Language matters: Implications of sexual content in fictional narrative television programs popular among Latino adolescents

Objective: Compared to white adolescents, Latino adolescents watch more television and are disproportionately affected by teen births. Because television informs sexual decision-making, this study catalogues the prevalence of sexual content in fictional narrative programs popular among Latino adolescents.

Methods: This study conducted a quantitative analysis of sexual content in 70 episodes of Spanish- and English-language fictional narrative television programs popular among Latino adolescents.

Results: Among all episodes, 90% contained sexual talk, while almost 73% contained sexual behavior. A total of 433 scenes included sexual content, averaging 7.34 sexual scenes per hour of television. Only 23 scenes addressed sexual risk or responsibility. There were no differences in English- and Spanish-language programs for overall sexual content prevalence. Spanish-language scenes, however, contained more infidelity (Χ ²=31.95; p<0.001). Moreover, 91.3% of scenes which discussed losing one's virginity occurred in Spanish-language programs (Fisher's exact p= 0.000). Overall, males more often instigated sexual behaviors. The majority of scenes in which females instigated sexual behavior, however, occurred in English- rather than Spanish-language scenes (70.59% versus 29.41%; Fisher's exact p= 0.016).

Conclusions: Television programs popular among Latino adolescents contain large amounts of sexual content, with few messages about risk or responsibility. Television, therefore, provides an opportunity to initiate discussion about safer sex within the context of media literacy interventions for Latino youth. Since there were distinct differences in content depending on whether the program was in English or Spanish, it is critical that such interventions incorporate both types of programs into the curriculum.