Study: Sexy music triggers teen sex
Experts offer conflicting reports
Adapted from CNN.com
August 7, 2006
Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics
start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study
found.
Whether it’s hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed
at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior
appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.
Songs with explicit references to sex acts that depict men as
“sex-driven studs” and women as sex objects are more likely to
trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are
more veiled, the study found.
Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual
messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or
other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens
who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.
Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two
years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little
or no sexually degrading music.
Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music “gives them a specific
message about sex,” said a researcher for Rand Corp. Boys learn they
should be relentless in pursuit of women while girls learn to view
themselves as sex objects, he said.
“We think that really lowers kids’ inhibitions and makes them less
thoughtful” about sexual decisions and may influence them to make
decisions they regret, he said.
The study, based on telephone interviews with 1, 461 participants
aged 12 to 17, appears in the August issue of Pediatrics.
A 17-year-old girl, an editor for a teen sexual health Web site
called Sexetc.org produced by Rutgers University, said she and other
teens sometimes listen to sexually explicit songs because they like
the beat.
“I won’t really realize that the person is talking about having sex
or raping a girl,” she said. Even so, the message “is being beaten
into the teens’ heads,” she said. “We don’t even really realize how
much.”
“Teens will try to deny it. They’ll say, ‘No, it’s not the music,’
but it IS the music,” she said. “That has one of the biggest impacts
on our lives.”
The chief executive office of the Hip-Hip Summit Action Network, a
coalition of hip-hop musicians and recording industry executives,
said explicit music lyrics are cultural expressions that reflect
“social and economic realities.”
“We caution rushing to judgment that music more than any other
factor is a causative factor” for teens initiating sex, he said.
The researcher from Rand Corp. said the researchers tried to account
for other factors that could affect teens’ sexual
behavior--including parental permissiveness--and still found
explicit lyrics had a strong influence.
However, a sex researcher and author said factors including peer
pressure, self-esteem and home environment are probably more
influential than the research suggests.
“It’s a little dangerous to just pinpoint one thing. You have to
look at everything that’s going on in a young person’s life,” she
said. “When somebody has a healthy sense of themselves, they don’t
take these lyrics too seriously.”
A psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the
Family said the results make sense and echo research on the
influence of videos and other visual media.
The brain’s impulse-control center undergoes “major construction”
during the teen years at the same time that an interest in sex
starts to blossom,” he said.
Add sexually-arousing lyrics and “it’s not that surprising that a
kid with a heavier diet of that…would be at greater risk for sexual
behavior,” he said.
The researcher from Rand Corp. said parents, educators and teens
themselves need to think more critically about messages in music
lyrics.
“A healthy home atmosphere is one that allows a child to investigate
what pop culture has to offer and at the same time say, ‘I know this
is a fun song but you know that it’s not right to treat women this
way’ or ‘This isn’t a good person to have as a role model,’” said
the sex researcher and author. |
