Media Portrayals of Promiscuity and a Related Survey
Summary:
Study are inconclusive, but they do show a relationship between what one views on television and views about sexual relationships and sexual facts. The author of the essay devised a survey intended to learn the beliefs and actions of young women regarding sexuality.
The media is known for displaying a large quantity of violence and sex on television, possibly desensitizing situations that should not be taken lightly in real life. Two previous studies show sexual attitudes portraying entertainment television tend to correlate to attitudes, beliefs, and actions of people in real life. According to a study, television suggests that sexual encounters take place between young, attractive individuals, overemphasizing heterosexuality, and ignoring the fact that major risks are included in such impulsive actions. In "dialogue, characterizations, storylines and themes, television presents adolescents with numerous verbal and visual examples of how dating, intimacy, relationships and sex are handled" (Ward 237). Therefore, television is to blame for promiscuity, especially at a young age. In a second study, people watching television with a lot of sexual content also made incorrect assumptions on frequency of sexual behaviors in real life. Research was analyzed that showed "a correlation between sexual content on television and sexual activity...other researchers, however, find no such relationship" (Taylor 130). However, both studies have many grey areas, and the topic needs further investigation.
Reality shows and soap operas are key examples of television shows that exaggerate how much individuals partake in sex. For example, in a reality show it may seem as though every time a specific character is shown, they are engaging in some type of sexual activity, however, that is because the media chooses to only show those certain scenes. Too much sex shown leaves the audience with the impression that the character's life revolves around sex a great deal. One sitcom that came out on HBO in 1998 now has reruns showing on a cable station, TBS, playing it weekly and making it available and easier for a younger audience to watch. "Sex and the City" is about four single, successful, women who live in New York, obsessed with looking for the "right" man to marry. The main character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is a sex columnist that writes about topics she personally encounters or hears through her friends. While she is searching for a monogamous partner, her three girlfriends have given up all hope of finding the one "right" person, allowing themselves to be seduced by men. This gives viewers, especially young women, a false sense of reality about pre-marital sex. The show has the potential to influence its younger audience. If viewers see the lifestyle as glamorized, they may want to live similarly. Finding a relation between the show and low morals will allow blame to be placed on the creators of "Sex and the City." Before conducting the surveys, my research question is as follows: Does the amount of openness about sexuality and frequency of "Sex and the City" viewing for a college female relate to her beliefs about premarital sex"
Methods
For this analysis, we found that a survey would offer us the most advantageous data. Naturalistic inquiry would not be beneficial because, for example, an in-depth interview has costs, such as finances, time spent, and interviewer influence. An experiment could not be performed for ethical reasons, considering the topic of sex, which we were going to be studying. Since the major purpose of survey research is to study attitudes or behaviors of people, it fits perfectly. With surveys, we could best find predictions/relationships between our independent and dependent variables. We handed out self-administered questionnaires, which were easy and inexpensive, relative to the other methods. We preserved participants' anonymity by leaving out names and since the questions asked were on paper, no interviewer influence would be a problem.
In our survey, we invented a set of questions that we hoped would inform us on the beliefs and actions of young women regarding sexuality. Curiosity about whether female college students are as promiscuous as everyone thinks lead us to our questions regarding pre-marital sex, the suitable amount of time to wait before engaging in sexual activity, and how many sexual partners are appropriate to have in one's lifetime. First, we surveyed female UC-Santa Barbara students who are viewers of the show, "Sex and the City." Our sample included thirty-five participants, all females between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two.
There are two independent variables involved. One variable is how frequent or infrequent they watch the television show, and the second is how open they are about their own sexuality. To operationalize the first variable of frequency of show watched, we asked participants to choose between options that informed us that they watched it weekly or hardly at all. To be placed into the high viewer category, one must choose the answer "few times a week" or "once a week." The participant is considered a low viewer if neither of these answers was chosen. Directly asking how open the young women are about their sexuality is how we measured the second dependent variable. In the survey, this question allowed the participant to select how open she is about her own personal sexuality, according to options available on an interval level.
Our dependent variable, which we measured based on the first two factors, is the level of agreement with pre-marital sex. To measure thoughts on this controversial topic, interval scales are present for participants to mark how much they agree with pre-marital sex and a second question asks whether she considers it "right." It was quite difficult to come up with questions that provided us with the exact information we wanted. The inquiries could not be too vulgar or too prying. They had to be ones young women would feel comfortable answering. Otherwise, it would be too likely for social desirability to be a problem causing the female students to mark answers that would make them appear more conservative than they really are.
Our final step was separating the stack of surveys into high and low viewers. We did this so we could calculate and compare the means of agreement with pre-marital sex for each pile. Again, we divided the surveys into two separated piles of openness and less openness about their sexuality, depending on question number three in our survey. Between stacks of openness and closedness, we found the means of how much each group agreed with sexuality.
Results
I chose to pose a research question rather than a hypothesis for the fact that a low amount of previous research has been done on this and in those studies mixed answers were found. We discovered that high viewers of the show do agree with pre-marital sex MORE than low viewers. On our scale, a "1" meaning strongly agree and a "5" meaning strongly disagree with pre-marital sex. In addition, those who reported themselves as more open about their sexuality agreed with sex more. All others who were conservative in their openness about sexuality were consistent, and were conservative in their agreement with premarital sex. A relationship, although very minor, was noted between those who were the most okay with pre-marital sex were the women who were more open and high viewers. We found a main effect for frequency alone, but not one for level of openness on its own. There was an interaction effect for the two independent variables because the lines are not parallel (as shown below). Heavy viewers who were also more open about their sexuality agreed with pre-marital sex more than just a factor alone.
Agree w/ SexDisagree w/ SexMarginal Means
High Viewers1.5332.27
Low Viewers1.612.422.02
Marginal Means1.572.71
Agree w/ SexDisagree w/ SexMarginal Means
Open w/ Sexuality1.4832.24
Less Openness231.5
Marginal Means1.743
High ViewersLow Viewers
Open w/ Sexuality1.64
Less Openness24
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