Can listening to sexually aggressive lyrics prompt teenagers to have sex at an earlier age?
That’s the issue raised by a new study, and it could unleash a fierce debate over whether a teen’s music player is potentially risky and, if so, what should or can be done about it.
In an unusual piece of research, investigators at the University of Pittsburgh graded the sexual aggressiveness of lyrics, using songs by popular artists on the US Billboard chart.
The lyrics were graded from the least to the most sexually degrading.
They then asked 711 students aged 15 to 16 at three local high schools about their music preferences and their sexual behavior.
Overall, 31 percent of the teens had had intercourse.
But the rate was only 20.6 percent among those who had been least exposed to sexually degrading lyrics, but 44.6 percent among those highly exposed to the most degrading lyrics.
The study’s lead author, Brian Primack, said music by itself was not the direct spark for sex but helped mould perception and was thus “likely to be a factor” in sexual development.
“These lyrics frequently portray aggressive males subduing submissive females, which may lead adolescents to incorporate this ‘script’ for sexual experience into their world view,” he said.
“Non-degrading” lyrics described sex in a non-specific way and as a mutually consensual act, while “degrading” lyrics described sexual acts as a purely physical, graphic and dominant act.
An example of degrading lyrics was “Wait ‘till you see my dick, I’m gonna beat that pussy up.”
“Lyrics describing degrading sex tend to portray sex as expected, direct and uncomplicated,” said the paper, which appeared last week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “Such descriptions may offer scripts that adolescents feel compelled to play out.”
But Raymond MacDonald, a specialist in music psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University, described it as “a perennial debate that cropped up with artists like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Sex Pistols and Elvis Presley before that.”
“Do we really need a solution to the problem?” he asked.
MacDonald said that even if every generation rehashes the discussion differently, there’s an important difference today: Age lines have blurred and now everyone is listening to everything.
“Maybe we should do a study to see if the music has as bad an influence on grandparents,” he said wryly.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
RSS