Sexual Readiness, Household Policies, and Other Predictors of Adolescents' Exposure to Sexual Content in Mainstream Entertainment Television

Abstract

Using a national, telephone survey of 1,762 adolescents aged 12-17 years, this study identifies the prospective predictors of exposure to television's sexual content with a particular emphasis on the contributions of teenagers' sexual readiness versus household television policies. Though believing that one's friends approve of sex and having greater noncoital sexual experience predicted heavier viewing of sexual content in the subsequent year, household restrictions had a nearly equal and opposite effect. In particular, having a television in the bedroom and spending more time at home unsupervised at baseline were associated with heavier sexual content viewing one year later. In addition, Black, female, younger, and more highly viewer-involved teens watched significantly more sexually oriented television than did other groups. Results are considered in light of recent findings showing that heavier viewing of televised sexual content leads to more rapid initiation of sexual intercourse in the subsequent year (Collins et al., 2004).