Daily HealthBeat Tip

Sex and rough music

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

It's harder for teenagers to say no to sex when their music is teaching them to say yes. Researchers say survey data on teens show that. The study compared teens who listened mostly to lyrics that the scientists described as ``degrading'' with teens who listened to other stuff.

Rebecca Collins of the RAND Corporation says the degrading music treated men as insatiable and women as objects. And she says about half of teens who listened to this stuff the most had been having sex two years later.

"Listening to sexually degrading music lyrics almost doubled the rates of new intercourse in our sample." (six seconds)

Collins says teens need to be aware they could be learning the wrong message � and parents should talk with them.

The study in Pediatrics was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August 25, 2006

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