Dangers of teenage sitcoms for young aspie guys

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Back in the 1990's, there was a large number of teenage sitcoms on TV. Here is a partial list of the shows shown in the US and a list of shows I used to watch religiously:
* Step by Step
* Family Matters
* Boy Meets World
* Saved by the Bell
* Full House

Now, they all had one thing in common. They showed situations where the guy wanted to have sex and the girl did not. The pattern was ridiculously similar each and every time:
1) The guy is pressured to have sex by the society around him.
2) He somehow tries to influence his girlfriend to have sex, with no force at all.
3) She reacts badly in one way or another, and either threatens to or actually dumps him.
4) He is humbled, vows to win her back, and promises to never pressure her again.
5) She forgives him, and they live celibately ever after.

Now, at age 27, I'm fully aware of why that pattern was always followed. They were family shows, and some of them aired on Disney-owned networks. So of course they would never show teenagers having premarital sex. The CEOs would simply not allow anything else (while themselves having tons of mistresses, but that's beyond the scope of this thread).

But at the naive age of 13 to 17, this completely screwed up my mentality. Those shows depicted all guys as raging horndogs and all girls as frigid ice queens. I started to believe that asking your girlfriend to have sex with you was the most horrible thing you can do as a boyfriend, so in order to find a girlfriend, I tried to depict myself as someone who would never ask for sex. It never occurred to me until college that a girl would actually want to have sex with a guy she's dating. This goes against what every alpha-male does: portraying himself as a manly, sexual being, which gets him girls left and right. They're the guys who lose their virginity before graduating high school, unlike myself, who lost it at 22 to an escort.

I didn't set myself straight until my second year of college (age 19), when I was able to cast off the wrong messages I absorbed from teenage sitcoms, and started showing true sexual interest. Now by then, having been a virgin for so long, I also showed desperation, but that's a completely different problem.

Now, I'm sure I'm not the only aspie guy who absorbed wrong messages from watching those sitcoms as a teenager. NTs who watch those shows get the same messages, but they have ability to use their social intuition to somehow "filter out" the information. They know by age 13 what I learned only at age 19: those are supposed to be family shows, and what's shown there does not match what happens in real life. Aspies, on the other hand, not having much real-life social insight, grab on to any insight they can get, including the one that may do more harm than good (without themselves realizing that until much later).

Anyway, hope this thread gets some good responses. Carry on.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 20 Feb 2011, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think that's true. It's more they waited until they were both ready.
Not just when the guy thought it was appropriate.

The underlying theme seems to be that it's wrong to pressurise someone into sex. I still think that's relevant today.

@ emlion
I said "celibately ever after" as a hyperbole. It seems like one argument about sex turned the guy into a monk for the rest of the show. I know they're supposed to show family values, but come on, really?

@ Lene
In a lot of those shows, there was no true pressure per se. The guy doesn't even say the overly cliched ''if you loved me, you'd prove it". He tries the romantic route, like a candlelit dinner, a romantic night at a ski lodge, or when they happen to share a hotel room. The girl has the option to calmly refuse sex, and it being a family show, the guy would listen; instead, she reacts angrily.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 20 Feb 2011, 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I know what hyperbole is. I don't see the problem with it - it teaches guys to respect women.

Manipulation is still manipulation, even if it's done 'romantically.' - They were still doing it to get into her pants.

]

Yes, soaps tend to be dramatic. That's why people watch them. A calm conversation between two reasonable human beings would be a little boring.

To me, soaps are boring whether they are dramatic or not.

Agreed.

I never realized that about those shows, but thinking back on it I can remember seeing some of that. What I notice in TV shows today (sitcoms mostly) is a stereotypically unattractive/overall not very impressive guy being with some knockout girl. And sure that happens in real life sometimes, but not nearly as often as in TV shows.

Those shows & lots of others on TV misled me. I'm a borderline asexual & when I 1st started being interested in relationships; I thought I would have better luck at finding someone because I wasn't interested in sex but I kept getting rejected because women were not intrested in guys who didn't want sex at all

Last edited by nick007 on 21 Feb 2011, 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think some of the responders on this thread misunderstood what I was trying to say in the first post. I'm not saying that manipulation is good or anything like that. My opinion is: If a guy honestly asks for something he wants and backs off the moment the girl says no, there is nothing wrong or untoward being done. But there's a problem with how a lot of teenage sitcoms try to demonstrate that message. They completely demonize the guys who try to, basically, ask their girlfriend to have sex with them, and portray girls who refuse sex as practically saints. Both are extreme points of view to take.

And therein lies the rub. NT guys can filter out the information. They learn a lesson of not trying to force or manipulate their girlfriends into sex (although if they have to learn something like that from TV, that doesn't say highly of them). At the same time, they continue to project the same masculine, sexual vibe that girls find attractive, which helps them find a girlfriend in the first place. Their social intuition and skills help them understand that the sitcom episodes are a hyperbole, and do not fully apply to their lives. In the end, they find a girlfriend (or two or more) who makes their high school experience all the more enjoyable.

Aspie guys, on the other hand, take the entire message to heart. Not having the social intuition and skills, they view the message as gospel to their lives and them personally. So, they end up thinking that showing sexual interest is something horrible, and end up not doing it at all. Why? Because the TV shows, their only source of insight into high school relationships, are telling them that it's "bad". And what happens as a result? Seeing popular guys (who "know better") gets girls left and right, while themselves experiencing one rejection after another. In the end, CEOs are swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck, while young guys who'd make great boyfriends are left out in the dust.

Having said all that, I take a neutral view on having sex in high school. On one hand, it means you have the social skills to get it on the first place, so why not use them to enjoy life? On the other hand, high schoolers aren't mature enough to handle the possible consequences that can come from sex, although sex in and of itself is not a problem.

I don't know if it comes from sitcoms in particular, but I often have felt this way myself. I feel as if I'm suspect and costantly wonder if women think I'm trying to rush things or manipulate them. I am not, but I wonder if some of my actions have sometimes been misconstrued.

I get the nice guy thing a lot too, so I think i sometimes surprise women when I start moving the direction of a physical relationship, even if it is just a kiss. I am not out to only get into her pants. If I want to get physical, it's because I already like her. Unlike these sitcoms though, we seem not to be able to restore the relationship back to the point that it was.

Us Aspies need to learn about relationships from tween shows on Nickelodeon instead. It's more realistic; at least on iCalry anyways. Her nerdy friend Freddy is madly in love with her but she won't date him & instead goes for bad boys who look hot with their shirts off

1) Don't use TV as a life guide. Common sense, people.
2) You don't want to make yourself seem like someone who would never ask for sex, you want to seem like someone who won't pressure a girl into it, however.
3) You say they'd never show teenagers having sex on TV. This is false. There's a sci-fi sitcom called Misfits which does just that, and there's also a show going at the moment called The Joy of Teen Sex, though that's a documentary.

Ahh Misfits is awesome!

Yes it is! I watched all the episodes in two days and I can't wait for a third series to start

Nathan is a very attractive young man.