Priming and Sex Within Society.

In the society we live in today, it seems as though we are living in promiscuity; a lot of it seems to be due to the  priming of sexuality within the media. The priming theory is the idea that the images we see in the media as an audience plant thoughts in our minds. The media has so much power nowadays, with its infinite ways of reaching audiences, from music to film to television, and naturally, it should have the ability to supplant ideas unseen within the audience's brains. Specifically, the media creates an image of sex that makes it desirable, and the idea that if you are not out there enjoying it with your girlfriend/boyfriend/some random hot person you picked up at a bar, you're missing out on life. Let's use the example the textbook uses: the hit TV show, Gossip Girl. Now, I won't deny it, I am an avid fan of the television series, but I also won't deny the unrealistic levels of scandalous activity and sexual promiscuity in every episode. Whether it's because the audience thinks that on a certain level that this is the kind of promiscuity out there in the upper east side of Manhattan right at this moment or if that is the social norm, it is media like this that promotes the idea that premarital sex is completely normal and socially accepted. Personally, I believe in the abstinence of sexual activity before marriage, but now it seems as though the majority of unmarried people, regardless of their age, disregard the idea of abstinence, and I strongly believe that media has a lot to do with the implantation of the idea that abstinence is unimportant. Think about it: society used to believe that the showing of ankles is considered some level of prostitution, yet... how are we today?