Week 3: Degrading Vs. Nondegrading Lyrics

This week I read the article "Exposure to Degrading versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics And Sexual Behavior Among Youth, " by Stephen C. Martino, Rebecca L. Collins, and others. This was an insightful article that discussed the relationship between teenage sex and the lyrics of certain popular music. They made it clear that they believed degrading versus non degrading music does lead to subsequent changes in adolescent behavior. They then conducted a study to test this hypothesis by having a sample of teens take a survey about this subject. Their research showed that in fact that their is a correlation between teens that listen to degrading lyrics and advances in adolescent sexual behavior. Despite their findings, I find that I disagree with this notion. I believe it is a fascinating subject and a well structured experiment, however I believe that too many adolescents listen to such a variety of different artists that one cannot conclude it is merely the lyrics of certain artists with degrading lyrics that lead to a rise in sexual adolescent exploration. In other words, a kid can listen to some of the raw degrading lyrics of Biggie Smalls and on the next song decide to play light hearted lyrics by Green Day. The reason for increase in sexual advances in teens is the entire mass media that they are exposed to, which this experiment adds too, I just don't think the lyrics themselves are entirely to blame.