Science Proves Watching 'Jersey Shore' Actually Made You Sluttier
The Situation made you DTF.
By Brian Moylan
Every so often conservatives and concerned parents let us all know that some reality show or another is ruining our culture and turning us all into promiscuous people who will have sex with everything. They sounded the clarion call for Jersey Shore, MTV's uber popular show about eight guidos cavorting on a boardwalk. They said that all that talk about sex and watching Sammy and Ronnie "smash" was going to turn us all into giant sluts. Well, according to science, they were right.
A study in the latest issue of Media Psychology proves that Jersey Shore was not only the greatest sociological experiment of our time, but also one of the most sex-drenched shows on the tube. "Viewers of Jersey Shore were likely to see 23 instances of sexual talk and 25 instances of sexual behavior in an average episode. Put another way, viewers were exposed to an average of one sexual instance every minute that they were tuned into Jersey Shore," Bradley Bond and Kristin Drogos write in their study. Yes, that means that the show has more sexual content than DJ Pauly D has fresh to death sneakers.
Exposure to all that sexual content apparently served as a "sexual super peer." JWOWW has been called lots of things, but not that. Anyway, this taught college students that permissive attitudes toward sexual activity was okay. This was especially true of 18-20 year-olds and and still had an impact on 20-23 year-olds, but far less dramatic. Those with permissive sexual attitudes also reported more sexual activity, so they weren't just talking the talk like some people.
The study also showed that there was a "wishful identification" with the characters, so people at home wanted to be like The Situation, so they started behaving like him. Does that mean they all started spending more time at the gym, tanning salon, and laundromat?
Still almost half of the sexual content on the show was "romantic kissing." Maybe being a bit more like the Jersey Shore isn't the worst thing in the world? But if you're going to pick anyone to "wishfully identify" with, please let it be Vinny. He was always such a nice boy.
Image via MTV