TV: Too Sexy For Your Couch?

[kweerwolf]

In the spring of 1973, CBS became enmeshed in controversy when it refused to air a "racy" episode of "The New Dick Van Dyke Show."

The offensive subject? A 12-year-old girl walks in on her parents while they are having sex in the middle of the day. The incident occurs off-screen, neither of the TV parents (Van Dyke and Hope Lange) appears sans clothing, and they discuss the incident with their daughter. Still, CBS decided the episode was "inappropriate," arguing that America wasn't ready for such frank depiction of sexual material.

Thirty-two years later, CBS aired an episode of "Two and a Half Men" in which 10-year-old Jake (Angus T. Jones) walks into his uncle's bedroom to find him in bed with their crazy neighbor. Uncle Charlie (Charlie Sheen) explains that his one-nighter was a mistake, "because I had sex with someone who knows how to disable the alarm system."

Such scenes have inspired many viewers to call for a return to the standards of 1973. These critics are right that television portrays sex "inaccurately" -- but it does the same when portraying violence, body image, family relations, romance, and just about every other topic. Family experts have long insisted that parents watch TV with their kids for just this reason: to correct, explain, and evaluate what kids see. Since it is no secret that TV influences children, and not always positively, why has the Kaiser Family Foundation's report concerning sex on TV become a hot topic?

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/29614/

[adriennui]

1. parents are too lazy to spend time watching TV with their kids

they want government to be the nannies (while more important issues are ignored). like will we have enough money to heat the house and keep our car fueled.

will our neighbors return intact from that miserable war? no, indecency on TV is the no. 1 issue facing the planet.

[purji]

2. I am amazed at the amount of people

who have a cow over sex on T.V. but have no problem with their kids watching all those nasty night mare on elm street type movies.
Sex- bad, cutting some one up with a machete -good. :shrug:

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Hey, there, don't you be dissing Freddy Kruger.

He knows when you are sleeping...

[kweerwolf]

4. Yeah, but those 'slasher' movies teach valuable lessons ...

Anytime a couple of teenagers have sex in those movies you just know they are going to be the next victims. Meanwhile, the virginal young woman is spared and becomes the one to vanquish Freddie (or Jason ... or Michael Meyers).

Now there's a wholesome lessen: Stay a virgin or some psycho with a knife (or an even more inventive weapon) will murder you.

[purji]

5. LOL

How could I have missed the important message they were giving,I must have been in the bathroom at the time or something.

[purji]

6. Whoo hooo!

that was my 800th post,I am now out of the 700 club.

[GatoLover]

7. I think adults are entitled to all the sex and gore they want

but I am concerned about children, not that they might see some isolated scene here and there, but the constant sexual and violent content... it worries me. I mean, what are seven or eight year olds supposed to think when they see ads for erectile dysfunction every five or ten minutes? Maybe it's harmless, I don't know, but it's a concern for me.

[NMMNG]

8. That is where parental responsibility comes in

Cable systems have blocking capabilities--any channel can be blocked. I assume sattelite systems have the same option. Newer TVs have Vchips so that parents can block specific programming based on its rating, and older TVs can have a seperate Vchip installed.

It is not the government's responsibility to monitor everything for the nation. Parents just need to stop being lazy and put in some effort to actually be parents.

[xchrom]

9. you know what worries me about television -- and it's not sex and

violence.

it's whather the generation{whichever generation} watching it can write sentence -- a good narrative paragraph -- that what worries me.

anything else can be overcome by an effective well rounded{in the sense of being educated}, well read person.