This September sees doctors entering the debate on First Amendment rights. The American Academy of Pediatricians has published a policy statement attacking the current practices of the television, internet and print media on "explicit" content. Put simply, the AAP lists all the main problem areas from lyrics in music and the accompanying videos, the pornography easily accessed on the internet, to all the ads we see for erectile dysfunction drugs. It notes this is triggering early questions about sex and sexuality without any balancing content on sexual responsibility in relationships and birth control. Taking just two examples, there are now a host of reality TV shows which are supposedly just for "dating", but the real interest lies in seeing who pairs off. Equally, it's now routine for advertisers to use sex to sell even the most unsexy products and services. These are images of women wearing only a few clothes posing suggestively.

Children gather information from all sources available to them. As peers, they exchange web addresses and swap the latest downloads of music videos. They encourage each other to upload photographs of themselves partially or completely nude to Facebook and other slightly less obvious sites. If life is boring, there are now a host of sites following in the footsteps of chatroulette where you can make random video chat connections. In many instances, this is an excuse for sexually bizarre behavior among many participants, but it can be more mainstream, e.g. the Reddit community asked for a service that would allow them to see more than each other's faces and Popjam links to Facebook.

The underlying question is what message all this sends to our young. First, it's reinforcing the stereotype of men as wanting hard erections and being prepared to take pills to get them. With images of semi-naked women everywhere it continues the trend of portraying women as sexual "things" and potentially starts the use of pornography at an earlier age. Yet the regulators see nothing wrong. The television stations routinely accept erectile dysfunction ads and refuse ads for oral and emergency contraception pills. The internet continues to be the Wild West with everything available if you know how to use google. Apart from a few "family" and religious organizations prepared to speak out, there has been little pressure to moderate behavior. Perhaps the intervention of the AAP will provoke more discussion and a cultural shift.

Until then, we're all free to enjoy all the ads where the sultry, if not flirtatious, woman wants her man to "do this more often", referring to the smile both wear as a result of using the pills. There are offers of free prescriptions and, while there are no "money-back guarantees" if couples remain unsatisfied, viewers are left in no doubt that Viagra and the others are certain to turn every opportunity into a score. Indeed, the marketing department for the little blue bills asserts that Viagra is now iconic, i.e. people automatically associate it with erectile dysfunction as the "cure". Not that Pfizer is sitting on its laurels. As the competition increases from the other two, we will no doubt see more explicit ads defending the original's market leadership.