Posted on 08/17/2012 10:25:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Culture Challenge of the Week: Movies "Selling" Sex to Children
Can you name the last five movies your teenage son or daughter has watched with friends? How strong was the sexual content in those movies?
And does it really matter?
New research suggests that it does. The study, conducted by Dr. Ross O'Hara and soon to be published in the journal Psychological Science, found that promiscuity on-screen promotes promiscuity in real life. "Adolescents who are exposed to more sexual content in movies start having sex at younger ages, have more sexual partners," and engage in riskier sexual activities says Dr. O'Hara.
While at Dartmouth University, Dr. O'Hara (now a researcher at the University of Missouri) and his team analyzed the movie-watching patterns of about 1,200 young teens, ages 12-14. Researchers next analyzed the teens' sexual behavior six years later, considering the age at which they became sexually active, their number of partners, and the riskiness of their sexual activity, including whether or not they used contraceptives.
The result: bad news. Young teens who viewed movies with sexual content were profoundly influenced by what they watched. They initiated sexual behavior earlier than their peers who viewed less sexual content, and tended to imitate the on-screen sexual behaviors they saw-which included casual sex, multiple partners, and high-risk behaviors.
It's not surprising, really. Teens crave information about sex--and too often turn to the media for information. Moreover, adolescent hormones operate in overdrive and teens are naturally more sensitive to sexual stimulation. Less likely to delay gratification, teens are more likely to be impulsive and think themselves impervious to harm. The combination, researchers say, means that "sensation seeking, or the tendency to seek more novel and intense sexual stimulation" increases in teens who "watched more movies with sexually explicit content."
So what should parents do?
How to save your Family: Select Movies with Your Children
Dr. O'Hara sums it up well, saying, "This study, and its confluence with other work, strongly suggests that parents need to restrict their children from seeing sexual content in movies at young ages."
Agreed. But unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as checking a movie's rating. In fact, G-rated movies are part of the problem. The O'Hara study also analyzed the sexual content in 700 films, all top-grossing films from 1998-2004. Defining "sexual content" as anything from heavy kissing to actual sex scenes, researchers found sexual content in more than a third of the G-rated movies, more than half of PG-rated films, and four out of every five R-rated movies.
Short of prohibiting movies all together-an unwise and unworkable solution--there are some things a parent can do. First, use websites that provide specific information about movie content, rather than a reviewer's judgment about an appropriate viewing age.
Websites like Pluggedin.com and Movieguide provide not only specifics about movie content but also analysis from a Christian perspective. (PluggedIn offers reviews of music and gaming products as well.) Two straightforward secular sources are Screenit and Kids-in-mind-both provide valuable descriptions of specific movie content, including sexuality, violence, and language. One caution-a few websites, such as CommonSense Media, offer age-ratings to help guide parents. But organizations which lean left, as CommonSense Media does, or are tied in tightly with entertainment industry folks, can't be relied on by parents who want to raise children with traditional values. The Parent's Television Council at www.ParentsTV.org is an excellent resource for information on the content of popular TV shows and offers great movie reviews.
Second, talk with your children about sex. While sex won't be a casual dinnertime conversation topic, you need to create private time with your teens to explore their feelings and questions about sex. If we're silent, our teens will learn about sex from friends and the movies-a route that's sure to normalize sexual risk-taking.
Third, stay in the loop. Talk with other parents and get to know your teen's friends. Realize that at some point your child probably will see something too sexually explicit, whether at a friend's house or on a computer. Keep the conversations going and remind your teens that Hollywood is a world without consequences.
Of course. When everyone is having sex with everyone else, on tv, in the movies, and in the tabloids, teens assume that every time a man and a woman are alone together they are having sex. I did when I was growing up. This is the society we are raised in.
It’s true. And every once in awhile I think about the fact that most people on tv shows don’t do things I would conciser normal, like pray when someone is sick or dying. But then, maybe most people don’t do that anymore, of course my friends and family do, but maybe we aren’t most people either.
I actually thought some of the stuff out when my kids were little (late 1970s and the 1980s) was bad enough that I didn’t let them watch it. I watched most of the things I let them see with them (yes, even Sesame Street and Capt Kangaroo and Mr Rogers, we sat and watched and sang the songs and talked about the things they saw and then I threw them outside to play or we went to the park or walked in the mall if the weather was bad, or made a craft or something).
Oh, and I remember not letting them watch Dukes of Hazzard. I hated that show because it got them all revved up and I didn’t see how it had any redeeming qualities for little boys. They thought I was mean, but boys needed to be doing something other than watching TV anyway. They joke about it now. And of course all of the shows I thought were bad seem so mild in comparison to what’s on today.
Thank you for pointing that out. I really have no interest in watching other people have sex. And I think perhaps those of us who really aren’t that interested in viewing it aren’t the weird ones. We just have it shoved in our faces constantly, and the public, afraid that they will be deemed “prudes” refuse to stand up and say, “Enough!” It’s one thing to act like no one ever has sex. It’s entirely different to have to show the graphic details.
You haven't learned to love "Super Why!"? The spelling princess is my favorite; I was state high school spelling champion of Virginia in 1984 ;-).
Have you tried the David Attenborough nature documentaries, such as "Planet Earth" and "Blue Planet." (There are many others, many available streaming on Netflix.) Our little boys (3, 6, 8, 10) love them, and recite nature facts endlessly, and David's soporific yet nerdy voice makes the baby fall asleep, too!
I agree. I think most people's natural reaction is, "Eeew, this is something they ought to do in private." It's not "realistic" in movies/tv ... for one thing, they can't take the time from advancing the plot to dedicate to showing the actual duration of sexual intercourse for regular people. And of course, normal people aren't carefully lit and draped so that nothing *normal-looking* shows!
It’s one thing to act like no one ever has sex. It’s entirely different to have to show the graphic details.
Having married couples in twin beds, in those old tv shows and movies, was pretty silly. A married couple can get in bed together, in their pajamas, hug and kiss, say goodnight, etc. *fade out* If there's a baby in the next scene, you know what happened after the lights went out :-).
Apropos of Henry VIII, his relationship with his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves, was rather like 50s television. After some time had gone by and she wasn't pregnant, someone thought to ask her, "Does the King make love to you?" and she replied, "Oh, yes! Every night, he kisses my hand and says, 'Good night, my dear. I hope you sleep well!' and in the morning, he kisses my cheek and says, 'Good morning, sweetheart, I hope you are well today!' "
Actually I called it ‘The Tudor’ which you corrected, not 'Tutors'. But its a funny thought.
I like occasional short segments graphical realism in drama movies. But here's one I couldn't sit through : 'The Passion....'. That movie was obsessed with torture/sadism, hours of it. There is no way it was like that in real life. Artistic freedom I guess. I wouldn't enjoy that in any movie.
I have not seen “The Passion” - my mother did, and reported that I wouldn’t like it - although I can’t say how the depiction compares to what actually happened to Jesus, because I wasn’t at the original events. I do not enjoy graphic violence in movies of any kind. Even “The Lost Battalion” is a little much for me, but I just wander to the kitchen or laundry room during the ickiest parts because it’s so good overall.
I think there is a lot of well-done tv programming. I’ve seen all (I think) of the extremely numerous episodes of “Midsomer Murders,” all of “Foyle’s War” and “Rosemary and Thyme,” the “Sherlock Holmes” productions with Jeremy Brett and “Poirot” with David Suchet. Good plots, good writing and lots of elegant historical styling in the shows that don’t have a contemporary setting.
I don’t know what people with babies that stay up all night did to avoid going nuts when they didn’t have television, or at least radio. When my Tom, who is now 15, was an infant, I watched “South Pacific” every night for weeks on “American Movie Classics” and memorized all the songs and most of the dialogue. Last night I started watching “The Forsyte Saga,” a late-Victorian costume-drama miniseries from the 1980s, as I bounced Kathleen until after midnight. The tiresomely conventional Soames Forsyte shtupps his freethinking wife under the blankets ;-), while she stares at the ceiling in a bored way.
You would enjoy Ian McShane’s ‘Lovejoy’ (Lovejoy Mysteries). IIRC there episodes on Youtube, to get a taste of good plotting and characters.
You would enjoy Ian McShane’s ‘Lovejoy’ (Lovejoy Mysteries). IIRC there are episodes on Youtube, to get a taste of good plotting and characters.
I’ve read a few of those books, although I haven’t watched the shows. I liked Ian McShane in the short-lived “Kings,” in which he was King Saul from the book of Samuel, only not exactly. We got that on DVD from Netflix. I don’t remember what else I saw him in recently, but it wasn’t “Lovejoy.”
My oldest just turned 5, so he’s barely starting to watch stuff like Mytbbusters and nature shows. He doesn’t really “watch” tv so much as he has it on while he plays with something else, anyway. I grew up watching all the science shows, but now I don’t have much patience with them since the internet is so much better and faster.
Oh, there were many things I wasn’t allowed to watch. Things still came on. Commercials could be pretty bad. Now, they’re so much worse. My kids have seen almost no commercials, thanks to DVR.
I always have to be doing something else if I’m watching tv - sewing or reading or feeding a baby. Just watching, I don’t do. My kids love “Mythbusters.”
That was really cute, thanks. Lovely Irish scenery. I’ll have to look at the library for more!
They want snuff movies too, so why not, after all they often watched thousands a day killed in Rome at the height of your kind of thought. Take your perversion somewhere it is more appreciated.
Nope and the Republic is paying the price. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798 John Adams
Given that he thinks that Ricky and Lucy (I Love Lucy) were real people that lived and actually gave birth to Little Ricky (#96 ) I can see how he thinks The Tudors (King Henry VIII) is porn. There is not much you can say to someone like that.
On Cowboy movies I like The Outlaw Jose Whales and Tombstone.
HA-HA, I did call it The Tutor, I was just looking back.
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