Maybe as Bonzi says this is an old can of worms, but I find reading this thread interesting....

yn0t_: So what is the attraction to these shows? What is it that they're doing that's so funny? And does anyone else think it's just gotten old, and is bordering on irresponsible and just plain wrong? The language they're using, while devoid of any of Carlin's seven words, is awful, and the subject matter is definitely not anything I'd want my kids listening to. And all this happens in a time slot that kids are very easily able to tune into.

I think that my credentials as a sexist pig are pretty impeccable, and I consider myself a very zealous free speech advocate, but I share your bewildered disgust. Part of my great dismay with the recent Republican FCC consolidation ruling is that I feel that conglomerate media are getting further and further away from any of the basic “public service” notions that used to be paid at least lip service by the FCC/government. Instead , we get lowest-common-denominator puerile shock talk targeting 18-35 year-old male consumers. Period. I may be wrong on the exact demographic or I may be oversimplifying, but I think you get my drift. I find a lot of the “wink, wink” adolescent sexual innuendo in a lot of prime-time TV pretty lame as well.

gsm01320: I just graduated from high school, and work at a local Coffee shop.. lets just say I totally feel that some of these talk shows are responsible for the reason I have to kick kids off of my stores premises on a daily basis... they all listen to the radio at all times of the day, they think that the stuff they listen to is humerous and act it in public.. the worst part is they are all younger then me and think they are more mature because they act and dress the way they do... honestly its humiliating being assosiated with them... howard stern has always been cool... but the so called "tame" stations advertize rude and crude behavior on a less noticable wave.

This is really interesting. Makes me feel a little less like an old fart!

When I encounter this media “hypersex” and, worse, the flat-out misogyny of a lot of music, I tend to consider it in terms of 3 people: my delightful 96 year-old aunt, my delightful 26 year-old niece, and my friend's delightful 7 year-old son. Yeah, I think about how my aunt feels when she has to deal with that kind of behavior, what my niece's life will be like in a world where popular culture runs shows like “Are you Hot?” (sp?), and I really have to think whether my friend's son will grow up thinking that “bitch” and “Ho” are just normal parts of everybody's conversation and that sorry things like “Girls Gone Wild” are rilly, rilly cool. Part of my unease with performers like Eminem who explain that “people just don't get the joke” is that 7 and 10 and 12 year-old boys generally don't get the joke.

Another friend of mine has a very bright 10 year-old daughter, but “Mom” is very distressed at the complete absorption of her daughter's peers with Britney-esque dress and sexual “tease” behavior. These poor kids seem like they have really absorbed the “midriff” culture message that being sexy is what it is all about --- more like *all* that it's about. Mom has to spend a lot of time trying to keep her daughter's head screwed on straight.

I'm not big on sexual repression and actually feel that countries that embrace and expose sexuality more (say French TV commercials with naked women) have less to worry about than do we here in the U.S. I just find the tease/boob-job/male fantasy culture that seems to be getting worse is not good for 1/2 of the population. Maybe these teachers would condemn me for saying so, but I feel sorry for them. I don't think their mothers succeeded in keeping their heads screwed on correctly.

wfaulk: Tennessee is not particularly different than the rest of the deep South, other than regular interstate differences.


Maybe not very different, but I think Tennessee has gotten specific attention around issues like pronography and evolution/creationism that have led to some of the barbs.

FerretBoy: Of course the understanding here is that we're coming from two different perspectives, and I'm going to try and not get too deep into it (though I always fail at that don't I?). The following of course flows out of a religious conviction I fully expect most people don’t share.

I think that the root problem is lust, or the aforementioned “objectification of a person”. This doesn’t simply mean “promoting a person’s gifts” such as a pretty face or a good voice. When using pornography men (or women) experience the trappings of intimacy without the substance of it. This is not how sexual attraction was meant to be exhibited. Sex is a wonderful, intimate experience between a husband and a wife where two people physically express their relationship to one another. When sex becomes a one-sided experience, however, it is turned from a positive experience into a negative one.

How all this relates to nudity? [...........]

I could say more, but that’s about the core of my feelings on the subject. I’m already sounding pretty judgmental, but really I’m just stating how I see sex and nudity from my belief system. If you think that lust is natural and good (or at least not bad), then clearly my above arguments carry no weight. I, of course, do think that lust is not a good thing and thus feel that promoting it in any way is not a good thing.

As always, you score great marks for laying out your position thoughtfully. As you might expect, I don't agree with some of your premises, but I am of two minds on some of what you say. I tend to see “lust” as a fact of life that goes back as far as human history and one that has, for better or worse, left its mark on many of the pivotal events and stories we find familiar (Helen of Troy as example). It is my imperfectly-supported feeling that many of the attempts to suppress sexuality in societies have been led by the people we should be most worried about – repressed, righteous clerics who later on turn out to be pedophiles, for example.

I agree in part that one-sided relationships can lend themselves to “objectification”, but again I feel that some of this is a fact of life. Not everybody finds that perfect partner, some lose theirs. The world stubbornly refuses to conform to strict 1 Man + 1 Woman formally married partnerships as the basis for sexual feeling. My condom jokes notwithstanding, I don't think that I pose any particular risk to the women of Amersfoort, but I do hope to lust after them. I'd worry if I didn't.

I don't have any direct experience with official nudism, but I have driven around some of the spots in France with big “Naturisme” beaches (carefully trying to take the right turns!) and it is my sense that folks who embrace this whole nudism thing spend a lot less time worrying about lust than the average American guy. I, personally, probably wouldn't manage to blend in very well on one of these beaches, but maybe if I were brought up that way....?

Soooo, I guess I am doomed to remain a sexist pig and I think that lust is just fine and a fact of life, but I guess my concern is that we, in our media and pop culture institutions and our “Britney-type” midriff imagery, are institutionalizing an unhealthy one-sided sexual culture to the detriment of all players.