I recently found myself watching compilations of TV commercials on YouTube from my childhood and preteen years.
I was shocked by the ENORMOUS amount of sexual references during Safe Harbor, a span of time considered safe for a child to watch TV
One could say that TV has always been like this, that sex sells, and that there's nothing that can be done about it. I'm not writing this to demonize media or to impose or force my moral point of view on it, I just want to share my experience and find out if anyone else can relate, or if I was just a weird child who was attracted to absolutely everything from a sexual POV.
But it shocked me to realize how much that content affected me as a hypersexualized child, a result of being a victim of COCSA. I probably wasn't aware of many things, but to what extent did it function as a kind of subliminal advertising in many cases.
And not so subliminal, since much of that content was anything but subtle.
Bumpers from a channel during the summer season, showing close-ups of women's butts every two seconds on the beach, and even a full nude scene for barely a second. Previews of soap operas where the leading man undresses in front of the female lead and invites her to "Come on, take off your clothes," or constant mentions of "making love." Tons of double entendres involving minors, either by alluding to being boyfriend and girlfriend but with adult connotations, or other situations I'd rather not detail here, although they left a lasting impression on me.
Now I understand better how impossible it would have been for me not to have those hypersexual interests at that time, obviously with COCSA making the experience a thousand times more intense and having surely started it.