New study finds that even when girls are kind of young, TV tries to sexualize them

By Sean O'Neal | December 16, 2010 | 9:58pm

Aux Features TV

In the weekly report of What’s Upsetting The Tremulous Souls Of The Parents Television Council: Teen girls on TV are too darn sexy! The latest attempt by the organization to garner news articles like this one through stating the obvious is a study of shows popular with 12 to 17-year-olds, like Glee, Gossip Girl, 90210, The Office, NCIS, Two And A Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and The Vampire Diaries. (NCIS?) Looking at the past year’s broadcasts, the PTC found that “when underage female characters appear on screen: more sexual content is depicted; the teen girls show next to no negative response to being sexualized; and more sexual incidents occur outside of any form of a committed relationship.” As a result, “Real teens are led to believe their sole value comes from their sexuality,” and “TV executives have made it their business to profit off of programs that depict teen girls blissfully being sexualized by casual partners.”

To present their findings, PTC president Tim Winter hosted a press conference calling for Hollywood to treat teen sex “like smoking” and, in the Hollywood Reporter’s words, “strip it out where possible.” To which Hollywood replied, “Strip wherever possible? You got it!” Ha ha, no, not really; even if the PTC has a point about television’s slow descent into irresponsible prurience, our guess is executives will likely just ignore this. Anyway, to bolster their case that depictions of teen sexuality send the wrong message, the PTC created this teen sex video compilation. Message received. [via PopWatch]