Watching Sexy TV Gets You Pregnant!
By Matt Zeitlin - Nov 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 pmOr at least that’s what a study conducted by the RAND Institution claims. Here’s the Washington Post’s summary:
The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least.
“Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy,” said lead researcher Anita Chandra. “We found a strong association.” The study is being published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
There is rising concern about teen pregnancy rates, which after decades of decline may have started inching up again, fueling an intense debate about what factors are to blame. Although TV viewing is unlikely to entirely explain the possible uptick in teen pregnancies, Chandra and others said, the study provides the first direct evidence that it could be playing a significant role.
“Sexual content on television has doubled in the last few years, especially during the period of our research,” said Chandra, a researcher at the nonpartisan Rand Corp.
Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. And many studies have shown that TV violence seems to make children more aggressive. But the new research is the first to show an association between TV watching and pregnancy among teens.
The study did not examine how different approaches to sex education factor into the effects of TV viewing on sexual behavior and pregnancy rates. Proponents of comprehensive sex education as well as programs that focus on abstinence said the findings illustrate the need to educate children better about the risks of sex and about how to protect themselves, although they disagree about which approach works best.
As far as I can tell, the study did not establish causality, instead it established an association between watching explicit TV and getting pregnant. But just because an association is strong doesn’t mean there is a causal link.
For instance, those more likely to have unprotected sex could also be more likely to watch sexually explicit shows, without one necessarily causing the other. If those who watch shows with less sexual content have less parental supervision, for example, that could also contribute to them having more unprotected sex than kids who have more involved parents.
The important thing that this research emphasizes is the need for better sex education and for kids and parents to be more proactive about preventing teen pregnancy. We are never going to get sexual content off of TV. So, we just kind of have to deal with the fact that we live in a sex-saturated society. The response of many conservatives, including one quoted in the article, is to simply tell kids that sex is bad and that they shouldn’t do it until marriage. This doesn’t make much sense. After all, they are seeing sex–with mostly good or at least not bad consequences–all around them! An abstinence message simply isn’t credible in our culture.
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