this just in: raunchy song lyrics cause teens to have sex

A new study published today in the August issue of Pedicatrics,which might be filed under the "No shit, sherlock" file, shows that listening to songs with raunchy lyrics prompts teenages to have sex. (See this local6.com story, spotted via The Drudge Report)

...Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh. Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects, he said.

"We think that really lowers kids' inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful" about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret, he said...

I'm sure all the modern liberals and left-libertarians will make the usual bullshit excuses and deny that popular culture could ever have any effect on behavior (or admit it but not care, as the case may be), but they look more and more pathetic thanks to studies such as this. One 17-year old is a lot smarter than these excuse-makers:

...Natasha Ramsey, a 17-year-old from New Brunswick, N.J., said she and other teens sometimes listen to sexually explicit songs because they like the beat.

"I won't really realize that the person is talking about having sex or raping a girl," she said. Even so, the message "is being beaten into the teens' heads," she said. "We don't even really realize how much."

"A lot of teens think that's the way they're supposed to be, they think that's the cool thing to do. Because it's so common, it's accepted," said Ramsey, a teen editor for Sexetc.org, a teen sexual health Web site produced at Rutgers University...

I think that's the key thing - the repetition and prevalence of a message being pounded into the brain day after day, that it becomes the new norm, the new standard. This is similar to the way people have been told over and over about all the good things that government supposedly does, that their brains are now incapable of imagining a society working without one. It's hard to believe that anyone really thinks that all the hours spent in front of television and movie screens, playing video games and plugged into iPods is not going to have any influence. Not that any of these things are bad, of course - they can all be healthy and entertaining, providing the content is chosen wisely.

As the article goes on to state, the RIAA has nothing to say about all of this:

...The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the U.S. recording industry, declined to comment on the findings...

Of course not: they don't give two shits about what kids are listening to, as long as they obtain the music legally like good little citizens, insuring that the RIAA members get their cut. That's the only sin that matters in their minds: thou shalt not violate copyright law! Let the culture go to hell, but pay us our tribute!

Should the government ban sexually explicit and degrading music? Of course not! But parents would be foolish to not take an interest in what their kids are listening to. And we'd all be foolish to pretend that the morally repugnant product churned out by the entertainment industry has not been a factor in the decline of our culture.