Teens Want Less Sex in Movies and TV Shows, UCLA Study Finds

Teens want movies and shows to stay in the friend zone.

At a time when films like “Babygirl,” “Poor Things” and “Fair Play” and series such as “Disclaimer” and “Tell Me Lies” are more explicitly sexual, younger audiences are hoping that more Hollywood stars stay clothed on screen and that the entertainment industry focuses on characters who are in platonic relationships. That’s one key finding from a new study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Entitled “Teens & Screens,” the report surveyed roughly 1,500 respondents, aged 10 to 24.

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.

“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 Alisha J. Hines, director of research at the center. “Teens and young adults want to see stories that more authentically reflect a full spectrum of nuanced relationships.” 

Instead, 36.2% of adolescents said enjoyed content that took place in fantasy worlds over stories about the rich and famous (7.2%), real-life issues (13.9%), personal issues (24.2%) or other genres (3.3%). And when it came to their favorite types of entertainment, 39.2% of teens opted for playing video games, compared to 33.3% who chose watching TV or movies and 27.5% who picked scrolling on social media platforms.

When it came to digital forms of entertainment, 38.8% of adolescents said that YouTube was the “most authentic” social media platform, followed by TikTok (36.3%) and Instagram (28.3%) — X, formerly known as Twitter, was the least authentic with 18.1% of respondents favoring it.

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.