TV exposes our children to an idea of sex without any repercussions. Alison Healy reports
Young people are being bombarded by sexual images on television, with 52 per cent of general audience programmes containing scenes of a sexual nature, new research has found.
The study, for the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, found that most of these programmes contained fairly mild sexual references but the level of nudity or implied nudity was "relatively high", compared with a similar study in the US.
The report, Teenagers and the media: A media analysis of sexual content on television, which was conducted by media analyst Dr Carol Mac Keogh was launched yesterday.
She studied the main television channels between August 2003 and February 2004 and found that British satellite channels had the highest percentage of programmes with sexual content (65 per cent), followed by TV3 (61 per cent); RTÉ 2 (58 per cent); TG4 (54 per cent); RTÉ One (44 per cent); and, finally, the British terrestrial channels (33 per cent).
Soap operas were more likely to contain "any sexual content" than other genres such as drama, movies or light entertainment shows. "Any sexual content" includes sexual behaviour or talk about sex. However, sexual behaviour - including flirting, kissing, touching or sex - was more likely to be seen in movies.
Dr Mac Keogh said one of the most striking findings about the research was that females were "by far and away the lead instigators of sexual activities such as kissing and flirting".
However, the instigation of sex was usually mutual.
She also said the high level of sexual innuendo throughout the TV schedules warranted further research. "This may be particularly important, given the greater likelihood of misunderstandings of implied sexual messages."
Dr Mac Keogh has called for the establishment of a forum to inform and advise policy-makers and oversee developments in this area.
She expressed concern that messages conveyed by documentaries or reality television were more likely to be taken at face value by teenagers.
The study interviewed 76 teenagers about their views on sex and television. The teenagers believed that "mild sex" was pervasive in television schedules. They singled out the satellite channels in particular for their strong sexual depictions in the late evening schedules.
While the teenagers were somewhat sceptical about the sex documentary genre popular on late night television, they said they tended to place more credibility in the messages provided by these programmes as the facts were "real".
"By and large, the satellite channels and Channel 4 were cited as the main sources of sex, though others pointed out that TG4 was good for the foreign films," Dr Mac Keogh wrote. She quoted one young man who said "It's foreign films that mostly have all the sex in them anyway - all those French films and all. They think that's art over here we just call it sex."
Many of the teenagers argued that television was often unrealistic in depictions of sex. Friends and Sex and the City were singled out for their unrealistic depictions of the life of single mothers (Rachel in Friends and Miranda in Sex and the City). They were unrealistic "in that, for example, the women continue in their careers without any money considerations".
One teenage girl said the characters were often shown leaving the house without the baby. "You've no idea where the baby is - it just seems like it's there sometimes and it's not there sometimes."
Others questioned how the Sex and the City characters were having sex "all the time with loads of different fellas" yet they never seemed to end up with a sexually transmitted disease.