Violence against women and its representation in popular culture is nothing new.

Damsels have been in distress for as long as stories have been told – poisoned by witches, hijacked to tall towers, tied to train tracks and kidnapped by white guys pretending to be Indians. The story of the helpless woman has remained oddly consistent from fireside fairy tales and live theater to radio, television and movies.

Culture – and technology – has advanced so far, but the story line of victimized women remains much the same, except, of course, for the modernization of cruelty.

This fall’s crop of new television programs pushes the familiar to psychotic lows, brought directly into your home straight from the nightmare realm. Trying to build a following by mimicking the successful model of CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” the first episodes of several heavily hyped shows try to capitalize on brutality and menace aimed at women, who are mostly young, white and attractive.

Washington Post television critic Lisa de Moraes identified the glut of punishment in her September column, “Female characters, made to suffer for our art.'” Her theme is better expressed down a bit further: It’s the Season of Die, Woman, Die!

New shows this year from every genre launch their appeal for an audience with an offering of female blood. In “Criminal Minds” a woman is abducted and caged as a pet for a psychopath. In “Close to Home,” mom is leashed in the basement by an abusive dad. In “Supernatural,” two women are impaled, and a scorned and murderous female ghost tries to seduce one of the young – and male – heroes so she can take his cheating heart. Women are fed to spiders and raped, left naked in a swamp and just generally abused.

There’s a woman president in “Commander In Chief,” but that doesn’t offset the bulk of the message we’re seeing.

According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, violence is the No. 1 health problem for women, with domestic violence being the top cause of injury. In the United States, one woman in seven has been raped, and a rape occurs every two minutes. A woman is physically abused every nine seconds.

Perhaps art imitates reality or pop culture tries to cash in on the commonality of violence against women, but must we push the boundaries beyond the horrible, mundane punch to the face or gunshot wound to the outrageous and macabre?

The Sun Journal tracks the popularity of the stories on our Web site (www.sunjournal.com). On Tuesday, the most frequently read story was, “Woman pushed from third floor; boyfriend charged.” The article was only five paragraphs long. The attack happened in Laconia, N.H. It beat the next two most popular stories – “Local man charged after fatal accident” and “Five indicted on 20 charges” – by considerable margins.

“Two senators applaud Bush’s choice,” about how Maine’s two powerful and popular U.S. senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, reacted to the nomination of Harriet Miers, another powerful woman, to the Supreme Court came in a dismal 23rd, well behind the crime and drama and death.

A single show about a woman president or a story about the two most popular leaders in the state can’t compete with the noise of all the rest

The First Amendment protects all kinds of speech and all kinds of “art,” and pulp fiction is squarely in the mainstream of popular entertainment. But it’s not necessarily harmless fun at some well-paid actress’ on-screen expense. There’s growing evidence that exposure to negative portrayals of women can desensitize people to real violence and foster unhealthy attitudes about women.

When the offerings on television mirror the most read stories in the newspaper, is fiction following fact or fact following fiction?