Over the holiday break I’ve been catching up on things like sleep and television shows. Recently I’ve started watching a series called Dexter, and while I absolutely love the show it reminds me of a point my mother and I have often discussed.

Television generally favors and supports stereotypes, an exaggerated mirror to a society’s values and beliefs. Though the stories that we’re told through our screens are often glamorized or barely based in fact, they serve as a classroom to the millions of viewers who tune in and are influenced by their messages. Kids learn about cursing and sex often way before their parents’ broach the subject, and things like condoms are often overlooked while characters glamorously hook up at crazy parties. The possibility of negative effects that TV has creates a dilemma, and while its total effect on society would be interesting (and long) to analyze, that’s not the subject I primarily want to discuss. Instead I’d like to focus a little more on the representation of women on TV, primarily when they’re shot without clothing.

While network television is generally a little more modest, the hookers or slutty girls wearing little but at least something, on lots of cable channels boobs are no big deal. I’m not against nudity; I personally don’t feel that such a large taboo should be placed on sexuality, so the sometimes uncomfortable sex scenes aren’t what bother me. What bothers me is the fact that so far on Dexter I have seen a fully naked escort strangled, a dead woman laying out on a table wearing nothing, and plenty of sex scenes where the woman jiggles and bears all, the man on top or underneath her magically covered and decent.

Guys just don’t get naked for the camera like women do, apparently the scenes are written to require only the female stripping down to convey the message. Showing audiences every angle of a woman’s naked body isn’t a big deal, but the camera even momentarily grazing a man’s naked behind is rare. Why are men afforded more modesty then their female counterparts? The impression I get is that a naked man on someone’s television screen would be ‘crossing the line’, ‘too much’, ‘purely distasteful’, while a naked woman, while insulting and too graphic for some, is less of a serious offense.

I suppose an argument for the higher number of shots of naked women on TV is because women that have more parts that need covering. Admittingly, I have seen a great number of bare-chested males on television and in movies, but it hardly means the same thing. But even beyond the chest, I’ve seen way more shots of areas below the belt for women than I ever have for men, and though they’re generally only quick flashes across the screen they’re still often visible and oddly contrasted against their conveniently covered partners.

While I don’t particularly want to see a guy’s junk flaunted across the screen, it’s definitely odd that women are the only ones who seem to be expected to fully strip down. The almost pornographic scenes and shots of women’s bodies on TV shows and in movies often feels like too much to me personally, like its creators have ignored the storytelling aspect and instead reserved it as an effort to market their product for its sex appeal. But these graphic images of women alongside that of their male peers, whose back and shoulders are all we see, sends an odd message. Yes, we’re marketing sex with out female actresses, but no, exploiting our male actors like that would just be crossing the line.