ABSTRACT
A number of critics of contemporary media—particularly those with a conservative or religious bent—use as their mantra the elimination of "sex and violence" in films and especially on television. Sex and violence could not be further apart on the spectrum, yet they are often attacked as one conglomerate evil by parent, religious, and other groups. Sex is life-affirming. Violence, by definition, destroys life. An enormous percentage of all advertising in the United States would disappear if advertisers were forced to simultaneously pull all ads using sex in any way to sell a product/service. Rape and other sexual abuse should not be tolerated on a societal level. Portrayals of consensual sex between adult partners are a different matter. Closely related to the issue of the overuse of sex in the media is that many critics believe women are depicted two-dimensionally as sexual objects in most media portrayals, which leads to the objectification and degradation of women in society as a whole.
