Arecent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that sexual education is shifting from the classroom to the television screen. Sex -- surprise, surprise -- is gaining an increasingly larger role on network television. However, the new study reports that safe sex and its consequences are becoming more prevalent as accompanying themes. NBC and its competitors, though, have nothing to brag about yet. Television shows should strive to include more sexual situations but must ensure that they are as realistic as possible.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation study, in the past two years, the percentage of shows depicting or implying sexual intercourse rose from 10 percent to 14 percent. Significantly, the most popular shows for teenagers feature a significantly high percentage of sexual activity: 20 percent. America is being "sexualized" younger, and it sells.
The issue of sex on television hits hard on two fronts: censorship and sexual education. In 1997, television instituted a rating system, similar to the much older one for films, to suggest which shows were appropriate for certain age groups. The introduction of the V-chip was an additional effort to monitor children's television habits. But most households do not have a V-chip television. CNN reported the possibility that some children whose televisions lack the V-chip purposely watch the more mature shows because of their more mature ratings. The likelihood of any centralized institution actually preventing kids from watching sex on television is simply infeasible, foregoing an infringement on the first amendment. But this news can be good. The portrayal of sex on television need not be a negative factor. Shows can make a conscious effort to make sexual scenarios educational without detracting from their entertainment value.
The recent study reports that most teenagers cite television as an important source of information about sex. And while the knee-jerk reaction to this fact may be horror, this may not be a bad thing. Consider the other sources of the sex education out there. The Bush administration is pushing for abstinence-only education. Most Republican state laws require public schools' focus to be on abstinence until marriage while excluding information on contraception from the curriculum. Determination of sexual education is technically a state's right, but network television unofficially provides a nationalized source of information. This means that high school students in Virginia and Texas may not get up to date information on HIV, but nearly every kid in America has access to "Friends."
That isn't to say that television has any sort of responsibility to their viewers. Any executive at NBC will tell you that entertainment is their prioritized goal, and that's their prerogative. Most teenage viewers would object to the removal of sexual situations from their favorite sitcoms, meaning networks would lose audiences on a purely entertainment-based grounds. But moreover, if sexual situations are depicted realistically on television, then they can valuably educate viewers.
The Kaiser study cited incidences of a sitcom protagonist purchasing condoms before a date, a soap opera star discussing with her mother how she isn't ready to lose her virginity and a diverse group of characters going through pregnancy scares. This is a start. But the sex here is still romanticized.
A kid on Boston Public delivers a baby in a bathroom stall. Big deal. Her parents were probably crack addicts. What I would like to see is Dawson coming home to the Creek with a nasty case of herpes. Let art imitate life. Let the characters who sleep around get HPV and let those who imply that they are using condoms not get pregnant. The media has come a long way from satin sheets and simultaneous orgasms to depicting sex realistically. Now that teenagers know that sex isn't always romantic, teach them that it has consequences too.
Television has the capacity to become a great educational resource. The more realistic and safe-sex oriented the scenarios are, the more lenient the censors should be. We can reward networks for portraying helpful images by allowing more explicit situations that normally wouldn't make it on prime time. The danger of sex on TV is not that teenagers are going to have sex -- they will anyway. The real issue is that they will not realize the consequences of performing these acts without contraception.
Sex sells, but there's no reason to think that safe sex won't do the job just as well. Network executives and television producers should capitalize on this both to gain ratings and contribute to the public education in the process.
(Kimberly Liu is a Cavalier Daily columnist. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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