By Cora Hilts
Whether it be Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte discussing masturbation over martinis or explicit scenes depicting threesomes between Christian, Kimber and the seductive Detective McGraw, it seems as though sex is the new way to draw viewers back to the television week after week.
In the age of such shows as “Sex and the City” and “Nip/Tuck,” who’s to judge where the line for the acceptable amount of sex on television is drawn?
Earlier this month, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released “Sex on TV 4,” a biennial survey researching sex on TV which found that since 1998, the amount of sex on television has doubled. Seventy percent of all shows now contain some sort of sexual allusions, innuendoes, scenes or conversations revolving around the topic.
The study analyzed a representative sample of more than 1,000 hours of programming, including all genres and a cross-section of the four major networks, two cable channels and one premium channel. They concluded there has been a discernible increase over the past seven years in the amount of sex on these well-known channels.
For a group to which much of the sexual programming is geared, college students expressed mixed reactions to the study’s findings.
“[Sex is] a natural occurrence that results from attraction so it shouldn’t have to be concealed,” said Sarah Mayor, a freshman undecided major.
Freshman undecided major Danielle Rekas said she had an entirely different opinion.
“There’s definitely too much sex on TV,” she said.
She said she was also not surprised to hear of the increase of sex on television since 1998.
A spokeswoman for KKF declined comment on the survey, preferring to maintain their commitment to remain unbiased in the reporting of their findings.
In a statement released with the study, however, Kaiser Family Foundation vice president Vicky Rideout, who oversaw the study, did comment on why such significance should be placed on the sexual messages presented through TV.
“Given how high the stakes are, the messages TV sends teens are important,” Rideout said. “Television has the power to bring issues of sexual risk and responsibility to life in a way that no sex-ed class or public health brochure really can.”
While several students said they thought sex is included on shows because it is an effective way of enhancing believability and rousing viewer interest, Rekas said some people are still surprised by what gets aired on the basic cable networks.
“Just the other day, my boyfriend found out and was shocked by the fact that ‘Desperate Housewives’ was on primetime,” she said.
On a recent episode of the wildly popular “Desperate Housewives,” now in its second season and airing at 9 p.m. Sunday nights on NBC, Eva Longoria tried to seduce a man who wasn’t her husband while wearing nothing but black lingerie.
While sexual content on primetime, such as a married woman trying to force an affair, has become more candid, shows often fail to show the flip side of sexual behavior the KFF found – namely the health risks tandem to being sexually active, according to “Sex on TV 4.”
According to the survey, only 14 percent of the shows that portray sex talk about practicing it safely or abstaining from it completely, a small percentage for a generation raised while AIDS, sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies occupied the forefront of national news.
On the other side of the issue, there is the concern the media simply exploits sex, portraying it as something casual and common, when many people said they don’t treat it that casually.
In the introduction to the survey, the KFF referenced a study done by the RAND Organization, a nonprofit group that conducts research and presents solutions for problems in the public and private sector. In a study of a group of African-American teenagers, RAND found that “those who watched more TV shows that included storylines about safer sex, or the risks and responsibilities of sexual activity, were less likely to initiate intercourse in the subsequent year,” providing some evidence television does influence its viewers.
Pete Webster, a middler marketing major, said he was most concerned with how his family viewed TV’s sexual content.
“When I’m watching TV by myself, it’s not a big deal, but when I’m a room with my parents or kids I can’t stand it,” he said.
According to the survey, the sexual content on TV may be more influential than suspected: Nearly three out of four 15 to 17-year-olds said sex on television influences the behaviors of kids their age.
Rekas said she agreed it was a problem for younger viewers, although when explicit content comes on TV, her 10-year-old sister “covers her ears and closes her eyes because she knows it’s inappropriate.”
