Reactions to Sex on Television: An Exploratory Study

A sample of 660 adults watched one of 15 randomly selected half-hour or hour programs which were representative of prime-time major network offerings in the fall 1977 season and which had been objectively analyzed for the presence of physically intimate and sexual content. The adults were asked to rate the amount of sexual content in the program and the suitability of that content for adult, teenage, and child audiences and to estimate how often specific physically intimate behaviors were present in the show. Each adult provided demographic data, completed an attitude survey on TV sex, and evaluated how suitably 13 sexual topics have been portrayed on TV. Through correlational analyses, the study provides information about what kinds of people are responding in which ways to specific kinds of physically intimate portrayals on television.