Extract
Sexual intercourse on television: do safe sex messages matter?
The establishment of sexual relationships and a sexual identity is a central developmental task for late adolescents and emerging adults (Arnett, 2000). In fact, research indicates that sexually risky behavior peaks not during adolescence but during the ages of 18 to 25 (Arnett, 1992). Many young people have multiple sexual partners (Page, Hammermeister, & Scanlan, 2000; Siegel, Klein, & Roghmann, 1999) and use condoms inconsistently if at all (Parsons, Halkitis, Bimbi, & Borkowski, 2000); half of all new HIV diagnoses attributable to sexual activity occur among young people ages 15 to 24 (Weinstock, Berman, & Cates, 2004). Instances of sexually transmitted diseases are alarmingly high in this age group, suggesting a population that is extremely vulnerable to HIV infection (Collins, Elliott, Berry, Kanouse, & Hunter, 2003). This makes emerging adults, perhaps even more so than adolescents, very important to study with regard to possible influences on their risky sexual behavior.
Although there are numerous factors that influence sexual risk taking (e.g., developmental drives, gender, self-esteem, a personality high in sensation seeking), televised portrayals of sexuality have also been implicated. Empirical research suggests that televised sexual messages affect sexual socialization not only among younger adolescents (e.g., Bryant & Rockwell, 1994; Buerkel-Rothfuss, & Strouse, 1993) but among college-age emerging adults as well (e.g., Carveth & Alexander, 1985; Ward, 2002; Ward & Rivadeneyra, 1999), suggesting that undergraduates are still forming their sexual scripts and thus are still vulnerable to media influence. Sexual socialization effects seem especially likely given the sheer amount of sexual content found on television. A recent study of more than 1,000 programs from the 2000-2001 television season found that 64% of shows contain sexual messages with an average of just over four scenes per hour (Kunkel et al., 2003). Although talk about sex and more modest sexual behaviors such as kissing predominate on mainstream television (Kunkel, Cope, & Colvin, 1996; Kunkel et al., 2003), sexual intercourse also occurs in more than 1 out of every 8 (14%) programs. Unfortunately, important public health concerns such as safe sex or abstinence are rarely addressed (Greenberg & Busselle, 1994; Kunkel et al., 2003). College students still watch a fair amount of television, although less than older and younger audiences (Pingree et al., 2001). Specifically, they tend to watch a good deal of programming during prime time, particularl...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
