Entertainment Media and Sexual Health: A Content Analysis of Sexual Talk, Behavior, and Risks in a Popular Television Series

Assessing models of concurrent substance use and sexual consent cues in mainstream films

ObjectiveCollege students may not view sexual consent communication while under the influence of substances (i.e., alcohol and drugs) as problematic if media models the co-occurrence of these behaviors. The purpose of this study was to assess the types of consent cues used by characters who are and are not under the influence of substances in mainstream films. Method: Four researchers inductively analyzed popular mainstream films (N = 50). Films were assessed for substance use and consent communication cues. Results: Characters using substances were depicted using implicit verbal and explicit nonverbal consent cues more than characters who had not used substances. Conclusion: Films may perpetuate cultural narratives that substance use can be part of the consent process and that consent is communicated differently when people have used substances. Prevention programs could include media literacy to address misleading messages college students may internalize about substance use and sexual consent communication.

Casual Sexual Scripts on the Screen: A Quantitative Content Analysis

While existing content analyses have provided insightful information in terms of contextual factors and frequency of sexual behaviors, not much is known about the relational context in which sexual depictions generally occur. The current study addresses this void by employing content analytic methods to measure the frequency and context of depictions of sexual behavior within nine popular television shows produced in the U.S., while taking into account the type of sexual behavior. The results suggest that, in the analyzed television shows, sexual behaviors within a casual sexual context were almost as frequently shown as sexual behaviors within a committed relationship context. Whereas sexual behaviors within a committed relationship context were mainly limited to passionate kissing, sexual behaviors within a casual sexual context mostly consisted of explicit portrayals of sexual intercourse. Additionally, genre seemed to be an important factor when examining casual sexual television content. The situational comedy genre, for example, had no explicit portrayals of intercourse and mainly portrayed kissing couples within a committed relationship. The comedy drama genre, on the contrary, had the largest proportion of explicit sexual portrayals, usually between casual sexual partners. A second goal of this study was to analyze the portrayals of the typical casual sexual experience script and the typical casual sexual relationship script in which these sexual behaviors often occur. For instance, our analyses revealed that female characters were more likely to initiate casual sex compared to male characters. Moreover, casual sex often occurred between former partners.

Heavy Sexual Content Versus Safer Sex Content: A Content Analysis of the Entertainment Education Drama Shuga

Extremely popular with Kenyan youth, the entertainment-education drama Shuga was designed with specific goals of promoting condom use, single versus multiple sexual partners, and destigmatization of HIV. Almost as soon as it aired, however, it generated controversy due to its extensive sexual themes and relatively explicit portrayal of sexual issues. To determine how safer sex, antistigma messages, and overall sexual content were integrated into Shuga, we conducted a content analysis. Results indicated that condom use and HIV destigmatization messages were frequently and clearly communicated. Negative consequences for risky sexual behavior were communicated over the course of the entire series. Messages about multiple concurrent partnerships were not evident. In addition, in terms of scenes per hour of programming, Shuga had 10.3 times the amount of sexual content overall, 8.2 times the amount of sexual talk, 17.8 times the amount of sexual behavior, and 9.4 times the amount of sexual intercourse as found in previous analysis of U.S. entertainment programming. Research is needed to determine how these factors may interact to influence adolescent viewers of entertainment education dramas.

Does Drinking Improve the Quality of Sexual Experience?: Sex-Specific Alcohol Expectancies and Subjective Experience on Drinking Versus Sober Sexual Occasions

The present study compared the self-reported quality of emotional experiences on sexual occasions that differed in levels of alcohol consumption to determine whether widely held beliefs about alcohol's positive effects on sex are borne out in people's everyday sexual experience. Multilevel models were estimated using data from 7442 discrete sexual events collected over a 10+ year period from a community sample of 1946 Black and White young adults. Tests of between-person differences revealed that beliefs that drinking both enhances and disinhibits sexual experience are widely endorsed, and that those who hold strong expectancies for enhancement drink significantly more on sexual occasions than those who do not. Nevertheless, tests of within-person differences revealed that people's sexual experiences were generally less positive on drinking than sober occasions, even after controlling for a host of individual difference and event-level characteristics. Moreover, cross-level expectancy × alcohol interaction tests showed that even those who strongly endorsed alcohol's positive effects failed to report more positive sexual experiences on drinking versus sober occasions, with a single exception: Those with strong expectancies for sexual enhancement reported greater arousal at high consumption levels, whereas those with weak enhancement expectancies reported lower arousal. In short, drinking on sexual occasions failed to deliver any benefit for the majority of individuals across the majority of outcomes. Why positive beliefs are maintained in the face of largely contradictory experience, and how this information can be used to inform intervention and prevention is explored.

An alternate HIV preventive strategy: sex scripts in media for women of color

New cases of HIV/AIDS among women of color in the United States highlight the continuing need for the public and private sectors to develop alternate preventive strategies. The author discusses the conceptual basis for using television sex scripts to incorporate women of color relational needs (trust, romance, sexual pressure) to promote HIV risk-reduction messages through a process of association with the television storyline. Sex scripts are a source of implicit knowledge about how to behave in situations that involve sexual intimacy. The article suggests that sexual scripts prevention messages build on the agency of women through the use of power theory-that is supporting woman's self-power by participating in sexual behavioral change. Implications for sexual equality in media programming are discussed.

Women's work, worry and fear: the portrayal of sexuality and sexual health in US magazines for teenage and middle-aged women, 2000-2007

The purpose of this paper is to report on an exploratory content analysis of the portrayal of sexuality, sexual health and disease in select magazines designed for two groups of women: teenagers and women in the 40-50-year-old age category in the USA. The analysis found that magazine portrayal was both similar for the two groups of women and distinctly different. Neither group of magazines focused on women's sexual desire. Both kinds of magazines emphasized that it was women's work and worry to control sexual expression. Teenagers were described as responsible for avoiding sex in order to prevent pregnancy, fearsomely described STIs and untrustworthy male sexual partners. Abstinence was presented as the only viable option for young women. Women in the 40-50-year-old age group were portrayed as responsible for the emotion work and sexual relations linked to their responsibility for maintaining their marriages and fulfilling their tasks of motherhood, especially through the monitoring of the sexuality of their female children. Sex was characterized in terms akin to women's work within the home. Possible explanations for, and consequences of, these presentations of sexuality are discussed.

Alcohol Messages in Prime-Time Television Series

Alcohol messages contained in television programming serve as sources of information about drinking. To better understand the ways embedded messages about alcohol are communicated, it is crucial to objectively monitor and analyze television alcohol depictions. This article presents a content analysis of an eight-week sample of eighteen prime-time programs. Alcohol messages were coded based on modalities of presentation, level of plot connection, and valence. The analysis reveals that mixed messages about alcohol often coexist but the ways in which they are presented differ: whereas negative messages are tied to the plot and communicated verbally, positive messages are associated with subtle visual portrayals.