Insert Kaiser joke here

There is no sex on TV. There are only coy hints and fake titillation.

But according to The Kaiser Family Foundation, "sexual content"—that means everything from cursory talk about sex to sex itself—is bad enough. According to the foundation's "Sex on TV 4" report, "sex scenes on TV" have "nearly double(d) since 1998."

Researchers at the University of Arizona and the Kaiser Foundation monitored one week of TV programs for the study. How can this accurately measure sexual content on TV in a two-year period? I'm sure "sexual content" fluctuates from week to week; some episodes of a given show will have more sex talk and more "sex scenes" than others.

In its insidious, meek and mild way, the study does say that sex is bad, that it's bad that TV makes it harder to control the way people think about sex:

“Given how high the stakes are, the messages TV sends teens about sex are important,” said Vicky Rideout, a Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President who oversaw the study. “Television has the power to bring issues of sexual risk and responsibility to life in a way that no sex ed class or public health brochure really can.”

At least the study encourages TV shows to remind people to use condoms and whatnot. But that's just realism—it doesn't get us past our irrational fear of sex.

The study doesn't ask just how sexual content on TV actually shapes our thinking about sex—it leaves us with the implied assumption that any mention of sex is a portent of evil, evil sexual liberation. That assumption gives this study its weight. The main motivation behind producing this study—or at least presenting it to the public—is too keep people in a panic about sex and the illusory difficulty of controlling it. Now, of course "sexual content" on TV makes people horny and curious, but so does being born with a penis or vagina. But the tone of this "sexual content" is repressive in itself. "Talk about sex" on TV is loaded with coy hints and often requires a loud swell in the laugh track. Even dramatic "sex scenes" portray sex with overtones of doom and fear. Sex is tension and release, but TV only shows us the tension. All the fake sex on TV, on billboards, in magazines, movies, newspapers—any form of mass media—is there to arouse us and tease us, but it also encourages our embarassment, self-consciousness and guilt about sex. And haven't we already got enough of that from religion?

The result of this study, then, is not to pit fear against sex, but to pile fear on top of fear.