Adults in contemporary Western societies are prompted to pass on to children reaching puberty not the capacity to become parents, as is the case in other cultures, but contraceptive methods held to facilitate the attainment of sexual pleasure. The ideological underpinnings of this type of intergenerational gift are transmitted not through rites of passage but by means of new mythological images to be found in science fiction film, horror movies and tv series favoured by many adolescents.