Prime time, tonight: A much-plugged episode of “Glee,” where two of the main high-school characters either do — or don’t — have sex. Over on ABC, the lads on “Man Up” are out on the town, carousing for women. Then there’s “90210,” where the whole gang of teens heads to Vegas for clubbing and hooking up.
The Tuesday fall lineup 40 years ago, in 1971? “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Hawaii Five-O” and “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.”
Good times, all right. Just not between the sheets.
Television writers stayed away from bedrooms for decades, until the mid-1970s, when they interpreted the 1960s sexual revolution through shows like “Three’s Company” and “Soap.”
But now the revolution is the mainstream: On TV — and ironically, especially on the networks — it’s all sex, all the time.
The evening spectacle of lust presents some parents with a tricky challenge: How to select shows for kids that offer positive messages for families while wrestling with the inevitable sexual content.
“It comes up all the time in my practice. I think a lot of people are scared and wondering what they should limit and not limit and how to talk about it, and what kind of conversations to have,” said Jane Ginsberg, a Denver psychologist and mother of an 11-year-old girl. “Do you push it? What do you do when they get embarrassed? How do you keep your daughters from being humiliated about their bodies and sexuality?”
Ginsberg watches “Glee” with her daughter every week. The scenes often make her uncomfortable, but she appreciates how “Glee” confronts important sexual issues directly. She prefers the racy show to nominally saccharaine “family” shows like “Hannah Montana Forever,” where the sex is subterranean rather than on parade.
Shows like “Hannah Montana,” she said, have “tons of messages about sexuality, but it’s almost impossible to talk about it because it’s such a part of popular culture. It’s a model of sexuality without it being talked about, where the girls are giggly and stupid and they are nasty with each other. This is not who I want my daughter to be in the world as a woman. I can try to talk about it, but she looks at me, like, ‘please.’ ”
But “Glee” nearly forces her daughter to ask questions. Now, Ginsberg looks forward to the weekly bonding sessions inspired by the show.
Ginsberg’s approach — watching television with her child, and talking about sex references and situations — is the ideal, said Rebecca Collins, a behavorial scientist at the RAND Corp. in California. Collins studies how television affects kids.
When kids encounter sexual messages on TV without their parents around, confusion and uncertainty often result. Parents, she said, can help make sense of the content, and she’s not just speculating. Research of one “Friends” episode, where a condom failed, showed that kids who watched it with parents walked away thinking condoms work most of the time, because that’s what their parents told them. The kids who watched it solo, though, believed condoms didn’t work.
Prime-time situations like the condom failure, which were novelties back when the “Friends” episode aired in 2001, have become routine.
Sexual content between the 1990s and 2000s doubled on television, said Collins. More shows now portray or refer to sex, and the volume of sexual content within shows has ballooned. Meanwhile, other research reveals that “there is a strong relationship between what kids see and hear in TV and what they do later sexually.”
“We know that among kids who haven’t had sex, you can predict who will have sex the soonest by who is watching the most sexual content on TV,” said Collins.
Even reality TV shows that seem potentially healthy — not candidates for pushing kids toward hooking up — are minefields.
Boulder mom Joy Straka, 45, a handbag designer, likes to watch “Project Runway” with her middle-school daughter, but “they are bleeping stuff and they are showing a lot of boobs and it’s pretty sexual.”
“You just do your best, right?” she said. “I guess everybody is just doing their best, and everybody will have a different opinion based on their family.”
Many families might find network television a carnal playground, but it’s not the only game in town. Cable television offers parents a host of family-friendly shows, said Sierra Filucci, the TV editor at Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based, independent nonprofit that reviews media for families and rates content.
“You really can’t rely on the networks,” she said. “You don’t just sit down at 7 and expect the content to work with your family. But there is a lot of stuff out there.”
In addition to cable, services like Netflix let parents introduce their kids to shows they know are safe, even ones the parents grew up with decades ago, like “Bewitched” or “Family Ties.”
Either way — “Glee” or “The Cosby Show” — Filucci said parents should always “challenge those messages they get from the media that are exaggerating sex.”
“Especially with girls,” she said. “There is a lot of sexualization of girls on TV that doesn’t reflect real life, and it’s good for parents to talk to their kids about it, to say, ‘Hey, does that seem realistic? Do you see that in your school? What would it be like if you dressed like that in school?’ ”
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
Lots of family-friendly show options
Navigating network prime time, for some parents, requires tricky maneuvering. Shows that might be family-friendly for some, like “Modern Family,” “The Middle” and “Glee,” could be sex-filled no-nos for others.
No matter what shows you watch, sexual content — jokes, asides, situations, innuendo — is a given.
But for parents who shrink from letting their kids watch shows that even reference sex, all is not lost.
Sierra Filucci, the TV editor at Common Sense Media, said the contemporary TVscape is sprinkled with great, sex-free shows just not on the networks (with a few exceptions). Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) is an independent, nonprofit organization that examines and rates media content for language, sex, violence and other factors.
Filucci recommends parents check out the shows listed below. She also recently compiled a list of “15 Great TV Shows You’ve Never Heard Of”
“Majors and Minors,” on the cable channel The Hub. It’s a reality show like “American Idol,” only the kids are younger and the content is wholesome.
“The Incredible Dr. Pol,” on National Geographic Channel. A reality series about a rural veterinarian.
“Call of the Wildman,” on Animal Planet. A reality show about animal rescues, featuring a backwoods man in Kentucky.
“Once Upon a Time,” on ABC (a network!). A show inspired by classic fairy tales. Common Sense Media says the language can be slightly crude, and there is a lot of fairy-tale-style violence (sword fights), but otherwise it should be OK for most families.
“SciGirls,” on PBS. Tween girls brainstorm over things they are curious about, and then work with professionals to turn their ideas into reality.
“H20: Just Add Water,” on DVD and through streaming. Mermaid teen girls in Australia have adventures.
“Everybody Hates Chris,” on Nickelodeon, DVD and streaming. Middle school in the 1980s, based on experiences of comedian Chris Rock. Thoughtful and funny commentary about race.
“Culture Click,”on ABC (Saturday mornings). Investigative series that draws links between contemporary culture and history, so, for example, connections between Justin Beiber and Cleopatra.
“Little House on the Prairie,” Hallmark Channel, DVD. Classic 1970s and ’80s show about life on the frontier.
“Good Eats,” Cooking Channel, Food Network. A fun, quirky mixture of cooking and science starring Alton Brown.
Douglas Brown
