A 2008 Parents Television and Media Council study found that sex in the context of marriage was at that time either non-existent on prime-time broadcast television, or depicted as a burdensome, rather than as an expression of love and commitment. Across the broadcast networks, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in the context of marriage by nearly 3 to 1; and scenes depicting or implying sex between nonmarried partners outnumbered scenes depicting or implying sex between married partners by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1.
We are seeing the impact of Hollywood’s anti-marriage messaging show up in our culture today.
In 2007, the year in which the data for that analysis was collected, 42% of women aged 15-44 were married. By 2022, that share dropped to 37%, amounting to some 3.1 million fewer marriages. In 1970, 17% of adults 18 and over had never been married. Today it’s 31%.
Fewer young people anticipate getting married and having children, and fewer young people believe that having a good marriage is important. Recent data from the Pew Research Center tells us that only one in four adults believe that having children is “extremely” or “very” important to a fulfilling life.
Why have so many young adults fallen out of love with love?
Although there may be several factors, Hollywood has played its part. We are seeing the fruits of TV’s toxic attitude toward love, monogamy, and marriage. I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that the generation that grew up watching the programs that denigrated marriage and family are now disinterested in getting married and starting families.
I am encouraged that there are young adults speaking out about how they are increasingly turned-off by hook-up culture that Hollywood is constantly trying to sell them.
“Katie,” a 23-year-old young woman who embraced “hookup” culture when she went to college told BuzzFeed News, “It feels like we were tricked into exploiting ourselves [and] tricked into thinking it was our idea… I would say I gathered this mostly from media, Sex and the City, Girls — HBO somehow did a number on me — books, social media… You read a lot about [sex positivity] on Tumblr, you read a lot about it on Twitter when you were in high school, [and] it gets really ingrained in your brain that you need to be comfortable having sex with someone you’re not committed to. I think in my feeble 18-year-old mind, it was probably not what I needed to hear.”
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As toxic as TV content was 15 years ago, it has only gotten worse in the years since.
HBO’s “Naked Attraction” tells us that the first and really the only thing that matters in choosing a romantic partner is what they look like naked.
HBO’s “The Idol” tells teens sex has to be manipulative, dangerous, and even cause physical harm to be exciting.
HBO’s “Euphoria” depicted college freshman choking his high school-aged girlfriend during sex – an encounter eerily similar to one “Katie” described to BuzzFeed News: “There’s people I’ve hooked up with where they just immediately choked me and I was like, this was not discussed, I don’t know you… I’ve had some kooky experiences with men where I was open to [hooking up] at first, then realized, I’m in a place that I don’t know, I don’t know how old you are, I don't know your name, I’m blackout drunk, and that’s obviously not fun.”
“Katie” is not alone in thinking Hollywood did a number on her. More and more young people aren’t buying the version of “love” – i.e. hookup culture – Hollywood’s been trying to sell them. A recent survey from UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers found that a majority of teens want to see fewer stories about dating and more stories about friendship (51.5%), and a near majority (47.5%) said that sex isn’t needed for the plot of most TV shows and movies.
Mass media has been called a “sexual super peer” -- meaning that teens look to the media for cues about how they are expected to behave. If the media is telling them that as teens, they are expected to be sexually active, have multiple partners, and engage in high-risk sexual behavior, that’s what teens are likely to believe. And yet, studies show that sexually active adolescents are at high risk for depression and suicide, and that early sexual experience among adolescents is associated with other high-risk, behaviors like drinking alcohol and drug use.
And yet Hollywood is continuing to produce and market hyper-sexualized content to teens; despite the fact that a majority of teens say they don’t want it, despite the fact that exposure to sexualized media content is strongly associated with earlier initiation of sexual behavior in teens, despite the fact that sexually active teens are at risk for mental health challenges, and despite the fact that America’s teens are experiencing an unprecedented mental health crisis.
Hollywood is out of touch, and not delivering what audiences actually want. Worse, the sexualized content they are pushing on kids is doing them harm and it’s causing young people to take a dark view of relationships, dating, and marriage.
Melissa Henson is the Vice President of the Parents Television and Media Council, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment. On X: @ThePTC
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