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Pressed by critics and lobbies, television has begun to include more realistic story lines about sex and its possible consequences. TV writers and producers are turning to groups like the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health-policy think tank, for help in adding more depth and accuracy to stories involving sex. Kaiser has consulted on daytime soaps General Hospital and One Life to Live as well as the prime-time drama ER on subjects ranging from teen pregnancy to coming to terms with a gay high school athlete. Says Matt James, a Kaiser senior vice president: "We're trying to work with them to improve the public-health content of their shows."
And then there's real-life television. MTV's Loveline, an hour-long Q.-and-A. show featuring sex guru Drew Pinsky (see accompanying story), is drawing raves among teens for its informative sexual content. Pinsky seems to be almost idolized by some youths. "Dr. Drew has some excellent advice," says Keri, an eighth-grader in Denver. "It's not just sex, it's real life. Society makes you say you've got to look at shows like Baywatch, but I'm sick of blond bimbos. They're so fake. Screenwriters ought to get a life."
With so much talk of sex in the air, the extinction of the hapless, sexually naive kid seems an inevitability. Indeed, kids today as young as seven to 10 are picking up the first details of sex even in Saturday-morning cartoons. Brett, a 14-year-old in Denver, says it doesn't matter to him whether his parents chat with him about sex or not because he gets so much from TV. Whenever he's curious about something sexual, he channel-surfs his way to certainty. "If you watch TV, they've got everything you want to know," he says. "That's how I learned to kiss, when I was eight. And the girl told me, 'Oh, you sure know how to do it.'"
Even if kids don't watch certain television shows, they know the programs exist and are bedazzled by the forbidden. From schoolyard word of mouth, eight-year-old Jeff in Chicago has heard all about the foul-mouthed kids in the raunchily plotted South Park, and even though he has never seen the show, he can describe certain episodes in detail. (He is also familiar with the AIDS theme of the musical Rent because he's heard the CD over and over.) Argentina, 16, in Detroit, says, "TV makes sex look like this big game." Her friend Michael, 17, adds, "They make sex look like Monopoly or something. You have to do it in order to get to the next level."
Child experts say that by the time many kids hit adolescence, they have reached a point where they aren't particularly obsessed with sex but have grown to accept the notion that solid courtships--or at least strong physical attractions--potentially lead to sexual intercourse. Instead of denying it, they get an early start preparing for it--and playing and perceiving the roles prescribed for them. In Nashville, 10-year-old Brantley whispers about a classmate, "There's this girl I know, she's nine years old, and she already shaves her legs and plucks her eyebrows, and I've heard she's had sex. She even has bigger boobs than my mom!"