The motorway to adulthood: music preference as the sex and relationships roadmap

Abstract

Factors that contribute to sexual decision-making among young people are varied, and several determinants have been identified as contributing to the process. However, the influential role of music preference has been sidelined both in the literature and by sex and relationships educators. The research outlined in this paper explores the normative impact of music preference, and highlights the importance of influences drawn from teen culture. A preliminary study had indicated that representations of sex and relationships within lyrics were found to be genre specific. The main study comprised six single-sex focus group discussions on music and sex with young people aged between 14 and 19 years. Thematic analysis revealed that preferred genre and artists were found to be associated with all aspects of participants' lives and culture generally, with music functioning specifically as an educational tool for adult relationships. The findings from these studies indicate that the norms portrayed by young people's preferred genres reinforce (oftentimes inappropriate) beliefs about sex and adult relationships.

Emotion-driven encoding of music preference and personality in dance

“…The nature of people’s music preferences have been widely studied in recent decades. Relationships between such preferences and a large number of phenomena, including perception (e.g., Gordon-Hickey & Moore, 2007), cognition (e.g., Caldwell & Riby, 2007), culture (e.g., Brittin, 1996), interpersonal relationships (e.g., Agbo-Quaye & Robertson, 2010), mental health (e.g., Baker & Bor, 2008), substance use (e.g., Mulder et al, 2009), adolescence (e.g., Bakagiannis & Tarrant, 2006), psychophysiology (e.g., Nater, Krebs, & Ehlert, 2005), marketing (e.g., Caldwell & Hibbert, 2002), memory (e.g., Peretz, Gaudreau, & Bonnel, 1998), and personality (e.g., Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003) have been investigated. Despite this wealth of research, relationships between music preference and the way people move or dance to music have so far been neglected.…”

Breaking the Gender Gap in Rap/Hip-Hop Consumption

“…This is the case of women increasingly consuming both live and recorded rap music in spite of their mostly controversial lyrics. Not paying attention to the words of rap songs and being more attracted to the rhythm of the music, as pointed out by Sullivan (2003), or being unaware of the impact of this music in their lives (Agbo-Quaye & Robertson, 2010) could explain this phenomenon. To sum up, the increasing female rap/hip-hop audience seems to be based on its appreciation of its aesthetics and music, rhythmic flow, melodic structure and the appeal of the artist, as Zickerman (2013) confirmed.…”

“…In this regard, it has been said that controversial rap music has had a negative influence on adolescent development (Tanner et al, 2009). However, young people seem to be unaware of the impact that this music has on their lives (Agbo-Quaye & Robertson, 2010). For instance, cultural images of sexual stereotypes in rap music videos can influence the sexual attitudes and behaviour of female adolescents (Peterson et al, 2007).…”

Social and Environmental Influences on Sexual Behaviors of College Black Women: Within Group Diversity Between HBCU vs. PWI Experiences

“…Music lyrics in particular have demonstrated to be high in content pertaining to sexual references, and it has been found that 78% of rap and 79% of R&B music contain sexual content [37]. It is estimated that across all musical genres, between 40 and 75% of music videos contain sexual imagery, with rap music specifically emphasizing explicit sexual references [38,39]. Travis and Bowman [40] found that Black youth are more vulnerable to influences of sexual content prevalent in the music they listen to because they are more likely to perceive the music as an accurate reflection of cultural norms in their community [40,41].…”