The portrayal of sex in online media as conflictive, feminized behavior far from hedonic pleasure

Abstract

Sex is news. Sex is widely present in the media, from news pieces on abuse, pornography, and scandals to reports on hedonic practices and erotic tendencies. To investigate its portrayal in the media, we carried out a quantitative content analysis (n = 950) of the journalistic pieces in which sex appears, published in the Spanish online media eldiario.es, elpais.com, and abc.es during 2019. In addition, a distinction is made between three dimensions of sex: sex as a condition (“sex that one is”), sex as behavior (“sex that is done”), and sex as an attribute (“sex that one has”). The results of this study indicate that more than two-thirds of the analyzed news pieces address sex as a behavior with potential negative consequences. Likewise, the terminological analysis reveals the feminization of news about sex, especially with regard to sex as a condition. Consequently, the online press does not advance beyond the hegemonic image but is rather limited to disseminating stereotypes established in society and thereby contributes to maintaining and propagating sexophobic and erotophobic attitudes. This scenario suggests a lack of communication strategies to report on sex, with the exception of those incorporating the gender perspective. However, when understood based on a prism of power relations, this approach only intensifies the discourse against it. These findings underscore the need to rethink media narratives about sex and adopt other propositional approaches for framing sex as a value.