Music preference and sexual experience among adolescents

Background: Adolescents are exposed to 104 minutes of popular music daily, and sexual content is highly prevalent in popular music lyrics. However, it is not currently known (1) how common sexual references are in different musical genres; and (2) if genre preference is independently associated with early sexual activity.

Methods: Two independent coders analyzed references to sex and degrading sex in the top songs of 2005 in various genres according to Billboard magazine. We simultaneously conducted a cross-sectional survey of 302 urban ninth grade students in which we measured sexual experience, genre preference, and fourteen covariates related to sexual experience in adolescents.

Results: References to sexual intercourse were most common in Rap music (83%), followed by R&B/Hip-Hop (56%) and Rock music (7%). References to degrading sex were also most common in Rap music (76%) followed by R&B/Hip-Hop (41%) and Rock music (3%). In the fully adjusted and trimmed model (covariates included gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, rebelliousness, academic achievement, and desire to lose weight), preference of Rap music was associated with increased odds of having had sexual intercourse (OR = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.02, 4.3), whereas preference of Rock music was associated with decreased odds (OR = 0.3, 95% CI = 0.1, 0.7). Preference of R&B/Hip-Hop was not associated with increased or decreased odds of having had sexual intercourse.

Discussion: Preference of musical genre is independently associated with early sexual experience in adolescents. In particular, those preferring genres with more sexual references are more likely to have had sex.