DAY BY DAY

OC's best family calendar

October 2008 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

KID

QUIPS

During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE

SUBMIT YOUR QUIP

Teen Years

One-Track Minds Is sex the only thing teens think about? By Marcel Przymusinski Published: April, 2003

Print This Article Email This Article RSS Subscribe Digg This Article

From "10 Things I Hate About You" to "Not Another Teen Movie." From "40 Days, 40 Nights" to "Just Married," it's clear that the majority of today's teen-oriented movies focus on one simple theme: sex. And it's not just our movies - try finding a sex-free half-hour on MTV or on NBC's "Friends." From our TV to our music and even our video games, sex permeates modern teen pop culture. But is sex really the only thing on teens' minds? Though it's clearly impossible to make such a generalization about all teens, a few statistics may shed light on the situation. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, 80 percent of girls and 70 percent of boys are sexually inexperienced at age 15. The statistics rise rapidly, however, as age increases; in fact, more than 80 percent of 20-year-old Americans say they have had sex. So a large majority of people do end up having sex in their teens, though most wait until around age 17 to do it. But merely having sex doesn't constitute an obsession, and one wonders why media should be so focused on sexuality. The answer may lie in suppressed boredom. For simplicity's sake, let's focus on cinema: If we didn't fill our movies with sex, what would they be about? Take sex out of most modern plot lines and there's not a whole lot left. The fact is, most teens' lives aren't filled with adventure: We get up, go to school, watch TV, hang out with our friends, maybe spend some time with the family - and we date. Compared to the relatively static nature of school, TV, our friends and our family, dating is a vivid, exciting enterprise that can offer constant change. Perhaps we've simply run out of other things to talk about. Alternatively, the preponderance of sex in film may have something to do with gender stereotypes. Boys are likely to be interested in violent, action-filled flicks, but many of their dates may not appreciate the subtle beauty of shotgun fire. Similarly, girls tend to go for romantic "chick flicks," but the average guy is likely to gag at many of the cheesy plots. Sexually based comedy may function as something of a middle ground, a lighthearted alternative that for some reason seems to satisfy both genders. Whatever the reason, it's important to remember that our generation isn't the first to have a sexual obsession. Teen media has a long history of sexual content; the only reason it's becoming more of an issue today is that subtle innuendo has been replaced by crude, explicit sexual references. While our parents' generation had to infer the sexual undercurrents in their films, today we have full access to candid sexuality. Clearly, the majority of teens aren't likely to get into serious, dramatic media, the stuff of the Cannes Film Festival or the New York Times Book Review. Nonetheless, it would be nice if we could find something to talk about other than sex. Marcel Przymusinski is a student at Troy High School in Fullerton.

SEARCH THE SITE