Sexual Content of Top-Grossing Motion Pictures: A Random Sample from Years 1973–1993

Abstract

Motion pictures are an important social indicator and express social norms of the public and to the public. In the past, movies have shown an increase in sexual content following the sexual revolution of the late 1960s. One might hypothesize that the movies of the 1990s would reflect the new push toward sexual responsibility due, primarily, to the advent of HIV infection. The purpose of this study was to provide a historical view of sexuality in top grossing movies of selected years over the past two decades and to determine if the sexual content of the movies reflects changes in sexuality from the 1970s to the 1990s. Using a random sample from 1973–1993 (specifically 1973, 1978, 1981, 1987, and 1992), raters conducted a content analysis of each film to code for the number of sex-related incidents under eight categories (i.e., sexual acts seen or heard, violent sexual acts, nudity, etc.). A mean for each category was calculated and the means for each year were compared to determine if sexual content in movies has increased over the past 20 years. The analysis revealed that although sexual content, references to sexually transmissible diseases, and instances of sexual violence in the top-grossing movies have not significantly increased over the past 20 years, sexual references were still pervasive.