By JC Poppe Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Jun 09, 2011 at 11:38 AM

Sex, sex, sex.

It seems like that's all you get when you turn on Top 40 and Urban radio stations.

Now, it has to be said that sex on the radio isn't anything new. The topic of sex is something that has long populated the airwaves. From Robert Plant asking a girl to squeeze his lemons until the juice runs down his leg and Paul Rodgers needing to tell people that he feels like making love, to Conway Twitty's very straightforward "I'd Love To Lay You Down" and, of course, Madonna's "Like A Virgin," we've had decades of sexually suggestive themes presented to us.

However, though there has been sex on the radio for decades, it's never been as explicit as it is now.

Over the last 10 to 15 years there has been a shift in what is allowable on the radio, thanks to the easy methods of editing and the shock of explicit music wearing off to the point that it's now just commonplace and expected.

Tracks like the Yin Yang Twins "The Whisper Song," David Banner's "Play" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" achieved regular radio play despite how much editing needed to be done to clean up the tracks for the radio. Though they were edited, the songs still don't leave very much to the imagination.

Buckcherry's "Crazy Bitch" sends out the message that as long as a woman is good at having sex, there's no need to care about how "crazy" she may be because "... I like the way you f*ck me." This song was even recognized by the Grammys and nominated at their 49th annual awards for "Best Hard Rock Performance."

These are of course examples of songs from years of recent past, but it's not any better on the radio now. Enrique Iglesias released the single "Tonight (I'm F*cking You)" at the end of last year, which might have shocked some people when they went to get the song from iTunes assuming they were getting the often-used radio edit, "Tonight (I'm Loving You)."

As the theme of "wife for the night" continues to grow in popularity, the hump-and-dump tracks will continue to be made at a rapid pace, with more and more explicit exchanges to follow.

Love songs do of course still get made and still get played on the radio, but is the theme of love essentially dead on the radio and has it been replaced by explicit sex? Is there any way to re-shift the focus to love, instead of sex?

What do you think?

JC Poppe Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer, Concordia University Wisconsin alumnus Poppe has spent the majority of his life in or around the city and county of Milwaukee.

As an advocate of Milwaukee's hip-hop community Poppe began popular local music blog Milwaukee UP in March 2010. Check out the archived entries here.

Though heavy on the hip-hop, Poppe writes about other genres of music and occasionally about food, culture or sports, and is always ready to show his pride in Milwaukee and Wisconsin.