Sex, media, and teens: Who's being influenced by what?

Date published: 4/7/2006

Consequences

SOME THINGS you just don't need a Ph.D. to figure out. The media, says Jane Brown, a professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina, are "a powerful sex educator, but not always in the best interest of children."

Ms. Brown was the chief researcher of a recently concluded study on the influence of television, movies, magazines, and music on adolescents. After surveying more than 1,000 young North Carolinians, she and her fellow scholars concluded that white kids who were exposed to sexually explicit content between the ages of 12 and 14 are more than twice as likely to have sex before their 16th birthday. Ominously, white adolescents spent five to six hours a day with media that contained "frequent, glamorized, and consequence-free sexual activity." Black teens? They spent even more time in the brain laundry, but seemed less influenced by mischievous cultural messages.

"What's missing in the media," notes Ms. Brown, "are the three Cs. Rarely is there a commitment, contraceptives, or consequences."

Consequences. Ah, yes. The bad news behind Free Sex Curtain No. 1. Every day, notes The Heritage Foundation, 8,000 teenagers become infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Two-thirds of teens who've had intercourse regret it. Sexually active teens are more depressed and far more likely to commit suicide than their abstinent peers. Females who began having sex at an early age are substantially more apt to get pregnant out of wedlock, have abortions, and be mired in poverty. And they are much less likely to have a stable marriage--ever.

Those facts, however, rarely make it into the plot thread of, say, "Sex and the City." Or into the throbbing lyrics of rap music. Noting that one of the most powerful predictors of teen sexual activity (remember when it used to be called "promiscuity"?) is the perception by a young person that his or her peers are having sex, Ms. Brown comments that teens, "especially those who have fewer alternative sources of sexual norms, such as parents or friends, may use the media as a kind of sexual superpeer that encourages them to be sexually active."

There is, however, an antidote. The UNC study shows that parents are still major influencers of teens. So, parents, flip off the tube, take the earplugs out, and talk. About sex. It's about time.

Date published: 4/7/2006