A fantastic article appeared last week on Relevant Magazine's website. The authors, Jake and Melissa Kircher, contend that the media has distorted the image of love and sexuality (IMHO they are spot on the money). They challenge us to not be shaped by culture but to shape it.

Does Media Distort Love?

Jake and Melissa Kircher (Relevant Magazine), 12th April 2011

"The Love Delusion

Adults should be able to tell the difference between over-romanticized love and healthy, realistic love. But in actuality, peoples’ lives are beginning to just echo the stories they see onscreen. The problem is, movies usually end just as a relationship is beginning.

As people consume the media’s view of love, it’s becoming more common for relationships and marriages to be primarily based on a desire for happiness and personal fulfillment. When these feelings fade, people think love is gone and become an emotional train, moving from one lover or spouse to the next. It’s become such a problem that some have begun to refer to this mediated view of romance as “emotional pornography”—insinuating that popular expressions of love and romance rewire the brain in ways that recall the damage done by visual pornography. Just as visual pornography sets up unrealistic expectations for sex and physicality, the media’s fanciful stories of love wire consumers to expect Hollywood-style kisses in the rain and constant, epic moments of dramatic love. How can real life compete?...."

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