The Portrayal of Sexual Intercourse on Television: How, Who, and With What Consequence?

Abstract

This study examines televised portrayals of sexual intercourse. Programs (N ¼ 152) representing the overall television landscape are assessed for the presentation of intercourse acts, the characters who engage in them, and their consequences. Results indicate that 16% of characters involved in sexual intercourse acts on television are teenagers or young adults. Female participants are more attractive and more likely to be victims of sexual crimes than male characters. Consequences of sexual intercourse portrayed are mostly emotional in nature and tend to be more positive than negative in valence. Positive consequences tend to be transient whereas negative consequences are presented as more enduring and emotionally impactful. Though HBO includes the greatest number of shows with sexual intercourse acts, few differences across channels are observed in the presentation of sexual intercourse, indicating a

Maternal Attachment and Television Viewing in Adolescents’ Sexual Socialization: Differential Associations Across Gender

“…In addition, the sexual actions and conversations shown on American (Eyal and Finnerty 2009;Kim et al 2007;Ward 1995) and Belgian (Vervloessem et al 2011;Eggermont 2006) television primarily happen between young, successful characters who behave according to traditional gender roles, implying that males are portrayed as dominant, sexually obsessed characters and females as attractive sex objects This particular portrayal of television characters may affect adolescent viewers. According to social cognitive theory people learn through observing the rewarding of behaviors performed by attractive role models (Bandura 2001).…”

“I Might Get Your Heart Racing in My Skin-Tight Jeans”: Sexualization on Music Entertainment Television

“…Most research has examined only music videos (e.g., Aubrey & Frisby, 2011) or primetime programs (e.g., Kim et al, 2007;Ward, 1995), while few studies have focused on the complete programming of music entertainment channels. Scholars have noticed that music entertainment channels recently started to focus more extensively on other television genres, such as fictional programs, next to music videos and have called for research on the complete programming of such content (Eyal & Finnerty, 2009). By taking these program genres into account, this study intends to increase research knowledge regarding this particular lacuna.…”

“…Music entertainment has recently extended its programming featuring not only music videos but also nonfictional programs, such as reality soaps or entertainment magazines, and fictional programs, such as soap operas or cartoons (Dhingra, 2003;Eyal & Finnerty, 2009). This study examines whether these different genres show varying degrees of sexualization.…”

Representaciones de la sexualidad femenina en la ficción televisiva española

“…The analyzed stories tend to ignore the negative consequences of unprotected sex (Aubrey, 2004;Eyal and Finnerty, 2009;Van Damme, 2010). On the contrary, the consequences of "forbidden" sex are widely exploited in some dramas' storylines, for instance relations with a priest or a nun; or with the boyfriend or husband of an acquainted woman (a workmate or a relative).…”

“…Sexual intercourses are more common between unmarried couples (Al-Sayed and Gunter, 2012) and their representation tends to be very stereotypical (Eyal and Finnerty, 2009). …”