Nudity and sex on TV - 2nd circuit ruling

[Monkeyleg]

Right after you get those nudies of Walter Brennan?

Oh no - sax and violins on TV

A prize to anyone who can identify what the quips about Walter Brennan and sax and violins refer to.

[MicroBalrog]

Nor will you be able to claim that sex, especially the sort of sex lurid enough to build TV ratings, is "healthy and typically harms no one." We all know the risks of sex, and that riskier sex makes better TV. Despite any talk of Americans freaking out, our airwaves are loaded with everything short of full nudity, and even that is available on the paid TV channels that so many Americans receive. So let's not pretend that present-day America is Puritan New England.

1. The "risks of sex" are overstated. And they are getting lower every year as the prevalence of STDs gets lower, and lower, and lower.  Typically, as in in the majority of cases, sex indeed hurts no one. ( I mean, of course, in the health sense. If your wife leaves you, or you're left upset by something you did, that's certainly not something the government should protect you from.

2. Sex is exactly like violence in the moral sense. Sex, like violence, is morally neutral. (Nobody here is a pacifist or opposed completely to all sex). There are circumstances where violence is morally right and deserves to be glorified. People like Zaitsev, Patton, I want to hear about them more on television. With sex it seems to be the same. Certain kinds of sex are okay, and others are not (personally I think all consensual sex is okay). Certainly I don't think the moral rightness of sex is what gives TV ratings. Do you think if we showed a film about, say, the sex life of a married woman and her husband (with the married woman played by, uh, Mila Jovovich or Summer Glau), with explicit erotic scenes, it would somehow fail to grow ratings?

[Nick1911]

Ideologically, I generally think it should be looser then it is now.  Totally unregulated?  Maybe, but that would require a huge culture shift.  Parents would actually have to start monitoring what their kids watch.

Personally, I wouldn't be very interested.  It's like organized sports - Fun to do in person, but not much fun to watch other people do.

[roo_ster]

Why shouldn't they? I'd think freedom of speech should always apply, whatever topic you're addressing.

Uh, why?

Assuming the FCC runs up and prevents nudie bits or violence, why ought a business corporation have identical 1st Amendment rights as a flesh & blood citizen?  Especially if the debate is not about the FCC enforcing political content. 

Some things, like the means of communication (broadly speaking: roads, railroads, airwaves) are most certainly legitimate spheres for gov't to provide some sort of order other than, "I have a bigger transmitter than you, so suck it," or "I bought the Stryker, so get the hell outta my way or I'll run your puny Chevy Rentabu off the road."

The proliferation of paid TV (cable, satellite, FIOS, broadband) has gutted the argument on the regulators' side that they must control political content for "fairness" as well as the libertines' side that we can not restrict non-political content due to some sort of censorship argument preventing the content from being viewed.

Ideologically, I generally think it should be looser then it is now.  Totally unregulated?  Maybe, but that would require a huge culture shift.  Parents would actually have to start monitoring what their kids watch.

It is actually a pretty regular topic of conversation amongst actual parents.

[Perd Hapley]

1. The "risks of sex" are overstated. And they are getting lower every year as the prevalence of STDs gets lower, and lower, and lower. 

So we agree that sex is not always healthy.

Typically, as in in the majority of cases, sex indeed hurts no one. ( I mean, of course, in the health sense. If your wife leaves you, or you're left upset by something you did, that's certainly not something the government should protect you from.

So we agree that sex involves risks to physical health and to emotional well-being. This thread is not about govt. protecting people from hurt feelings or marital problems, so I'm not sure why you bring it up.

2. Sex is exactly like violence in the moral sense. Sex, like violence, is morally neutral. (Nobody here is a pacifist or opposed completely to all sex). There are circumstances where violence is morally right and deserves to be glorified. People like Zaitsev, Patton, I want to hear about them more on television. With sex it seems to be the same. Certain kinds of sex are okay, and others are not (personally I think all consensual sex is okay).

So we agree that sex and violence* can be used for good or evil.

Certainly I don't think the moral rightness of sex is what gives TV ratings. Do you think if we showed a film about, say, the sex life of a married woman and her husband (with the married woman played by, uh, Mila Jovovich or Summer Glau), with explicit erotic scenes, it would somehow fail to grow ratings?

It certainly would not do as well as a story about people who aren't married. It's too predictable, and too hard for the writers to make it interesting. Usually, the viewer wants to be kept guessing about will they or won't they, or will the husband/wife find out, etc. This is just a basic truth about fiction.


*I usually reserve the word "violence" for illicit or excessive force, but I'll use the term in a morally-neutral sense here. Seems to be convenient.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

It is actually a pretty regular topic of conversation amongst actual parents.


i see what you did there....    and i understand 

[Jamisjockey]

So we agree that sex and violence are different things, and showing one on TV doesn't "justify" showing the other. So far so good. But it simply isn't true that Americans "freak out" about sex and nudity on TV, and we are "okay with" violence on TV. The two subjects are almost uniformly combined in the popular discussion, as if they were the same issue. You are overplaying the objections to televised sexuality, while completely downplaying the objections to televised violence.

Nor will you be able to claim that sex, especially the sort of sex lurid enough to build TV ratings, is "healthy and typically harms no one." We all know the risks of sex, and that riskier sex makes better TV. Despite any talk of Americans freaking out, our airwaves are loaded with everything short of full nudity, and even that is available on the paid TV channels that so many Americans receive. So let's not pretend that present-day America is Puritan New England.

Whether or not it's okay to show those things isn't the question: Is it right for the government to interfere in what should be a free market decision?  If enough people don't want to see the sex or violence, they will tune out.  The free market will swing to follow what pople want.

[MicroBalrog]

Assuming the FCC runs up and prevents nudie bits or violence, why ought a business corporation have identical 1st Amendment rights as a flesh & blood citizen?  Especially if the debate is not about the FCC enforcing political content. 

Because we both know that corporations are the extensions of flesh and blood citizens. Nor is there a poltical-only exemption in the 1st Amendment.

[Tallpine]

nudie bits or violence

Why do we have to choose between the two? 

[Perd Hapley]

Whether or not it's okay to show those things isn't the question: Is it right for the government to interfere in what should be a free market decision?  If enough people don't want to see the sex or violence, they will tune out.  The free market will swing to follow what pople want.

Actually, tyme asked a question about the supposed similarity between sex and violence on television. That's what I'm responding to.

[MicroBalrog]

It certainly would not do as well as a story about people who aren't married. It's too predictable, and too hard for the writers to make it interesting. Usually, the viewer wants to be kept guessing about will they or won't they, or will the husband/wife find out, etc. This is just a basic truth about fiction.

Please.

There are plenty of classic artworks involving post-marital sex. I recommend you start with Shakespeare.

The proliferation of paid TV (cable, satellite, FIOS, broadband) has gutted the argument on the regulators' side that they must control political content for "fairness" as well as the libertines' side that we can not restrict non-political content due to some sort of censorship argument preventing the content from being viewed.

That is fairly illogical. On this argument, the government could censor a given means on media, as long as you were free to use another. Of course, the First Amendment does not have any mention of 'political' content.

[Perd Hapley]

Please.

There are plenty of classic artworks involving post-marital sex. I recommend you start with Shakespeare.

I thought we were talking about sex and nudity on TV. How is Shakespeare relevant?

[MicroBalrog]

I thought we were talking about sex and nudity on TV. How is Shakespeare relevant?

Shakespearean plots are a relevant example of how a show would incorporate post-marital sex.

Of course, I am not clear on why we need to focus on that anyway. The whole point of free speech is that different people will advocate - and let's be fair, art always promotes one message or another -different forms of sexual ethics. Let's have the religious produce She's too young, the liberals produce Beverly Hills 90210, the libertarians produce a full screen adaptation of Athlas Shrugged, sex and all. Let's see who wins.

[Perd Hapley]

You are aware that Shakespeare did not write for TV, and that most who do are not Shakespeare? 

[MicroBalrog]

You are aware that Shakespeare did not write for TV, and that most who do are not Shakespeare? 

I am also aware that Shakespearean plots have been adapted for TV hundreds of times.

I also am aware that Shakespeare wrote for the stage, for consumption by all levels of society. It was the TV of his day.

[roo_ster]

That is fairly illogical. On this argument, the government could censor a given means on media, as long as you were free to use another. Of course, the First Amendment does not have any mention of 'political' content.

No, it takes on the logic of the fairness doctrine regulators and the libertines straight-on, as both argument from scarcity. 

Fairness doctrine assumes that viewers have no other televisual means to get political opinion and will be overly influenced by a single POV.  The television libertines cry "censorship" and that their "art" will have no outlet if they can't access the airwaves.  Well, with hundreds of channels and tens of thousands of web sites, scarcity is no longer a problem.  You can get every stripe of political commentary and you can get the "art" of the most clinical and fetishistic pornography piped into your home, with bells on it. 

The fringe freaks can find what they want, nowadays, and there is no need to stuff it in the majority's face.  How's about we leave the one medium that is easiest for the most to obtain to reflect the mores of the majority who are not into clinical close-ups or Denniz Franz's ass at any leve of magnification?

[MicroBalrog]

The 'majority' can use a remote control. If it is really so vast, no doubt the Free market will do its work.

[seeker_two]

Oh no - sax and violins on TV 

What?....no oboes?.... 

Please.

There are plenty of classic artworks involving post-marital sex. I recommend you start with Shakespeare.

Go back further than that....look at Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and most of the ancient Greek myths....they make Desperate Housewives look tame.... 

[MicroBalrog]

Yes, but we were discussing sex where the partners were married.

Maybe go straight to the Bible and recreate the story of David's marriage. Complete with severed foreskins in bags.

[Perd Hapley]

And the foreskins had what to do with graphic depictions of David and his wives getting it on?

And I haven't read or seen all of Shakespeare's plays. Which ones include play-by-play accounts of married people having sex?

Look, Micro. Everybody who watches TV or movies knows that illicit sex makes more money. I'm sorry you never got the memo, but there's no need to keep desperately defending your view from a minor point that doesn't work out in your favor.

[MicroBalrog]

Anywhere you can work in an explicit description of sex between two handsome people, it will make money, even if they're married. It is unconnected to the context where they have sex. THe will-they-or-won't-they tension can, conversely, make money even without explicit sex, see all the hundredds of shows built on that rhethoric.

[Perd Hapley]

The will-they-or-won't-they tension can, conversely, make money even without explicit sex, see all the hundredds of shows built on that rhethoric.

Precisely.

[White Horseradish]

What?....no oboes?.... 

What about the ominous cellos?

[MicroBalrog]

Precisely.

You've omitted half of my post.

Mind, may it be that this means that a lot of people want to see that?

[Jamisjockey]

If people don't want to see it, they won't watch the shows.  If people don't watch the shows, the networks will put something else on.