If you are living in a reasonably technological country, which includes just about the entire planet nowadays, you should be able to see how the media affect how we live our lives. Marketers know this all too well. If the media makes one associate a certain product to popularity and success, that person might buy that product in an attempt to be popular and successful. Enter our culture's icons and role models.

Those who are popular and successful in our culture are usually looked up to and revered. If they use a particular product or engage in a certain activity, they will likely be followed and their behavior will be mimiced. Though their parents may not realize it, children are absorbing every nuance of mom and dad, their siblings and their peers. This can have tragic consequences if they are not worthy of being imitated. And if, or rather when, these role models are shown pushing the boundaries of premarital appropriateness, well, you get the idea. In TV shows, movies, in books, men are shown ridiculing their wives and treating marriage as if it were a temporary convenience (or inconvenience in some cases). They are glamorized if they sleep around and get away with it. Boys, not having been taught Godly courtship, will immediately adopt this as correct behavior (see The Double Standard). They will grow up only to perpetuate this wrong thinking by inadvertently teaching it to a whole new younger generation. Likewise, women are depicted as seductresses whose role it is to "train" their men.

All this spills over into the dating arena. Boys are encouraged by those who are older to conquer women rather than love them. You probably have heard boys cruelly ridiculing other boys who show any affection towards a girl. What do you think this does to a young boy's mind when he grows into a young man?

If female pop singers wear barely anything on stage, young girls will immitate them. I recently read an article about one very popular female singer being considered an ambassador for virginity by the Church of England. Normally, I would have praised this but when I look at the behavior of this person on stage and in public statements, I find only incongruity. This singer flippantly flaunts her sexuality using the argument that if she is "sexy", why shouldn't she show it off? Friends, this was never God's intended purpose of sexuality.