Friday, December 29, 2017

Degradation of Sexuality

How does one form one's values on sex? In the past, it was easy to say from our reading. This was true when our culture was based on the printed word but is that true in our present society? Books and the written word no longer have the influence they once had after the appearance of TV, Internet, and Smartphones. We are in video culture and formed by it. The Catholic Peace Weekly has an article by an authority in the field who introduces the readers to a new way of seeing the issue.
 

What we pick up from the printed word is of a different order than what comes through a picture. Books bring to us the classical world of the humanities; video culture: movies, drama, musical videos, advertising, pornography is a medium that overwhelms. They introduce us to another way of seeing reality.
 

We all have experienced scenes from movies and TV dramas that remain with us and we even remember the dialogue. If you ask college women what is their ideal place to receive your first kiss 70% of them will answer under a street light as the snow descends and about half of the males will say in an alleyway or in a car. Why is there such a similarity in the responses? It's because that is what they have been exposed to in the visual media.

In movies and dramas, we see romantic love relationships repeatedly. What is understood by the young people is that it's very natural to have sex. In jest when they go on a  trip together they will say they are on an MT, membership training trip, meaning that they will end up at a motel for the evening. Dating means sex.
 

Do the young people only learn from movies and drama? Korea has the world's fastest connection speeds to the internet and is unrestricted. Korea is per capita the biggest user of pornography and a  producer of pornography. Attributed greatly to the efficiency of the internet connection and wifi capabilities of the  Korean cyberspace. The viewing of pornography according to the writer among the young is the highest in the world. Which is a sign that the future descent into sexual freedom will increase.
 

In Korea if within a month the couple have a sexual relation they will  continue together or else you have problems and breakup. This is not only true with the college-aged youth but even starting in middle school. In Korea, sex education in schools is mostly absent: condoms is the way they treat the problem.
 

Age for the first experience of sex continues to drop. In 2014  in an internet survey it was as low as 12 years-old. This is only surmised but he says our sex openness is further ahead than Europe or the United States. Even compared to a country like the Netherlands where the age was 18 and older. Does this not warrant concern for programs in our schools and societal interest with the issue?