I have a terrible overseas crush: it's on Petra Boynton, whose yearly sex predictions always get me thinking about how I want to catch the next plane and monopolize her attention for a few days!
This year, she talks about the horror of "super-sex" and some of the peculiar relationships between science and media when it comes to consumerism and sex education. Her focus is on Britain, but it's all too easy to make comparisons to the US imitations.
Her entire list is thought-provoking, but I especially jumped to #1, #5, and #6:
2007, the year of “super sex”
This year you can expect to see a lot of media coverage in the UK, US and Canada on ‘great’ or ‘super’ sex. This will be in the form of books, television programmes and magazine features and include topics such as ‘how to have the best sex ever’, ‘how to have the best sex in the world/universe’, ‘how to have more/better orgasms’, ‘how to get more sex’, and ‘how to be really fantastic in bed’.
Related to these programmes/features will be classes run from either sex stores or by individuals teaching ‘great sex’ techniques. Most of this coverage won’t be based on evidence but will be based on a one-size-fits-all approach to sex.
Contrary to good sex advice, rather than encouraging exploration and adventure we’ll be told what good sex is, and how to achieve it. The programmes/articles will be built around product placement and feature ‘sexperts’ who may not be the best qualified to offer advice on exploring sex.
The emphasis of media coverage will be around positions, body parts, hormones, techniques and activities with little information on communication, culture, choice and pleasure. It’s anticipated this media coverage will be hugely popular, but will also create more questions and anxieties in audiences who probably won’t find the information easy to act upon and will blame themselves when they don’t get the best sex ever or become the best lover in the world.
Female sexual dysfunction will re-emerge as a ‘health crisis’
2007 is definitely going to be the year where we see resurgence in media attention on female sexual dysfunction and hormonal treatments. In particular the Intrinsa patch will be heavily promoted during the first half of 2007 although this raises a number of ethical issues.
Magazines and newspapers will focus on the patch and other hormonal and herbal ‘cures’ for female sexual dysfunction without understanding the condition or looking at the many other factors that influence women’s sexual dissatisfaction. Under headlines like ‘Viagra for women’ we can also expect to see a growth in features promoting foodstuffs (e.g. nuts, seeds, fruit and fruit drinks) as a means of boosting or transforming male and female sex lives.
Women who don’t want sex, have gone off sex or don’t desire sex to the same degree as their partner will be labelled as ‘dysfunctional’ by the media and pharmaceutical/commercial companies driving coverage. Media reporting will run counter to good science and existing evidence and will mislead the public, although a number of campaigners and educators (myself included) will continue to try and give more balanced sex information to the media.
Prostitution will become a media favourite
Due to the tragic stories of the murders of five women in Ipswich the UK press are going to focus on prostitution and related issues in magazine features (particularly women’s magazines), newspapers and television documentaries and dramas.
Common themes you can expect to see include the ‘dramatic’ increase in prostitution (although this is an oversimplification of data). Expanding on this will be the ‘new trend’ of men seeing prostitutes, and features/programmes on why men go to prostitutes with tips on how to spot if he’s seeing a hooker, how to ‘sex proof’ your relationship so he won’t be tempted to stray and what to do if you discover he is seeing a prostitute.
There will also be a focus on the ‘real’ lives of sex workers which will at a surface level seem to be sympathetic to sex workers but in actuality will characterise sex workers as victims. The overall effect will be to continue to distance the public from sex workers and subtly (or not so subtly) blame sex workers for either violence directed towards them or wrecking relationships.
Here's her predictions for last year, which you can see, too, are right on the rabbit.
