by Ed Vitagliano
(AgapePress) – A new study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the amount of sex on network TV increased dramatically between the 1997 season and the 1999 season.
Researchers for the foundation combed through more than 1,100 programs, documented the amount of sex shown, implied or discussed, and tabulated the results. The Kaiser study found that 68% of TV shows include sexual content, an increase of 12 percentage points from its previous study during the 1997/98 seasons. [See chart 1.]
Movies and sitcoms were the worst offenders, with 89% and 84% containing sexual content, respectively. Other genres containing sex were soap operas (80%), news magazines (74%), dramas (69%), talk shows (67%) and reality shows (27%).
The Kaiser study especially tagged sitcoms and dramas as those shows which had had the sharpest increases in sexual content from one study to the next: the sexual content jumped from 56% of sitcoms in 97/98 to 84% in 99/00; in dramas it rose less steeply (58% to 69%).
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
The Kaiser study also found a variety in the relationships between those characters having sexual intercourse, whether it was depicted or strongly implied. Half of all sexual encounters involved individuals who were said to have had “an established romantic relationship,” although the study did not delineate between individuals who were married or not. Another 41% either “just met” or they knew each other but did not have a “romantic relationship.” [See chart 2.]
According to a copy of the report on the Kaiser website, the channels included in the study were ABC, CBS, Fox, HBO, Lifetime, NBC, TNT, PBS, USA and WB.
The foundation said it was committed to conducting the survey once every two years “to provide an accurate yardstick by which to measure changes in sexual content on television.”
Indiana 'Church Ladies' Purchase Porn Flicks to Make Statement
by Allie Martin
(AgapePress) – Pro-family activists in one Indiana city are helping take hundreds of porn videos out of circulation.
When Donna Gentry learned that a video rental store in Washington, Indiana, was liquidating its inventory, she wanted to be sure the X-rated videos did not make their way into the community. She realized this could be an opportunity to make a statement about adult videos.
“We bought those tapes … to get them out of the children's hands, and also we wanted to make a public statement that what's in these porn tapes is very destructive and very addictive,” Gentry said. “So we planned a smashing party.”
Gentry, along with other concerned Christians, raised $3,000 to buy nearly 300 pornographic videos — which were then crushed by an asphalt paving roller at a public rally.
“An asphalt business in town … loaned us their asphalt roller,” she said. “We just held a rally and smashed those porn tapes.”
Gentry credits the efforts of her group of “church ladies.”
“Our group … consists of [what some people called] 'church ladies,' but we're all from different denominations,” she says, “and we go from lawyers … to somebody who can only give five dollars. But we all joined together.”
Now Gentry is trying to raise enough money to buy the rest of the store's X-rated tapes, which will also be destroyed.
