Sex, media and adolescents How sexual media consumption predicts levels of sexual experience and sexual satisfaction of adolescents over time

Abstract

Abstract This study examined the longitudinal relationship between sexual media consumption, sexual experience and sexual satisfaction among adolescents. First, I expected that the more an adolescent consumed sexual media content, the more real life sexual experience he or she would have. Second, I expected that the more adolescents consumed sexual media content, the less sexual satisfaction they would report. Third, I expected to find a moderating effect of gender, in that both main effects would be stronger for boys than for girls. I analysed four-wave data of 494 Dutch adolescents with a mean age of 14.5 years at baseline. I performed hierarchical multiple regression analyses to establish if sexual media consumption could predict subsequent levels of sexual experience and sexual satisfaction over time. In line with the first hypothesis, results showed that the more sexual media adolescents consumed at baseline, the more sexual experience they had six months and one year later. At the same time however, results showed that sexual media consumption did not predict subsequent levels of sexual satisfaction across waves. Rejecting the third hypothesis, gender did not interact with sexual media consumption. Therefore, the relationship between sexual media consumption and sexual experience and sexual satisfaction was the same for male and female adolescents.