that work so well?

 

You only have to look at the way the U.S. views breast feeding to see the repression. It stems from everything you mentioned. This is absolutely shocking to people in other countries.