Kids Get Sex Ed From TV Parents, Schools Often Fail To Counter Myths

In the world of television, first dates lead straight to bed, girls don’t say no, and no one stops to think about getting pregnant. But the world that teenagers watch on the tube is not the one they live in - a world shadowed by AIDS and pregnancy and fraught with complex decisions about sex.

“In the movies, the people go on one date and then they go to bed. That never happened to me before,” said Ricky Rainin, a 14-year-old from Huntington, N.Y.

“We know that the media is very powerful in shaping teenagers’ conceptions of sexuality, and the media at large could be doing a better job,” said Susan Tew of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which released the study Monday with the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation.

The study found that 53 percent of 1,500 teenagers 12 to 18 who were surveyed said they get information about sex and birth control from TV shows and movies, and 75 percent said that the way Hollywood portrays teen sex affects them.

One-third of teenagers said that some teenagers have sex because the media makes it seem like the norm for young people.

While the young people said their parents were among their most reliable sources for sexual information, they said their folks don’t give them all the information they need.

Three-fourths of teens said at least one of their parents has talked to them about sex, but less than half said they had discussed birth control with them, and only 55 percent have discussed sexually transmitted diseases.

Forty percent of teens surveyed said they get “a lot” of their information from sex education classes but less than 10 percent of schools include all the factors needed for a comprehensive program, said Debra Haffner, president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

“What’s most missing from sex education is sex,” Haffner said.

Haffner said media images perpetuate the myths that only attractive young people have sex, that intimacy always leads to intercourse and that unprotected sex rarely leads to pregnancy or disease.

“It’s a disservice to sell happily ever after to people when real relationships are a lot of work.”