By João Oliveira
Sexuality can be portrayed differently according to each country. It may be more explicit or more conservative. Today we are analysing Portugal and the way sexuality is displayed to the Portuguese population.
Back in the days, when Portugal had a dictator ruling the country, the amount of things that the population could do was very restricted. Self-thoughts were not allowed if not the same as the government. Censorship had a big role in everyone’s lives, with people even ending up in jail.
There was a huge opposition against homosexuality. According to the article published in 2009 by São José Almeida in the newspaper Público, you could be homosexual, you just could not admit it or say it. It affected not only the low society, but the higher aswell. It was even implemented a law in 1886 which stated that those who were homosexual would be punished, referring to them as “those who give themselves regularly to the practice of vices against nature”.
Nowadays it is different, people are more open minded about it than ever before. In Portugal, most of the advertisements focus on this subject - sexuality - a lot. In general, TV channels have the freedom to display many shows where sexuality is the centre of attentions, like Casa dos Segredos in TVI, for instance. Regarding movies, they show those at a certain time of the day, normally at late night, marking it as adult content.
To conclude, Portugal has evolved to a stage where censorship isn’t that much of a big deal. When it comes to free-will, people are comfortable when talking about sexuality, and in television, censorship steps up a level but still is far away from stopping TV channels from showing adult content when following the rules.
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