Scripting Sexual Desire: Cultural Scenarios of Teen Girls’ Sexual Desire in Popular Films, 2000–2009

Social Media and Adolescent Sexual Socialization

“…Sexual scripts are "cognitive schema that instruct people how to understand and act in sexual situations" (Masters, Casey, Wells, & Morrison, 2013, p. 409). Higher exposure to sexual scripts increases the likelihood of early sexual socialization (Smith, 2012). "Old" media depicts deviant sexual behaviors and sexual messages with the interpretation that sexual activity has minimal consequences and may be riskfree (Brown et al, 2005;Wright, 2009).…”

Sexual Scripts in Contemporary Mexican Cinema: A Quantitative Content Analysis

“…Sexual scripting theory provides a set of theoretical tools that help explain how sexuality is socially constructed in specific historical and cultural contexts (Gagnon and Simon 1973; Simon and Gagnon 1986), which can be examined in the content of popular media’s depictions of sex and intimate relationships. Popular media provide “cultural scenarios,” or cultural narratives about sexuality that circulate widely throughout a particular society (Smith 2012; Weitz 2010). For example, in an analysis of sexual scripts across media platforms (e.g., television, music videos, magazines), Ward (2003) found that men’s and women’s sexualities were portrayed in notably different ways, that women’s bodies were regularly objectified, and sexist commentary was a reoccurring feature.…”

“…While some evidence suggests a shift toward increasing gender equity in representations of women’s sexualities and heterosexual intimacy in the context of television shows and films featuring female protagonists like Sex & the City (Merkle 2008) and Something’s Gotta Give (Weitz 2010), heteronormative conventions remain fully entrenched throughout much of contemporary American cinema, especially when adolescent male and female sexualities are portrayed. For example, Smith (2012) examined depictions of teenage girls’ sexual desires in popular films in the United States and found that when their sexual desires are depicted, they are largely unspoken; instead they are communicated through body language. When girls in popular film do verbally articulate and act on sexual desires, they are more often than not portrayed as “bad girls” and such explicit expressions of desire typically carry negative consequences, such as humiliation, regret, unwanted pregnancy, and in some cases, death.…”

“…When girls in popular film do verbally articulate and act on sexual desires, they are more often than not portrayed as “bad girls” and such explicit expressions of desire typically carry negative consequences, such as humiliation, regret, unwanted pregnancy, and in some cases, death. Thus, the sexual scripts for girls in popular film are quite clear: their sexual desire must be non-verbal, passive, and located firmly within the context of heterosexual romantic love in order to be deemed culturally acceptable (Smith 2012). By contrast, boys’ explicit expressions of sexual desire and engagement in sexual activity, especially when it comes to virginity loss, is portrayed as normative (Ashcraft 2003; Carpenter 2009).…”

“…Popular media is widely regarded as a major agent of socialization. When it comes to lessons about sexuality, a significant body of scholarship has examined the content of contemporary films for how they communicate meanings and practices of sexuality (Huston, Wartellea, and Donnerstein 1998; Leistner and Mark 2016; Manohar and Kline 2014; Markle 2008; Smith 2012; Sun et al 2016; Ward 2003; Weitz 2010; Wright 2009). Sexual scripting theory (Gagnon and Simon 1973; Simon and Gagnon 1986, 2003) provides a framework for understanding what kinds of sexuality lessons are communicated through cinema, including what kinds of sexual behaviors and relationships are normative within a specific historical and cultural context (Beres 2014; Kimmel 2007; Meischke 1995; Sakaluk et al 2014; Wiederman 2005).…”