A few years ago, I asked a fourteen-year-old boy how his use of pornography started, and he said it started with MTV.
We have MTV (and other similar stations blocked) at our home, so it’s been awhile since I’ve checked out the latest music videos and chart toppers, but earlier this week, I needed to take my car in for some maintenance. When I picked it back up and started the engine, my Sirius was blasting LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It”. Next up was Britney Spears with her song “Criminal”. Apparently my “70’s Hits on 7” station just wasn’t cutting it for my car repair guy.
Since I’ve been living under a rock, I hadn’t heard either of the songs before, and when I got home, I looked up both songs’ lyrics and music videos. LMFAO’s lyrics weren’t as bad as a lot of what is out there (the main sexual phrase says “I’ve got passion in my pants, and I ‘aint afraid to share it”), but the music video was highly ridiculous and highly sexual, a perfect mix to attract a young audience. Although the video is age-restricted on Youtube, most tweens and teens I asked this week had seen the video (the main feature is a bunch of men, including porn star Ron Jeremey, shaking their hips and doing pelvic thrusts in reflective Speedos and thongs). There are several tight shots of the “banana hammocks” swinging.
Then there was Britney’s song—the lyrics were standard Britney fare, but the music video seemed (to me) to be one of Britney’s most revealing and sexual videos to-date. There’s the normal seductive stripper-inspired dancing moves, but then there’s a bedroom scene that features Britney’s (real-life) boyfriend (now fiancé) groping her body while she’s wearing only a skimpy black lace bra and underwear. Then there’s a steamy shower scene where Britney and her boyfriend appear to be fully nude. His hands are covering parts of her breasts, but we see both of them from basically an inch above their man and lady parts, groping, embracing, and bracing against the shower wall. It essentially looks like a scene from a sex tape the two could have made together, cut into her music video.
What really put me over the top was when I found myself in line at a grocery store today behind a six-year-old girl that started singing the chorus for that very song. I told her mom that I had just heard the song and asked her if she was familiar with the lyrics and the video, and her little daughter interrupted us to let me know that she had seen the music video on her friend’s computer.
Thinking back, I still remember the first time I saw a music video from Britney’s predecessor, Madonna, when she sang “Like a Prayer”. I was just seven, and I recall the slinky black dress Madonna was wearing, her embrace with the man in the video, along with the conversation I had with a friend who told me the song was about blow jobs. It was around the same time when I started trying to mimic the suggestive dance moves that I saw in Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” and “Cold Hearted Snake” music videos. These sexual images don’t leave the mind very easily, and as parents, I think it’s important to recognize that these types of music videos not only sexualize our children, but that they can also serve as a gateway drug to pornography use.
If you haven’t already, I would strongly encourage you to block your child’s access to MTV, VH1, BET, etc.; I really can’t even think of a reason why you and your spouse should watch any of those stations at all. Additionally, consider using parental controls on your computers and all Internet-connected devices. I talk with so many parents that don’t realize that their kids are accessing MTV’s shows, videos and content on their cell phones and laptops. It’s also worth it to share your standards and expectations with other parents, because so many parents are so clueless when it comes to what’s available online and how sexual the content is in most of today’s music videos.