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Media Causes Sex?
Here’s the latest bogus study trying to tell us how we’re all just slaves to the media:
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Sexually charged music, magazines, TV and movies push youngsters into intercourse at an earlier age, perhaps by acting as kind of virtual peer that tells them everyone else is doing it, a study said on Monday.
“This is the first time we’ve shown that the more kids are exposed to sex in media the earlier they have sex,” said Jane Brown of the University of North Carolina, chief author of the report.
Previous research had been limited to television, said the study which looked at 1,017 adolescents when they were aged 12 to 14 and again two years later. They were checked on their exposure during the two years to 264 items — movies, TV shows, music and magazines — which were analysed for their sexual content.
In general it found that the highest exposure levels led to more sexual activity, with white teens in the group 2.2 times more likely to have had intercourse at ages 14 to 16 than similar youngsters who had the least exposure.
Why do I think that’s bullshit? Because they are trying to say that simply because two figures appear together that one is the cause of the other. It’s like stumbling across a road built through a forest, and deciding - in the name of science - that the forest “caused” the road to occur, or vice versa. When such associative reasoning is connected to non-scientific or non-sociological arenas, it’s correctly recognized for what it is: magical thinking.
Realistically, what key biological component are they glossing over in this study? They seem to be ignoring the simple observable fact that sexual maturity begins to occur within the age group they are studying: pubescent teens. Despite the massive hormonal, physical and mental changes that naturally accompany puberty, they seem to be deciding that instead it’s media and not nature or genetics that makes us have sex.
When this argument was originally phrased years ago around media causing violence, I didn’t understand the true insidiousness of it. What they are essentially saying is that human nature doesn’t exist, that we only feel sexual or violent because the media tells us to. The true underlying message is that we are malleable, that we are easy to control, that we feel the way we feel because they tell us to. Then they get us to beg them to tell us something different, to change our fundamental human natures - thus setting up a conflict internally, into which more products can be pitched to fill the void and confuse us about what it really means to be a human and where the wellspring of our being truly originates.
- Sex & Violence in Media
- Sex & Emotional Need
- “We don’t mean to offend you, but gay sex is a sin, and you’re all going to burn in hell forever.”
- Sex in Singapore
- Friendster as marketing data collection center
- Prev: Racist Against Racists
- Next: No Time For Abstractions
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:19 pm
I haven’t looked at the study so I can’t say if it’s bogus or not. There are certainly statistical techniques capable of providing at least an approximate distinction between causation and correlation.
Let’s assume this study’s result is correct. My view is that it just tells us that media influenced sex leads to human beings beginning intercourse at the age their biology determines. That should be a good thing. Of course, this study was conducted and publicized in a society that is still very confused about sex, where most people (at least in the US) view early sexuality as a “bad thing.”
If the conclusion of this study is correct, then I say hooray for sex-saturated media - it’s overcoming centuries of anti-sensual repression.
April 3rd, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I get depressed when I see 10 year old dressing up like 28 year olds. And I get mad when I see 80 year olds dressing up like 120 year olds. If on Halloween kids want to dress up as whores, zombies, and telephones let them but please don’t posion their minds with sexual hallucinatory imagery the rest of the year.
Sexuality is obviously hardwired into us, but the media does do a woefully excellent job exploitin’ young minds with sexually suggestive material.
There are social consequences to inconsequental sex flings. Unwed babies being one. Fellini orgy parties being another. Don’t get me straight, If teenagers want to have porn parties all the power to them, but I refuse to harmonize myself with the idea kids 12 and under thinking they are somehow sexually mature or equal to an adult. Where I come from that is called wrong, just ask the cattolico ciesa( that’s italian for catholic church
This study is very important because I remember reading how Edgar Allan Poe married his 13 year old cousin when he was 26! I think this is too weird!
April 3rd, 2006 at 9:19 pm
oh my gosh that is so cool- that smiling yellow face!
I wouldn’t want to make love with a face like that hee hee hee!
But seriously what is Freud up to? I wonder if he and Carl Jung’s minions are still battling it out in purgatory or spiritland.
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:43 pm
I just got finished with a scenario game this weekend (Earth Ender scenario, Agate Colorado), and I took my brand spanking new Miltec G3 out and used it most of the weekend. During the weekend, my marker was chopping paint a lot (I broke 6 balls over the course of two days, everyone else I was with had a goose egg for breaks), and by then end of the first day, the bolt was acting sluggish, and my marker would start burping even though I was using a full Co2 tank. By the end of the second day, the trigger wasn’t even actuating properly, and would fail to fire the marker unless pulled ALL the way back.
As for chopping the paint, I have no clue what was going on . My marker chronoed at less than field limits, but while I was chronoing, the velocity was all over the place, jumping around anywhere in a 20 fps range. Is that normal? and several times during the game, I felt like my marker was shooting hot, and when I chronoed with a ref, it turned out I was usually right. Any advice to stop the paint chopping? becuase now my marker is hardly even cycling properly, if at all, and I have a feeling the culprit is the broken paint gumming up the reciever and mucking up the O-rings.
April 4th, 2006 at 4:15 am
In these W-ridden times, you’re likely to see more post hoc ergo propter hoc, not less. Sigh.
April 4th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Can you elaborate on why exactly you think the reasoning is wrong ? Can you post an example of a statistical study you think is scientifically valid ? When one thing “is” the cause of the other, don’t they appear together ?
April 4th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Not really. There are techniques that can identify a possibly complicated association structure and match it to a causal structure (or, conversely, rule out causation by showing that no causal structure matches the association). But it is impossible to prove causation without a randomized clinical trial (RCT). This study was not a RCT.
I haven’t read the study, so I can’t comment on whether the study design is flawed. However, it is possible there are time-varying confounders (there usually are in longitudinal studies where behavior is an important component). For example, those children who are more inclined towards “maturing” early may gravitate towards media that validate the blossoming feelings of sexuality. (I dunno… studying sexual behavior is not my field of professional expertise). However, I think the study could be illuminating.
April 4th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Wow, paintball, smiley faces, and sex, I think my 3rd eye is opening, oh no wait the juxtaposition is causing me to experience a deep shift of perception
it’s crazy wisdom time.
April 4th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Gina, it’s hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic…
April 4th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
A lot of studies examining social change work in this way, that is, they use the effects model.
However academics and researched do know the limitations of using the effects model in research, as is evidenced in this article entitled “Ten Things Wrong with the Effects Model“.
It discusses very interesting things: for example, why children are used in these studies instead of adults, and the conservative way studies tend to blame the media, rather than look at the more challenging social factors.
April 4th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Indeed, humans are naturally sexual beings. I think a lot of people ignore that. A lot of people also ignore the fact that there are other factors - not just the media- that affect the way a person grows up.
And, WHY were younger blacks already more sexually experienced than the white kids? Did they just jump on the media sex bandwagon faster or something? I think there are a couple holes in this study.
April 5th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I think the language of the Reuters article is really what’s wrong. Sexually-charged content in the media does cause arousal, especially in males, but when Reuters says it “pushes youngsters into intercourse at an early age” I question whether the report actually makes this claim. The chief author of the report could’ve had her words taken out of context.
My guess it that the report strongly suggests a causal relationship between media content and teenage sexuality. I’ll admit that as a kid Madonna’s videos made me horny, but they didn’t push me into having sex with another person (I’m not counting masturbation because the report, as cited by Reuters, only mentions intercourse, which I take to mean coitus).
You can probably find a copy of the actual report online, or at least a large excerpt.