"But that won't happen to me!" Sexual Attitudes and Television Explored

While reading Eyal and Kunkel's study entitled "The Effects of Sex in Television Drama Shows on Emerging Adults' Sexual Attitudes and Moral Judgments," I thought carefully about my own thoughts, opinions, experiences, and social group. The study concludes that the more negative consequences from sexual behavior that emerging adults view on telelvision, the more negatively they will view sexual behavior in general. 

But what if the viewer practices safe sex every time? Will they stil view a pregnancy on television as negatively as a virgin? A quick survey of my friends, both virgins and non-virgins says overwhelmingly "no." Many of the girs in my social circle watched the show The Secret Life of the American Teenager, in which one of the main characters becomes pregnant. Watch the scene in which Amy finds out she is pregnant in the link below to see the potential impact on the viewer. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8y6oqZqrcY

Amy, a young girl, is visibly upset, terrified, and has an overall face of "doom" upon reading her take-home pregnancy test. Members of my friend group with little to no sexual experience tended to be much more affected by this scene than those girls who had more experience. The non-virgins held an idea along the lines of "yeah, that won't happen to me, but that is pretty scary." When nothing goes wrong, most people tend to think that they are doing things the right way. The girls with no sex experiences said that they were terrified that they would get pregnant and that the fear of pregancy makes them want to prolong the amount of time before they become sexually active. 

The same goes for STDs. In Sex and the City, a favorite television show among young women, both Charlotte and Miranda contract sexually transmitted diseases from one of their multiple partners. Although these events on the show definitely show the negative consequences of sexually transmitted diseases and promiscuous sex, I feel that many girls do not believe that they will contract an STD from similar behavior because, as one of my friends said "Those women are so slutty! It's shocking they don't have more!" Because the characters statistically have significantly more sexual partners than the average woman, viewers don't feel as negatively because they cannot relate to the characters based on lack of experience with a high number of sexual partners (yes, the opposite of my pregnancy example.) 

In short, I feel that there is more to the negative sexual consequences on television--negative views toward sexual behavior study. A person's experience is her number one source of knowledge and base by which she views everything she sees. It is hard to overcome what she believes to be true based on things that have happened to her personally. If she has unprotected sex regularly and never has a preganancy scare, will she really be that affected by Amy's pregnancy on Secret Life? As far as negative consequences on television go, I think that the "Yeah, but that won't happen to me!" response is the most common among emerging adults. 

Eyal, K., & Kunkel, D. (2008). He Effects of Sex in Television Drama Shows on Emerging Adults' Sexual Attitudes and Moral Judgments. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, June 2008, 161-183