The PTC Thinks TV Will Turn Your Kids Into Sex Freaks

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 4:57 PM on August 8, 2008.

Bad news for all those parents out there who were kinda counting on TV to raise their kids for them: Parents Television Council -- the conservative watchdog group most notable for inundating the FCC with complaints about curse words and boobs -- has just released a study that finds prime-time television "actively" denigrates marriage while glorifying sex outside of it. Even worse, according to the report, is the television depiction of "outre sexual expression" such as " ... masturbation, pornography, sex toys, and kinky and fetishistic behaviors."

The snappily titled "Happily Never After: How Hollywood Favors Adultery and Promiscuity Over Marital Intimacy on Prime Time Broadcast Television" contains such alarming news as:

• Across the broadcast networks, references to adultery outnumbered references to marital sex 2:1.


• Although the networks shied away from talking about sex in the context of marriage, they did not shy away from discussions of masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, manual stimulation, sex toys, bondage or kinky or fetishistic sex -- there were 74 such references during the study period.


• Visual references to voyeurism (a third party present, watching or taping while sex takes place), transvestites/transexuals, threesomes, kinky sex, bondage and sadomasochism, and prostitution outnumbered visual reference to sex in marriage by a ratio of 2:7:1.

Based on these and similar findings the report concludes that today's prime time television:

... seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by painting it in a negative light ... sex in the context of marriage is either non-existent on prime-time television, or is depicted as burdensome rather than as an expression of love and commitment. By contrast, extra-marital or adulterous sexual relationships are depicted with greater frequency and overwhelmingly, as a positive experience.

Furthermore:

Behaviors that were once seen as fringe, immoral or socially destructive have been given the imprimatuer of acceptability by the television industry -- and children are absorbing those messages and judging from a recent survey, imitating that behavior.

The most obvious problem with the report derives from the main problem with the PTC. The organization advocates for a narrow and outdated morality; then it has its members send 5 trillion letters to the FCC so that everyone has to suffer. But what's particularly galling about "Happily Never After" is that the alarmist arguments in the report do not even match the research. Certainly, a parent whose values align with those of the PTC would find information about marriage and sex on TV valuable. But even if I were particularly concerned about the denigration of marriage in our media, the report would tell me very little about how sexuality and marriage are actually treated by Hollywood.

The PTC used the following methodology to determine that TV undermines marriage and pushes promiscuity and other 'immoral' behavior:

PTC analysts examined all scripted prime-time entertainment programs on all the major broadcast television networks ... Analysts tracked and categorized each sexual element within a scene. Categories of sexual content tracked by PTC analysts included verbal references to marital sex, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia, partner-swapping, prostitution, threesomes, sex with transverstites/transexuals, masturbation, oral sex ... Visual sexual elements noted by analysts included depictions of marital or non-marital sex, adultery, visual innuendo, oral sex, teen sex ... And sexual touching (i.e. of breasts or genitals.)

So basically the preacher from Footloose and Maude Flanders sat in a room and sniffed piously and periodically proclaimed "Why, I never!" and wiped their steamed-up eye-glasses while counting 'references' and 'depictions' of sex on TV. They then categorized them into positive or negative, marital or non-marital, normal or "outre". While this type of quantitative research apparently yields some alarming data, it tells us very little about how actual viewers experience television and absorb its messages.

As even most of those endangered kids cited by the study are probably smart enough to figure out, television is a narrative, visual, and auditory medium, and the "messages" it communicates cannot be condensed into numerical data. A reference to prostitution does not automatically transmit the message that people should have sex with prostitutes. Depictions of adultery do not necessarily tell viewers that it's admirable to step out on a spouse. Since most people, especially most children, are not PTC analysts, they experience these references and depictions in the context of entire episodes. The meaning they derive is undoubtedly also influenced by tone, acting style and other visual and audio cues.

Not only does the PTC wildly over-interpret basically meaningless data, they also base their findings on scenes taken entirely out of context. Here's the report's summary of an episode segment of 30 Rock, which is cited as an example of sex between an adult and child:

Describing a new TV show, Jack says "MILF Island': 25 super hot moms, 50 8th grade boys -- no rules"

Not only is this obviously a parodic scene, but it's one that actually pokes fun at our trashy, over-sexualized media.

Here's an example from the study of the glorification of non-marital sex (from Bionic Woman):

Jamie gets drunk. She tells the bartender that there is no such thing as "Mr. Right." She says that from now on it's Mr. Right Now." Just then an attractive man walks up to the bar. Moments later Jamie and the man are shown kissing passionately in the bathroom. It is suggested that she is about to have sex with him.

Now, I actually watched this particular crappy episode. Jamie does indeed drag a stranger into a bar bathroom. But they don't have sex because the guy is weirded out when she accidentally breaks his rib. Then, the head of the sinister secret organization responsible for Jamie's bionic status sweeps in, eyebrow raised: "Who's this?" He asks. Humor for us and embarrassment for her ensues when she can't remember his name. Sinister man then judgmentally asks, "Is this is what you call getting on with your life?" Rather than promote non-marital, promiscuous sex, this scene -- when not taken out of context -- sends the message that it's wrong.

The sexual politics of television are in fact quite conservative (prime-time TV is geared towards the broadest possible audience and the networks are wary of offending sponsors); as Diane Shipley points out in the Guardian, the primary message television shows communicate about sex isn't that more people should be having it outside of marriage, but rather that if you're a girl who has sex you'll be ostracized, get pregnant or die.

There's certainly a need for watchdog groups that raise awareness about the pernicious messages about sexuality in most mainstream media (see sentence above). It's unfortunate that the most powerful organization in this capacity is one that uses b.s. research to push a regressive agenda.

Tagged as: sex, media, marriage, television, fcc, ptc