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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to