Sue Scheff: Teens: Sex and the Media
Source: Connect with Kids “Every TV show now has like at least one character who is like a slut.” – Katie Seewald, 14 years old Parents have heard a thousand times that sex is all over the media. But is the sheer volume of sexual images harming our children? Or is it something else? A recent movie, “A Guy Thing,” begins with a bachelor (played by Jason Lee) hurrying a woman (Julia Stiles) out of bed after a drunken one-night stand. The scene is typical of how casual sex is portrayed on television and in the movies. 14-year-old Katie Seewald says, “Every TV show now has like at least one character who is like a slut.” A study by the Rand Corporation finds that teens who watch shows with heavy sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or get someone pregnant compared to kids who don’t watch those shows. Still, while the study demonstrates a correlation between teenage sexual behavior and television content, it does not prove a cause. Are the higher pregnancy rates the result of...