More kissing, sex on tube: report
Safer-sex scenes holding steady Shows average five scenes per hour
Scenes featuring kissing, fondling and talk about sex have nearly doubled on television since 1998, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study released yesterday. Among the top 20 watched shows by teens — which include Desperate Housewives, The O. C., and One Tree Hill — 70 per cent include sex talk and depictions of sexual behaviour, researchers found, an average of five scenes an hour. That’s up from about three per hour in 1998, and from nearly 4.5 an hour in 2002. There were nearly 3,800 scenes with sexual content spotted in more than 1,100 shows researchers studied, up from about 1,900 such scenes in 1998, the first year of the survey.
Sexual content, as defined in the study, could be anything from discussions about sex to scenes involving everything from kissing to intercourse. The number of shows depicting or implying sexual intercourse, however, was down to 11 per cent of the sample, compared to 14 per cent in Kaiser’s last study in 2002.
Vicky Rideout, a VP at Kaiser, says the number of shows that included a message about the risks and responsibilities of sex is still very small, and has remained flat since 2002. About 14 per cent of the shows with sexual content also had discussions of contraception, waiting to having sex or other safersex messages. While that figure is about the same as it was in the last study, it’s up from 9 per cent in 1998.
Writers and producers are “ seeing they can do it in a way that is entertaining, that doesn’t cost them anything in the ratings . . . and we know from research we’ve done that it makes a real difference to the kids in the audience,” she said. The study examined a sample of a week’s worth of programming on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, PBS, Lifetime, TNT, USA Network and HBO.
Eight in 10 network shows, or 77 per cent, included what the study defines as sexual content, which is up from 67 per cent in 1998 and 71 per cent in 2002. An advocacy group funded in part by the entertainment industry says the V- chip and other tools can help parents screen the shows their kids watch.
“ Some activists will only see another opportunity to push government as parent, but parents make the best decisions about what is appropriate for their family to watch and have the tools to enforce those decisions,” said Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch. Teens watch an average of three hours of TV a day, according to Kaiser. The examples of sexual content cited in the study ranged from discussions of sex on the Gilmore Girls
and the cancelled Jack & Bobby
to depictions of oral sex on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
and sexual intercourse on The O. C. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is a philanthropic group that studies health care, including reproductive and AIDS- related issues.