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TV Sex Influences Kids to Have Sex 9/8/2004 Study reveals adolescents who watch portrayals of TV sex the most are twice as likely to initiate intercourse as those who watch the least. Most folks know that if “birds do it” and “bees do it” and “even educated fleas do it,” odds are that “educated” kids are more likely to do it too. A government-funded study has vindicated a common-sense belief of most Americans.
The Rand Corporation announced September 7 the results of a newly completed study of 1,792 adolescents ages 12 to 17, which asked them “about their television viewing habits and sexual behavior.” TV viewing included both broadcast and cable. According to Rand: “Adolescents who watch large amounts of television containing sexual content are twice as likely to begin engaging in sexual intercourse in the following year as their peers who watch little such TV.” The study participants were followed up with a similar survey one year later.
What may come as a surprise for many is that Rand “found little difference whether a TV show presents people talking about whether they have sex or portrays them having sex. … Both affect adolescents’ perceptions of what is normal sexual behavior and propels their own sexual behavior.”
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development funded the study, which is published by the American Academy of Pediatricians in the September issue of Pediatrics magazine.
According to Pediatrics: “Early sexual initiation is an important social and health issue. A recent survey suggested that most sexually experienced teens wish they had waited longer to have intercourse; other data indicate that unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are more common among those who begin sexual activity earlier.”
Results indicate: “The size of the adjusted intercourse effect was such that youths in the 90th percentile of TV sex viewing had a predicted probability of intercourse initiation that was approximately double that of youths in the 10th percentile, for all ages studied.”
What parents and policy-makers have believed is affirmed:
The study concludes:
Hopefully, it won’t take another government-funded study to tell us that exposure of kids to 1.3 million pornographic Web sites displaying graphic, hard-core depictions of sexual behavior is influencing kids to act out sexually. As the Supreme Court noted more than 30 years ago:
Did it take a government-funded study of the effects of “Joe Camel” ads on adolescent smoking to run Joe into a desert abyss? Don’t think so.
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