Teen Pregnancy Linked to Watching Sexy TV Shows
Tom Allen
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446085,00.html
Teen Pregnancy Linked to Watching Sexy TV Shows
Monday, November 03, 2008
CHICAGO — Groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are
much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and
behavior than among those who have tamer viewing tastes.
"Sex and the City," anyone? That was one of the shows used in the research.
The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen
pregnancy, said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral
scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to
become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such
programs.
Previous research by some of the same scientists had already found that
watching lots of sex on TV can influence teens to have sex at earlier ages.
Shows that highlight only the positive aspects of sexual behavior
without the risks can lead teens to have unprotected sex "before they're
ready to make responsible and informed decisions," Chandra said.
The study was released Monday in the November issue of Pediatrics. It
involved 2,003 12- to 17-year-old girls and boys nationwide questioned
by telephone about their TV viewing habits in 2001. Teens were
re-interviewed twice, the last time in 2004, and asked about pregnancy.
Among girls, 58 became pregnant during the follow-up, and among boys, 33
said they had gotten a girl pregnant.
Participants were asked how often they watched any of more than 20 TV
shows popular among teens at the time or which were found to have lots
of sexual content. The programs included "Sex and the City," "That '70s
Show" and "Friends."
Pregnancies were twice as common among those who said they watched such
shows regularly, compared with teens who said they hardly ever saw them.
There were more pregnancies among the oldest teens interviewed, but the
rate of pregnancy remained consistent across all age groups among those
who watched the racy programs.
Chandra said TV-watching was strongly connected with teen pregnancy even
when other factors were considered, including grades, family structure
and parents' education level.
But the study didn't adequately address other issues, such as
self-esteem, family values and income, contends Elizabeth Schroeder,
executive director of Answer, a teen sex education program based at
Rutgers University.
"The media does have an impact, but we don't know the full extent of it
because there are so many other factors," Schroeder said.
But Bill Albert, chief program officer at the nonprofit National
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, praised the study and said it
"catches up with common sense."
"Media helps shape the social script for teenagers. Most parents know
that. This is just good research to confirm that," Albert said.
Still, U.S. teen pregnancies were on a 15-year decline until a 3 percent
rise in 2006, the latest data available. Experts think that could be
just be a statistical blip.
And Albert noted that the downward trend occurred as TV shows were
becoming more sexualized, confirming that "it's not the only influence."
Psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media
and the Family, cited data suggesting only about 19 percent of American
teens say they can talk openly with a trusted adult about sex. With many
schools not offering sex education, that leaves the media to serve as a
sex educator, he said.
"For a kid who no one's talking to about sex, and then he watches
sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as this is what the cool people
do," the outcome is obvious, Walsh said.
He said the message to parents is to talk to their kids about sex long
before children are teens. Parents also should be watching what their
kids watch and helping filter messages sex-filled shows are sending, he
said.
============
--
Tom Allen
http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com
"I don't have multiple orgasms, myself... I am, however, known to be a
carrier."
Lusus Naturae
>Teen Pregnancy Linked to Watching Sexy TV Shows
As usual, the headline reads as though there is causation, when all the
researchers have demonstrated is correlation.
--
Lusus Naturae
JustGB
> that. This is just good research to confirm that," Albert said.' This
> study says NOTHING of the sort. I hate these correlational studies. They
> prove NOTHING. Could it be that teens who are sexually active want to
> watch TV shows that show or discuss sexual activity? I think that is just
> as likely as these shows making teens have sex. Weren't teens having sex
> BEFORE these shows, or even before there was television?
No, not nearly as much. I felt I was being bold by 'going all the
way' with my finace and not waiting till we were married (I suspect
most of us did that, but none of us told). At least I knew that if I
got pregnant I would have someone to elope with to cover it up and
wouldn't need to have an abortion.
There was *nobody* in high school down on her knees in the yard giving
blowjobs to the football team one after the other during recess (I
refer to the young woman who posted here a couple of summers ago).
Yes, we were having sex. No, not like today.
JustGB
Denny Wheeler
They may also have established a correlation between teens more likely
to be involved in a pregancy and parents who use the TV as a
babysitter.
--
"Every single religion that has a monotheistic god
winds up persecuting someone else."
-Philip Pullman
-denny-
(not as curmudgeonly as I useta be)
Norton
>> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446085,00.html
>>
>> Teen Pregnancy Linked to Watching Sexy TV Shows
>> Monday, November 03, 2008
>>
>'"Media helps shape the social script for teenagers. Most parents know
>that. This is just good research to confirm that," Albert said.' This
>study says NOTHING of the sort. I hate these correlational studies. They
>prove NOTHING. Could it be that teens who are sexually active want to
>watch TV shows that show or discuss sexual activity? I think that is just
>as likely as these shows making teens have sex. Weren't teens having sex
>BEFORE these shows, or even before there was television?
Of course. Indeed, methinks that the association between
sex and those shows may in fact be the other way around.
When I becamse sexually active there was almost no information
about sex available. There was no internet and, sit down
please, no television either. Books involving sex somehow
never appeared in the school library and were few and far
between in the public library.
I know, because I looked.
And yet, high school kids were making out like crazy.
Of course, we were (both sexes) monumentally ignorant of
anatomy, physicology, and just about everything else as
well. But we somehow survived.
--
--- Norton
Kat
> Of course, we were (both sexes) monumentally ignorant of
> anatomy, physicology, and just about everything else as
> well. But we somehow survived.
Trial and error can be fun!
toramjero
> Tom Allen <taomlinS...@MEsbcglobal.net> wrote:
> that. This is just good research to confirm that," Albert said.' This
> study says NOTHING of the sort. I hate these correlational studies. They
> prove NOTHING. Could it be that teens who are sexually active want to
> watch TV shows that show or discuss sexual activity? I think that is just
> as likely as these shows making teens have sex. Weren't teens having sex
> BEFORE these shows, or even before there was television?
My experience as well. There are girls who are very interested by
relationships and girls who are not that interested. And this starts
usually very early (say, between the age of 2 and 4). The first type
spend an enormous amount of time interested in their hair, clothes and
generally the effect they have on the opposite sex. They are
fascinated by stories involving relationships, and seek the type of TV
programs discussed here. If they can't have TV, they will read books,
magazines, etc... Other girls are not interested by these aspects and
find those TV programs uninteresting. This reflects in their games as
well: I have seen girls of the first type spend an enormous amount of
time involved in the dress of their barbie doll, while the others were
rather interested in animals or pokemon for example.
One also notices differences between boys at the same age. I have no
idea how much of this behaviour is innate and how much is due to the
influence of the parents.
Norton
>Kids may be doing things differently today (doing different things), but
>they have ALWAYS been having sex. And I am not talking about "go back to
>the '50s", or "go back to the '20s", I mean go back 200 years ago, 500
>years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, and before that. MAYBE
>television gives kids ideas of different things to do (but this study does
>not prove that), but it does not make kids have sex. Kids have been having
>sex since the beginning of time.
Norton hasn't been around *quite* that long, but he agrees with
you completely.
What bothers Norton is that sex today is very different than in
the past. Women can protect themselves against pregnancy with
a very high percentage of security today.
Condoms have been around for a long time -- they not at all
modern in origin. Even Wikipedia is, Norton thinks, wrong
about that. But no matter.
The point is that since sex is always with us, contraception
needs to be practiced. Men should do their duty, but women
need to protect *themselves*.
If there was ever a need for proper contraception information
and proper availability of contraception, it is NOW.
Parents need to stop pretending that their daughters can be
made "pure" by keeping them ignorant, or by just keeping them
away from the pill or condoms. Unwanted pregnancy cause more
pain and suffering than most health events.
--
--- Norton
Norton
Yes. But in retrospect I was a huge ass and fairly
incompetent too.
But as you imply, perhaps we all were.
--
--- Norton
Kat
I am not exactly proud of how I behaved in the past and my past isn't
so far back either but at the same time it helped to allow me to be in
the right position to mold my current strengths as well as my current
sense of right and wrong.
Norton
There is that. We all, I hope, learn. I hope I've learned to
be a better lover and friend over the years.
--
--- Norton
Tatayanna K
> My experience as well. There are girls who are very interested by
> relationships and girls who are not that interested. And this starts
> usually very early (say, between the age of 2 and 4). The first type
> spend an enormous amount of time interested in their hair, clothes and
> generally the effect they have on the opposite sex. They are
> fascinated by stories involving relationships, and seek the type of TV
> programs discussed here. If they can't have TV, they will read books,
> magazines, etc... Other girls are not interested by these aspects and
> find those TV programs uninteresting. This reflects in their games as
> well: I have seen girls of the first type spend an enormous amount of
> time involved in the dress of their barbie doll, while the others were
> rather interested in animals or pokemon for example.
>
> One also notices differences between boys at the same age. I have no
> idea how much of this behaviour is innate and how much is due to the
> influence of the parents.
So you're saying more of our behavior is wired into us than most
people think? To me, that is an interesting theory. When I was
growing up, it seemed there were girls who were more interested in
boys/relationships/etc. and some who where not. My husband has said
the same thing when I showed him this post, even though he says it
seemed like fewer boys were interested when he was younger, while I
noticed it ran around 50/50, depending on how accurate our memories
are.
His sister could be an example of this in my opinion. My husband and
I went to high school together and dated in our junior and senior
years. He had an interest in the opposite sex, but his sister
didn't. They didn't allow him to date until the later years of high
school, when we started going together. She was often critical of me
because I liked wearing make up, trying new things with my hair, and
wore different types of outfits. She wore no make up, cut her hair
short, and wasn't all that interested in fashions. She was actually
critical of me because of these things and tried to get their parents
to ban him from seeing me, but they didn't because they always thought
he was a social misfit(much of his life he had been picked on in
school) and his having a girlfriend gave them relief about that. She
was always trying to get me to not be interested in him because of his
differences from others, but it didn't work because that's what I
liked about him.
I can remember two other incidents where my ways clashed with her's.
One was the time his mother insisted on him inviting me over to swim
in their in ground pool. His mother like showing off how they had it
better than most(certainly better than me and my single mom), so they
practically insisted I come over to swim. His sister came out to join
us, and wasn't happy about what I was wearing. Even though my suit
was a one piece, it took advantage of what my husband calls my being
"top heavy,"(she's flat) while she wore something like you'd see in
the Olympics. She was also upset because he and I went to our senior
prom together, something she didn't do and demanded their parents not
allow, but they allowed it.
His sister is married now, but still the animosity is there, so I
don't spend much time around her.
I think it is possible that it's hard wired, but what I think helps
prevent teen pregnancy is how the parents deal with it. If they don't
deal with it, it's a problem. My mother chose to deal with it, and
fortunately, the results were successful(no pregnancy, STDs, sleeping
around, etc.). I've told how she dealt with it on this group before,
in a very unusual way. Whether what she did is right for all, I don't
know, but it was right for me.
Tatayanna K.
toramjero
> On Nov 4, 1:27 am, toramjero <toramj...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > My experience as well. There are girls who are very interested by
> > relationships and girls who are not that interested. And this starts
> > usually very early (say, between the age of 2 and 4). The first type
> > spend an enormous amount of time interested in their hair, clothes and
> > generally the effect they have on the opposite sex. They are
> > fascinated by stories involving relationships, and seek the type of TV
> > programs discussed here. If they can't have TV, they will read books,
> > magazines, etc... Other girls are not interested by these aspects and
> > find those TV programs uninteresting. This reflects in their games as
> > well: I have seen girls of the first type spend an enormous amount of
> > time involved in the dress of their barbie doll, while the others were
> > rather interested in animals or pokemon for example.
>
> > One also notices differences between boys at the same age. I have no
> > idea how much of this behaviour is innate and how much is due to the
> > influence of the parents.
>
> So you're saying more of our behavior is wired into us than most
> people think?
No, I am not. I explicitly wrote that I do not know how much of this
behavior is innate. I actually think that the parents, brothers and
sisters contribute a lot to the choice of this "strategy".