Does Explicit Music Really Lead to Sex? (or, “I’ve Read the Article So You Don’t Have To”)

August 8th, 2006

Filed under: Medicine, News, Politics

I absolutely loathe the use of misleading statistics or poorly-interpreted results to prove a point. I don’t care if I agree with the argument in question or not, bad statistics are bad statistics and should be addressed whenever and wherever they are found. News reports yesterday provided us a good example of this:

Fox TV: Sexual Song Lyrics Prompt Teens to Have Sex Sooner
MSNBC: Raunchy Songs Can Prompt Earlier Teen Sex
CNN: Study: Sexy Music Sexy Music Triggers Teen Sex

It was hard to miss those headlines. A recently published study, partially funded by the “think tank” Rand Corporation, addresses the subject of teens, musical choice, and sexual behavior, but the actual results are not nearly as dramatic as the media outlets — or even the study authors — would have you believe.

The article, “Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior Among Youth“, is published in the most recent issue of Pediatrics, a well-respected medical journal – though it is toward the back of the issue.

In the study, researchers questioned teenagers by phone at three instances over a period of several years about their musical preferences and their sexual behaviors. The results suggest that there is a correlation between listening to music with degrading sexual lyrics and earlier initiation of sexual intercourse. That’s pretty much all the study shows: adolescents that listen to sexually charged music tend to experience sex earlier.

Note that the study does not demonstrate causation, it only shows correlation. It does not show that listening to sexual music causes or is responsible for this sexual behavior. The authors would like us to think that they’ve controlled for every other possible variable that could explain sexual behavior, but given that we don’t know all these variables, it’s hard to see how they could control for them. In fact, at the end of the article, the authors hedge their bets and admit this very fact.

The bottom line is that the authors and reporters are reading entirely too much into the study. It’s yet another example of the post hoc ergo proctor hoc fallacy equating correlation with causation. I’ve seen this behavior frequently from the media, but I become concerned when I see authors who should know better using the same poor logic. This is a study published to justify a point of view, not advance science.

A few final thoughts:

  • Teenagers lie, particularly about sex, even to researchers on the phone. I see no mention of whether this was addressed at all.
  • The study only addresses a strictly heterosexual definition of sex. Going simply by the numbers, several hundred of their respondants were likely to be homosexual.
  • The musical grading of “sexual vs non-sexual” and “degrading vs non-degrading” is entirely subjective.
  • The researchers only asked about an extremely limited number of performers (16).
  • Many of the p values (the measure of the likelihood that the results were obtained purely by chance and not by correlation) are too high to be making such strong pronouncements. Strangley, no r values (the measure of correlation) are listed.
  • Personally, I’m always suspicious of reports that come out of “think tanks” (though at least this one was published in a peer-reviewed journal).

9 Responses to “ Does Explicit Music Really Lead to Sex? (or, “I’ve Read the Article So You Don’t Have To”) ”

  1. Dorian
    August 8th, 2006 at 1:25 pm

    I was highly skeptical of this study as well when I heard about it, chiefly for several of the reasons you cite. I think any study about people’s sexual behavior has to be taken with a grain of salt, because people regularly lie about their sex lives. Studies of this kind routinely ignore the existence of gay men and women, even moreso when the studies focus on teenagers. And the definition of what is and is not “degrading” music seems entirely subjective.

  2. Jer
    August 8th, 2006 at 1:34 pm

    Having not read the study, did the authors give any indication why we might believe that listening to sexually charged music leads teens to having sex, and not, say, teens who are already more inclined to have sex earlier happen to like sexually charged music? I mean, not only is corellation not causation, but you also have to give some indication of why you believe the arrow of causality points the way you think it points. I’m suspicious of the lack of r values, but I don’t know how common that might be in the field.

    (And does having the article at the back of a journal give it less credibility in your field? In mine, if it makes it through peer review, its just as credible as the stuff at the front of the journal - at least until someone comes along with a new article showing why the first one was bunk.)

  3. Scott
    August 8th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
    Official Comment

    An article in the back of a legitimate peer-reviewed journal is just as credible, however its placement suggests to me that the editors do not believe it’s worthy of as much hype and publicity as it’s been getting.

    The authors provide a fair amount of reasoning why they feel the lyrics lead to sex, but it is all related to psychological theories and prior similar studies. There is little concrete evidence provided — most of it is “supposition” this or “association” that.

  4. Really Likes Batman Better
    August 8th, 2006 at 8:48 pm

    How about a NEGATIVE correlation between musical choice and sexual activity?????? I am thinking of the seventh grade music class assignment “bring your favorite record in’ (yes I am that old). I remember the total panic and sick feeling I got when I realized that cute girl Barbara ABSOUTELY DID NOT THINK Sammy Davis Jr. singing “What Kind of fool am I?” was cool…

  5. Nat’s TV or Not TV » Blog Archive » Was there no sex before music?
    August 11th, 2006 at 9:27 am

    […] One of the advantages of being lazy is that sometimes, before you get around to doing something you meant to do, someone else ahs done it for you. Such is the case with this post trashing the recent coverage of the “listening to sexy music leads teen to having sex” report. What the study found was that teens who listened to sex-themed music as younger teens were more likely to be having sex in their teens. What the study claimed and the media were eager to report was that listening to sexy music caused the teens to have sex. But stop a moment and think: what if there were no causation? What would we expect then? Are some folks apt to be more interested in sex than others? Yup. Are those folks both likely to be having sex earlier and more interested in sexual-themed entertainment? Yup. But assuming causation does serve the political goals of many. (Link via Lyle, who is right — one of these days he really does have to blog about Licensable BearTM.) […]

  6. Roger Green
    August 12th, 2006 at 10:47 pm

    Whereas I never lie about sex.

  7. Allen Varney
    September 10th, 2006 at 2:06 pm

    Sorry to be late commenting on this entry. The correct Latin phrase is “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (not “proctor”). Viz. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc

  8. Pat
    February 5th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    Why must we always bash things that could potentially be beneficial to youth? There are some music out there that makes me blush and that I certainly find offensive as an adult. Why can’t we admit there are certain things that greatly influence young minds regardless of family and positive surroundings. Yes, many teenagers lie but not all of them do. Statistics, for that matter any statistical data, can be biasly presented to support any fact that we want it to support. So who actually is telling the truth. If the article helps parents be more aware of what their youth is listening to, then I applaud the article. After all, isn’t that the whole basis? Don’t we want our youth to be healthy and productive instead of damaged sex objects and toys?

  9. Anonymous
    May 1st, 2007 at 8:39 pm

    These are not statistics

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