Survey: Nearly 2/3 of Young People Want Fewer Sex Scenes in Movies, TV

Young people have grown increasingly disenchanted with seeing sex scenes in movies and television, a new study shows.

The study, entitled “Teens & Screens,” from the University of California Los Angeles Center for Scholars & Storytellers surveyed roughly 1,500 respondents, aged 10 to 24, and found 63.5 percent of adolescents want less sex as a plot device. Per Variety:

Researchers found that 63.5% of adolescents said they preferred that big and small screen stories focus on friendships, while 62.4% said sexual content isn’t needed as a plot device. Those are big jumps from the previous year when 51.5% of those surveyed said they wanted more content about people in platonic relationships, and 47.5% said that they didn’t seek out shows or movies where sex was a major plot point. The survey did not poll respondents between the ages of 10 to 13 about their attitudes on sexually explicit content.

Erotic movies were once a popular genre, with movies like Indecent Proposal and Basic Instinct topping box office charts. But after those movies declined and television programs like Game of Thrones and The Affair became more permissive, Hollywood invested less money in explicit content. That seems to be shifting in recent months, with an onslaught of more sexually provocative content hitting screens. But it looks like those movies and shows will need to attract older audiences, at least if the study’s findings are to be believed.

Alisha J. Hines, director of research at the center, said young people have grown tired of “unrelatable romantic tropes on screen.”

“Our findings really seemed to solidify a trend we found emerging in our data last year: that young people are tired of seeing the same dated and unrelatable romantic tropes on screen,” said Hines. “Teens and young adults want to see stories that more authentically reflect a full spectrum of nuanced relationships.”

The study also showed that 36.2 percent of those polled preferred stories that take place in fantasy worlds, while only 7.2 percent wanted stories centered on the rich and famous. It also showed that 13.9 percent wanted more stories real-life issues and another 24.2 percent about personal issues. More importantly, a full 39.2 percent of teens said they prefer video games as their primary source of entertainment, while 33.3 percent prefer TV or movies.