This article is interesting, but not surprising the
messaging that women are sexual objects and that men pursue women with sex in
mind is not new.
‘Relationship
television’ affects the sexual expectations of emerging adults differently
What young men and women expect
from their sexual relationships is influenced in different ways by the
television programmes they watch, according to a new study in Communication Monographs.
Hilary Gamble and Leslie R.
Nelson studied the effect of ‘relationship television’, that is, programmes
which feature romantic relationships and themes, on 18–25 year olds.
Their starting point was the
different messages that television programmes send out – and the concern that
‘emerging men and women’ may have incompatible sexual expectations for their
current and future relationships as a result.
As the pair observes: “In
essence, television programming communicates to viewers that the male sexual
role involves active pursuit of sexual activity to prove one’s masculinity,
whereas the female sexual role involves objectifying oneself for men’s
enjoyment and being virtuous by not being sexual.”
Recognising these stereotypes
and double standards is important, as research shows that younger viewers use
television to develop their own ‘sexual scripts’. Add to this the fact that men
and women interpret information about sex differently, as well as have
different ‘sexual strategies and attitudes’ based on their own reproductive
needs, and a very complicated picture of potential sexual expectations emerges.
To fine-tune this picture, Gamble
and Nelson asked over 200 students to indicate how often they watched certain
shows and how realistic they thought they were. They also asked to them answer
a series of questions about how their experiences in relationships compared
with their expectations.
To their surprise, they found
that as women’s ‘relationship television’ viewing increased, so too did their
expectations for sexual interaction in their relationship; on the other hand,
men’s expectations for sexual interaction in their relationship stayed
consistent.
“This finding was surprising
given the … literature that says women should be less concerned with sex than
men and should expect more intimacy in their relationships,” they write.
“Women’s sexual expectations may be more influenced by their television viewing
than men because so many messages about sex on television relate to men’s
sexual insatiability.”
The ‘ceiling effect’ may also
account for the differences between young men and women’s expectations. The
authors write: “Men reported higher sexual expectations in relationships
compared to women, therefore it may have been more difficult for men’s
relationship television viewing to predict any additional sexual expectations
over and above those they have formed from other sources. Women’s reported
sexual expectations had room to vary, and their relationship television viewing
was able to predict some of this variance.”
Gamble and Nelson’s research
provides important insight into how young people’s attitudes and expectations
about sex develop. Their results suggest that relationship television ‘may
actually reduce the difference between men and women’s sexual expectations in
relationships’. If only they could agree on which television shows to watch.
JOURNALISTS
When referencing the article:
Please include Communication
Monographs, Hilary Gamble & Leslie R. Nelson, published by
Taylor & Francis and the following statement:
* Read the full article online: http://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03637751.2015.1049635
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