Drugs, smoking, sex; is that what describes the younger generations?
Conversations about what young people should be exposed to in media have become more prevalent in today’s society. This comes at a time when it is no longer taboo to talk about bodies and sex. This trend of exposing youth to explicit ideas at a young age is not new, but it is being executed in a different way.
Back in the 1990s, a heavily gendered culture rose in popularity. This included iconic staples of the 90s such as The Spice Girls, Oasis, Britney Spears, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. These artists had heavily influenced the exposure of themes of sex in the music industry.
A harmful female stereotype also arose in the 90s that has made a comeback in recent years. The term “angry woman” arose from the media’s demonizing of women in the public eye, such as Monica Lewinsky and Madonna, to undermine the authority and influence of these women. This created the societal standard that women in leadership are considered “pushy.”
Generation Z has romanticized the nostalgia for 90s fashion, music, and trends they never got to experience. The problem with this is that the complexity that arose with these trends is no longer being addressed.
The old question, “Is posing for Playboy female empowerment or sexualization?” is now, “Is focusing on body exposure positive or just explicit?”
On April 12, 2026, the third season of the HBO original “Euphoria” released its first episode. “Euphoria” has faced backlash for various reasons ever since its release in 2019. The story follows a group of teenagers who all have various issues, from drug addiction to alcoholism and sexual exploitation. The show’s creators assert that the show depicts representation and body positivity, but many viewers believe it has the opposite effect and question the real intention of the show.
“The show’s main focus is to be the most shocking and exciting, but it doesn’t actually represent what life as a teen is actually like because it’s so dramatized,” freshman Cameron Halverson said.
In the most recent season, Sydney Sweeney’s character, Cassie Howard, has been slammed for her storyline. Sweeney’s character’s plot is her desire to start an OnlyFans account to pay for an extravagant wedding she plans to have with fiancé Nate Jacobs, played by Jacob Elordi. Fans have been upset with this storyline, saying that it is “disturbing” considering Sweeney has been involved in multiple public scandals involving body positivity and sexualization.
Not only do Sweeney and Elordi’s characters explore adult themes, but the actors themselves are also 28 years old, around 10 years older than the characters they play on the show.
“I feel that having adult actors play teens can promote unhealthy body standards. Specifically, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi, they do look like adults. They’re more muscular or their bodies are just more developed, and I feel like that could potentially make teenagers feel more insecure, like they have to look that way in high school,” Halverson said.
The trend continues with new shows such as HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry.”
“In ‘Heated Rivalry’, they take two men who are gay, and then put them into sexually tense situations, and that is the appeal for why people watch it,” junior MJ Stockdale said. “I, for one, don’t think that is a fair representation of people who are gay. And I think that it’s becoming too culturally appropriate to use sexual scenes to drive the media.”
Though this trend of oversexualization has often been present in forms of media such as film and television, it also has an influence on all forms of media, especially social media forms like TikTok, Instagram, and other short-video platforms.
“I think there’s been more of a shift on social media of everyone being in the same place. On TikTok, specifically, people of all ages are on there, and you can easily lie about your age on there, and many parents let their kids have free range of the internet. So, they have access to this sexual content, and then they go and look it up, they just take it for word based on what these creators say, and they don’t actually have any real idea of the depth and value of these things,” sophomore Enzo Humphris said.
The issue is that this trend of underdeveloped people being exposed to this type of media at a young age has effects on how they view themselves growing up.
According to The National Library of Medicine, parallels of effects on children have risen between young exposure to sexual content and traumatic symptoms of child sexual abuse. Children do not have the cognitive skills to process adult themes, which can lead to negative consequences in interpersonal relationships, which is a common trauma response. A traumatic event is defined as “an event that exceeds an individual’s usual coping capacity.” The issue with kids exploring these increasingly common themes of adult-related content is that they don’t really know what it means or how to cope with it.
“I think it will lead to a lot of lack of self-confidence in younger generations because the content includes a lot of stereotyping, generalization and body positivity issues that come with the talk of sex, and the talk of sexual activity,” Humphris said.
“Personally, I think having so many sexual scenes depicted in media that many younger audiences can reach will negatively affect the younger audiences,” Stockdale said. “Younger generations will become desensitized to this content before they fully understand it.”
The issue is not that this content exists, but its influence and reach to all ages. That is a main difference between this trend that we have seen in the past; historically, the content was not as accessible. Social media has removed this factor.
The issue is not if this content is being made, but who it is being delivered to, and if it is manipulated in that context.
The effects on younger generations are inevitable; whether this trend continues really relies on whether or not people recognize the threat.
