TV: Too Sexy For Your Couch?

By Michael Abernethy, PopMatters. Posted December 22, 2005.

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?

In combination with 2004's Parents Television Council's Annual Report on the most and least family-friendly shows, the Kaiser report -- Sex on TV 4 -- suggests that television programming has become a venue for pornography. This is hardly news, but today the discussion is inflamed in two ways: hypersensitive critics include even the most innocent of romantic encounters as evidence of promiscuity; and moralists continue to argue that the media is a liberal playground where anything is acceptable.

To understand how we got to this point, we must delve decades into television history. The 1947 series "Mary Kay and Johnny" was the first to feature a married couple in bed together. The first TV abortion occurred in 1964 on "Another World," and the first storyline dealing with homosexuality came that same year on the forgotten series, "Espionage."

The first regular gay character appeared in 1977 on "Soap," and the first regular transsexual character showed up in 1986's "The Last Precinct." Women have been intentionally baring their breasts since Valerie Perrine did so in the PBS production of "Steambath," in 1973. (But women have suffered from "wardrobe malfunctions" on TV since the early '50s.) The baseball drama "Bay City Blues" featured men's bare butts 10 years before "NYPD Blue," and Mary Beth Lacy (Tyne Daly) had the honor of showing television's first condom when she gave one to her teenaged son in a 1986 episode of "Cagney & Lacey."

All of the above would have been deemed unacceptable by both the Kaiser Family Foundation and Parent Television Council. In fact, the Kaiser Report includes in its standards for evaluating sexual content anything romance-or sex-related. Sex on TV 4 features such vague categories as "Talk about sex," "Talk toward sex", "Talk about sex-related crimes," "Expert advice," "Physical flirting," and "Passionate kissing." Almost any show could be included: "The Brady Bunch" (Mike and Carol in bed together), "Happy Days" (the Fonz's high libido), even "Petticoat Junction" (three sisters bathing together in a water tower).

While the report's premise -- that the number and explicitness of sexual situations have increased -- is correct, its argument is not. The Kaiser analysts focused most of their attention on network television. As networks are obligated to address social issues in order to keep their FCC licenses, they often do so through "issue" episodes that examine relevant social concerns. Because we are a sex-oriented society, episodes dealing with AIDS, premarital sex, rape, stalking, and homosexuality have become more relevant. Now, series are much more likely to examine how a pedophile lures his victims than 20 years ago, when such subjects were taboo.

While the study does include some cable programming -- such as HBO and Lifetime -- it omits most cable programming, which means Showtime, the Playboy Channel, and Spike TV (all of which have "high" sexual content) as well as the Food Network, HGTV, and CBN (which have virtually no sexual content). In fact, the Kaiser report only looked at 10 networks, out of hundreds on the air. Sex on TV 4's conclusion that television has a "devotion to the topic of sex" is erroneous, even if sexual situations have increased. As always, it depends on where you look and what you look at.

While Sex on TV 4 can be criticized for its questionable research methods, the list of unfriendly shows by the Parents Television Council (PTC) is more easily faulted for its salacious focus. The Council claims that the list was comprised with consideration of the amount of violence or sex on a show, as both can be inappropriate subject matter for children. However, all 10 shows listed were named for sexual content; none for violence. Only two dramas, which typically feature more violence than sitcoms, made the list, and both were crime dramas criticized for sex-related cases. While the Council did mention the graphic scenes of death on "CSI," its primary concern was that the victims were involved in "unacceptable" activities. Likewise, "Cold Case" was cited for stories about snuff films, child porn, and rape.

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