iPods Keep Teens from Saying NO     8/11/2006
By Molly Hamrick

Study finds link between teen sexuality and music.

A new study found that teens who listen to music with vulgar, sexual lyrics will start having sex earlier than those who listen to other music.

Music genres across the board target teenagers with sexual messages. The study reports that songs that depict sex-driven males, females as sex objects and explicit sexual content are more likely to generate earlier sexual activity. Teens who listen to a large amount of degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start experimenting with sexual activity or having intercourse within two years as those who listened to little or no music with sexually degrading music.

The Associated Press reported that 51 percent of heavy listeners began having sex within two years, as opposed to 29 percent among those who listened to little or no sexually explicit music.

“Once again, social science reflects common sense,” said Robert Knight, Director of Concerned Women for America’s (CWA’s) Culture & Family Institute. “Parents of teens know that if their son or daughter listens to trashy stuff, it will increase the likelihood of a teen acting out. A famous saying from the ’60s was, ‘you are what you eat.’ More authoritatively, the apostle Paul warns us all to ‘guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus and to ‘meditate’ on ‘whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report [Philippians 4:7-8].’”

According to the Associated Press:

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music “gives them a specific message about sex” said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for RAND Corp. in Pittsburgh. Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects. …We think that really lowers kids’ inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions.”

RAND conducted telephone interviews with 1,461 youths ranging from age 12 to 17. The initial interviews took place in 2001, and were followed up in 2002 and 2004. Most of the participants were virgins upon their first interview in 2001. Only 17 percent had ever had sexual intercourse. By the time of the second interview, 29 percent had become sexually active, and 53 percent had by the third interview. The study cites another recent survey, which found that two-thirds of sexually experienced teens wish that they had waited longer to have sex.

Eighteen different respondent characteristics that could otherwise have affected the study’s results were taken into consideration. Music was distinguished as containing sexually degrading material and sexually nondegrading material.

“Part of the problem is that much of the music is not just sexually provocative, it is also verbally abusive of women,” said Dr. Janice Crouse, Senior Fellow at CWA’s Beverly LaHaye Institute. “How can it not affect the attitudes and relationships of young people who listen to a daily diet of such trash talk about women and their sexuality?”

Molly Hamrick graduated recently from Bryan College with a degree in Political Communications, and is an intern for CFI in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Internship Program at CWA.

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