I'm not sure if you were just talking about violence or violence/sexuality/swearing combined, but I'll go ahead with this.

Still, no one has answered this: how will seeing a representation of the statue of David, a breast, or hearing any type of swearing contribute to morphing your child into a demented freak of society? How will it remove their "innocence"?

I've said before that they can easily look between their legs and see what they have and question it. Should we put metal chastity belts on them to prevent this?

I understand what you're saying, but really only towards the violence on TV as opposed to the sexuality/swearing. If I had a child, I'd be more concerned about them learning what "BANG BANG you're dead" is as opposed to a man/woman kissing or having sex seeing as how the latter is pretty natural to human interaction, which they will learn about anyway a few years down the road.

Well, I answered this question earlier on, but I am also not indicative of the kind of people lodging these complaints, so my answer only explains my actions, it does nothing to explain why people complained about this event.

I used the brackets to say that sometimes these things concern me together and sometimes they concern me apart, each case is different. Simple nudity doesn't bother me and I have no desire to shield my children from it. They understand what "naked" is and I have no desire to make them think that there is anything wrong with nudity. There is a time and place for it, however, in my opinion. But, I do not want, in any way, their minds clouded by the "puritanical" belief that nudity is wrong or bad.

Also there is a big difference between sexual content and nudity. Sexual content, at times, I do have a problem with, especially in a role as a parent.

As far as nudity in art, I think the "Church" holds a lot of the blame there. Without getting into a tirade of the sexual history of Christianity, I think many of the problems can be traced back to there.

Does that answer your question, at least from my side?

Indeed it does, thanks!

The U.S. does have a ratings system that appears at the beginning of every show, but it's not required that it be spoken, only shown. In this case the show was probably rated "G." The only real debate here is whether or not ancient Grecian art and pregnant women with glowing stomachs fit that rating or not. For some people in the U.S. it does not, I'd assume this is a fairly small percent but I could be wrong. In any case the people doing the complaining happen to have disproportionate sway with the federal government. The president and others will do anything to please their theo-con base even if it may upset the more libertarian Republicans.

As I indicated in my initial post in this thread, the problem I see is not with the incident in question but how the precedent of allowing "nudity suits" in general-audience, prime-time broadcasts is one that will undoubtedly be exploited to the maximum effect by unscrupulous interests. It is fitting to take a hard look at that and the FCC is the agency to do it. Now.

You think it is undoubtedly the case that "nudity suits" will be exploited because of the Olympic Games opening ceremony?

Goodness.

And by unscrupulous interests no less.


Mr Mephisto

this kind of censorship does not start: art's arguments would be fine if all that was at issue really was nudity in prime-time broadcast television, i guess (i am not in agreement, but i can respect the position)--but it is not.
witness this latest idiocy.
i pasted it from an email list i am on: it came without a source link beyond being from AP.

edit (was interrupted):
i do not really accept efforts to seperate various types of censorship.
not in this particular climate, which is in general characterized by the protestant fundamentalist right flexing its political muscle after delivering votes for cowboy george in the last debacle of an election.
nor can i tell from the above who would qualify as the "unscrupulous interest"...while i might be generally inclined to see that interest in capital, here i looks a whole lot more like it is whomever is behind this lawsuit.

ART, although I'm digressing by addressing your digression, I feel that it is my duty to provide the TFP with the other half of this National IQ silliness. First, there are only a handful of true IQ tests, The Stanford-Binet, the Wechsler (adult, children's abridged etc.) and the Woodcock-Johnson (my alltime favorite test name) are among the commonly used ones. If you haven't taken one of these tests, then you have not taken a true IQ test. These are not the online, answer 20 "if a plane crashes where do you bury the survivors" questions. Each test takes a couple hours to administer and contains many different subtests, testing various parts of intelligence. Anyway, the real point here is that the tests are only available in a few languages so it would be impossible to administer the tests to the bulk of the nations listed. Furthermore, using SAT scores to exrapolate theoretical IQ scores is absurd. I've taken the SAT's and given hundreds of IQ tests and there is a huge difference. Regardless of the fact that the scores don't translate, you also have to consider who is taking the SAT's. It's mostly people who want to go on to higher education etc., it's certainly not a random sample of the regular population. I'm sure that the same percentage of the population in NY and Miss. are not taking the SAT. With the other countries, each has a different portion of the population taking its version of different standardized tests so there is no way to accurately compare. And don't even get me started on the theories of multiple intelligence. Again, sorry for the digression, but I wanted to let people know that there appears to be substantial evidence that the Wealth of Nations is complete bosh.

I actually believed your custom title.

I was thinking, one minute he's here and the next he's gone, I wonder what he did, he was being a lot more jovial than normal.

well, now we know what happens if you put that in your custom title...

I fail to see the idiocy of a parent who is monitoring what their child is listening being angered when they find obcenity on a CD they purchase, which was not marked as such. Even if it's just one word on one song many parents don't want their child to be exposed to such, or they don't want to be the agent of exposure (by purchasing said material).

Personally I'm growing increasingly more in favor of such actions as the lawsuit and FCC investigation. To me at least, it seems that generally America could use some decency and morals. The enveloping climate of permissiveness has seem to give no real benefit to society so far, and should be halted.

Ilow, thanks, yes.

Basically, my response was intended to squelch a loaded rhetorical question. The simple answer would have been that the average intelligence in America is by definition "average" just as with the rest of humanity - allowing for cultural, health, and economic norms/situations and errors, problems, biases in the testing...

ART, I understand about trying to squelch that type of reasoning, sorry if I came off too harsh. To be honest, while I pretty much agree with you that America is basically average or on par with many other countries, I wish we could check other statistical data. We've been sort of talking about the statistical average or mean, but in some ways, I wonder if there is a difference in the distribution between countries etc. For instance, is the mode (the most commonly occurring score) or the median (the exact middle score) different? It seems that when you consider countries overall, they actually may be judged more by the extremes than the middle. I would imagine in more homogenious cultures there is less variation than in the US. I don't know it was just something I was thinking about. (What was this thread about again?)

Jeeze, this thread took me over an hour to read entirely.

How is the basic naked human form sexual? From birth (as someone duly noted) we have genitals that we can touch and look at, and it's even documented that infant boys will play with their penises (I'm sure the same goes for girls). How is the naked body unhealthy? Do you take showers naked?

Nothing is sexual until someone puts a sexual connotation to it. Just as Nietzsche said, ... The resolve of radical groups in this country to see the naked human form as sexual and wrong has made the naked human form sexual and wrong.

Also, earlier in the thread someone made an excellent point using people from France and Europe as an example. Furthering that, a woman is raped in America every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. I wonder if cases of sexual abuse are lower in Europe as well. Could our (Americas) view of sex and nudity factor into cases of violent sexual crime as well? I was unable to pin down any European statistics, but if someone has a good source I think it would be interesting to see.

I personaly don't find anything offensive in the games opening ceremony. That said, I have an easier time respecting the people who complained than many of the "outraged" people who complain about the conservative slant in the media. The way I see it, it's extremely hypocritical to gripe and complain but never do anything to make the changes you say you want. At least these people are supporting their views with action and not just whining about it.

The FCC received 9 (NINE!) complaints out of 50+ million American viewers concerning the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

The foundation of this entire 114 post discussion is an absolute mockery of intelligence.

I wouldn't say so. Although this incident might not live up to all the hype, it's the idea that America is becoming some kind of puritanical machine that systematically analyzes any media for "obscene" material that is morally "unfit" for consumption...that seems to be the true problem.

Too me it just seems like anything thats sexually questionable on tv is going to receive all kinds of attention from other media sources sensationalizing it, in order to boost their ratings. A partially naked woman (or statue) on primetime tv and a few complaints to the fcc gives talk show hosts and journalists enough material to carry their programs/publications for a week without having to do any realy journalistic work. Easy money.

Eric Idle's take on the FCC
 

http://www.pythonline.com/plugs/idle/FCCSong.mp3

Worth a listen. If you don't have virgin ears, that is.

ROMFL. But I guess that's mostly because I don't particularly care for the current administration.