Does Sex and the City cause teenage girls to get pregnant?

So the headline screams, SEX AND THE CITY CAUSES TEEN PREGNANCY!

Teenagers who watch Sex in the City, Friends and other TV shows featuring sex scenes and discussions of sex are far more likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant than their peers, a new study has found.

The study, which tracked more than 700 sexually active teenagers aged between 12 and 17 for three years, discovered that those who viewed the most sexual content were almost twice as likely to get pregnant or get their girlfriend pregnant as those who saw the least explicit TV.

The problem is that this data says nothing about cause and effect (nor even what TV shows are included other than the two mentioned). It is likely that teenagers having the most sex would be the most interested in watching TV shows where the characters talk about sex. Thus, sex causes viewership of these TV shows and not the other way around.

On the other hand, I do think that Sex and the City promotes a dysfunctional view of the world, and far too many young female viewers don't get the fact that the characters are supposed to be parodies and not role models.

Comments

[Peter]

"It is likely that teenagers having the most sex would be the most interested in watching TV shows where the characters talk about sex."

Exactly.

--

"On the other hand, I do think that Sex and the City promotes a dysfunctional view of the world, and far too many young female viewers don't get the fact that the characters are supposed to be parodies and not role models."

I'm not so sure ... a young woman would have to be fairly stupid not to realize that the character's aren't meant to be role models, and the show's viewership has always been relatively upscale.

[Bruno Brazil]

Is that so hard to use condoms and a contraceptive pill? Two methods in use can´t fail.

[Rain And]

"the characters are supposed to be parodies and not role models."

"a young woman would have to be fairly stupid not to realize that the character's aren't meant to be role models,"

What's the basis for this assertion. The characters are definitely portrayed as sympathetic and empowering.

Not that I care.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

why not comment about a female lawyer in NYC who appear to almost never work. I thought most lawyers in NYC were pulling long hours in the quest to make more money and make partner?

[Prime Time]

"why not comment about a female lawyer in NYC who appear to almost never work. I thought most lawyers in NYC were pulling long hours in the quest to make more money and make partner?"

Well, it is Teevee. It requires a suspension of reality.

[superdestroyer]

But isn't part of the false role model is that not only are the women all very wealthy but they do not have to work very hard or for very many hours.

[sabril]

Actually I would be more worried that Sex and the City (and other shows in its genre) will have the opposite effect: That it will encourage educated young women to spend their prime reproductive years screwing around (literally and figuratively) rather than getting married and having children.

"why not comment about a female lawyer in NYC who appear to almost never work. I thought most lawyers in NYC were pulling long hours in the quest to make more money and make partner?"

That's incorrect and one of the few realistic notes of the series - she's shown as working around 60-70 hours a week and struggling with that once she becomes a mother (her baby barely recognizes her as she's never home). I agree that the other characters, however, are not seen to work that much.

[Richard H]

"On the other hand, I do think that Sex and the City promotes a dysfunctional view of the world, and far too many young female viewers don't get the fact that the characters are supposed to be parodies and not role models."

I picked up a magazine while waiting in a checout line once and saw an interview with Sarah Michelle Parker where she patted herself on the back for making a show that empowered women.

I remember watching one episode where the red headed one at the start of the show was in bed with a black guy (the first and only black boyfriend on the show). I said to myself "I bet my life he'll turn out to be a doctor and a great guy that everybody loves." Sure enough, I was right. Hilarious how liberals think that they're beyond any kind of moralizing because they believe in screwing everything but are totally predictable in their worship of homosexuals and blacks.

[janes'_kid]

I read the article at washingtonpost.com and it said that the teens were contacted and questioned by phone.

Who believes anything a teen says, much less on the phone?

"Hilarious how liberals think that they're beyond any kind of moralizing because they believe in screwing everything but are totally predictable in their worship of homosexuals and blacks."

How does one black boyfriend in the probably close to 100 male love interests introduced on a show that lasted several years equal worship of blacks? What made SATC odd was that for a show based in NYC, there were no black people anywhere. Furthermore, the woman in question was a wealthy BIGLAW partner - how likely is it that she's going to hook up with a non-professional of any race?

[David Alexander]

"That it will encourage educated young women to spend their prime reproductive years screwing around (literally and figuratively) rather than getting married and having children."

What's wrong with that? Getting married and having kids is a waste of an education.

[whiskey]

Women are having kids, they are not however marrying. The Nuclear Family is just dead.

We live in a single motherhood world. If anything the show encourages more single motherhood while pursuing Mr. Big.

[Asher]

"a young woman would have to be fairly stupid not to realize that the character's aren't meant to be role models"

This reminds me of the recent post here about survivor's fallacy. There are actually people who manage to live like the girls on Sex, but it is a sliver of very talented and very lucky people. Most people who aim for it, simply cannot pull it off but they are enticed by the few examples of those who do.

[eddie]

"What made SATC odd was that for a show based in NYC, there were no black people anywhere."

I don't think that is all that unique of a situation. It is the same on Seinfeld, Friends, Will and Grace, How I Met Your Morher, etc.

[superdestroyer]

the program executives are smart enough to know that putting in black characters in a show aimed at whites is a potential mine field. How can you have a comedy where the white characters cannot make fun of the black characters. How do you have the exaggerations of a comedy without risking the problems of stereotyping.

Speaking of shows set in NYC, I love the multicultural high schools in Law and Order. If cliques and students groups are needed for a plot, then Law and Order creats an NYC public schools that is one quarter white, one quarter black, one quarter hispanic, and one quarter Asian. yet, the only student groups that has student cliques is the white group. I guess the white upper class writers do know how to protray cliques using black or Asian students.

[hannah]

Sex and the city is awsome. it talks about love and relationships not just sex. Its not the show that makes girls get pregnant its the girls themselves they choose to act.