Let me be critical for a moment before I wholeheartedly agree with him.

This trend is nothing new.  When I was younger it was Madonna singing Like a Virgin and other very explicit lyrics that was all the rage.  Prince was steaming up the airwaves with any number of sexually explicit songs.  Yes, there is a sort of innocence that seems to surround this now, but I know that's merely the effect of having grown up with it.  It's been a long time indeed since the Everly Brothers sang Wake Up Little Suzie , and seemed to genuinely imply that all that had happened was they had fallen asleep.  

But things have changed.

Television started this, linking music indelibly to a musician's physicality - consider Elvis' controversial hips .  This was accelerated with the widespread emphasis on music videos that really exploded with the advent of MTV (music videos have been around in limited forms since movies themselves became more prevalent, growing gradually more pervasive since the Beatles).  But none of this is incidental or accidental, either.  Artists do not exist in a vacuum.  They are crafted, groomed, styled.  Some do it themselves.  Others have others that help them or influence them heavily.  There's a massive emphasis on a visual appeal, a unique look.  And if you want to get people's attention, you need to be good looking in face and body.  Nobody wants to watch an ugly person unless they're exquisitely talented.  Mama Cass Elliot would probably have a hard time getting an agent today.    

In a culture that depends on buying and selling for it's viability, new markets are always being sought.  Some of these are geographic like the explosion of sales activity in places like China and India where growing economies and mind-blowing numbers of people have manufacturers drooling at the profit possibilities.  Some markets are more demographically driven, and one of these demographics is age.  I think that was has been discovered is that if you sell one generation of people on something, they will be inclined to inculcate their offspring similarly.  One way this is playing out is in the area of eating habits.  People brought up with eating out or consuming snack foods as a special part of their lives are likely to continue eating out and bring their children up in this environment.  What was once a special treat becomes de rigueur, and there are attendant problems that result (obesity, spending habits that can lead to financial problems, etc.).  

If you bring up a generation titillated by the blatant lyrical and visual sexualization of media icons, they're going to think less of tolerating or even promoting this sort of titillation in their children.  What is being sold to teens and young hip professionals is desirable for those who are no longer as young and hip, and who seek to demonstrate a certain level of youth and hipness vicariously through their children.  Their emphasis on sexuality and sex appeal is translated to their young children, who grow up in this sexualized environment, with attendant problems resulting (if you want to avoid sleeping tonight, consider the trend reported in this article).  

None of this is accidental, and none of this is inevitable or necessary or unalterable.  But it's going to take people continuing to think about their lives, their choices, and what they want for their children.  If these aren't the values we want to emphasize to our children, we have to determine what values we do want to emphasize.  It's a huge opportunity and challenge for the Church to step into the gap in thought, to provide alternative ways of valuing life, to speak again timeless truths that assert our value is not self-defined or culturally determined.  We aren't at the whim of age or fashion or popularity, and that we have value in every stage of our life from conception to advanced age.  An intrinsic value that cannot be removed, it can only be ignored.  I pray that there will be other leaders strong enough to speak out on these issues.  I think they'll find a willing and ready audience.