Although the literature makes the point that girls and women are often the “losers” in media content, there is an important caveat to these findings—namely, that most of these studies have originated from within the feminist tradition. Thus, they concentrate heavily on the stereotypical roles of women and girls. As a result, we know significantly less about how boys and men are represented in the media. There are indications that boys and men are portrayed just as stereotypically as females, with broad shoulders and narrow hips (the “V shape,” which almost no male has), the obligatory six-pack abs, and an overemphasis on sexual “performance.” But we know far less from content analyses about stereotypical male representation.17
While media entertainment is most often the topic of concern when it comes to sex, it is important to recognize that the advertising industry also relies heavily on sexualized media content to sell products, and has done so for some time. In fact, the first “sex” advertising dates back to 1871, when a naked woman was used to (successfully) sell Pearl tobacco. Soon after, other tobacco makers jumped on board—placing scantily clad women on their packaging and advertisements—making “sex sells” an often-repeated mantra in the advertising world.18
Today, youth are unlikely to be confronted with explicit sex in advertising, but it is commonplace for them to be confronted with implicit sexual advertising messages.19 And just as in entertainment media content, women are again the losers. For example, ads for many products (for example, makeup, fashion) tell female youth that they need these products in order to increase their physical or sexual attractiveness—thereby objectifying the female body. For many other products, the female body is used as a prop to attract attention and sell a product. Indeed, a content analysis of the advertisements on twenty popular websites for adolescents, mostly for teen girls (for example, Seventeen and CosmoGirl), showed that the majority of advertisements (82 percent) zoomed in on or emphasized physical attractiveness (62 percent).20
Sex Goes Digital
While much of the work on sexual media content has focused on more traditional forms of entertainment and advertising, the digital revolution has dramatically changed this landscape. Adolescents frequently encounter sexual content online. In the Netherlands, 40 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls ages 12–14 have deliberately sought out sex online in the past half year. These percentages increase quickly with age. By seventeen, more than 60 percent of boys and 20 percent of girls have deliberately searched for sexual content online. And these data reflect only their deliberate, conscious searches. Teens also often accidentally stumble on online sex. Indeed, 61 percent of boys ages 12–14 reported having accidentally come across sex while online (compared with 45 percent of girls). By seventeen years of age, such accidental hits have increased to 74 percent for boys and 59 percent for girls.21 These estimates are consistent with trends found in other industrialized countries.22
When it comes to online sexual media content, the most frequently researched area is porn. This is not surprising. Thanks in part to the improvement of digital access and increased bandwidth, the porn business has grown into one of the World Wide Web’s most profitable sectors. Audiovisual porn is now mainstream, and anyone can make, upload, and share porn online. And thousands of people do. Amateur porn is now a strong competitor to professional porn. In professional porn, paid actors who meet the criteria of particular “ideal” body types perform a scripted scenario. In amateur porn, performers do not necessarily have ideal shapes and “act” mainly for their own enjoyment. But whether online porn is made in a professional studio or in someone’s bedroom, its consumers appreciate its “triple A” quality: it is anonymous, accessible, and affordable—ideal for teenage brains and budgets.23
So what are teens seeing when they are confronted with, or seek out, online porn? Most content analyses of professional heterosexual porn indicate that sex in such porn is depicted mainly as a physical, recreational activity between temporary partners. As in the messages in entertainment and advertising content, women are portrayed mainly as passive beings whose role is to provide physical satisfaction to men. Porn typically follows the standard pornographic script, which begins with fellatio and ends with the male orgasm.24 Recently, Marleen Klaassen and Jochen Peter investigated whether the rise of amateur porn had led to an increase in messages that counter those presented in professional porn. In their work, they analyzed four hundred of the most popular video clips on four popular erotic sites (305 professional, 95 amateur). And “popular” videos were popular indeed: the most popular video clip had been viewed fifty-three million times.25
Since some researchers believe that amateur porn is a reaction to the stereotypical and unrealistic depictions of sex in professional porn, Klaassen and Peter expected amateur porn to present less gender inequality than professionally produced porn. This turned out not to be the case. In both amateur and professional porn, women were “instrumentalized” more than men, that is, their body parts were used for sexual gratification more often than those of men. More than 30 percent of the analyzed video clips featured close-ups of women’s body parts, whereas only 7 percent of the clips zoomed in on men’s body parts.
The most astonishing difference between the two types of porn was seen in the initiation of sex. In professional porn, men and women initiated sex with about the same frequency. But in amateur porn, men initiated sex significantly more often than women did. Moreover, although in professional porn about as many women as men had sex for their own pleasure, in amateur porn this ratio was significantly skewed toward men. Amateur porn presented women significantly more often in lower social or professional positions, and whereas both forms of porn presented women as subordinate, this disparity was much more dramatic in amateur content.
So what does this all mean? First, contrary to expectations, amateur porn presents content that is even more stereotypical and regressive than that found in professional porn. Perhaps amateurs allow themselves to be guided by a naïve and conservative porn script—that is, their ideas about how porn should look—when creating the content. Alternatively, it may also be that professional content is beginning to change its representations of women as a result of cultural shifts. For example, professional pornography may be responding to the growing popularity of MILF (mother I’d like to fuck) porn, in which women in their forties and in higher social or professional positions initiate sex, whereas amateur porn may be slower to alter the classic pornographic script. In either case, it seems that teens are increasingly likely to encounter strongly stereotypical messages in amateur porn.
Sexy Media Effects
Unsurprisingly, along with evaluating the amount and types of sexual media content that youth come across, scholars have asked what the effects of exposure to this content might be. Many scholars take the position that sexual media content has a negative influence on adolescents’ sexuality. They argue that sex in entertainment media provides youth with an unrealistic and distorted picture of sexuality, and that most youth are not mature enough to put this distorted picture into perspective. Other scholars think that media serve as a kind of “super peer” for youth: teens may turn to the media for ideas and norms about sexuality that are unavailable in their peer group or that strengthen existing ideas and norms in this group.26 In both cases, the likelihood that the distorted sexual content will affect them increases.
Some scientists take the potential negative effects of sex in entertainment media less seriously. They argue that youth—particularly girls—are seen by other researchers as too vulnerable, when in fact their agency is much greater than we assume. These self-aware girls are quite capable of recognizing unrealistic and distorted sexual images and of rejecting them.27 Finally, a handful of researchers believe that sexual content can positively influence young people’s sexuality.28 Some of these scholars suggest, for example, that media can educate young people about sexual issues such as sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.29
What is the truth? Are adolescent
s affected by sexual media content? And if so, how? How are their sexual cognition (thoughts and beliefs), emotions, or behavior affected? A growing number of studies have tried to answer these questions. But attempting to study youth and sexual messages is complicated. To investigate the effects of sexual media content on children and adolescents is particularly difficult, because, ethically, researchers cannot confront children with, or even ask them about, sexuality and pornography. As a result, the existing research tends to focus on adolescents thirteen and over, even though developmentally it would be more informative to begin at a younger age—before sexual identities begin to unfold.
Studies into the effects of sexual media content rely on different theories to explain how the content might influence adolescents. The most notable ones are Bandura’s social cognitive theory, Steele and Brown’s media practice model, Valkenburg and Peter’s differential susceptibility to media effects model, and Gerbner’s cultivation theory.30 Recall from chapter 2 that cultivation theory states that if viewers are regularly exposed to ideas from the media world (by, for example, consistently consuming messages that treat females as sex objects), they will gradually internalize these ideas. Whereas this theory helps explain how a distorted media world might influence teens, it does not pay much attention to individual differences that might explain why some teens would be more (or less) influenced by sexual entertainment content.
The remaining theories acknowledge such individual differences. These models predict how and when, and for which adolescents, sexual media content has stronger or weaker effects. Their most important principles are that sexual media consumers are active in their processing of sexual media, and that their use of sexual media content is predicted by numerous dispositional factors (for example, sexual maturity and identity) and social factors, such as friends and parents. Like other contemporary media effect theories, they assume that the influence process is reciprocal: the use of sexual media content is usually both the cause and the effect of youth’s sexual cognitions, emotions, and behavior.
Effects on Sexual Cognition
Much of the research on the influence of sexual media content has asked how such content might influence teens’ sexual cognition—their knowledge and beliefs about sex and sex-related matters. Sexual cognition includes knowledge about sexual scripts (that is, ideas about how sexual encounters normally proceed), sexual techniques, and concrete matters such as how to use a condom. But it also encompasses beliefs about sex and gender roles. For example, do teens believe that commitment should be present before two people have sex, or do they believe that sex is purely recreational and does not require love? Do teens see women as sex objects and men as being “driven” by sex? Do they believe that a sexy-looking woman is “looking for sex”? These and other beliefs fall under the umbrella term “sexual cognition.”
In general, the literature indicates that exposure to sexual media content influences the sexual cognition of youth. American research, for example, has found that the more contact teens have with sexual media content, the more they view sex as a recreational, commitment-free pastime.31 Similarly, research with Dutch teens has found that increased exposure to online sex is associated with more liberal and recreational ideas about sex. In particular, teens with a higher exposure to online sex are more likely to view sex as a game between two casual partners, with physical satisfaction as the primary goal. Thus, teens with increased exposure to online sex are more likely to believe that having more than one sexual partner at a time is acceptable and that it is less important for sex to occur in the context of a romantic relationship.32
Exposure to online sex can also influence teens’ beliefs about gender roles. Researchers have found that for boys, surfing the Web for erotic content is positively associated with traditional ideas about gender roles (for example, the endorsement of the beliefs that men are sex driven and that women are sex objects).33 Extending this work, other researchers have found that the relationship between exposure to online sex and gender beliefs is reciprocal. Specifically, teens (boys and girls) who believe that women are sex objects are more likely to go looking for online sex. Their exposure to this online content, in turn, reinforces their gender-related beliefs.34
To date, the negative effects of sexual media content pervade the academic literature. That said, there is growing recognition that sexual media content may positively influence sexual cognition.35 Take, for example, a now-classic study by Rebecca Collins and colleagues featuring the American television series Friends. During one episode, viewers learn that one of the characters (Rachel) is pregnant because of condom failure. After the episode aired, 506 American teens were interviewed about their condom knowledge. Results indicated that viewers had significantly better understanding than nonviewers about condoms, including the risks and consequences of condom failure.36
This study by Collins and colleagues shows the powerful role of media as an educator. It also highlights the opportunities of entertainment media for sharing important health-related messages with teens. Yet at the same time, it underscores teens’ susceptibility to sexual media content. Numerous content analyses have shown that entertainment media present an unrealistic and distorted picture of sex. We know that teens who believe that sexual media content is realistic are more susceptible to the effects of such content.37 While estimates suggest that about 60 percent of teens believe that sex in porn is not the same as sex in real life, this means that about 40 percent do take sexual media experiences as seriously as real-life ones.38 Efforts to help teens understand the differences between sex in the media and in reality are therefore certainly worthwhile. Moreover, interventions to counter the sexual media culture that surrounds teens are an important next step.
Effects on Arousal and Emotions
Compared with the relatively large literature on sexual cognition, the work on sexual emotions is more limited. Sexual emotions include physiological reactions, such as sexual arousal, and the feelings that adolescents can experience during and after seeing sex in media, such as pleasure, disgust, satisfaction, or insecurity. Although sexual emotions are an integral part of theoretical models to explain how people react to sexual media content, research to test these models is lacking. This is mostly due to the ethics associated with researching arousal or sexual emotions among children and teens. There is, however, at least one study on the influence of sexual media content on sexual arousal. This work, which was conducted by Wendell Dysinger and Christian Ruckmick, was part of the well-known Payne Fund Studies, which were published in 1933 (see chapter 3).39 Perhaps the ethical review boards of that time, if they existed, were less strict than they are today.
In their study, Dysinger and Ruckmick showed sad, scary, and erotic films to children (ages 6–11), adolescents (ages 12–18), and adults, both in the lab and in the cinema. To measure arousal, they used a galvanometer (an instrument no longer in use) to measure moisture on the skin. The degree of moisture, or conductivity, is an indication of the degree to which physiological arousal is occurring; it can indicate emotions such as fear and sexual desire, too. In comparison with adolescents and adults, children reacted to all types of films with more arousal—except erotic films, to which they, strikingly, reacted with hardly any physiological arousal whatsoever. Physiological response to erotic films occurred only in those older than about ten years of age. This finding makes sense. It is likely that erotic content was largely “over the heads” of younger children, and it is only after the onset of puberty that teens experience arousal and emotional responses to such content.
In more recent research, using a self-report longitudinal survey, Jochen Peter and Patti Valkenburg investigated to what extent Dutch teens and young adults (ages 13–20) experience pornography as arousing. Results indicated that teens, particularly boys, experience it as arousing.40 Girls appeared to be more ambivalent in their emotional responses to erotic and pornographic material. Although girls experienced porn as arousing, they sometimes also found watching it
to be shameful. They seemed to distance themselves more than boys from the lack of intimacy in porn and the fact that porn is so clearly presented from a male perspective.41 In another study, Peter and Valkenburg found that exposure to online porn was associated with increased feelings of sexual insecurity. This effect held for both sexes, although it was more pronounced among girls.42
Beyond these studies, the remaining (limited) work on emotional responses has concentrated on the sexual satisfaction of adolescents. This work has shown that exposure to sexual media content (particularly online porn) can negatively influence the sexual satisfaction of both boys and girls.43 Interestingly, this relationship appears reciprocal. Adolescents who are less satisfied with their sex lives watch more porn, and this porn makes them even more unsatisfied. This effect is particularly prominent among teens who have less experience with sex and teens whose friends are also less sexually experienced.
Effects on Sexual Behavior
While cognition and emotions are clearly important, parents and practitioners are most interested in understanding whether exposure to sexual media content influences sexual behavior. Research on the effects of sexual media content on sexual behavior typically focuses on the age at which adolescents start having sex and on sexual risk behavior related to unprotected sex, teenage pregnancy, and STIs (sexually transmitted infections).
Although only a handful of studies have investigated sexual behavior, all agree that exposure to sexual media is associated with an increased incidence of sexual behavior.44 For example, one American study revealed that early exposure to sexually explicit media increased the likelihood of teens having oral sex and sexual intercourse two years later.45 In another American study, researchers similarly found that teens who often consume sexual media content are more likely to engage in sexual activity. But, interestingly, they also found that sexually active adolescents are more likely to expose themselves to sexual media content. Thus, the relationship between exposure to sexual media content and sexual behavior appears to be reciprocal: sexually active teens are more likely to consume sexual media content, and this exposure, in turn, increases their likelihood to progress in their sexual behavior.46 Finally a Flemish study found that the use of online porn was associated with a higher likelihood of initiating sex. But this result held only for adolescents in early puberty. Among older adolescents, online porn use was related with a lower likelihood of initiating sex.47
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