Especially for Parents
News and Commentary by Sharon Secor
March 2004
Culture War Casualties
There are many who believe that America is in the throes of a culture war, with factions of our population seeking to impose their radically different visions of morality, family and society throughout the nation. Indeed, many of the battles of these culture clashes are being fought out in the media and in educational institutions—which impacts directly the realms of childhood and adolescence. As adult alternative social and sexual agendas infiltrate the recreational and educational spheres of adolescence and childhood, all too often our children become culture war casualties.
In typical American post-modern patterns of child rearing and development, as a child progresses through late childhood and into adolescence, the influence of the parents decreases significantly as the influence of peers increases. Media is the foundation upon which the popular culture of youth is built. Thus, in terms of how the average child is raised, media, by shaping the cultural environment of youth (which is then re-enforced by what becomes the primary reference group of many teens - other teenagers, who are influenced by the same media) plays a significant role in the social and sexual development of children.
On February 19, 2004, a report titled Impact of the Media on Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors was released to the public. Funded with monies from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, the Medical Institute for Sexual Health did the research. It should come as no surprise that researchers found that American youth are continuously bombarded with sexual material.
"It's everywhere ...even if they tried, kids can't escape it," said Dr. Joe McIlhaney Jr., president of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, according to a February 20, 2004, article by Joyce Howard Price, published in The Washington Times.
Music is an aspect of media that is of particular importance to youth, as was pointed out by Dr. Michael Rich, speaking for the American Academy Pediatrics before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in 2002.
"As a pediatrician who specializes in adolescent medicine, I am keenly aware of how crucial music is to a teen's identity and how it helps them define important social and interpersonal behaviors," said Rich in his testimony.
And, these essential processes of identity formation, these basic adolescent processes of defining and internalizing "important social and interpersonal behaviors" are increasingly being polluted by the convicted criminals, drug dealers and self-proclaimed pimps that populate the rap music genre. Despite their close relationship to the pornography industry, as well as their ties to drugs, violence, gang activity and the degradation of women, healthy sexuality and the family unit, hip-hop and gangster rap are now mainstream.
"You can't miss it now—hip-hop has totally infiltrated the fabric of society," said Mr. Portnow, president of the Grammy-governing Recording Academy, according to a February 8, 2004 article by Thor Christensen of The Dallas Morning News. Indeed, in this year's Grammy Awards, hip-hop set records for nominations and wins, with even the award for album of the year going to the rap group Outkast.
It's not only young adults and teens that are affected by the hip-hop flood. Rap music also casts its shadow into the lives of young children.
"In the last five years, rap and hip-hop is [sic] everywhere from Taco Bell to Sprite to Froot Loops to Nickelodeon to Sesame Street," said singer and rapper Erykah Badu, as quoted by Christensen in The Dallas Morning News.
On November 29, 2003, AllHipHop.com reported that rappers 50 Cent, who wears his gunshot scars with pride, and Lloyd Banks will be adding their voices to a planned Saturday morning cartoon project. Rapper Beanie Sigel and other Rock-A-Fella Family rappers also are planning a cartoon. On July 7 of last year, MTV.com reported that Sigel was arrested and charged with attempted murder in a shooting. This, in addition to assault charges from January 9, 2003, and weapons charges from an April 20, 2003, arrest, according to a July 10, 2003 MTV.com report.
The Impact of the Media on Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors report states that the average youth in the United States "spends one-third of each day with various forms of mass media"—including television, movies, the Internet, music, radio and video games—"mostly without parental oversight."
The March edition of Harris International Trends and Tudes contained the responses to a poll question asked of youth aged 10 to 18, concerning the limitations that their parents put on Internet usage (See the March issue at this link [PDF], data on pg. 4). Only 16% of the 13- to 18-year olds reported that they had rules about what web sites they could go to. 16% of that age group reported time limits concerning how long they could spend on-line. Just 13% of teens said that they had rules about with whom they were able to communicate while on-line.
"Our lack of understanding of how this impacts youth is stunning..." said Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., president of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, in reference to the flood of sexual content children are subjected to, according to The Washington Times report.
More stunning, perhaps, is that so many adults fail to consider the impact of such media on youth, or naively assume that their children are mature enough to handle the impact, or are more concerned with enriching themselves or advancing one self-serving social or sexual agenda or another than in spending the necessary time to nurture and supervise their children.
According to the Impact of the Media on Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors report, "several studies suggest a relationship between the sex-saturated media and adolescents' sexual attitudes and practices."
The terms "attitudes and practices" don't begin to convey the serious harms that children and teens are exposed to in the current sexual climate of the media.
Much has been written on the increase of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV-infection and other STDs that can leave a teen unable to bear children later in life. The affects of the chaos and poverty that all-too-often shape the lives of teen mothers and their babies are well-known. The increase in juvenile sex offenders and the decrease in age of these offenders have been internationally documented, as have adolescent trends towards the more extreme and perverse sexual behaviors modeled in the media. News stories of children publicly performing sexual acts in classrooms and on school buses are no longer shocking, just sad.
Yet, as tragic as these occurrences are, there is yet another deep harm, one that strikes at the very root of what makes the rewarding and joyous relationships of adulthood possible. By separating sex from the context of commitment and reducing it to a physical sensation that is, more often than not, devoid of real emotion, the potential for a successful marriage, the foundation of family, is damaged.
A series of related articles in the October 20, 2003, edition of New York Magazine described the inability of many young people, male and female, to achieve relationships rich in emotional trust and sexual intimacy and the resulting feelings of emptiness and loneliness. The over-exposure to graphic sexual material produces unrealistic physical and sexual expectations in both men and women that promote dissatisfaction with themselves and their potential partners, and painfully limit the essential abilities for the respect and emotional connection that form the base of a strong marriage.
It seems clear that the best course of action to ensure the mental and physical health of our youth would be to reduce the flow of inappropriate sexual material and to speak and teach the truth of the matter—children and teens should not have sex. Yet, the concept of abstinence, while clearly the best for youth, has become a politically charged issue.
Indeed, even in the children's realm of education, it seems that social and political agendas come before what is best for children and adolescents. Whose agendas or best interests are being served by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education? (See pages 12, 16, 30 and 31.) SIECUS recommends that children between 5 and 8 years of age be taught about masturbation, that elementary school students be taught about homosexuality and bisexuality and that high-school students be taught about anal and oral sex. And, on page 12 of the publication, we are assured that "these guidelines are only a beginning."
Are we really to believe that following these recommendations will serve the best interests of children? Are children best served by being taught by their teachers how to obtain an abortion or contraceptives without parental consent or notification?
Condoms, even the jazzy new hip-hop condoms put out in urban youth-oriented shiny, cartoon covered packages by Common Ground USA, are coming under increased scrutiny concerning their effectiveness against a variety of STDs, particularly as used by teens. Teenagers are much more likely to use condoms incorrectly or inconsistently.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the STDs that are drawing attention. HPV can lead to cervical cancer, among other medical complications. According CDC research published in the January/February issue of Allan Guttmacher Institute's Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, "HPV infection accounts for over half of all new sexually transmitted diseases among young Americans aged 15-24." In a March 10, 2004, Associated Press story, Jason Straziuso reported that "more than 50 percent of sexually active Americans will contract the disease [HPV], which can be transmitted even when condoms are used, at some time in their lifetimes."
There was a time when we, as individuals and as a culture, shielded children from the more complex matters of adulthood, allowing them to reach a level of maturity at which information on these matters would be both understood and useful before presenting it to them. Today, we have children that know how to put a condom on a banana, but are unable to read the package it came in. There was a time that we knew that children were sensitive individuals, dependent upon our moral guidance to keep them safe. Today, that concept is ridiculed as an impractical relic of the past, while the health and futures of our children become casualties of the culture war.