The other day, I received an email from Dr. Miguel Munoz-Laboy concerning my criticism of his work on the importance of understanding culture and the social context of the lives of young men. He included a transcript of the actual talk that he gave and on which my criticisms were based.

I responded with the following email to Dr. Munoz-Laboy:

Thank you for your patient and clarifying comments on my uninformed "analysis" of your research. Unfortunately, I only encountered your work in the popular press, and misunderstood it to be a causational analysis of the relationship between pop music and sexual behavior. I now understand, as your transcript clearly states, that your research was more ethnographic than moralistic.

A few weeks ago, a story was carried by the AP that claimed that teens who listened to music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who preferred other songs. The August issue of Pediatrics reportedly contained research that contended that music's influence on teen behavior appeared to depend on how sex was portrayed - songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects, and with explicit references to sex acts were more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references were more veiled and relationships appeared more committed.

The verb 'trigger' in that last sentence caused me concern, as it clearly implied a causal relationship between song lyrics and subsequent behavior. I discussed this issue in my blog, basically concluding that the tendency to accuse hip-hop music of causing negative behavior was ultimately rooted in racism. I continued this theme in my August 11 entry.

When I came across an article in the press on August 19 discussing your paper, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that your work was more of the same content against which I had been arguing. I see now that, in fact, your work actually reinforces my intuitive belief - that young people use various genres of popular music, along with clothing, slang and behavior, as a form of almost "tribal" identification. As I understand your point (and I may still be off base, since I am, after all, a Zen Buddhist environmentalist with only a layman's understanding of sociology), interpreting these identifications can give public health workers a clearer understanding of the cultural background of young persons, including their likely sexual behaviors.

Again, thank you for correcting my misinformed remarks and thank you for sharing your transcript with me.

Sincerely,

Shokai