In addition to outright sexual content, subliminal messages like the message "sex" above in Disney's The Lion King are very common.
Apparently, Renova thinks that even toilet paper can be sexy.
A recent study has concluded that sexy TV shows increase sexual behavior in teens and contribute to teenage pregnancies. Before you exclaim, “Well, go figure!” and move on to the next blog, let me agree and disagree. Yes, it is of no surprise that what kids see on television they believe to be indicative of the world as a whole. Children mimic what they see, and given the number of hours a typical child spends in front of the television, chances are really high that much of their learned behavior is taught to them via the mind-conditioning device called the television. When nearly every drama, every comedy, even cartoons and Disney shows are saturated with sexual conduct or “sex-to-sell” advertising, it is no wonder that children are growing up in an hypersexual culture.
Today’s music, often dominated by rap and hip-hop is also full of explicit lyrics touting the exhilaration of sexual activity and promiscuity. Children are enveloped in a media culture, which is becoming increasingly difficult to escape from, and which constantly barrages their impressionable minds with the belief that sex is the ultimate form of human experience. In my opinion, this ensures that these children will grow up to be adults who will concern themselves with physical pleasures and not with the many ailments affecting our nation and society. It keeps them “locked in” to the frequency of the lower chakras, those related to animal instincts, physical survival and procreation. In doing so, important spiritual energy is diverted and drained instead of growing and activating the higher chakras concerning compassion, communication, insight and universal consciousness. Again, we wouldn’t want to have a truly awake and aware public out there – they are difficult to control.
Another report, compiled by TV-Free America, shows that the average child spends nearly double the amount of time watching television each year than he or she spends in a classroom. Of the approximately 1,500 hours watching television annually, 1,680 minutes (28 hrs.) is spent doing so weekly. Also according to this report, parents only spend about three and a half minutes each week in a meaningful conversation with their child. Which do you think has a bigger impression on the mind of your child, television, her teacher, or you, her parent?
Given that the television has long-been determined to put the viewer in a suggestive trance state and that the majority of an average child’s day is spent in front of the television, I would argue that television is a far greater influence. Factor in the fact that children mimic these shows to one another, talk to each other about the shows and influence one another to watch them, and imaginatively play in ways similar to what they see on television, I would argue that the influence is even further compounded by peer pressure and societal expectations.
Women are often depicted in very compromising poses, like in this ad for Dolce & Gabbana
- Victoria’s Secret advertising is among the most provocative. Wearing VS makeup will make you feel and look sexy (and lay around half-nude).
Yet is television really to blame here? Or, is it the station programmers? Or how about the CEO’s of huge media conglomerates or the advertising companies of multinational corporations? While all of these share the burden in conditioning the minds of our youth through the vehicle of television, the blame rests solely on the parents. Many parents are quite alright with the television raising their kids. Parents are far too busy these days anyway, especially now that the economy is so tight and they have to work extra hours to make ends meet. There are not enough hours in the day to really care for your kids, after all. Should we really be surprised when Faye, after watching five hundred fornication scenes, four thousand sexy advertisements and listening to fifty CD’s entirely of promiscuous and flirtatious refrains, tells her parents that she’s pregnant at fourteen?
Many of societies ills can be lain at the feet of the television, but it is a parent’s choice to own a television or not, to regulate the content of that television or not, to control the number of hours a child watches television, and to spend the necessary time to connect with the child to lay positive, ethical and character-building foundations for the child’s future.
TV is not a good substitute for family, just as sex is not a good substitute for love. As our society continues to fall apart in terms of morality and community, we are crazy to believe that we can make any real changes without changes in our viewing habits. But we cannot simply turn off the television and expect our ills to go away without forming and maintaining true connections and real relationships with one another. This starts at home with parents raising their children to be people who respect one another and value genuine communication, not people who think that sex is love and communication.
Teenage pregancies in the United States are higher than other nations. Is television to blame?
Study links teen pregnancy to sexy TV shows
By Andrew Stern Andrew Stern – Mon Nov 3, 8:27 am ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Exposure to some forms of entertainment is a corrupting influence on children, leading teens who watch sexy programs into early pregnancies and children who play violent video games to adopt aggressive behavior, researchers said on Monday.
Researchers at the RAND research organization said their three-year study was the first to link viewing of racy television programing with risky sexual behavior by teens.
“Our findings suggest that television may play a significant role in the high rates of teenage pregnancy in the United States,” said Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist who led the research at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.
“We’re not saying we’re establishing causation, but we are saying this is one factor that we were able to prospectively link to the teen pregnancy outcome,” Chandra said in a phone interview.
The researchers recruited adolescents aged 12 to 17 and surveyed them three times between 2001 and 2004, asking about television viewing habits, sexual behavior and pregnancy.
In findings that covered 718 teenagers, there were 91 pregnancies. The top 10th of adolescents who watched the most sexy programing were at double the risk of becoming pregnant or causing a pregnancy compared to the 10th who watched the fewest such programs, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics.
The study focused on 23 free and cable television programs popular among teenagers including situation comedies, dramas, reality programs and animated shows. Comedies had the most sexual content and reality programs the least.
“The television content we see very rarely highlights the negative aspects of sex or the risks and responsibilities,” Chandra said. “So if teens are getting any information about sex they’re rarely getting information about pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.”
TEEN PREGNANCY ON DECLINE
Teen pregnancy rates in the United States have declined sharply since 1991 but remain high compared to other industrialized nations. Nearly 1 million girls aged 15 to 19 years old become pregnant yearly, or about 20 percent of sexually active females in that age group. Most of the pregnancies were unplanned, the report said.
Young mothers are more likely to quit school, require public assistance and live in poverty, it said.
“Television is just one part of a teenager’s media diet that helps to influence their behavior. We should also look at the roles that magazines, the Internet and music play in teens’ reproductive health,” Chandra said, acknowledging still other factors can influence teen sex habits.
Living in a two-parent family reduced the chances of a teen getting pregnant or causing a pregnancy. Black teenagers, and those with discipline problems, had higher risks.
The report suggested broadcasters provide more realistic portrayals of the consequences of sex and that parents limit their children’s access to sexually explicit programing.
A second study in the journal added to existing evidence that youths who play violent video games — a worldwide trend with American children averaging 13 hours of video gaming a week — led to increased physically aggressive behavior.
Researchers from the United States and Japan evaluated more than 1,200 Japanese youths and 364 Americans between 9 and 18 years old and found a “significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior … across very different cultures.”
Aggressiveness in children is also associated with violence later on, according to the study by researchers from Iowa State University in Ames, the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis and Ochanomizu University and Keio University in Tokyo.
Filed under: Science and Technology, media, technology , advertising, family, kids, life, love, marketing, media, pregnancy, technology, teen, television
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