It's an interesting topic to think about JoshCube, and I'd agree with you that Western media (not just American) is full of sex.

There's a fantastic series of documentaries called Century of the Self that discusses this idea to a degree. I think you can find it on YouTube or Google video, but it's the first episode that's most relevant.

One of the main figures that the documentary covers is a guy called Edward Bernays, who was an American propagandist during the First World War, and eventually went on to create 'public relations' and a whole range of modern advertising techniques. He was particularly interested in how he could move entire populations, and to an extent, control their behaviour. Fortunately for him, his uncle was Sigmund Freud, who was at the time (early 1900s) thought to be the authority on the human mind and the factors that influence our behaviour.

Freud sent Bernays his works, and Bernays subscribed to most of his uncle's theories. They both thought that underneath our conscious minds, the thoughts, feelings, emotions and impulses that we care aware of, there is an unconscious mind. This unconscious mind is home to all of the nasties that we don't want to know about, most of which are socially unacceptable sexual desires, repressed painful memories or aggressive impulses. Although we are not aware of what exists within the unconscious, the idea was that it isalways bubbling away and influences our behaviours in ways that we do not recognise. For example, people may act in ways that seem irrational, but they are attempting to partially satisfy their unconscious desires. In doing so, the unconscious as appeased, and simmers down a little.

So, Bernays read up on this, and applied it to the newly emerging American consumerist market. Rather than appealing to consumer's practical needs, he appealed to their supposed unconscious, emotional wants. Many of his most successful advertising campaigns were driven by psychoanalytic theory, and he was often called upon by companies who wanted to use Freudian psychology to promote their products. Of course, Freud's theories were heavily based on the sex drive, and so that's what you see projected onto these advertisements. In the same way that a dream can function as wish-fulfilment, so to could a new product.

A famous example would be car commercials, where advertisers pitched the product not as a practical commodity, but as a symbol of masculinity, power and dominance. It's quite funny to think about it now, but when you watch old car adverts, there is a LOT of phallic imagery. It always reminds me of the episode of Family Guy where Peter goes out and buys this enormous car, and he's driving it through the tunnels and it's the most cringeworthy thing ever.

These were the kind of ads that convinced Peter Perfect from the Wacky Races to buy his car.