Media and American adolescent sexuality

The article is about the influence of the media in the sexual behavior of American adolescents. For a broader view see Adolescent sexuality in the United States.

The media and American adolescent sexuality relates to the effect the media has on the sexuality of American adolescents, and the portrayal thereof.

Researchers remain divided on the role of sexuality in the media on adolescent sexual health. The American Academy of Pediatrics has argued that media representations of sexuality may influence teen sexual behavior. However some scholars have argued that such claims have been premature.. According to journalism professor and media critic Jane Brown, the media is piquing teen interest in sex at ages younger than previous. Dr. Brown argues that research has "found a direct relationship between the amount of sexual content children see and their level of sexual activity or their intentions to have sex in the future." However, the direction (and mechanism) of causality remains unclear. Furthermore, according to US government health statistics, teens have delayed the onset of sexual intercourse in recent years, despite increasingly amounts of sexual media.

Sexuality in the media

According to Dr. Victor Strasburger, the American media is the most sexually suggestive in the world. The sexual messages contained in film, television, and music are becoming more explicit in dialog, lyrics, and behavior. In addition, these messages contain unrealistic, inaccurate, and misleading information that young people accept as fact. A 2001 report found that teens rank the media second only to school sex education programs as a leading source of information about sex, but a 2004 report found that "the media far outranked parents or schools as the source of information about birth control."

Media often portray emotional side-effects of sexuality such as guilt, and disappointment, but less often physical risks such as pregnancy or STDs . One media analysis found that sex was usually between unmarried couples and examples of using condoms or other contraception were "extremely rare." Many of programs or films do not depict consequence for sexual behavior. For example, only 10% programs that contain sexual scenes include any warnings to the potential risks or responsibilities of having sex such as sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. In television programing aimed at teens, more than 90% of episodes had at least one sexual reference in it with an average of 7.9 references per hour.

However, government statistics suggest that since 1991, both teen sex and teen pregnancy have declined dramatically despite the media generally becoming increasingly sexually explicit.

Effects of the media on beliefs about sex

Adolescents may turn to the media as a "sexual super peer" when seeking information about sexual norms and adult roles given the lack of information about sexuality readily available to them. Teens believe the media, as a super-peer, encourages and pressures them to have sex. In a study of 13-and 14-year-olds, heavy exposure to sexually oriented television also increased acceptance of non-marital sex.

According to Strasburger, "Teenagers who watch a lot of TV and movies are more likely to accept stereotypical sex roles and to believe that the unusual sexual behavior that is presented on talk shows is realistic." Strasburger argues that although the average child sees 15,000 sexual references on television alone, missing from these references are the "healthier aspects of human sexuality, such as answers to questions about what it means to be a man or a woman, when is sexual activity appropriate, what a healthy body self-image is, and how pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease can be prevented." Instead, Strasburger argues that what teens see is "unrealistic. Another study found that teens overestimate how many of their peers are sexually active, a problem contributed to by the media.

Another study found that middle-school-aged boys who watch music videos or pro-wrestling one day a week are 10% more likely to have a higher acceptance rate for rape than boys who do not watch any. Boys who watch music videos four days a week and pro wrestling 1.7 days a week (the mean exposure rate for boys) have 70% higher odds of endorsing a greater level of rape acceptance. "Both music videos and pro wrestling shows are popular with youth, combine violent and sexual content, and glorify individuals who behave violently."

Effects of the media on sexual behavior

Pregnancy

Some researchers have found a correlation between the amount of television with high sexual content that teenagers watch and an increased likelihood of them becoming pregnant or fathering a child out of wedlock. Some studies suggest teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV are twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20.

These researchers believe that reducing the amount of sexual content adolescents watch on television could substantially reduce the teen pregnancy rate. "It's a cumulative effect," Brown believes. "It's probably not any one portrayal that makes the difference, but it's a consistent, and now unhealthy, sexual script that adolescents do see as a depiction of appropriate behavior."

Several complementary studies have found that television viewing can influence multiple aspects of reproductive health among youths and that "earlier sexual initiation is associated with negative health outcomes." Previous research has suggested two ways that glamorized perception of sex may contribute to teen pregnancy: by encouraging teens to become sexually active early in their adolescence and by promoting inconsistent use of contraceptives.

Early sexual activity

Some studies have also found that adolescents whose media diet was rich in sexual content were more than twice as likely as others to have had sex by the time they were 16. In a Kaiser Family Foundation study, 76 percent of teens said that one reason young people have sex is because TV shows and movies make it seem normal for teens. In addition to higher likelihoods that an adolescent exposed to sexual content in the media will engage in sexual behaviors, they are also have higher levels of intending to have sex in the future and more positive expectations of sex.

Some studies suggest that children who watch adult content on television are more likely to have sex earlier once they reach adolescence. For every hour of adult-targeted television or movies watched by children when they were 6 to 8 years old, there was a 33% increased risk of becoming sexually active in early adolescence.

"Children have neither the life experience nor the brain development to fully differentiate between a reality they are moving toward and a fiction meant solely to entertain," explained David Bickham, a staff scientist in the Center on Media and Child Health. "Children learn from the media, and when they watch media with sexual references and innuendos, our research suggests they are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier in life."

Other research has suggested that linking sexuality in media with adolescent sexual behavior is premature. Steinberg and Monahan reanalyzed a dataset of teen sexual behavior (Collins et al.) using propensity score matching and discovered that with other risk factors controlled, viewing sexual media did not predict early onset of sexual behavior in adolescents. The authors concluded that links between media viewing and adolescent sexuality are more tenuous than previous believed.

Researchers on both sides of the debate acknolwedge that assigning causality to correlations between media use and sexual behavior are difficult, given the lack of experimental research, and difficulty controlling for all potential confounding variables

Other effects

Some research suggests that teens who listen to music with sexually explicit and degrading lyrics are more than twice as likely to be having sex. Degrading lyrics were defined as those where sex was described as a physical rather than loving act, and where there was a power differential. "Lyrics describing degrading sex tend to portray sex as expected, direct and uncomplicated. Such descriptions may offer scripts that adolescents feel compelled to play out, whether they are cast in the role of either the female or the male partner."

One study found that the relationship between exposure to sexual contact in the media and increased sexual activity among adolescents is more pronounced in white youths than black youths. Black teens are more likely to be influenced by their friends' sexual experiences and their parents' expectations than by what they see in the media.

Pornography

Between the 3rd and 10th grades more than 90% of children will be exposed to pornography. Psychiatrist Jerald says access, affordability and anonymity has made online sexual activity "extraordinarily common" among all ages, including adolescents. Adolescents who intentionally seek out pornography, both online and off, are overwhelmingly male. Older youth are more likely than younger youth to seek porn.

The average age a boy will first view pornography is 11, and experts say it "is the major form of sex ed today for boys" and a "a cultural force that is shaping the sexual attitudes of an entire generation."

While only 7.3% of girls have engaged in a multiple person sex act - a number that is likely skewed higher than the general population because it was from a study at an urban clinic - more than half felt "pressured" or that they were "threatened or forced" to participate. The term multi-person sex act includes things like gang rape, as well as threesomes. Participation in a multi-person sex act "seems strongly linked to being forced to do something that their partner saw on pornography." Subjects who had watched porn in the past month were about five times as likely as those who had steered clear from the X-rated flicks to have group sex.