BlogHer - Are TV Shows Getting Teen Girls Pregnant? - Comments

Get Real

askbecca — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:21:14 -0600

<a title="askbecca" rel="a I think that it is easier for society to blame this issue on TV. If we place the blame there then we do not have to admit any other causes. I think back to when I was a teen and yes I will admit I was having sex. I married my first partner but still I was young.

I think that the first thing that we have to look at is the teen brain. It is impulsive due to the fact the the section of the brain which fully understands consequences. With this said we can then move into more reasons that this may be a problem.

Another thing to consider is hormones. Teens feel an urge for sex. They are learning about their new bodies and all of the feelings these new bodies have. They want to explore and experiment.
The fact that sex education is taught to make sex seem like a bad thing is a problem. This is how it has been taught for quite some time and I cannot help but wonder if it is a factor. Sex education makes it a forbiden fruit that teens cannot resist. The lack of practical sex education as far as disease and pregnancy prevention are lacking as well. Teens are left to figure too much out on their own.
All marketing is to blame. Television is not alone with selling with sex. I saw a Calvin Klien ad the other day with three half dressed people as if we were seeing the beinging of a threesome. What does this say. I am not sure we can solelylook at the boob tube...
My last point is that the shows that you meantioned are not meant for children and teens. It is up to parents to be watching what their young ones are watching.

Alright I will step off of my soap box. I think that the point is that teens and sex tend to go together with or without television!

Becca

Please visit me at http://www.askbecca.com

The Role of The Best Friend

Megan Smith — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:01:41 -0600

You're right that friends can have a significant influence on teens. All the more reason for parents to prepare kids for what kinds of issues pop culture and friends may expose them to.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

And the answer is...

lauraamy — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:34:35 -0600

of course not! The title of this blog is so hilarious, I just couldn't resist.

Here's my more serious input: I think often the biggest influence on
teens are their best friends, who shape their culture way more than
television and even more than their parents. No girl watches Gossip
Girl and thinks to herself, "hey, I'd like to try getting pregnant!" It
might not seem appropriate to parents that teens are watching shows
invovling teen sex and pregnancy, but it is a relevant topic because, hey, it happens...but usually not on purpose and never solely because of television. :)

My blogging home is Nameisms; a resource for baby names

For Women and Girls Learning to Say "No" Is Crucial

Megan Smith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:44:54 -0600

Learning to say "No" is sometimes a tough skill, especially for women, but it's one we need to learn early and often.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
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Saying 'no' in all aspects of our lives

Wilma Ham — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:26:28 -0600

Hi Megan

I do agree that oral sex is not something I want to see as a trend, however I wanted to allude to te fact we are all gullable to whatever the trend is.

Me too.
I recently stopped dyeing my hair with dye that is actaully not that healthy and could give me cancer.
Why did I dye my hair?
Millions of reasons probably and one is a trend of looking younger.
Just like whatever trend is going and I jeopardize my health for looking good??????

I totally agree that it all comes down to being a stand for yourself and be courageous enough to say 'no'.

And that untill then each trend will gets us to move like sheep. Well it would me.

And most poor teens have no show, I am in my fifties and learning the dradded 'no' word and standing up to trends and that takes some doing for most of us I would say sigh.

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

I Have To Disagree With You About Teen Oral Sex

Megan Smith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:45:27 -0600

Hi Wilma,

I'm right there with you about better communication between parents and their kids about sex.

Having said that, I do believe that because of the amount of pop culture coming at us, and the sexualized nature of it, it's even more important for kids to be equipped with an understanding about how and when to make better choices about sex. And how to say, "No" with conviction when that's what they really want to do.

I have to disagree with you about the blow job issue. Teen girls giving guys blow jobs on the school bus says to me that these are girls trying to get approval any way they can. It also says to me that they think their only value is to be someone who serves up sexual gratification to others.

I really do believe the more "cool" and "hip" that kind of stuff is portrayed on TV the more likely it is for some girls to view themselves that way.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
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Whose teens are they?

Wilma Ham — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:34:48 -0600

It is difficult to really see cause and effect.

Can a good parent prevent things happening to a child?
May be, may be not.

Do the teens who get pregnant have a good relationship with their parents?

If yes, what happened and if no we all can imagine what happened there.

I cannot see why sex is still such an awkward subject to talk about, but as long as it is then no TV show can be solely blamed.

And how come we throw pregnancy and sex in one heap.

If we make condomes readily available, sex happens and maybe not so many pregnancies.
My sister left condomes all over her house when her children grew up.

Do we have to avoid sex all together or are we concerned about pregnancy and diseases with teens and has it got to do with hard to get at prevention?

I do think open talk at school, at home and on television will at least give teens some knowledge that might give them choices.

And I think if blow jobs are the trend than that is the trend. Until this whole society becomes a bit more honest and more people focused and communication savvy, we as parents will always have to deal with trends, be it sex trends, smoking dope or clothes or whatever.

I feel sorry for parents and teens who cannot cope with all these subjects themselves and have no means of communicating.

Maybe not only the teens are the problem.

BTW I was lucky, I had a very well informed and experienced friend who was willing to share her knowledge!

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

On those harlequins

Southerngirl — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:27:17 -0600

My mom had no earthly idea what was in those books I was reading. She was happy that we read and I admit I exploited it by always asking her to request them from her friends and coworkers who thought she was reading them. I was in high school and bored with them by the time she figured me out.

When I started my period my mom was chair of our schoolboard so she got us a private veiwing of the health ~~video~~ film on reproduction and menastration. Thank goodness she forgot the popcorn, but she did bring tampons and kotex for our veiwing pleasure. I have to admit she was better after my sister got pregnant. She wasn't comfortable talking about sex but she was no longer of the mindset that having birth control would give us permission to have sex.

I too have to agree with the poster who talked about fathers. Mine was often refered to as a gentle giant. For him his girls were better than sliced bread. So giving a bad for me guy the boot has never ever been a problem. It may take a wee bit too long but I am always able to remember how my dad treated us and my mom and know it is time to move on.

Michelle

I blog at http://www.mommycan.blogspot.com/

and a tracking device

Southerngirl — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:10:55 -0600

The leash is a good idea but it is 2008 lets just install a tracking device and an updated version of the nanny cam.

I better start working on that I may be able to retire at 50 after all!!

Michelle

I blog at http://www.mommycan.blogspot.com/

The World Would Be A Better Place If....

Megan Smith — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:56:47 -0600

We could just keep a leash on those teens! :)

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
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And let's not forget Elvis

Nordette — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:37:05 -0600

Elvis the Pelvis was blamed for a decline in "morals" and teens becoming "sex fiends" as well. :-)

And oh, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, while it turned out to be a masterpiece, was also Flaubert's attempt, in part, to comment on young women reading novels that screwed with their moral compass and sexual desire.

Maybe we should turn off the lights, stop this progress thing, and go back to our caves where we'll be safe from media. LOL.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link. Also at Blogher, Obama Family Obsession, The Huxtable Effect, and Black Images on the Screen.

Great point

Nordette — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:32:37 -0600

Excellent point, Ingaborg. Too often we skip over the father's role as well as the role of young men in teen pregnancy and focus on females only.

I also think a strong loving father makes it less likely women will choose men ill-suited for them who don't respect them.

Lots of causes

Nordette — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:29:22 -0600

Thank you, Megan, for this provocative post.

It's true that lots of causes lead to teen pregnancy, but we'd be fools to believe that messaging and images don't influence behavior. If public messages and imagery didn't work, most networks would go out of business. They get their revenue from advertising (companies pushiing images and messages to influence pruchases), and if it didn't work, companies wouldn't buy air time.

But we do hear pop culture media blamed periodically for promiscuity, pregnancy, drinking, drugs, violence, etc. Well, this is why God invented the remote control for parents. We can change the channel for younger children. Teens, uh, good luck with that.

We must consider that ignorance contributes to teen pregnancy. I think there are still parents who don't want their teens to know anything about contraception because they think that discussion itself will "get them pregnant." And self-discipline and restraint don't get the respect they deserve either.

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link. Most recent post at BlogHer, Obama Family Obsesssion, The Huxtable Effect, and Black Images on the Screen.

Harlequins and the Kotex Reproductive Book

Nordette — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:28:27 -0600

My mom did not supply me with Harlequins, and it's a good thing too because back in my day they were largely about British women being kidnapped by Arabs, nearly raped, but falling in love with him madly just the same. Still, I found my way to those books and read them regularly, thus warping my understanding of healthy male/female relationships. I think they've changed the formula since then, but as I got older, romance novels bored me unless they were multi-themed, closer to mainstream fiction.

She gave me instead, when I started my period, a pamphlet from Kotex on the female reproduction system. Thank goodness for sex ed in boarding school.

I Was Also A Harlequin Fan

Megan Smith — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:45:42 -0600

I was also a Harlequin romance fan, but at the same time, I went to schools that taught a broad curriculum of sex ed and then in college took a great "The Biology of Sex" course that filled in any gaps.

That and a resistance to ever go along with the crowd, I think served me well.

But just like in your case, my Mama wasn't gonna tell me nothin'!

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
Video Runway

Are TV Shows Getting Teen Girls Pregnant?

Megan Smith — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:08:53 -0600

Do television shows like "Sex and the City" and "Gossip Girl" encourage teen girls to get pregnant? Well that's the finding of a Rand Health study published last week in the November issue of Pediatrics. According to a New York Daily news article by Jane H. Furse about the study:

Rand Corp. behavioral scientist Anita Chandra
found teens who watched the sexiest shows were twice as likely to
become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs.

Personally I'm of two minds on this one. TV and pop culture can't bear the full blame for teen pregnancy because there are so many other issues like parental involvement, sex education---or lack thereof---and peer pressure that influence teens. However, I'd feel more comfortable about TV teen sexual activity if there were more examples of couples having sex where the condom breaks, or where the guy can't get an erection or where the participants are all thumbs.

Honestly, I think soap operas can be more insidious than shows like "Gossip Girl" because the characters are on TV five days a week, and the shows are more slowly paced and hence seem more like real life. Part of the problem with soaps is they perpetuate the "undying love at all costs" that "lives forever and never dies." Well, we in the real world know most romantic love isn't like that and especially not for teens.

On ABC's soap "One Life To Live" for example, Starr Manning is 16 years old and pregnant. She and her boyfriend Cole are truly, deeply, madly in unconditional love and will do anything for each other. Except when she gets pregnant and then plans to give the baby up for adoption. All sorts of bedlam ensues but we all know that Cole and Starr really, truly, deeply love each other and are destined to be together, because everyone knows you can't choose who you love, right?

Um, okay.

Now before you say, hey Megan stop being a spoilsport, let me tell you I'm as big a romanctic as anyone, and I always have been, but I've also always viewed pop culture with a critical eye. Even as a teenager. So in some respects teens need to be taught to be more savvy about pop culture and that means parents being more open with their teens about how sex is presented.

Ashley at See Here's The Thing, is Highly, Highly Skeptical That Sexy TV Is Responsible For Knocking Up Teens:

There have been plenty of TV shows out there that show the consequences of teen sex (I’ll cite Gilmore Girls,
where Rory’s loss of virginity with her married ex-boyfriend was a mess and poor Lane got pregnant on her first time having sex, which,
incidentally, was with her husband!). How would the results have
changed if shows like those were included?

Ashley then goes on to give a great list of teen TV couples who did have consequences of sex.

The example of Lane from "Gilmore Girls" is an excellent one. Lane and her husband Zack have sex for the first time on the beach on their honeymoon. When Lane comes home, she accuses her friend Rory of being part of a huge conspiracy to make virgins think sex is the most wonderful experience in the world when it's really just oh, so lame. After her cold, wet, sandy experience of intercourse on the beach she now knows better and vows to never have sex again.

That's actually okay because to her surprise, that one encounter was enough to get her pregnant. Unfortunately though "Gilmore Girls" lasted long enough for Lane to deliver a beautiful baby, the show was canceled before Lane and Zack could have good sex.

Understandably, the Rand study's been a popular topic in the blogosphere among those who agree with the study and those who are skeptics.

Half Sigma thinks the study misses the mark:

The problem is that this data says nothing about cause and effect (nor even what TV shows are included other than the two mentioned). It is likely that teenagers having the most sex would be the most interested in watching TV shows where the characters talk about sex. Thus, sex causes viewership of these TV shows and not the other way around.

Lindsay at Suburban Turmoil cited the 2007 movie "Juno" as an example of Hollywood fare that can be problematic especially when it became her 17 year old daughter's favorite movie:

I always knew there was something just... wrong about Gossip Girl. And don't even get me started on Juno. I mean, I actually liked the film, but geez, glamorize teen pregnancy much?

Mom of three, Candace at Candy on the Cape enjoys teen TV dramas, but:

I knew we weren't in Kansas anymore when the new "90210" opened with a girl giving a guy a blow job. Too many girls look at themselves as sexual commodities to be traded amongst the guys in their circle and don't recognize or respect their own value. It's startling to me to read about girls who randomly perform oral sex on boys at parties, on school buses and in school bathrooms. Where have we gone so wrong?

At Black Doctor.org, writer Syleena Johnson pointed out additional teen sex stats:

Psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on
Media and the Family, cited data suggesting only about 19 percent of
American teens say they can talk openly with a trusted adult about sex. With many schools not offering sex education, that leaves the media to serve as a sex educator, he said.

"For a kid who no one's talking to about sex, and then he watches sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as this is what the cool people do," the outcome is obvious, Walsh said.

Dr. Robyn Silverman at The Powerful Parent Blog cites further results from the Rand study and also gives tips for parents on how to encourage their teens to think twice before hopping into bed.

As far as Starr Manning on "One Life To Live," in true soap style, her baby's going to be kidnapped once it's born and Starr's going to be told the baby died. However you can just bet Starr will eventually find out the truth and she and Cole will live happily ever after...for a couple of weeks.

Megan Smith is the BlogHer Contributing Editor covering Television and Online Video and loves "Gilmore Girls." Her other blogs are Megan's Minute, quirky commentary around the clock, and Video Runway.