Fewer E.D. Ads! New Teen-Focused Recommendations for Sex-Soaked Culture
Teens now spend a whopping seven hours per day on various forms of media. So the American Academy of Pediatrics just issued a revised policy statement, “Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media,” in the September 2010 print issue of Pediatrics (published online Aug. 30). In addition to calling for the creation of a national task force on children, adolescents and the media to be convened by child advocacy groups in conjunction with the CDC or National Institutes of Health, it includes updated recommendations for pediatricians and parents on how to deal with this sex-soaked culture. Among the new recommendations since 2001:
- In addition to supervising their children’s traditional media use, parents (as well as pediatricians) should understand social networking sites and counsel kids about using them.
- The entertainment industry should be encouraged to produce more programming that contains responsible sexual content and that focuses on the interpersonal relationship in which sexual activity takes place. Meanwhile, advertisers should stop using sex to sell products.
- Pediatricians and the government should urge and encourage the broadcast industry to air advertisements for birth control products.
- Ads for erectile dysfunction drugs, which can be confusing to young viewers, should not air until after 10 p.m.
- Parents can use media story lines as teachable moments to discuss sex with their teens instead of doing “the big talk.”
There should be few ads for ED products and more for birth contol products. And children should love spinach, and other wet dreams of those who would create the perfect culture for others.
And, oh, kid’s use of the internet should be limited because it leads to bad behavior. My age is showing, but I remember well the time when the culture police wanted to ban comic books.
I would recommend fewer story lines about infertility – it is not as common as sitcoms and dramas would have you believe. I have talked to many pregnant teens who thought it was difficult for any woman to get pregnant, or had one minor gynological problem and thought it rendered them infertile (I’m looking at you, Chandler and Monica!)
ED drug companies would lose a vast part of their potential customers with this rule. Most go to bed by 10 p.m. :–))