WASHINGTON — More than a year after federal authorities launched a crackdown on broadcast indecency, television remains so awash in sex that 7 in 10 episodes include some kind of racy content, a study released Wednesday shows.
The results from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation also found that the number of sexual scenes in sitcoms, dramas and reality shows nearly doubled since 1998, while depictions of abstinence or "safe sex" were on the wane.
However, the study found that overt sexual activity and references were far less common than talk about sex, and many of the activities it tallied consisted of banter, kissing and touching. Only 10% of the shows depicted or implied sexual intercourse, the study found.
One example cited came from "The Gilmore Girls," a WB network drama popular with teens, in which the character Lorelai Gilmore urges her daughter, Rory, to get angry after they spot her boyfriend kissing another woman on the neck in public.
"Aren't you guys sleeping together?" Lorelai asks.
"Mom, it's college.... We're both busy, you know; we have classes; we have friends. It's good to just keep things casual," Rory says.
The report also cited an episode of ABC's "Hope & Faith" in which Faith shows up for her first day of work at a dental office in stiletto heels and a low-cut nurse's outfit, aiming to seduce a male patient.
Kaiser, a nonprofit group in Menlo Park, Calif., makes no recommendations in its report. But Kaiser officials said they hoped it would focus attention on whether television influenced casual attitudes toward sex by teens, who the study estimates watch 20 hours of TV a week.
"We are not saying TV is to blame for this phenomenon," said University of Arizona communications professor Dale Kunkel, who helped conduct the study. "But research is indicating that TV has an impact."
Kaiser said it studied what its researchers considered to be a representative sampling of programs on major broadcast and cable channels. Not included were sports or children's programs, nor were some channels, such as MTV and Comedy Central, that carry a high level of sexual content.
Kaiser's sample found 3,780 scenes with sexual activity, compared with 1,930 seven years ago when it first examined the issue. In that report, 56% of the shows studied included sexual content, compared with 70% today.
