“If you want to get awards, you have to show your boobs!” Jimmy Kimmel recently joked at the Primetime Emmy Award celebration about the HBO cable network collectively receiving the most nominations for their TV shows, including “True Blood” and “Game of Thrones.”
This statement, although a joke, poses a question: Does sex sell? The answer shown over the history of media is yes. Overtly sexual programs and ideas seem to gradually become the norm for television shows and movies in this age. The true question is why does sex sell?
Take the recent best-selling book by E L James, “50 Shades of Grey.” The book explores the relationship between a young woman and a man, known as her “Master,” as they explore and push each other’s sexual boundaries through the use of bondage and other unique techniques. The sexual activities and relationship in the book are written in explicit ways, much to the delight of some readers.
So in that instance, how does sex make its sale? How does the sexual innuendo in almost any media found in the 20th and 21st century become largely successful? Fantasy.
“The unexpected element is that the shame of erotic fiction is largely in the imagination, and once people had read it, they felt happy to discuss it openly,” said The Guardian website writer Zoe Williams in an online review of the book.
In the book, the sexual fantasies of women from many walks of life were written and played out, and can now be openly discussed without shame, regret or judgment from themselves or others.
Not since D.H. Lawrence’s 1960 novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” has a book brought together so many women who may have been previously ashamed to admit that they have sexual desires and fantasies including fantasies containing on bondage. This idea of the fantasy applies to almost anything with sexual tones.
New York Times number ten best seller, “Barred to You” by Sylvia day is a fiction novel on a obsessive and sexually charged relationship. Number 20, “Wrong Bed, Right Guy” by Katee Robert describes countless measures by a woman to seduce her boss. People are often interested in the sexual details of lives outside their own and live vicariously through their words.
From True Blood’s gratuitous, almost soft-core porn antics that appeal to women who may dream of being bit on the neck during a sexual encounter, to modern news media with former Playboy models as correspondents on television shows centering around gaming and geek culture, obviously target a specific audience, despite the knowledge about what the viewer truly wants and needs to know.
During the recent 2012 Emmy Awards, HBO won eight awards, proving showing racier material will land viewers and ultimately plenty of shiny gold statues.
Simply put, sex sells because it gives us something visible and sometimes tangible that we may not be able to have in our own personal lives. Much like any form of entertainment, it draws us in with promises to fill whatever emotional voids we as people may or may not need to be filled in order to truly be satisfied.
