Exposure to sexual content in films affects youth
Researchers have concluded that for every hour of exposure to sexual content in movies , teens were more than five times more likely to lose their virginity within six years. "Adolescents who are exposed to more sexual content in movies start having sex at younger ages, have more sexual partners , and are less likely to use condoms with casual sexual partners," said Dr. Ross O'Hara, who led the study, which focused on 1,228 children ages 12 to 14, with follow-ups conducted six years later. "This study, and its confluence with other work, strongly suggests that parents need to restrict their children from seeing sexual content in movies at young ages." O'Hara went on to report that while more than half of adolescents use movies and the media as their "greatest source of sexual information," many could not differentiate between what they saw on a screen and what they confronted in real life. Nearly 700 of the highest grossing movies released bet...