Contraceptive Information, Television and

Despite the proliferation of explicit sexual themes in entertainment programming and commercials on television, ads for birth-control devices are still considered taboo among both media companies and many viewers in the United States. It was not until the late 1980s that some networks reversed their policy against airing any contraceptive commercials in paid programming. Although the causal relationship is not clear, research suggests a correlation between adolescent sexual activity and consumption of sexual content on television. This finding, together with the high rates of teen pregnancy in the United States, suggests that mass media could play a role in contraceptive education. However, unlike a number of other countries, the United States has made limited use of mass media for public health messages. Although there are some instances of such efforts, these examples are few and far between, and their effects on teenage behavior have not been clearly evaluated.

With most citing the threat of AIDS, a number of TV stations and print media outlets began accepting condom advertising in 1987. First, San Francisco's KRON-TV, an NBC affiliate, announced it would end its ban and aired three 15-second spots for Trojan condoms in February of that year. Following KRON's lead, all three network affiliates in Detroit—ABC, NBC and CBS—aired advertisements for condoms, as have a number of major print media, including the New York Times, Time, Inc. publications, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. The reaction in San Francisco was very positive; only 2 out of 100 viewers complained. At about the same time, local TV network affiliates around the country also began showing ads for the disposable contraceptive sponge, leading to a doubling in the number of product inquiries received by the manufacturer.

The networks also have a history of rejecting family planning public service announcements, claiming they are too controversial. In 1985, the networks refused to air a PSA entitled “The Facts,” which told [Page 222]young people, “It's okay to say ‘no,’” but that if they do have sex, then the pill and condom are the safest birth-control methods. Network officials claimed that many of their viewers did not agree with birth control, that they did not want to offend viewers who were opposed to such ads on religious grounds, and that they feared offending existing advertisers. Others said contraception should be discussed only in public affairs and news programs, because news hosts could allow both sides to present their points of view.

Public health experts, meanwhile, questioned the networks' wisdom, pointing out that the United States leads industrialized countries, with nearly 1 million pregnancies each year for girls ages 15 to 19. The networks' position was questionable, critics argueed, because daytime soaps and prime-time series such as Dynasty routinely glamorized sex without suggesting its risks.

Indeed, over the past two decades, the sexual content on television has increased in frequency and explicitness but has seldom included depiction of the use of contraceptives. Concurrently, the age of initiation of heterosexual intercourse has decreased, and the number of teenaged pregnancies has remained high. A recent survey of 1,000 12-to-14-year-old adolescents found that those who watched a larger number of sexy television shows were more likely to have engaged in sexual behavior than those who viewed a smaller proportion of sexual content on television. This relationship held across race and gender groups and regardless of perceived peer encouragement to engage in sex. Although causal direction is not clear from these data, the relationship suggests either that sexual activity results in increased interest in sexual content in the media or that viewing such content leads to sexual activity—or both. In either case, the finding points to the need for further research and increased discussion and portrayal of the use of contraceptives on television.

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