[Toshi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/12rich.html?oref=login

Just three weeks after the election, Channel 13 killed a spot for the acclaimed movie "Kinsey," in which Liam Neeson stars as the pioneering Indiana University sex researcher who first let Americans know that nonmarital sex is a national pastime, that women have orgasms too and that masturbation and homosexuality do not lead to insanity. At first WNET said it had killed the spot because it was "too commercial and too provocative" - a tough case to make about a routine pseudo-ad interchangeable with all the other pseudo-ads that run on "commercial-free" PBS. That explanation quickly became inoperative anyway. The "Kinsey" distributor, Fox Searchlight, let the press see an e-mail from a National Public Broadcasting media manager stating that the real problem was "the content of this movie" and "controversial press re: groups speaking out against the movie/subject matter" that might bring "viewer complaints."

Maybe in the end Channel 13 got too many complaints about its own cowardice because by last week, in response to my inquiries, it had a new story: that e-mail was all a big mistake - an "unfortunate" miscommunication hatched by some poor unnamed flunky in marketing. This would be funny if it were not so serious - and if it were an anomaly. Yet even as the "Kinsey" spot was barred in New York, a public radio station in North Carolina, WUNC-FM, told an international women's rights organization based in Chapel Hill that it could not use the phrase "reproductive rights" in an on-air announcement. In Los Angeles, five commercial TV channels, fearing indecency penalties, refused to broadcast a public service spot created by Los Angeles county's own public health agency to counteract a rising tide of syphilis. Nationwide, the big three TV networks all banned an ad in which the United Church of Christ heralded the openness of its 6,000 congregations to gay couples.

 

[biggins]

isnt that the same channel that has Mark Hyman commentaries?

how about the new issue of bicycling magazine? the whole thing is a sex issue with a super hot woman on the front.

 

[Toshi]

channel 13 in the context of this article is a pbs affiliate, i believe.

here's another quote:

off-screen Americans are being damaged by the cultural war over sex that is being played out in real life. You see that when struggling kids are denied the same information about sexuality that was kept from their antecedents in the pre-Kinsey era; you see that when pharmacists in more and more states enforce their own "moral values" by refusing to fill women's contraceptive prescriptions and do so with the tacit or official approval of local officials; you see it when basic information that might prevent the spread of lethal diseases is suppressed by the government because it favors political pandering over scientific fact.

 

[DßR]

this country was founded by Puritans, I wouldn't expect much else.

 

[BigHit-Maniac]

Bunch of wankers.

People are always gunna ****. I know I will, and the day the gov or anyone tries to take that away is the day that we have lost ALL freedom as human beings.


Bunch of ****ers.

 

[TheInedibleHulk]

When I was home for thanksgiving my mom had a copy of Citizen magazine out the counter. "Citizen" is Focus on the Family's magazine, and has the journalistic responsilbility of The National Enquirer. Focus on the Family is James Dobson's cult or morality, for those who dont know. Anyway the cover story was basically just Alfred Kinsey bashing, attacking his personal character and research, ect. I don't know enough about Kinsey to say if any of their accusations had any basis whatsoever(they basically accused him of being a pedophile), but it seems far more likely that they are just upset that he found out what they don't want to admit, that humans are highly sexual beings and our sexuality drives much of what we do. Even if he did have personal flaws, I dont think that devalues his work. The article was expressing concern that he would become idolized because of the movie and our country would slip one step closer to hell. People like this love to ignore the fact that at least a few of our founding fathers had sex with their slaves, Ben Franklin had sex with the eastern seaboard, and homosexuality and nonmarital sex have been norms forever. Im not quite sure where I'm goign with this or what my point was, but Im doing my best to be a lazy bastard and not study for exams.

 

[Silver]

Focus on the Family wants to look at the morality and personal lives of people? Cool...lets start with someone they would probably admire, and someone they would love to see the second coming of, the great theocratic King David.

Adulterer, possible homosexual, murderer, and to top it off he had a 14 year old girl keep him warm at night when he was too old to get it up. Now if you accept that having young children who are of no relation to you in bed with you, you're probably either a pedophile or Michael Jackson...or the greatest king of biblical Israel, I guess.

 

[Jr_Bullit]

Question: Admittedly I'm in a blue state and my pharmacist is a woman, but has anyone really had first hand, second hand, or even third hand experience with a pharmacist refusing to fill a woman's contraceptive perscription?

 

[Jr_Bullit]

In other words, this gentleman is laying claims to a cultural shift that I saw on hard-core catholic college campuses 7 years ago, but I really haven't experienced in a first hand manner except with a minority of the population. Does anyone have personal experience that validates this article?

 

[Andyman_1970]

Silver, I'm not arguing your basic premis - those fundamentalist (which I kinda am) who think sex is "dirty" need to read the Song of Solomon, in the Hebrew you get the idea of several references to oral sex *gasp*.

Adulterer,

Yeah I won't argue that. One thing to keep in mind that in the Bible sexuality starts "narrow" (one man one woman) gets "wide" (multiple wives) and then get's "narrow" again.

possible homosexual,

I assume you are referring to David's friendship with Johnathan? If you read that from the mindset of two middleastern men about 900 B.C. you wouldn't blink an eye at that - men would greet each other with kisses on the cheeks (ala Le Tour). The Hebrew word used to describe Jonothans affection for David is Ahavah - which in the Hebrew means "deeply commited". Sexual lvoe in the Hebrew is a different word "Dode" - which means to "rock" or "fondle".

Anyway, I'm not sticking up for David, he was alot of things, gay was not one of them.

murderer,

Yep.

and to top it off he had a 14 year old girl keep him warm at night when he was too old to get it up.

14 for a girl in the ancient near east was not considered young, Mary was about 13'ish - this was the prime age for a girl to get married - so comparing this to MJ is apples and oranges (+ almost 3000 years). The Text says she was "chubby" to keep David warm (in his old age he evidently had a problem staying warm) - I'm not aware of any indication that they were sexually involved.

Anyway, I agree with your basic idea here Silver, I just wanted to clarify your comments on David.

 

[MikeD]

this country was founded by Puritans, I wouldn't expect much else.

Puritans were a lot more in touch with sex than we are today. They were bawdy Elizabethans. They drank a lot and didn't wear shoes with buckles.

If you were a young puritan man of marrying age, and had your eye on a girl, you asked her father permission to 'bundle' with her for a night. It was accepted and endorsed...if she ended up pregnant, you had to marry her. If not, you could propose or go bundle with anyone else you wanted to.

We've invented the Puritans in light of modern sexual repression. They weren't so bad as lots of us think (in this regard, at least).

Check out Made in America by Bill Bryson. Great book which exposes a lot of our revisionism.

 

[ohio]

Check out Made in America by Bill Bryson. Great book which exposes a lot of our revisionism.

He's great. I'm currently flipping through *A Short History of Nearly Everything

It's like "Annals of the Former World and A Brief History of Time for Dummies" with a dose of entertaining historiography. A really fun read for non-fiction.

 

[MikeD]

He's great. I'm currently flipping through *A Short History of Nearly Everything

Just bought that as a gift for my GF's father (in return for allowing me to bundle with her, I suppose...)

 

[Toshi]

wasn't "bundling" where the male would be sewn up in a fabric bag?

 

[llkoolkeg]

wasn't "bundling" where the male would be sewn up in a fabric bag?

Yeah, and I thought they slept in a bundling bed complete with bundling board...a keel-like divider that separated the bedmates with thick wood. If I had to go through the trouble of asking a girl's daddy for permission first, that ain't the type of thick wood she'd be in for!

 

[MikeD]

I think it depended on the bundlers in question...

Some reports have it that they were sewn inside the bag together. Whatever it was, though, the idea was surely intended for them to have sex...otherwise, why have them sleeping in the same bed?

Also gotta remember that these were, oh, 14-15 year old kids...

 

[rpk1988]

I wish sex was portrayed like it is in Europe. Nobody cares over there. America needs to worry about other things right now instead of something their child is going to see hopefully later in life....

 

[clancy98]

from what I understood all this stuff about sex on TV is moot because the special was cancelled due to Kinsey's alleged pedophilic tendencies? If this is incorrect, by all means.

CL

 

[Toshi]

from what I understood all this stuff about sex on TV is moot because the special was cancelled due to Kinsey's alleged pedophilic tendencies? If this is incorrect, by all means.

CL

first off, note "alleged." second, ad hominem criticism is generally considered invalid, except by right wingers these days . third, (really point 2 stated again) an individual's tendencies don't make his or her work invalid. see alan turing for instance.