Sense about sex: media, sex advice, education and learning
Feona Attwooda*, Meg John Barkerb, Petra Boyntonc and Justin Hancockd
aSchool of Media and Performing Arts, Middlesex University, London, UK; bFaculty of Social
Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK; cIndependent Scholar, Eastbourne, UK;
dIndependent Scholar, London, UK
(Received 24 October 2014; accepted 29 May 2015)
The media are widely acknowledged as important in sex and relationship education, but
they are usually associated with ‘bad’ effects on young people in contrast to the ‘good’
knowledge represented by more informational and educational formats. In this paper
we look at sex advice giving in newspapers, magazines and television in the UK, in sex
advice books and in online spaces for sexual learning. We examine some of the
limitations of the information provided, consider the challenges for sex advice in the
contemporary context, and outline some of the opportunities for academics,
researchers, therapists, sex educators and activists to contribute productively to sex
advice giving and sexual learning more generally.
Keywords: sex media advice givers; sex education; sexual learning; agony aunts; UK
Introduction
We are writing this article as members of Sense about Sex1 – an informal group of
therapists, researchers, sex educators, academics and activists who are concerned with the
accessibility of good quality information about sex and relationships, sexual health and
sexual learning. Sense about Sex initially grew out of a Wellcome Trust funded project on
sexualisation, sexual health and public engagement. This drew on various initiatives we as
authors had been involved in – both individually and sometimes together – such as the
Onscenity Research Network, Gender and Sexuality Talks in London, the Critical
Sexology seminars,2 and work with groups such as the Outsiders Trust, Brook, FPA, and
the Department of Health.
We first used the name Sense about Sex at an event on sex, sexuality and sexualisation,
which we organised for the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s Social Science
Festival in London 2012. Our projects have included The Sexualisation Report3 and Bad
Sex Media Bingo4 and those of our group who work as therapists have set up London Sex
and Relationship Therapy5 as a subgroup seeing clients and providing training in that area.
We are interested in public engagement and drawing academics and practitioners of
various kinds together to talk critically about sex. We share a concern about common
myths and moral panics around sex; we are committed to challenging these, providing
information that is grounded in research and critical theory, and making interventions in
sex advice and education.
The media are widely acknowledged as important in sex and relationships education
(SRE), but they are usually associated with ‘bad’ effects on young people (see, for
example, Eyal and Kunkel 2008; Brown and Bobkowski 2011) in contrast to the ‘good’
q 2015 Taylor & Francis
*Corresponding author. Email: f.attwood@mdx.ac.uk
Sex Education, 2015
Vol. 15, No. 5, 528–539, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1057635
knowledge represented by the more informational and educational formats used for giving
advice. Yet we know that audiences may find depictions of sex and relationships in
entertainment media engaging and useful (see Buckingham and Bragg 2004) and that
some entertainment media present sex in ways that challenge conservative sexual norms
(see Johnson, Aston, and Glynn 2012; see McKee 2012 for a discussion about sexuality
education and entertainment). We also know that audiences use media advice not only for
information but for entertainment, to reassure themselves they are actually not as bad as
the person they are reading about, or for help – either for themselves directly or to read
about someone with similar problems (Ehrenreich and English 2005; Boynton 2009; Kurtz
2014).
Our discussion seeks to move beyond the question of good and bad media and
distinctions between information and entertainment to examine media genres that offer
sex advice and education, focusing on UK print and broadcast media, sex advice books and
the use of online spaces for learning about sex. Our aim is to examine some of the patterns
and limitations in contemporary provision and to consider the challenges and opportunities
for using media for sex advice.
Sex advice across media
There is no consensus about when the first advice column appeared in a newspaper, but the
‘problem page’ as we know it has been well established within mainstream UK and US
print media from the nineteenth century onwards (Bingham 2012). Media advice giving is
important. It offers a space to offload, confess or get a second opinion. It is a means of
getting confidential help and a referral/signposting to other sources of help. It helps people
practise for sharing and disclosing something to friends, family members or professionals.
It offers a place to turn to for those who do not have support from friends and family, or
have something taboo to share. It is especially important where health or therapeutic
services are absent or have not helped (Smith 1983; Kurtz 1987; Boynton 2003;
Ehrenreich and English 2005; Kurtz 2014).
Media advice givers have traditionally come from a writing or journalism background
or from the caring professions. Those in the former group tend to prioritise audience
comprehension and creating entertaining and engaging copy, while the latter favour
information sharing and potential behaviour change. There are no set qualifications for
media advice givers. Limited guidance on advice giving exists and there is a lack of
training, support, supervision and standards. Consequently the advice offered varies in
tone, length, standard, accessibility and accuracy (Boynton 2009).
Media advice is popular with audiences (see Smith 1983; Boynton 2009) although its
success is not usually measured in terms of helping audiences find solutions to their
problems. Advice giving is viewed as ‘entertainment’ at editorial/production level, so
incentives to ensure accuracy, compassion and useable advice are absent. Much sex media
advice across newspapers, magazines and books is often judgmental and shaming, narrow
in scope and focus, lacking different options or perspectives, and fails to situate advice
within the specific needs of the audience. It often adopts the aspirational and
individualised focus of self-help, constructing people as a project of continual selfdevelopment
(McLelland 2010). It frequently also depends on a dysfunction/disorderbased
understanding of sex (Barker 2011).
The most popular sex advice books are predicated on the idea that it is vital to
maintain sex in long-term relationships (Barker, Gill, and Harvey Forthcoming,a,
Forthcoming,b). Sex is frequently presented as ‘critical for marital health’ and as the ‘glue’ that holds relationships together (see, for example, Mintz 2009, 65). The sex
advisor is often constructed as the translator who can explain the mysteries of the
‘opposite sex’ to the reader (see, for example Gray 2003; Corn 2013). Readers,
particularly women, are deemed responsible for ensuring that their relationships remain
sexual through ‘working at it’ (see Potts 2002; Gupta and Cacchioni 2013). Happily
asexual or celibate relationships are not considered, and there are only occasional
tokenistic references to lesbian, gay or bisexual people, or to forms of open nonmonogamy
(see Barker and Langdridge 2010). Advice books also assume a coital
imperative (Tyler 2008) whereby penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex is clearly assumed to
constitute ‘proper’ sex. Other forms of sex are generally relegated to ‘foreplay’ or a
chapter on ‘spicy sex’ towards the end of the book. Advice focuses mainly on varying
positions, locations or outfits for PIV sex, and spicing up one’s sex life with tightly
policed forays into erotica, kink or the use of sex toys. Books mainly focus on ‘what’
people do rather than ‘how’ they do it (Barker, Gill, and Harvey Forthcoming,b).
Across all forms of print and broadcast media the focus is increasingly on the advice
giver, rather than the person with the problem and wider audience. This shift has
coincided with the rise of the ‘celebrity advice giver’. While in the past some media
advice givers such as Marje Proops, Anna Raeburn and Claire Rayner became famous
for providing advice, more recently UK advice givers have been picked because they are
already famous. Examples include Graham Norton (The Telegraph), Jordan (More!),
Jodie Marsh (Zoo), Abbie Titmus (FHM), Molly Ringwald (The Guardian) and Julie
Burchill (Loaded). Only one of the current Guardian newspaper relationships advisors
(Pamela Stephenson-Connolly) has any kind of therapeutic qualification, and she is well
known partly due to her celebrity status as Billy Connolly’s wife and as the therapist who
counselled celebrities on the television programme, Shrink Rap (2007–2010). The
advice of writers such as Tracey Cox, Dr Laura Berman and John Gray is fixed and
consistent across media; for example Tracey Cox is known for her ‘golden rules’ for
avoiding a ‘sex rut’: always finish sex in a different position to which you started it, and
never do the same position on two subsequent occasions (Gill 2009, 360; Cox 2011),
while Dr Laura Berman presents women as struggling to understand their own
mysterious bodies or explain them to partners, whereas male bodies and sexualities are
positioned as relatively simple. There is a lack of any sense that either the readers of this
advice, or the experts themselves, might be able to grow, change, improve or develop
their understanding of sex and relationships.
Recent UK television which takes an advice-based stance towards sex has included
magazine programmes such as The Sex Education Show (2008–2011) and The Joy of
Teen Sex (2011), and reality shows such as The Sex Inspectors (2004–2006).6 As in sex
advice media elsewhere, they draw on both entertainment and informational formats
and privilege celebrities as experts on sex and bodies. For example Embarrassing
Bodies (2007–) is a reality medical series which was nominated for a National
Television Award for Factual Entertainment in 2013, and whose advisors, such as ‘TV’s
favourite doctor’, Christian Jessen, have become well known. However, the reputation
of these kinds of programmes is often contested. Talking about or representing
bodies and sex runs the risk of being viewed as pornographic; Embarrassing Bodies has
been described as ‘medical porn’ by some journalists ‘because of the morbid
and lascivious forms commentators imagine viewing engagement will take’ (Hester
2013, 59).
A common theme across current sex education television is a concern about the effects
that pornography may be having on people, as in Channel 4’s 2013 Campaign for Real
530 F. Attwood et al.
Sex7 programming which aimed to ‘reclaim sex from porn’. This draws on a range of
generic characteristics from drama and documentary. One of its shows, Sex Box (2013), is
related to human affairs/science programming as well as the talk show and reality TV. It is
hosted by Observer newspaper agony aunt, Mariella Frostrup, an arts journalist. In Sex
Box, couples occupy a giant box on the studio stage while they have sex, and then talk to
Mariella and a panel of experts. Another of its shows, Porn on the Brain (2013), draws on
the conventions of a science/investigative programme in which ‘journalist and father
Martin Daubney investigates how teenagers’ pornography habits have changed, and the
effect today’s pornography is having on their brains’.
The Campaign for Real Sex draws on the widely expressed view that involving media
of any kind in sexual matters is dangerous, but presents some kinds of ‘quality’ media as
recuperable. That these are associated with current affairs and arts presenters suggests
expertise that is associated with a form of (middle class and respectable) culture and that
functions to make them less visible as media. While pornography is treated as a form of
consumption or ‘use’, programmes such as Sex Box identify themselves as types of
engaged and intelligent ‘talk’.
Sex Box is interesting as an example of the way that this kind of respectable
programming privileges talk about sex, making sexual activity both central and invisible –
literally putting it inside a box within the studio setting. The kinds of expertise that are
drawn on in these kinds of journalism and programming are also highly personalised –
Mariella’s advice columns typically draw on her own experiences while Martin Daubney’s
expertise is linked to his shifting attitudes on becoming a father. They are underpinned by
a notion of ‘media literacy’ as something that can be used to ‘inoculate’ people against
particular kinds of ‘bad’ media (Kellner and Share 2005; see Albury 2014 for a
discussion), or to persuade them to disengage from these. They also rely on reasserting a
hierarchy of ‘good media’ in which information media are better than entertainment,
broadsheets are better than tabloids, television is better than the Internet and all of these
are better than pornography.
The emergence of sex advice and education online is the most recent development in
sex advice media. It has particular importance for young people who routinely express
unhappiness with the SRE that is offered in schools. SRE in UK schools remains patchy
with only one-quarter of young people saying their SRE was good or very good (Sex
Education Forum 2014). Much of it relies on the same narrow interpretation of sex that is
evident in advice columns, books and television programmes, and in addition it tends to be
focused on risk, contraception, STIs and the ‘dangers’ of online porn and sexting; with an
emphasis on information rather than on skills, values and emotions (see Allen 2005; Fine
and McClelland 2006; Allen 2011).
Online, young people have a variety of resources available to them which provide
opportunities to learn information and skills, to explore their values, to seek support
services and guidance, to ask for advice, to hear other people’s experiences, and to be
peer sex and relationships educators themselves. However, comprehensive and inclusive
SRE websites are few and far between. Some grass-roots sites are widely respected;
Scarleteen.com is visited by around three-quarters of a million people each month
worldwide and is the highest ranking sex education website online. Young people visit
Scarleteen for its information about sex and relationships, for its advice columns, its
forum and its live support service.
One of the exciting developments of sexual learning online is that it is not simply oneway
traffic as in print and broadcast media. Young people have the space to be critical,8 to
respond to content and even to produce their own. There is scope for the information they access to be connected more intimately to their sexual cultures (Collins, Martino, and
Shaw 2011). Blogs and tumblrs give young people the opportunity to create or curate their
own educational spaces around sex and relationships, describing personal experiences,
creating and sharing memes featuring sexual and/or sex educational content, or building
activism on sexuality and genders. SRE is also a topic for video bloggers such as Laci
Green, a popular YouTube star who has over 1 million subscribers and over 86 million
video views, and whose videos focus on sexuality and sexual health, covering topics that
traditional SRE does not address.9 Increasingly young people are moving towards using
more private social media (such as BBM, WhatsApp and Snapchat) to talk about matters
they may want to keep hidden (Byron, Albury, and Evers 2013; see also Boyd 2014).
Online forums and communities are used to ask questions and share experiences.
Scarleteen’s forum is staffed and moderated by trained volunteers who engage in around
5000 direct conversations with users each year. Young people may also start conversations
about sex and relationships on forums they already use, or they may like the relative
anonymity of sites like Reddit, which has a number of moderated sub-topics where users
can ask questions, seek advice and share experiences. Crowdsourced responses mean that
readers are not being told one thing by one expert but have the opportunity to construct
their own best answers from the rich and plentiful material presented to them by their
peers.
New challenges for sex advice
As our brief examination of sex media advice demonstrates, it is important to move
beyond the question of whether the relationship between media and sex is good or bad and
beyond assuming there is a clear distinction between bad entertainment and good
information. Instead, we need to be more attentive to different media genres and formats
and their relation to sexual advice and education and more broadly to the construction of
sexual knowledge. As we have shown, sex advice often presents very conservative
views of sex and gender, in addition to drawing clear boundaries between acceptable
and unacceptable sexual practices (Rubin 1984). Advice is frequently dependent on a
dysfunction/disorder-based understanding of sex and on assumptions of mononormativity
and heteronormativity. It often presents male and female sexuality as radically different,
addresses women as responsible for maintaining good sexual relationships with their
partners and constructs its audiences as responsible for maintaining ‘great’ or ‘hot’ sex in
their relationships.
The use of celebrities – whose main concern must be with their own media
reputations – to front sex advice media means that advice that challenges sexual norms
is less likely to be offered. The fact that the ‘success’ of any form of media aimed at
sexual learning will be measured in terms of shifting copy, attracting audiences and
driving traffic makes it more likely that these will privilege the simplistic and the
sensational. Media producers who want to be taken seriously struggle to distinguish
themselves from the kinds of media with poor reputations for sex education, especially
pornography. In order to do this they often emphasise their place in a hierarchy of media
genres, privilege talk about sex over sexual activity and highlight a form of expertise
which draws on respectable views of sex and on personal experience, rather than on
expertise in the sphere of sex and relationships, on critically informed understandings of
sexuality, and on the available evidence.
Media advice giving appears to be as popular as ever although formats for delivering
advice are shifting. Western advice columnists (particularly in newspapers, magazines and
532 F. Attwood et al.
radio) used to be reasonably well paid in secure jobs (Smith 1983), but media advice
giving is expensive editorially. Radio in particular has seen widespread cancellations of
popular advice giving phone-ins due to costs. Mainstream magazines are also closing in
the UK – She, More!, B, Loaded, Sugar, Nuts, Company and Zest have all
ceased publishing in the past five years (Sweney 2014), while others struggle to stay
financially viable (ABC 2015). Many established advice columns are being cut or are
disappearing.
Financial cuts mean that media advice givers are often paid poorly or required to
work for free in exchange for promoting a book or product. The opportunity to establish
a dialogue with people seeking advice, following them up to ensure they are okay and
answering all questions that are submitted is now only a salaried standard practice in
one newspaper (The Sun, which has Deidre Sanders assisted by six staff who answer all
reader correspondence via the paper, email and Facebook group) and one programme
(ITV’s This Morning, where one Agony Aunt, Denise Robertson, and assistant, read
and respond to all audience messages, regardless of whether their problems are aired
or not).
At the same time, the opportunities to give advice via social media, blogs and websites
have grown and new spaces for sexual learning have emerged. Grass-roots sites offer a
different experience, in terms of both the kinds of information they provide and the tone in
which it is delivered. Other spaces such as tumblr, blogs, YouTube, forums and private
social media offer the opportunity for radically different kinds of advice giving and sexual
learning, including peer learning and the crowdsourcing of responses.
In this context, the challenge for individuals and organisations wishing to deliver
valuable and accessible sex advice is to create engaging, open and credible resources
that people want to engage with. bishUK.com (created by one of the authors, Justin)
has around 140,000 page views per month. The tone of sites such as Scarleteen and
bishUK contrasts with the often didactic and ‘finger wagging’ tone of SRE in school
or in other media. It aims instead to make the needs of young people central and to
present them with options about what kind of sex they may want to have (if any).
Young people like the humour, the ‘no bullshit’ approach and the openness,
friendliness and credibility of these kinds of sites, all aspects which they report to be
important in online sex and relationships resources (see McCarthy et al. 2012; Evers
et al. 2013).
But while SRE websites have great potential for giving information and advice (Bailey
et al. 2014), they are unlikely to be as beneficial as SRE conducted ‘in real life’. The most
recent UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (2013) examined the
sources of sex and relationships information that young people aged 16–24 use and found
that school was the most common (39.4% for men, 41.3% for women) compared with the
Internet (4.1%/1.9%). Although most young people reported unmet information needs
before their first sexual experiences, those that reported school as their main source were
less likely to do so (Tanton et al. 2015). They also reported fewer sexual health risk
behaviours and outcomes (Macdowall et al. 2015).
As SRE websites become more popular and access to them broadens, they may
become more successful in meeting unmet information needs. However, it is clear that
there are limitations to online learning. Learning from websites is usually a private
experience which is very different to classroom-based SRE. High quality SRE uses
methods that are experiential and participatory to help young people to learn information
and skills (Sex Education Forum 2014). For example, websites can demonstrate how to
use condoms and can encourage readers to practice using them, but this is more effectively done in a lesson where condoms and demonstrators are available. If delivered effectively,
school-based SRE can provide a safe-enough space for people to learn how to
communicate and negotiate with each other. They are also vital for participants to explore
their values, listen to each other and learn to respect the values of others. Participants are
not able to pick and choose bits of an SRE programme as they can on a website, and even
the shortest SRE lesson may engage a young person for a longer period of time than the
most engaging website. However, there is scope for offline and online models of SRE to
work together effectively. Increasingly teachers use online SRE in classrooms and can use
them to keep up to date about various topics as well as signposting young people to further
information.
In addition to the problems of online sex education, issues around the misuse and abuse
of social media, particularly regarding the targeting of marginalised and already
vulnerable groups, raise questions about how advice can be ethically and accurately
delivered via new media formats. The format of person with a problem seeking help from a
columnist is being transferred into new media without the structure of salaried support
staff to offer individualised responses to those in crisis. While advice columns have always
served the purpose of drawing in audiences, the pressure to sell copy and promote content
means controversial problems are now being used as ‘clickbait’. Unmoderated audience
comments may compound shaming and judgmental attitudes expressed by agony aunts,
who in turn may be enabled to act unprofessionally or even unethically in a further drive to
generate audience numbers. If the problem itself does not draw in audiences for
disapprobation and blame, then bad advice (and those who give it) may give a secondary
opportunity for advice columns to be promoted and talked about. We are now in a situation
where those who are asking for advice could be trolled by wider audiences – or agony
aunts themselves.
Many of the current changes in advice giving are being driven by commercial
pressures to save money on content while increasing revenue via sales or advertising.
Within a climate of austerity and cuts, static websites are replacing helplines and
interactive messageboards and forums. The quality of service has been cut while the use of
lurid problems to drive audiences remains. There are also fewer public resources to refer to
due to financial cuts and governmental policies and a greater demand on advice givers
because people are unable to get help from existing services. Indeed some advice giving,
particularly on television, has shifted to belittling those in need of help and perpetuating
narratives of those needing benefits or other forms of support as being scroungers (Wood
and Skeggs 2011; Hill 2015; Boynton 2015).
Engaging with sex advice
Given this changing context, we are particularly concerned about the quality of some sex
media advice and have made attempts to challenge poor media practice online and in
private to editors, commissioners and programme makers. However, this has met with
little success. Although guidance for advice columnists and editors does not exist, were it
to be offered, it is unclear whether it would be accepted or how it might be enforced.
Greater standardisation, training and regulation of advice columns is an option but one that
is likely to be highly resisted by editors, producers and media advisors who, when praised,
tend to represent the advice column as a source of help and care led by experienced
journalists or experts, but when criticised, claim that it is not intended to be expert driven
and is primarily for entertainment. The fluidity of definition of what columns are for and
who they serve makes it difficult to address quality standards or even to pin down what
534 F. Attwood et al.
media advice giving is about. We are currently reflecting on how best to move forward in
challenging poor practice.
One strategy that we are pursuing is to find ways of critiquing poor media advice that
move beyond simply complaining to and about media producers. For example, we created
a Bad Sex Media Bingo card to draw attention to the typical and often problematic ways in
which sex is represented in media. The bingo card lists common characteristics of media
representation – for example ‘Only penis in vagina is proper sex’, ‘everyone is gay or
straight’, ‘dodgy stats and bad science’ and ‘porn rewires your brain’ for players to spot in
examples of sex advice, and also explains why these are a problem and what better ways of
presenting sex there are. We have used this as an ice-breaker activity at a few events and
for live-tweeting when programmes such as Sex Box are aired.
It is debatable whether the self-help format can produce a sustained social or radical
challenge to wider cultural assumptions about sex, and sex advice based on this format is
likely to always be limited. Self-help of any kind risks lapsing into individualistic projects
of self-transformation (Illouz 2008). It is extremely difficult for the reader not to come
away with the sense that they – as an individual – need to improve some aspect of
themselves, rather than the problem being located – and best tackled – at the level of
structural inequalities. It is also difficult, in a single book, for an advisor to reflect the
multiplicity of sexual practices and understandings of sex, without defaulting to one
approach or narrative at the expense of others. Even books that have explicitly aimed to
challenge ‘sex myths’ have ended up perpetuating and reinforcing problematic messages
(Barker, Gill, and Harvey Forthcoming,b), perhaps because the ‘myth-busting’ approach
always risks challenging the myths, but not the underlying assumptions on which they are
based (Eisner 2013). It may be necessary for people to read across multiple texts to enable
them to see, for example, the diversity of practices that are considered under ‘sex’ and the
diversity of contexts in which sex can take place. Such a reading-across also highlights the
contradictory ‘solutions’ that are proposed in different books, such as women being
advocated to become more dominant and assertive in some books, and less so in others.
Perhaps this is where online forums have more to offer than books in the arena of sex
advice, given their capacity to display multiple different, often contradictory, ‘solutions’
alongside each other. Yet it is also possible to incorporate multiple views in more
traditional forms of advice giving. Those of us who are involved in advice giving ask
others to give feedback and criticism on the media we create; an approach that contrasts
starkly with most advice giving that takes place in print and broadcast media. For example,
one of us (Petra) works as The Telegraph’s sex and relationships expert,10 and addresses
the reader’s problems by researching the topic herself, reaching out to researchers and
practitioners who focus on that area, presenting a diversity of possibilities in her column,
and inviting feedback so that she can correct any errors and improve on advice in that area
over time. Another of us (Meg John) has written his own advice book (Barker 2013) and
another (Justin) is able to revisit ‘static posts’ at bishUK to rewrite and improve the
information as they continue to learn from colleagues, young people and other sources of
sex education.
The continued popularity of self-help and the sex advice book format suggests that at
least some readers do appreciate having information collected together in one text. Two of
the authors (Meg John and Justin) are currently writing their own sex advice book which
foregrounds issues neglected in other literature such as diversity (of bodies, relationships
and practices), consent and the role of wider cultural messages. They are building on Meg
John’s analysis of existing sex advice media (Barker, Gill, and Harvey Forthcoming,b)
and the feedback that Justin has received over the years on their sex advice website and training. This book also takes the approach of focusing more on ‘how’ people engage with
sex (tuning into desires, communicating these consensually, diverse ways of dealing with
discrepancies and questioning restrictive social norms). As such it hopefully does not set
up the need for further advice as the aim is to provide an ongoing set of tools that will
apply to all kinds of bodies and forms of sex (see Friedman 2011; Barker 2013; Hancock
2013 for existing examples of this kind of approach). In addition to putting out alternative
content in this format, we are considering locating our own book within a range of linked
sex advice media, including a regular podcast, and online blogs and discussions. Hopefully
this will enable a more fluid and plural approach to accompany the inevitably more fixed
and singular approach of a single text.
Our aim as a group is to continue to promote critical and open access information to the
public on sex and relationships, to support colleagues to work within the media, to enable
advocacy and activism across disciplines, for example uniting agony aunts with therapists
and mental health service users (see Boynton 2015), and to highlight diverse ways of
engaging with and analysing media advice giving, for example Petra’s project (‘No Star
To Guide Me, http://www.nostartoguideme.com’) that reflects on media advice giving
while offering free resources to anyone wanting to offer media advice worldwide.
Our work also includes continuing to analyse the ways in which sex and sexual health
are conceptualised in policy (see, for example, Smith and Attwood 2011; Barker and
Duschinsky 2012; Duschinsky and Barker 2013) and legislation (see, for example,
Attwood and Smith 2010), as well as current mediated sex education (see, for example,
Barker, Gill, and Harvey Forthcoming,b), and the broader study of mediated sex and
sexuality (see, for example, Smith et al. Forthcoming). Some of us have been active in
blogging on these issues (see, for example, Petra’s http://www.drpetra.co.uk/blog/aboutme/
and Meg John’s https://www.rewritingtherules.wordpress.com/), on writing about
formats such as blogging and how academics might use these (Attwood et al. 2012), and
on helping to shape research and professional practice (see, for example, Boynton 2005;
Richards and Barker 2013, 2015).
Much more research is needed to develop our understanding of all these areas and
their relation to sex advice giving, yet the low reputation of advice giving and sexual
learning – and research that investigates both of these – makes obtaining funding
difficult. Resources are not the only issue either. We would do well to expand on existing
approaches to analysis which remain limited by a focus on mainstream Western women’s
media framed by largely feminist readings of texts, or theoretical discussions of media
advice giving which provide useful commentaries but little in the way of empirical
analysis. Research from within media, such as evaluations of advice giving particularly
on radio, is invaluable yet tends to remain within the media industry. Research that does
not simply comment on media from the outside but begins to look at how it is built, made
and recreated by journalists and audiences is vital. Studies that look at a wide range of
media, diverse audiences (including those that are men, LGBT and in the Global South)
and include economic, social and health issues as lenses for analysis would also be
helpful. Building a productive perspective on the relation of sex and media also needs to
go much further in understanding how audiences engage with media whether it is
informational, educational or a mixture of these. Understanding the gaps between formal
sex education, the kinds of advice giving we have described here and the kinds of
learning that can take place by consuming or producing various kinds of sex media
remains an important goal. Going forward, it would also be helpful to see more public
conversations about what makes for good sex advice and good sexual learning, wherever
it appears.
Using Social Media to Assess
Conceptualizations of Sexuality
ROBERT J. ZEGLIN and JULIE MITCHELL
Counseling and Human Development, The George Washington University,
Washington, DC, USA
There currently exists no standard definition of sexuality. Even considering
its apparent ubiquity, it is difficult to be sure that any two people using
the word sexuality in conversation share a common understanding of its
meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) first definition of the word
endorses a strict biological approach to sex, which fails to separate human
sexuality from that of other living things. The OED’s second definition, however,
highlights the social enactment of sexuality, describing it as “sexual
nature, instinct, or feelings; the possession or expression of these” (“Sexuality,”
2013). Despite this evolved definition, there is still uncertainty of its
terms. What precisely is a sexual feeling? How do they differ from other
feelings? How can these feelings be expressed? Are only some expressions
Address correspondence to Robert J. Zeglin, Counseling and Human Development,
The George Washington University, 2134 G St., NW, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC. E-mail:
rzeglin@gwu.edu
276
Social Media and Sexuality 277
thereof classified as sexuality while others are not? Goettsch (1989) offered
a succinct definition of the word, describing sexuality as “a capacity or potentiality”
(p. 250), redolent of the OED’s second definition. Although by no
means a constructionist-inspired descriptor, this characterization does untether
the word sexuality from the essential physicality presented in its first
definition (“Sexuality,” 2013) and in the preeminent sexuality literature of
the time (e.g., Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin,
& Gebhard, 1953; Masters & Johnson, 1966). In similar spirit, Schur (1988)
and Stein (1989) noted that a purely biological definition fails to fully capture
the variability of human sexual behavior. Simply, it seems that sexuality
educators and clinicians should “beware the biological: It claims too much”
(Gagnon & Simon, 2005, p. xi).
This lack of clarity and consistency is the byproduct of a poor understanding
of sexuality’s constituent parts (Dailey, 1981; Goettsch, 1989; Weeks,
2002, 2009) and may be partially responsible for the confusion among sex
educators on how precisely to approach the topic of sexuality (Preston, 2013;
Shalit, 2001). Spinelli (2013) credited the challenge of defining sexuality to
the presence of three erroneous assumptions present in the public discourse:
a) sexuality is strictly biological; b) it is possible to contrast normal sexuality
behavior from otherwise perverted sexuality; and c) human sexuality is
fixed, that is, unchanging. Alternatively, he suggested that definitions of sexuality
place “flesh-consciousness at the heart of human sexuality” (p. 302),
prioritizing an individual’s experience of their body as a mechanism of interpersonal
connection. As such, the true definition of sexuality may be as
varied as the expressions thereof, differing from person to person (Spinelli,
2013; Virk, 2013). However, there is still a need for a common language to
describe that expression and that flesh-consciousness. Dailey (1981) warned
that, without such a language, sexuality is understood “in a grossly general
and imprecise manner” (p. 315). Theoretical models can provide the requisite
language and precision for understanding (Webster, Rashotte, & Whitmeyer,
2008).
Congruent with the lack of clarity on the definition of sexuality, there
has been no consistently supported model of sexuality in research or in practice
(Dailey, 1981; Gochros, 1972, 1974; Goettsch, 1989; Hertlein, Weeks, &
Gambescia, 2009; Schur, 1988; Van Sevenant, 2005). This can prove troublesome
for sexuality educators, counselors, therapists, and researchers; without
a model from which to work, professionals are left to choose between several
theoretical models that remain nonstandardized (Fis¸ek, Berger, & Moore,
2002; Webster et al. 2008). Weeks (2009) and Planned Parenthood (2014a)
suggested that sexuality be conceptualized as the union of biological, psychological,
and cultural drives and desires. By expanding the understanding
of sexuality to include more than strictly physiological responses, there is an
improved awareness of holistic sexuality. The concept of holistic sexuality
is decidedly more sensitive to Goettsch’s (1989) description of sexuality as a capacity and to OED’s second definition of sexuality as something possessed
and expressed (“Sexuality,” 2013).
A popular holistic sexuality model to gain traction within the sexuality
education community is that of Gochros (1972, 1974). Gochros posited that
sexuality is the confluence of reproductive ability, drive for genital stimulation,
sensuality, love, intimacy, and identity. Dailey (1981) refined these
components, presenting them as five separate but interactive circles: Sensuality,
Intimacy, Identity, Reproduction, and Sexualization. The circles are
not presented hierarchically or serially. This model, referred to as the Circles
of Sexuality (COS), is utilized by many sexuality education organizations
(e.g., Advocates for Youth, 2008; The Center for Intimate Relationships,
2013; Planned Parenthood, 2014b), informational resources (e.g., Corinna,
2014; Johnson, 2010; Many Voices, 2010), and government agencies (e.g.,
Interagency Gender Working Group, 2010; Minnesota Department of Health,
2008; Tannura, 2012), usually with some modifications and adaptations. Definitions
of each circle are available in Table 1.
Despite its popularity, COS has received little empirical exploration, let
alone validation. A literature search of seven databases (Google Scholar, JSTOR, ProQuest, PsychARTICLES, PsychINFO, PubMed, and Sociological
Abstracts) yielded no quantitative studies examining its theoretical underpinnings,
constructs, or efficacy and effectiveness for sexuality education.
This poses a significant problem because “without quantification, the ideas
would rest solely on their intuitive plausibility” (Webster et al., 2008, p. 14).
Though COS’s endorsement within the sexuality education community may
evidence its effectiveness, there is still a clear need for, at the least, some
(even rudimentary) evaluation of its theory, constructs, and outcomes. The
present analysis seeks to establish a foundational inquiry into COS and its
alignment with the popular social conceptualization of sexuality.
Approximately 25% of the world’s population accessed and used social
media in 2013 (Bennett, 2013). As such, social media sites represent an opportunity
to access a large and diverse population while also mitigating the
effects of reactivity, ultimately fostering an open, transparent, and data-rich
environment for research (Heppner, Wampold, & Kivlighan, 2008; Minocha
& Petre, 2012; Phillips, 2011). Phillips outlined three potential challenges
in using social media as a data collection medium: privacy and confidentiality
concerns, difficulty obtaining data, and demographics of users. Still,
there have been several original articles utilizing this methodology, highlighting
its advantages. For example, Dodds, Harris, Kloumann, Bliss, and
Danforth (2011) and Wang, Khiati, Sohn, Joo, and Chung (2014) both analyzed
social media postings to measure happiness on large scales (global
and national, respectively). Similarly, Golder and Macy (2011) used millions
of social media posts to track the circadian pattern of mood. This method
of data collection has also been used to assess the prevalence of depressive
symptomatology in college students (Moreno et al., 2011). The current study
will blend this methodology with the qualitative approach of photovoice to
assess the conceptualization of sexuality in a large-scale social environment.
Photovoice, a community based participatory research method, utilizes
photo documentation and group discussion to identify themes, values, and
beliefs. This qualitative research methodology combines documentary photography
with feminist and constructivist theories, emphasizing participant
empowerment and agency. Photovoice researchers often provide participants
with cameras and ask them to photograph the topic of interest within
their communities. Discussion groups are typically then brought together to
review the photographs; qualitative themes within the photographs are ultimately
abstracted from the group’s dialogue (Hergenrather, Rhodes, Cowan,
Bardhoshi, & Pula, 2009).
The goal of the present analysis is to determine whether the social conceptualization
of sexuality is congruent with a popular model of holistic sexuality
(i.e., COS) using an adaptation of photovoice methodology. No COS literature
has presented the circles in a hierarchical or ordinal pattern. As such,
the null hypothesis is that the five circles are equally present within sexuality.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the location and overlapping pattern of the circles varies between sources, suggesting that the relationship
between circles is independent of the COS structure and therefore nonordinal.
The alternative hypothesis being tested in the current analysis, ostensibly
that there will be a statistically significant deviation from such parity, would
be the first presentation of ordinality within COS. This would help inform
sexuality educators, clinicians, and researchers and would suggest that future
inquiry is necessary in order to understand a) how individuals conceptualize
sexuality, b) how the circles of sexuality can address/inform the social conceptualization
of sexuality, c) how and why the circles may not be nonhierarchical
as currently presented, and d) how a new model of holistic sexuality
could better present the circles to be sensitive to this unequal frequency.
METHODS
Social Media Site
Social media sites considered for the current analysis were judged based
on their popularity, use of photos as the medium, and noncensorship of
posted material. Photos were selected as the medium because of their alignment
with photovoice methodology and relative unambiguity (i.e., videos
and similar file types could depict multiple circles during the course of the
video). After searching the Internet for social media sites specializing in the
sharing of photos, Tumblr and Instagram were among the most popular.
Unlike the latter, Tumblr permits the posting of sexually explicit material.
Understanding the nature and scope of the present analysis, Tumblr was
therefore considered the most appropriate for use in the present analysis.
According to a Pew Research Center report (Duggan & Brenner, 2013),
Tumblr is most popular among Internet users between the ages of 18 and
29 (13% of Internet users in this age range blog on Tumblr) and who are at
either the low or high extremes of income status (i.e., less than $30,000/year
and more than $75,000/year; respectively, 6% and 8% of Internet users in
these income ranges blog on Tumblr). There is an equal representation
of genders (i.e., male and female), racial backgrounds (i.e., White, Black,
Hispanic), and urbanity (i.e., urban, suburban, rural) among users. Because
posts on Tumblr are publicly accessible and anonymous (unlike Facebook,
for example), the present analysis is exempt from institutional review board
oversight (Protection of Human Subjects, 2005).
Theory Operationalization
Each of the five circles was assigned a numerical code with 1 = Sensuality,
2 = Intimacy, 3 = Identity, 4 = Sexual Health/Reproduction, and 5 =
Sexualization. Prior to data collection, the authors collaboratively generated
operational definitions of each circle for use during data analysis and coding. ISCUSSION
Implications for Sexuality Education Practice
The present analysis highlights an incongruence between the COS conceptualization
of sexuality and that of the social community. Primarily, it demonstrates
that intimacy (i.e., the emotional and possibly spiritual connection
between people), being underrepresented in the data, is considered independent
from the concept of sexuality. This conceptual divergence was also
evidenced in Birnie-Porter and Lydon (2013), wherein participants defined
intimacy and sexual intimacy notably differently. Scholars familiar with this
phenomenon suspect that this is the result of sexual intercourse ostensibly
hijacking the definition and spirit of intimacy (Corinna, 2014; Schur, 1988;
Van Sevenant, 2005). In essence, it seems that “intimacy” as a word now
refers to sexual intercourse while the emotional connection between people
is regarded as something other than sexual altogether (Hymowitz, 2001).
Though this could be an unconscious railing against uniting the feelings of
trust and love felt for early childhood caregivers with the current physiological
drive for sexual satiation (see Freud, 1949), it could also be the result
of an increasingly orgasm-centered social enforcement of sex, wherein emotions
like trust and love are (at best) forerunners to and (at worst) no way
part of sexual activity (Van Sevenant, 2005).
This is an opportunity for sexuality educators and clinicians. It may be
helpful for students and clients to explore their understanding of intimacy
and its relationship to sexuality. Particularly, it seems imperative to connect
their relationship with intimacy (be it positive, negative, ambivalent, or
something else entirely) to their relationship with their current sexual selfschema.
Also, given the still admittedly adolescent understanding of holistic
sexuality within the field, there must be a cautionary statement warning
against the supposition that intimacy (e.g., love, trust) must exist between
sexual partners in order for there to be a satisfying sexual encounter. Rather,
the need is for an individual to understand whether and to what extent
he/she needs intimacy to be present for the sexual encounter to be satisfying;
this is in the same way as an individual understands whether and to
what extent he/she needs particular sexual acts to be performed for the sexual
encounter to be satisfying (e.g., manual stimulation of genitals, kissing,
domination/submission).
To accomplish this, sexuality educators and clinicians can educate students
and clients on the COS model while challenging them to consider
the first faulty assumption presented by Spinelli (2013): sexuality is strictly
biological. To explain the nonemphasis on intimacy, Hymowitz (2001) indicted
the public obsession with autonomy, an obsession propagated by
sexuality education (particularly of the youth). This sentiment is echoed in
Spinelli (2013), where it is suggested that sexuality ought to be reconceptualized
as a “way of engaging with, and being engaged by, the other”
Social Media and Sexuality 285
(p. 302). Though there may be physiological explanations for why individuals
vary on their desire for intimacy (Blum, 1997), it is the awareness
of one’s own level desire for intimacy (be it great or small) that is sexual
(Spinelli, 2013). By asking students and clients to reflect on their adherence to
and/or agreement with the first faulty assumption, growth of knowledge and
self-awareness can occur, especially as it relates to one’s understanding of
intimacy.
The analysis also demonstrates that sexual identity, being overrepresented
in the data, seems to be the component of sexuality most informing an
individual’s sexual self-schema. Shively and de Cecco (1977, 1993) included
biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation
within the sexual identity construct. Given this fact, there are at least 16 (if
each component is defined on a binary) and at most an infinite number (if
any or all of the components are defined on a continuum) of sexual identities.
Because of this, it seems reasonable to speculate that sexual identity
will account for much of an individual’s sexual self-schema, either because
of the myriad challenges present in navigating such variability or due to the
broad reach of sexual identity’s constituent parts.
The difficulty for sexuality educators and clinicians in this regard becomes
helping the student or client to negotiate their sexual identity (with
equal respect of all four components) as well as to understand that their
holistic sexuality is informed by but not decided by their sexual identity.
An example of the latter’s disconnect is in that of the primal and extreme
aversion many heterosexual men have toward anal stimulation (an aversion
discernable by a simple Internet search). Their sexual behaviors are constrained
(and so too probably their sexual satisfaction) by this tyranny of
sexual identity simply because it is thought to wholly account for and decide
the acceptability of, or even preference for, such activity (Branfman & Stiritz,
2012). Although, because of its breadth, sexual identity may be a catalyst to
conversations about sexuality with students and clients, sexuality educators
and practitioners ought to further explore and process how and to what extent
sexual identity informs the other components of holistic sexuality (and
vice versa) for the individual.
This goal can be accomplished by sexuality educators and clinicians
teaching their students and clients the COS model while challenging them
to consider the second and third faulty assumptions presented by Spinelli
(2013): it is possible to contrast normal sexuality behavior from otherwise
perverted sexuality and sexuality is fixed (i.e., unchanging). Rubin
(1984) alluded to these same faulty assumptions in her discussion
of hierarchically valued sexuality and rigid standards of sexuality. Both
Rubin and Spinelli highlighted the need for a disputation of that rigidity,
promoting a sexual plurality that is sensitive to individual expressions
of sexuality. This can disrupt the current penchant to use the performance
of certain sexual acts “to identify, label and pronounce upon the psyche” of individuals (Spinelli, 2013, p. 304). By asking students
and clients to reflect on their adherence to and/or agreement with the
latter two faulty assumptions, tolerance and acceptance of self and of
others can be improved, particularly where sexual identity is concerned
(Rubin, 1984; Spinelli, 2013; Weeks, 2002, 2009). Also, with this acceptance
comes the freedom to explore sexuality more openly, potentially leading to
greater sexual satisfaction by discovering previously forbidden activities and
desires.
Implications for Sexuality Education Research
The present analysis, though elucidating the incongruence between COS
and the social conceptualization of sexuality, does little in the way of validating
the COS model. As Webster et al. (2008) warned, anything short of
empirical validation can result in sexuality being, as a theoretical construct,
strictly intuitive. This is (or should be) a notable concern for sexuality researchers.
There exists no validated model of sexuality explaining, in even
small part, the varying enactments of sexual behavior, the vast array of sexual
proclivities, or the extreme variance in sexual expression. Moreover, no
validated model truly identifies the factors influencing these behaviors, proclivities,
and expressions. The COS, as no exception, offers little to explain
these. In his initial presentation of COS, Dailey (1981) displayed each circle
overlapping with two of the other circles, forming a cyclical chain. This
presentation would suggest that each component of sexuality is communicative
with and influential of at least two of the others. However, Dailey
offered no explanation for either the rationale behind or the consequence
of this overlap. Future research can, utilizing the present analysis’ foundation,
clarify sexuality’s constituent parts, how these parts inform each
other, and to what extent a taxonomy of sexuality can be explored. Future
research in this area could lead to the development of sexuality profiles,
wherefrom helpful information for individuals experiencing sexual dissatisfaction,
sexual dysfunction, risky sexual behaviors, and paraphilias could be
offered.
Although outside the scope of the present analysis, the graphical presentation
of the data (see Figure 1) does reveal an interesting pattern, one
worth transitory mention. If it were a momentarily assumed axiom that “Sexualization”
was, rather than a component of sexuality, actually a post hoc
expression of one’s sexuality and therefore removed from the data (see
Schur, 1988), there remains an upward trend from “Intimacy” through “Sensuality”
and “Sexual Health/Behavior” to “Identity.” This may indicate a hierarchical
or ordinal relationship between these factors. This would seem to
suggest that intimacy is somehow influential of sensuality, sensuality of sexual
health/behavior, and sexual health/behavior of identity. It is also possible
that the order of influence is the reverse. This is purely speculative and lacks
Social Media and Sexuality 287
any empirical support, though so does COS. Future sexuality research can
begin the equally arduous as potentially rewarding task of reconceptualizing
holistic sexuality from a static COS model to a more dynamic hierarchical
model. CONCLUSION
The present analysis sought to identify whether the circles of sexuality model
of holistic sexuality (COS) is congruent with the social conceptualization
of sexuality. The results indicated that the concept of intimacy might be
seen as independent from sexuality. Meanwhile, sexuality identity appears
to be a salient and fundamental component of holistic sexuality. This reveals
an opportunity for sexuality educators and practitioners to more fully
present and prioritize their lessons and interventions when working with
students and clients. The key seems to be helping individuals better evaluate
and understand the relationship among intimacy, sensuality, sexual
health/behavior, sexual identity, and sexualization. Lesson plans and interventions
can be developed that highlight and encourage exploration of
the interactive components of the circles, while also challenging preconceived
deterministic attitudes (e.g., sexual orientation wholly decides sexual
behavior, intimacy is something entirely other than sexual; Spinelli, 2013).
Consequently, the present analysis also establishes a gap in holistic sexuality
research; there is no current validated model to explain the variability
of human sexual expression. Although the current analysis tertiarily suggests
a hierarchical relationship between the COS, there is still a need for
an inquiry into whether these are, in fact, the constituent parts of sexuality
and whether such an ordered relationship exists. A clearer, though
still probably incomplete, understanding of how and why components of
sexuality interact the way that they do can only have positive and helpful
outcomes, including destigmatization of certain groups and behaviors,
enhanced sexual satisfaction, increased relationship satisfaction, and better
clarity regarding risky sexual behaviors. Upon final reflection, one thing is
clear: there is still much to be learned about sexuality and its amalgamative
constructs.