Imagine that -- what goes in their ears impacts kids' thinking and sexual behavior.

Teenagers whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.

Whether it's pop, rock, hip-hop or rap, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.

Songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh.

This is sort of intuitive, if you ask me. We have known for generations that advertising impacts the consumeproductpreferences and purchasing decisions of consumers. That is why so much money is spent on advertising, and why government restricts certain sorts of advertising. Why would the constantly repeated messages oin music not have a similar impact?

Not that there really needed to be this sort of study. Those of us who teach could have supplied researchers with all the anecdotal evidence necessary to reach this conclusion.

Posted by: Greg at 10:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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