There is little secret left to the success of certain products, be they chocolate or sitcoms – it’s all in the advertising. And nowadays, nothing sells more than sex. Commercials stream sex, no matter what the advertised product is. An ad for detergents is now just as sexy as an ad for lingerie, and the less time you spend thinking about the connection between sex and detergents, the better – you’ll just go out and buy it.

However, there is no field more sexualized than the media, in all its forms, from movies to magazines. Some studies show that there is a causality link between what is shown on TV and the development of children watching the programs. Children are less and less supervised by their parents, and the TV and video games have become the new educators.

In this day and age, sex is far from being a taboo subject. Sexual content is not exclusively reserved for adults, after a reasonable hour, as it has been so far. And even if movies and sitcoms are broadcast late in the evening, we still have the news, commercials, talk-shows and other means of communication displaying sexually explicit content and sexual innuendos.

At the same time, there has been a notable increase in teen pregnancies among girls in the United States. One case reported a group of 16-year-old girls making a pact to become pregnant before reaching the age of 17. The reasoning behind the controversial pact was that their school was tolerant of teen pregnancies and allowed the girls to continue studying there. The younger girls felt that pregnancy was a thing of glamour and wanted unconditioned love, not realizing the responsibility that came along with being pregnant and giving birth. One girl even got pregnant after having intercourse with a random homeless man.
A recent study conducted by RAND Corporation revealed that there is a connection between the increased number of teen pregnancies and the exposure of teenagers to sexually explicit content on TV. The researchers want to raise awareness about their discovery, while all the while whole-heartedly agreeing that the full panel reasons of the large number of teen pregnancies is more diverse and far more complex.

The scientists behind this study were themselves surprised by the strong link between TV programs and behavioral results. The health risks of spending too much time in front of you TV have already been established and this finding is quite novel. By removing many of the factors, the researchers noticed that what teenagers watch on TV is indeed quite influential, especially when it comes to sex and teen pregnancies.

The average time a teenager spends in front of the TV is of about 3 hours a day. A group of teenagers were interviewed in 2001, 2002 and 2004. Of the 2,003 teenagers, 58 girls had gotten pregnant and 33 boys impregnated a girl up to 2004. The shows they watched included the popular “Sex and the City”, “That 70’s Show” or “Friends”.

Although the first features the occasional sex scene, the latter two are pretty PG-13. However, it was noted that sexual innuendos and sexual-oriented dialogue can have the same effect as explicit content. Researchers have agreed that parents need to be more actively involved in their children’s lives, especially when it comes to talking about safe sex and contraception, to make sure that they get an accurate picture.