Study: Sex Has Few Consequences in TV, Film

Popular entertainment remains rife with sexual content but seldom explores potential consequences of such behavior, according to a study conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

The Washington, D.C.-based media organization--which issued recent examinations of the 1998-99 season in regard to violence and language--also determined that movies and TV shows featuring sexuality often carried a less restrictive “parental guidance” rating as opposed to being designated for mature audiences.

“It surprised me that so much of this material was PG-rated,” said center President S. Robert Lichter.

Although it has cooled somewhat as a political issue, the amount of violence, sexuality and coarse language in the media remains the subject of considerable scrutiny. In fact, a separate study of prime-time content will be released later this week, comparing programs broadcast during a four-week period in 1999 to a similar span a decade earlier.

This study was commissioned by the Parents Television Council, a group lobbying for the major networks to recognize a “family viewing hour,” delaying all illicit material until after 9 p.m. In broad strokes, it concludes that levels of sexuality and foul language have risen sharply versus 1989, while the quantity of violence stayed roughly the same.

The survey by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which bills itself as nonpartisan, involved viewing at least two episodes of all original fictional TV series on both broadcast and cable networks, the 50 top-rated made-for-TV movies, 50 top-grossing feature films and nearly 200 music videos shown on MTV. The analysis excluded children’s and daytime programs but ventured into late-night TV.

Some may quibble with the terminology, which split scenes into “soft core” and “hard core” categories. The latter included mere discussions of sexual intercourse in programs such as “Friends” and “Ally McBeal,” which were ranked second and third, respectively, among all series on broadcast television in terms of sexual content. Ironically, the lone program outranking them in sexual content, UPN’s “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,” created far more of a stir during its short-lived run for daring to parody the Civil War era than its reliance on low-brow sex jokes.

More than 90% of the “hard core” incidents mentioned on broadcast TV fell under the heading of talk about sex rather than visual images. By contrast, the percentage of actual depictions of sexual acts was far higher on cable TV channels even though the total number of sex-related references and scenes was roughly the same.

On Cable, Showtime and HBO Air Most Sexual Material

Pay services Showtime and Home Box Office were not surprisingly deemed to present the most sexual material among cable networks, with the survey flagging such programs as “Beverly Hills Bordello” and “Compromising Situations,” which air on Showtime late at night and essentially amount to soft-core pornography.

NBC was found to carry the most sexual content among broadcast networks. Although Showtime topped the cable list, the study didn’t incorporate Cinemax, Spice and the Playboy Channel.

Music videos were found to contain more sex per minute than any competing genre, while feature films actually rated somewhat lower than TV as measured here in terms of the overall number of sexual references or acts.

The scatological comedy “There’s Something About Mary” and romance “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” both R-rated, were cited as possessing the most sexual content among the films analyzed. Two movies rated PG-13--”The Wedding Singer,” an Adam Sandler comedy, and the Harrison Ford-Anne Heche adventure “Six Days, Seven Nights”--were ranked among the top 10.

Although TV series such as the WB’s teen-oriented dramas “Felicity” and “7th Heaven” have featured plots dealing with the dangers of sexuality--especially among youths--Lichter insisted such depictions remain the exception to the rule. “People [in TV and movies] just have sex and nothing happens,” he said. “No one gets pregnant, no one gets disease, no one even cares much.”

According to the study, in fact, under the larger umbrella of nonmarital sex, such depictions far outnumber those of sex within the context of marriage. When looking specifically at incidents of extramarital affairs, they were nearly as commonplace as sex involving a married couple.

A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which rates feature films and established the current guidelines for labeling TV programs’ content, said the organization doesn’t comment on studies it hasn’t seen--a policy echoed by NBC and Showtime.