Media's Influence with Teen Sex | Teen Ink

Media's Influence with Teen Sex

March 13, 2018
By Fuailei BRONZE, Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Fuailei BRONZE, Williamsport, Pennsylvania
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Media should be a little more responsible when portraying teenage sex. The washington website posted a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation saying that 76% of teens have had sex because TV shows and movies make it seem normal not abnormal for teenagers to have sex. Media seems to influence choices in teens and what's normal in their world.

Representing sex in an unhealthy manner can lead to teens creating a fantasy that nothing will happen to them if they do it. You might not believe that, thinking that teens are smarter than that. I have to say some are, but there are many who don't consider the risk. Ncbi.nlm  brought in 75 girls, half of which were pregnant. The pregnant teens were more likely to watch more teen dramas and think that their favorite characters in shows didn't use birth control when they had sex. Something like this shows that it does create a fantasy for some and they don't think they will be the ones who will get pregnant.

Presenting sex as something that all teens do as something normal can create peer pressure. If you present teen sex as normal not abnormal than the teens who don't want to have sex will be the weird ones. With as much as we watch TV, we pick up things easily, we pick up on things we think are cool, we pick up on things that we find interesting. Pediatrics surveyed 2,100 girls between 11 to 17. Only the 11 year olds felt as if they weren't being pressured into having sex. This is a problem because sex should be a choice for when someone is ready not when others want them to have sex. That's how TV represents sex in some shows. All I ask that you do is change how you represent sex. Show the problems that could happen when having sex at a young age. Have characters that aren't forced into sex if they don't want to and have characters that are friends that respect that. If you can show alcohol, smoking, and violence to solve answers in a negative light-- you can show teen sex as something not normal. Media should be a little more responsible when portraying teenage sex. Representing sex in an unhealthy manner can lead to teens creating a fantasy that nothing will happen to them if they do it.


The author's comments:

I feel as if media represents teen sex as something normal that tons of sisxteen year old couples do. This topic should be brought up and how it can effect many teens about the real problems that might come if they are not careful about teen sex.


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