According to the RAND Corporation, adolescents that listen to “degrading sexual lyrics have sex sooner.”
The study, Exposure to Degrading Versus Non-Degrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior among Youth, found that the more time adolescents spend listening to music with sexually degrading lyrics, the more likely they are to initiate intercourse and other sexual activities. These lyrics depict men as sexually insatiable, women as sexual objects, and sexual intercourse as inconsequential. Other songs about sex do not appear to influence youth the same way.
“These portrayals objectify and degrade women in ways that are clear, but they do the same to men by depicting them as sex-driven studs,” said Steven Martino, a RAND psychologist who led the study. “Musicians who use this type of sexual imagery are communicating something very specific about what sexual roles are appropriate, and teen listeners may act on these messages.”
Based on the RAND Corporation’s press release, no attempt appears to have been made by the reports authors, Rebecca Collins, Marc Elliott, David Kanouse, Sandra Berry and Amy Strachman of UCLA, to determine if sexy music makes kids have sex, or if they had found (surprise!) that sexually active adolescents listen to sexy music.
To mainstream journalists, a report like this means that sexy music makes you have sex.
To randy teenagers, it means listen to sexy music and you’ll get laid.
To the cranks at Axehole, it provides an excuse crank up Superfreak and to illustrate the article with a tangentially related image of Lil’ Kim, known for her good behavior.
According to the report, teenagers who regularly listen to music lyrics with explicit references to casual sex are more likely to initiate sexual intercourse and take part in other sexual activity, compared with those who do not listen to such music, according to a study being released today.
According to the Washington Post, “The study is the first to document that music with “degrading” lyrics appears to trigger different kinds of behavior than other songs, including those that focus on romantic attachment, love and longing.”
Actually, the study appears to have done nothing of the sort. To demonstrate that, you’d need to take a random selection of adolescents, divide them into three groups, a control group, a group that would have to listen to hardcore rap & Rick James, and a group that would have to listen to Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. Then you could follow them over time to see if the music made any differences in the kids sexual behavior.
That might show a causal effect, rather than a correlation. But that would be science, too.
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