4/25/18 · Research

TV series, the best school of sexuality for adolescents

Photo: <a href="http://jeshoots.com" target="_blank">jeshoots.com</a> / Unsplash (CC)

Photo: jeshoots.com / Unsplash (CC)

Scenes that prominently feature sex or sexuality can become the best teacher for adolescents. Some examples: an episode of Friends is about a condom that tears and leads to an unwanted pregnancy. In the series ER, two episodes are about sexually transmitted diseases and emergency contraception. According to the book El impacto de los medios de comunicación en la infancia. Guía para padres y educadores [The Impact of the Media on Childhood. Guide for Parents and Teachers], published by Editorial UOC and Aresta, young Americans surveyed revealed that they have more knowledge of the issues covered after watching these episodes. 

In Catalonia, there is another clear example with the series Merlí. In one episode the character Tània is the only one in the group of friends who is a virgin and when she confesses this she receives the support of her friends, lifting the burden of a label that had pursued her for some time. Students at the Ferran Tallada Secondary School in Barcelona explain in this video what this stigma means and how the series helps them empathize with someone going through the same situation. The TV3 production has also dedicated some episodes to gay relationships, threesomes, disappointments and infidelity, to mention a few.  

For Amalia Gordóvil, doctoral degree holder in Psychology and UOC course instructor, the media are the “socializing agents that adolescents use as models and that normalize behaviour patterns”. Therefore, “it is positive for series to feature characters that adolescents can identify with”.

The study “Televised Sexual Content and Parental Mediation: Influences on Adolescent Sexuality“, conducted by scientists at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in the United States, concludes that erotic contents of many of the series and films shown on television directly influence the sexual thoughts, behaviour and expectations of adolescents. The study, published in Media Psychology and led by Deborah Fisher, had the participation of 1,012 young people aged between 12 and 16.

This research also warns of the possible negative consequences of some sexual scenes for inexperienced young people, especially when exaggerating the positive results of relationships and when messages about potential risks, precautions and responsibility are omitted. These unrealistic representations can foster risky attitudes and behaviours in adolescents, warn the researchers. In contrast, they note that sexual scenes are positive for boys and girls when they are realistic stories with characters who, for example, take precautions and deal with the negative consequences of poor decisions.

Another study along the same lines is “Presuming the influence of the media: teenagers' constructions of gender identity through sexual/romantic relationships and alcohol consumption“. Based on the work of discussion groups formed by adolescents aged between 13 and 15, the authors conclude that the media influences their conception of sexual and romantic relations, insofar as they take them as gendered identity models.


Hypersexualized female characters

The book El impacto de los medios de comunicación en la infancia. Guía para padres y educadores also warns about the hypersexuality with which some female characters are presented, who are described with “excessively sexual connotations”. The authors warn that this phenomenon can lead the youngest to feel “unhappy with their bodies” and can end up suffering eating disorders.

For Gordóvil, these audiovisual contents are “transmitters of false beliefs”, as they link the use of the body and image with specific results in terms of relations with other people, such as having power, success or control over others, while promoting body worship.


Encouraging critical awareness from an early age

“Lack of self-esteem”, adds Gordóvil, “occurs if my assessment of myself only depends on my image and not on what is inside me”, she explains. So it is necessary to “strengthen the critical spirit” of what you see from a very early age. According to the psychologist at the GRAT Centre, the school and family are the main pillars for ensuring that children and youths grow up with critical awareness and reach adolescence with a good foundation of self-esteem. Asserting the value of attributes of the character of boys and girls beyond the physical are work tools for parents and teachers provided by the psychologist.

The authors of the book El impacto de los medios de comunicación en la infancia. Guía para padres y educadores put forward the same solution and suggest that teachers can play an important role through media literacy. They conclude that the school must help students to “develop critical thought” when consuming these contents and avoid watching them in a “lethargic state.”

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