20240915-christian_sex_sells.txt

Apologies in advance: sex is still awkward to talk about for this
American. Also I accidentally overwrote one of my glog entries in
creating a new format that has the filename at the top. I've since
made the function less destructive.

I was looking for something to watch in the background while playing
games on my PC and ran across "7th Heaven." It's a show about a
pastor's family with 5 kids (more added later). What's odd is that in
a time and religion that preached abstinence until marriage, there was
a whole lot of sex or at least sex talk going on in this show in
regards to unmarried people. It seems almost hypocritical and really
weird that a show with that subject would talk so much about sex.
There's certainly no nudity, but it's still weird.

I hadn't watched it in decades and I was surprised at how my adult
mind interpreted the same show I knew about but only watched
occasionally as a teenager. The two episodes I watched seemed to deal
with teen dating and again, based on the premise, you wouldn't really
think that would be the focus. It lasted a whopping 11 years and had
over 240 episodes. Quite the success, especially considering the
series finale was so popular they renewed it for one more season.

Another show, produced by the same 7H EP Brenda Hampton, was "The
Secret Life of the American Teenager." It "only" ran for 6 seasons,
but it was still had more than 120 episodes and while more secular,
still had a strong Christian influence. One of the main characters,
Grace, was a devout Christian. But yeah, that show was talking about
sex all the time. It premiered by the time I was an adult, so I
definitely interpreted it differently than previous shows like 7H. But
yeah, it was basically an excuse to sell sex while also being a
"family" show. I would be pretty embarrassed trying to watch a show
that randy around anyone but a girlfriend.

But yeah, it's just quite the oddity that two hit shows with major
Christian followings and influence revolved so much around sex,
especially extramarital sex. Weird, hypocritical, or simply savvy
capitalism? You be the judge.