Sexual Media Effects- Looking at Iran’s context (intro)

Media in the 21st century is undoubtedly one of the influential factors in the sexual and social well-being of young people. Mass media are a significant dimension of young people’s lives especially for sexual risk behavior during adolescence (Chapin, 2000). Media is a source of learning many aspects of sexuality for adolescents and the effect of sexual content on sexual behavior in different types of media have been highlighted by several studies (e.g., L’Engle, Brown, & Kenneavy, 2006). Longitudinal research has also found that exposure to sexual television content and sexual explicit media predicts earlier initiation of sexual intercourse (Collins et al., 2004; Brown & L’Engle, 2009). Other studies also found links between exposure to sexual media content and earlier involvement in or higher levels of sexual risk behavior (Ward, 2003). The concern is that sexual media often include sexual imagery without portraying the adverse consequences of risky sexual encounters or discussing healthy sexual messages (Pardun et al., 2005). Furthermore, the cognitive skills of adolescents, for critical analysis of the media messages and decision making based on consequences are not fully developed (Gruber & Grube, 2000). Hence, they are vulnerable to serious threats like sexual abuse, HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as teenage pregnancy.

Sociodemographic factors such as sex, age, and ethnicity have shown to play a role in adolescents' viewing choices and to their understanding and interpretation of sexual content in the media (Greenberg, 1994). Based on these findings, culture can be referred as a salient factor in forming adolescents’ sexual attitudes in response to media. It means that the extent and the way they are influenced by media might differ across different cultures and values. Contextual factors such as sharing media exposure with friends and parental mediation of media might affect the sexual media content preference and how teenagers process and react to that material (Parks et al., 2013). For instance, the effects of sexual media and the consequent sexual behaviour in muslim societies may not be similar to that of western countries due to cultural values and religious restrictions and prohibitions.

Studying the effect of sexual media among Iranian adolescents is very complicated due to the complex context of that society. Nevertheless, it is crucial to study this issue in Iran as according to the reports from the Iranian students’ news agency (2011), the pattern of HIV transmission in Iran has in the recent years changed from injecting drugs to unprotected sexual contact among young people. Lack of sexual health education (SHE) in Iran for young people at school aggravates the problem. While many countries are trying to find out the best SHE for the needs of adolescents, Iran is still wondering if adolescents should have it or not (Roudsari et al., 2013). Culturally speaking, Asian cultures share disparagement of non-marital sex and taboos about sexuality (Kim et al., 2007) and Iran is not an exception. Iran is a high-context society according to Hall’s cultural factors (1976), which means there are abundant tacit rules about many things including sexuality. Thus, sexual content and even sexual health issues are not addressed explicitly in the local media or at schools and even in families (Roudsari et al., 2013).

The national and local media in Iran does not include any form of sexual content due to the theocratic government, nor is there any text or picture about sex and sexuality in press. Therefore, the source of sexual content is not ubiquitous, but has to be sought for either through internet or satellite channels (the former is censored and the latter is legally banned, but people make their ways through). However, the advent of technology and particularly internet has made foreign media accessible to many young people and accessing sexual content is nowadays easier than before. Hence, the sexual media content used by Iranians include mainly western media productions like Hollywood movies and perhaps pornography websites which can be accessed through bypassing censorship.

Looking at sexual media effects on Iranian adolescents through cultivation theory and considering the lack of sexual health education at schools and also families, questions arise whether those adolescents whose only perception of sex comes from exposure to attractive and unrealistic portrayal of sex in movies, have a realistic image of sexuality and sexual relationships. It is also beneficial to find out how sexual content in foreign media which is accessed not as easily as in the west, and is disapproved by the family and society affects their sexual behaviour.

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