Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses a concrete set of issues in order to illuminate important aspects of the relationships between media, sex and sexuality. It provides a historical context to the issues, academic debates and political developments which have shaped the field of media and sexuality research. The book reviews the range of media forms in which sex is the primary focus of representation. It offers explorations of the ways in which sex genres from erotic fiction through to user-generated pornographies have developed, and how each of these represents sex and sexuality. The book focuses on particular formats, such as music video and lifestyle magazines, or genres, such as horror and reality television. It also offers the kinds of close reading of individual and particular texts that makes clear their relations to other media genres and styles and broader traditions in fine-art practices or entertainment.