ABSTRACT
By February 26, 2014, the “erotic romance” novel trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey had sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, making it “one of the best-selling series in publishing history” (Bosman, 2014, para. 1). A year later, the movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey broke the box-office record for movies opening during Presidents’ Day weekend, earning $85 million dollars for Universal (Alter, 2015; McNary, 2015). The movie’s focus on the sadomasochistic relationship between innocent and naïve college student Anastasia Steele and charismatic but controlling and often violent billionaire Christian Grey spurred controversy and protests from both religious groups and domestic violence activists, who argued that the film glamorizes and condones stalking, emotional abuse and sexual violence (Beaumont-Thomas, 2015). Barely a week after the movie opened in the United States, a University of Illinois-Chicago freshman was arrested and charged with rape after he allegedly took a female classmate back to his dorm room, used multiple belts to restrain her, stuffed a tie in her mouth, and beat her with another belt and his hands while sexually assaulting her. The alleged rapist, a 19-year-old freshman whose attorney said he had participated in several UIC leadership programs and the university’s triathlon team, told police he was acting out scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey. Although the woman cried and told him to stop during the assault, he claimed that the sexual interaction was consensual (Holley, 2015; Saul, 2015). The links between mass media’s sexual content and real-world sexual attitudes and behaviors are not usually so clear as they appear to be in
this rape case. Nonetheless, many researchers have argued that media messages about sex and sexuality do have a significant influence on sexrelated attitudes and behaviors, particularly among adolescents; research has documented media effects on sexual initiation, attitudes toward and use of contraception and rape myth acceptance (Bleakley et al., 2008; Brown et al., 2006; Collins et al., 2004; Hust et al., 2008; Kahlor & Eastin, 2011). Whether and how the media influence sexual attitudes and behaviors is an important health issue. While changing public attitudes toward premarital/extramarital sex, homosexuality, abortion, out-of-wedlock births and even sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV/AIDS
Figure 9.1: Critics Claim Fifty Shades of Grey Glamorized Sexual Coerciveness
may be good or bad, depending on one’s religious and moral views, it seems difficult to argue that current sexual practices in the United States consistently lead to positive health outcomes. More than half of all U.S. pregnancies today are unintended, with one in five unwanted, more than three in five mistimed and only 49 percent intended. Among sexually active teenagers, the rate of unintended pregnancies is twice that of the comparable rate among women in general. Annual rates of unintended pregnancies declined from 59 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 1981 to 49 per 1,000 women in 1994, but rates then began increasing again, to 54 per 1,000 in 2008, meaning that approximately one in every 20 U.S. women had an unintended pregnancy that year (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2015). In 2011, U.S. women underwent 730,322 legal induced abortions; there were 219 abortions for every 1,000 live births, which, fortunately, represents a 5 percent decline from the number and rate in 2010 (“Reproductive Health,” 2015). One reason U.S. women experience so many unintended pregnancies is the inconsistent use of contraceptives. According to data from the most recent National Survey of Family Growth, 38.3 percent of women aged 15 to 44 were not using any contraceptive method, although only 6.9 percent were fertile, sexually active and not pregnant, trying to get pregnant or in the first few months after having a baby (Jones et al., 2012). However, other researchers have found that women often do not use contraception correctly; in 2008, 14 percent of women reported either not using contraceptives or going for long periods without using any form of birth control, while 18 percent reported inconsistent use (“Fact Sheet,” 2014). Consistent contraceptive use is less common among teenagers than among older women. Although teens’ contraceptive use has increased, significant percentages of teens still report having sex without using any birth control method. Between 2006 and 2010, 14 percent of teenage girls and 7 percent of teenage boys reported using no contraceptive method during their most recent sexual intercourse. Teens are also increasingly likely to use a contraceptive method the first time they have sex, with 78 percent of girls and 85 percent of boys saying they used birth control the first time they had sex. Teens who begin having sex early (at age 14 or younger) are less likely to use a contraceptive method during their first sexual intercourse and take longer to begin using contraceptives compared to teens who initiate sexual intercourse later.
