Could Extremely Restrictive DRM Prevent Teen Pregnancy?

from the fails-yet-again dept

Mon, Aug 7th 2006 12:52pm — Joseph Weisenthal

There's no shortage of studies warning about the corrosive effects of media on youth. Lately, there have been a lot of studies attempting to make a link between violent video games and violence among youth. Though the studies tend to be flawed, they would be harmless were it not for the fact that they form the pretext for ridiculous, unconstitutional laws that get written up in the name of protecting children. Now a new study attempts to draw a causal link between listening to sexually suggestive music and engaging in sexual behavior. The study found that teens who weren't sexually active, but listened to this music, became sexually active sooner than their counterparts who listened to non-sexual music. But this isn't enough to prove causation. It's just as likely that teens who were already interested in sex (but weren't having sex) were attracted to sexually-explicit music. Of course, such subtleties tend to be lost on the politicians who read these studies and pass laws based on them. And as much as parents might like to believe otherwise, monitoring a teenager's iTunes playlist won't do much to prevent them from having sex if they're so determined.

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26 Comments

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DittoBox, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:11pm

DRM and Sex?
Are we talking about RFID'd panties or something?

Reminds me of that commercial from Microsoft...
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Ryan, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:30pm

Why don't we just require anybody to be 18 or over to own a computer, with a 14 day waiting period so we can run the proper stupidity / background checks.

we can also switch music to pay per listen. $0.10 per play.

while we're at it.. lets just lock our kids in jails until they're old enough to serve in the military. that should prevent a lot of new laws from being made right?
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A. Dean, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:34pm

Ok, I think that we are jumping the gun here a little. So what if the study found that sexually active teens listen to more sexually explicit material. There just needs to be enforcement of the current rating (adult / restricted) material than banning or taking away the freedoms... BUT no one is talking about making unconstitutional laws...

This study just got released. Don't bitch about a hypothetical.
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Bob, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:40pm

Ice Cream Law
I think we should outlaw ice cream, because because murder rates go up in the summer just like ice cream sales. And its obvious that murder can't cause ice cream sale to go up.
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DreadedOne509, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:40pm

I'm Flawed Too...
I'm not perfect, and I really don't pretend to have the answers to all of the worlds problems. But it is oh so obvious that our lawmakers are more concerned with getting reelected and making more money than actually using a common sense approach to what the real problem is, and then formulation laws and funding towards actually abbating it.

I think the real problem isn't music, video games or even t.v. It's the parents and the underfunded education system. We have parents that are undereducated teaching and raising their own children who are getting even less guidance from parents who will then have children of thier own blah blah blah...you get the point.

Anyone else noticed the quality of drivers decline over the past decades? Also noticed that most public school systems dropped drivers education to save money around 5 years before the down trend began?
Same thing with socially responsible parents and the decline of funding for the school systems. Add to that an accountability for ones own actions that is almost non-existant now and we have this crap.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2006 @ 1:43pm

DRM will fix all of the world's problems, we should all know that by now...

*lol*
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joe, 7 Aug 2006 @ 2:00pm

no answer
no law, education program, or ad campaign will make kids good. kids will still do drugs, have sex, and suck at life. i think it is important for parents to discourage it, but really all thats gonna make them stop in consequences. the problem is that consequences aren't harsh enough. i propose we inject kids with STDs to prevent sex, lace weed to prevent drugs, and put poison in alcohol to prevent drinking.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2006 @ 2:14pm

Logical Fallacies 101
Post hoc ergo prompter hoc - After this therefore because of this
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anon-o-mouse, 7 Aug 2006 @ 2:37pm

Re: Ice Cream Law
brilliant! my illegal ice-cream plant would really start making money! let patition for it
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GUI, 7 Aug 2006 @ 3:16pm

..and the cow jumped over the moon
It really very simple. First Congress should make it illegal for the full moon to be out. Studies have shown that our youth is subject to a intense amount of powerful cosmic energy that causes thier already highly developed sense of reason to be inhibited. This in turn results in higher teen pregnancies directly releated to concievement during these celestial phenomenoms. So, no moon = we protect our kids, wonderful solution Congressmen. Now just how do we convince everyone the moon is bad.

Yes this is sarcastic.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2006 @ 3:40pm

Re: Logical Fallacies 101
"Post hoc ergo prompter hoc" : I think you just invented a new slogan for Fox News :-)

Try procter (what I think I was taught at school) or proctor (as it seems to be spelled across the interweb).
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2006 @ 4:16pm

Re: I'm Flawed Too...
Your drivers license analogy is flawed.

Because schools have dropped it from their curriculum, students are forced to take private courses. These pricvate driving schools tend to be more acute to the specifics of driving than some health teacher who teaches driver's ed three hours a week.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2006 @ 4:18pm

Re: DRM and Sex?
i was thinking this or stapling condoms onto dicks lmao
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huh?, 7 Aug 2006 @ 4:25pm

Re: no answer
lace weed with what? something good? i hope, at least, that you'll charge them more for it.
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rijit (profile), 7 Aug 2006 @ 5:40pm

RE: #12 RE: I'm Flawed Too... by DreadedOne509
Actually your partly wrong. Parents can also teach their kids to drive using an online course and many of those private driving schools have the same teachers teaching them that used to teach at high schools. Of course I really did not want to post about it since it just gives the "blame the parents" guy more fuel for his flame the parents post that will show up sometime soon. Post 5 came close...
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undercoverbro, 7 Aug 2006 @ 6:32pm

All Mighty Parents
So is it the belief that sex on TV, or in music has zero effect in some children's behavior?

Are only children of "bad" parents susceptible to being influenced by things such as music?
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Jacob, 7 Aug 2006 @ 7:39pm

Sad
THis is so sad. I think I just lost aith in humanity.
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ttrygve, 8 Aug 2006 @ 4:30am

Yeah, I've heard about this, but what does it have to do with DRM? I don't see the connection ...
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bulljustin, 8 Aug 2006 @ 8:10am

and trees cause rain!
When settlers moverd onto the Great Plains, they noticed that whewre there are trees there is plenty of rain. The government paid many of these settlers a lot of money to plant trees in the belief that it would bring water to the American breadbasket. Why are we so suprised now that a casual link is taken as a causal link?
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..., 8 Aug 2006 @ 9:12am

I don't see why ppl waste money on stupid politics rather than focusing on things suchs as education and a more efficient society instead of trying to screw each other over with laws cause some company is bribing them?....
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maria, 12 Aug 2006 @ 5:39am

censorship laws
These people are soon gaing to make even going to the toilet illegal!! Don´t be fooled, they only care about money and getting reelected and not about anyone's wellbeing.
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undercoverbrother, 12 Aug 2006 @ 8:15am

how are people so certain that the study from the first post is invalid. Does some one here have a counter study that conflicts with the study performed by the RAND Corporation?

"I don't see why ppl waste money on stupid politics rather than focusing on things suchs as education and a more efficient society instead of trying to screw each other over with laws cause some company is bribing them?...."

I'd like to add to this list, and request that laws be made that accomplish getting rid of world hunger, and achieve world peace. - I don't know how you do it, but if you can do that that'll be great
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Christopher, 15 Aug 2006 @ 4:36am

Education and sex education best solution
The best solution for teenage pregnancy is sex education very early. Seriously, I told my daughters the facts of life and how babies were made when they were 4 and showed them books showing how babies were made (not porn books, cartoon-drawing books put out by reputable publishers).
I never told them the BS about the stork, they knew VERY early how babies were made and what they needed to do to protect themselves.
Did I try to keep them from acting sexually with themselves and others, including adults? No, I simply butted my ass out, and just trusted them to take care of themselves and come to me if they had any problems.
They are now 14 and 16, and are traveling the world with their 26-year old mother. Yes, I got her pregnant at 9 and I was the same age.

The facts of life are that telling children "Don't have sex" isn't working. I have asked children and teenagers whether they have had sex (including oral sex and anal sex) and a staggering 90% of them say yes to one of the forms of sexual activity. Is that a moral crisis? No.

That is a public health consideration, and one that could be solved by putting children on birth control as early as 6 (when my cousin started her periods) and realizing that adult-child sexual relationships actually KEEP some girls from getting pregnant, because the adults are more responsible than the children and teenagers and can afford condoms and other forms of birth control.
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undercoverbrother, 18 Aug 2006 @ 8:06am

Re: Education and sex education best solution
LMAO at the whole retarded statement.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2006 @ 10:27am

Re: no answer
I think that this world needs God. Without the all Mighty we are noting.
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sham, 6 Nov 2006 @ 7:19am

teen pregnancy
I think that teen pregnancy is ridiculus because teen agers are too young tobe having kids at a youg age. What are you going to do to help and support your kids if you still are in school. Education should come first before having kids.
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