The hypersexualization of women and men in media has grown dramatically since the late 1960s, something should be done to end this portrayal of men and women in pop culture. Many have analyzed modern magazines such as Seventeen, Vogue, Rolling Stone, so on and they gathered that the amount of sexualizing characteristics have doubled over the past three decades. Women, in particular are depicted as objects of lust in our society today. From the amount of skin shown, facial expression, and posture; photos are judged to be inappropriate or not. These sexualized representations of men and women have become more and more common throughout the years.

Not only is the delineation of females and males in the media demeaning but it has also been found to normalize violence as well as sexual harassment against women and anti-female attitudes among men. This can lead to crime and imprisonment of people. Personally, I find this to be an issue today. Some people might say that this isn’t a liable dilemma in society today. I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. As these ignominious photos are thought to heighten the chance of violence against women, and known to objectify them.

There are many things wrong with sexualization in media, one of the bigger issues seems to be the increase of body dissatisfaction or eating disorders among men, women, and young girls. Imagine a teenage girl purchasing a new edition of GQ magazine, she looks on the front cover to see one of her favorite celebrities, Rihanna, posing nude for the cover. The girl who looks up to Rihanna, feels as if she should resemble the star. The girl has many thoughts running through her mind, one of them being that she wants to look exactly like Rihanna. Things like that happen each and every day, to teenagers especially. Seeing thin and beautiful women everywhere can pressure the younger audience into feeling as if they should look thin and beautiful. Pictures like so tend to make the younger audience insecure about themselves.

Some people may claim that hypersexualization helps retail departments by gaining more customers, thus making more sales. I greatly disagree with this statement. Stores such as American Apparel and Abercrombie use sexualization in their campaign, using racy photos of women - and men. This upsets many people around the globe, and causes some to go against these clothing companies. This is not benefitting the clothing labels, this is ruining their reputation. Giving them a bad name.

As you can tell, sexualization in media has grown dramatically. Not only is it reoccuring but it has also affected our society. It makes women and men believe that they should look a certain way, dress a certain way, and things along those lines. People don’t notice that this has been an issue for years now, and it only seems to be growing worse. Modern magazines have risque pictures plastered on their covers, clothing stores use inappropriate pictures of models wearing their items, what is it for?



I wouldn’t want my son or daughter to feel self-conscious looking at women and men in magazines, ads, and commercials. Things like that are bound to happen. I would want them to be confident with themselves and not feel pressured to be -- or to look perfect. Wouldn’t you want the same for your kid?