Life > September 16, 2004

By Liza Greenspun

Contributing Reporter

If you’ve been trying to figure out why your libido is so high, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has an answer for you.

A recent study confirmed that sexuality portrayed on television encourages adolescents to explore their own sexual behaviors.

Assistant professor of communications Donald Helme, who has done work with various types of media, said TV does have a greater influence on people than other media forms because it reaches such a huge population of viewers.

“I’m sure TV has an influence — not so much the content but how much you watch that prevents you from doing other constructive things — those are what the latest data suggest,” said Charles Richman, a professor of psychology who specializes in prejudice, racism and heterosexism.

Dean of the College Deborah Best said she has never worked directly with TV before, but she conducted a study with an honors student about the effect of violent video games the on aggressive behavior of kids and based on that study, she agreed that TV probably does have an influence on the sexuality of adolescents.

The study, “Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behavior,” consisted of thousands of 12 to 17 year olds interviewed by phone about their sexuality at the beginning of the 2001-02 TV season. They were also asked about what types of sexual activity they had already engaged in.

According to the study, at the end of the TV season, the same adolescents were contacted again. They were asked the same questions about their sexual behavior as well as other questions to gauge what encouraged them to advance sexually, if they did.

The survey focused on how much TV the adolescents had watched in the past year, and how much sexuality was involved in the programs they chose to watch. 

The results of the study showed that at all age groups, the teens in the top 10 percent of the high-exposure group were twice as likely to engage in sexual intercourse as those in the lowest 10 percent.

Adolescents who watched a greater level of TV high in sexual content were more likely to engage in sexual intercourse during that year.

However, TV was not the only influence examined in this study. Sixteen different predictors were tested to see the impact they had on the activities of teenagers.

“Sexual content is a good predictor of change, but what they don’t tell you is that it’s not the biggest predictor of change in sexual behavior,” Helme said. 

Sexuality on television shows was actually ranked fifth among the 16 predictors tested.

According to the study, the predictors with the highest influence on the progression of adolescent sexual activity included having mostly older friends, sensation-seeking, other deviant behavior and low school grades, followed by sexuality on TV.

He added that older peers could influence adolescents to be more sexually active if sex is one of their primary are interests in.  However, if the older peers are less into sex and more into sports or other social activities, adolescents might be discouraged from engaging in sexual activity.

There are some limitations to this study. It is impossible to tell if this sexual progression is completely related to the TV programs they watch.

Richman agreed with Helm in that there were some limitations to this study, in that it can’t ask all the important questions.

There could be several more factors that could be added to a follow-up study. These questions included sexual orientation, self stimulation/masturbation, ages of siblings, magazines the adolescents have read, socioeconomic status, what parents think if they knew their child was sexually active and whether or not they have known anyone with a sexually transmitted disease or someone who has become pregnant.

Also, one of the limitations listed in the actual study is that it is possible that those who progressed in their sexual activity during the year also watched more TV with high sexuality content because they were ready to be sexually active and increased their TV viewing because of that. It was not possible to test this interest.

University students are probably not as influenced by what they watch on TV as the adolescents who participated in the study because youth are much more impressionable than those in their early twenties, Helme said.

Helme also said when adolescents see sexuality portrayed on TV, they become influenced by it because they believe it is the norm. However, as people get older, they become more resistant and are less influenced.