We’ve all been there, watching television in the evening with our parents when, suddenly, an uncomfortably passionate scene unfolds on the screen. Skirts are hoisted up, jeans crumple to the ground and perhaps a pasty buttock or two flash like car headlights from the haze of lust and eroticism (and there is also a sex scene on TV). Said buttocks have much the same effect as their companion in simile, car headlights. Shock. Sheer shock with a chaser of horror and the numbing inclination that life is about to get, at best, uncomfortable. You realize with a wave of nausea that you are watching a sex scene with your parents and it’s just flat-out, no-holds barred, wrong. But you can’t stand up and leave or it will look ridiculous. Your parents aren’t going to stand up and leave because they’re grown adults and they have clearly had sex at least once or else it would be beyond your spermy ability to sit and watch a sex scene with them. But what if your parents asked you to leave? What if other people wanted to deny you the exposure mass media gives you to the sexual side of the human race? What if you were ignorant to homosexuality until it was too late and you found it weird, unnatural, even immoral? Would you be the same person? How different might you be and how much different a place would the world be? If you will allow me, I will express my own thoughts on this month’s big question: “Is there too much sex in the media?( Leaning particularly towards a criticism of the right-wing Christian viewpoint)”. I’ll also talk a little about education, but I’m not sure how much... if at all...
Watching “The Big Question” with Andrew the other day, I was surprised at a number of the arguments put forward by the Christian right-wingers. A minority in whom I have never perceived any great threat to decent, tolerant society, they voiced a number of opinions which, on reflection, strike me suddenly as rather alarming. At the time their views seemed like the usual rectal breeze of harmless conservatism, its odour punctuated predictably by heady notes of pious self-aggrandisement. One expects the occasional example of palpable self-defined moral superiority from such fine, upstanding guardians of civilized virtues. For the most part I have always assumed these were the outward signs of a form of spiritual stagnancy reserved for neighbourhood watch meetings and those amongst Parent-Teacher Associations with their own broods of offspring. To see the Bible-totting basket cases parrying logical, humanitarian viewpoints with pomposity and prejudice elicited from me less the usual sighs of mild exasperation and more the sort of confrontational desires I normally avoid or repress. As a usually tolerant person I am, ironically, hypocritically and confusingly, intolerant of intolerance. And if there is one demographic guilty of intolerance it is the Christian right. One particularly venomous specimen, a leathery hag with a 1940s haircut so luridly conservative she made the pale, meek red-head next to her look like a punk-rock lesbian anarchist, succinctly outlined the threat televised eroticisms pose to the youth of today. Such heinous, abominable indecencies as “incest, underage sex, fornication and homosexuality” pervade our television dramas, their combined malevolence seeping like a toxin from the millions of screens which glow like neon bar-signs, parasites nestled deeply in the warm and yielding flesh of the family home. Skins has been cited as a particularly iniquitous example. It has become the target of many a Stepford wife for its bad language and depictions of sexual acts between college students and (gasp!) even teachers. Flagrant ejaculations of “fuck” (as verb, noun and general expletive), “cunt”, “arse”, “tits” and a colourful range of others have earned it simultaneously a position of notoriety among parents and of cult reverence among today’s breed of street-wise, acid-dropping, procreatin’ youngsters. And so the crowds take to the streets, pitchforks aloft and torches blazing. Headed by the likes of our aforementioned turkey-necked harpy lady, they peddle their views that such explicitness on our television screens is responsible for the world’s blights. Which is nonsense.
What strikes me most about their arguments is their definition of indecency on television and what they view as a direct correlation between life and media. By way of a reminder I refer you to the list put forward by Ms. Holier-than-thou: “incest, underage sex, fornication and homosexuality”. I’ll take these one at a time and say a little bit about them, their effect on the public and their definition as indecent and immoral. Any arguments or comments are wholly encouraged.
Incest is, understandably, frowned upon. Given the resultant tangled lattice of jeopardized relationships and conflicting social norms, I don’t understand the psychological imperatives which drive people to incest and I don’t want to judge people who are driven to it, so I’m probably just going to gloss over it by stating quite obviously that incest is a practice we, as a society, discourage. Fortunately, it doesn’t take most people an awful lot of convincing that it is a bad idea and its very occasional depiction in film (“Close My Eyes” by Stephen Poliakoff for example) and other areas of the media are unlikely to encourage people to try it. Knowing they are handling a very sensitive subject, most writers exhibit it in their work responsibly and with due awareness of the difficulties it incurs. Still, it happens. Are we protecting children by keeping them in ignorance of unconventional and, in this case, dangerous sexual practices? If they don’t know it exists, are they protected? Ignorance doesn’t protect you from the law, and, by and large, offers pretty poor armour against the ills of the world as well.
Underage sex. It happens and it happens a lot. Nobody can deny that. But, inversely, young people are waiting longer and longer to have children. Is there a connection between these contradictory statements? I think there is, but it is certainly not alluded to in the content of either. (Very) generally, those teenagers having underage sex are from poorer backgrounds. Those waiting are from more prosperous, tolerant, middle-class backgrounds. The former are never exposed to sex under the supervision of their parents and, as a result, they grow up with false notions of glamorized sex drawn from the likes of Nuts magazine and internet pornography (both fine things of course, but only when accompanied by a backdrop of balanced sexual awareness). The latter, well, the latter are those more likely to have found themselves in the awkward situation I described in my introduction. Awkward though it is, it is perfectly healthy and a safe way of young people being exposed to sex. Obviously someone my age, and probably all of you reading this, merely feel acutely uncomfortable, understanding as we do the details of sex and having at least some notion of the accompanying relationships and emotions . Someone of eleven or twelve, however, might have questions relating to what they are seeing. Now, curiosity is the healthiest thing in the world. It is natural for us to be curious about that which we do not understand. Parents are therefore able to explain sex and relationships in their own way, that way being no business of mine. Is underage sex a problem resulting from overexposure in the media? I don’t think it is. I think it has a great deal more to do with parenting, which is a whole different issue and one infinitely too complicated for me to tackle. Enforcing stricter limits on the sex which can be broadcasted on television, printed in newspapers and recorded on film will not solve the problem of underage sex because there will still be children out there, children whose parents have prepared them poorly for potential relationships and who, doing as children do, learn practically. If anything, a more “diligent” approach to sex in the media will rob those children whose parents are there to answer questions of the opportunity to ask them. It would, frankly, be criminal to rob children of that which stimulates curiosity and a desire to learn about the world and the people around them. It is an instinct which leaves us far too early and must be cultivated as actively as possible.
Fornication, fornication, fornication. For any of you who aren’t aware of the full definition of fornication, it is the having of sex between consenting, but unmarried, individuals for the purpose of pleasure. There is a lot in that definition which can elicit discussion and debate, primarily between the secular and spiritual proportions of society. I, personally, being a liberally thinking man, a somewhat mild-mannered version of Wilde’s more outrageous Lord Henry Wotton, consider fornication a perfectly natural part of modern living. Not for me, but certainly for those more blessed with looks, charm and grace. The prerequisite of marriage in a sexual relationship is an archaic concept and as a race we have long lost our dependency on such inane and obtuse points on our moral compasses. That the church and the church alone should be responsible for setting the parameters of decency and integrity in our personal lives, in our own homes and, dare I say it, in our own beds, well, it’s a preposterous notion. Should you wish to adhere to these limitations then all power to you, from the very pits of my sinner’s heart. I don’t reprimand you for succumbing to the recommendations of an outdated life model, but neither do I reserve respect for you if it is simply mindless obedience. God, I am told, gave us free will so that we might question his wisdom and thereby worship him willingly, rather than as tyrannized subjects. Your personal decision shan’t lessen my affection for you, provided it is a decision, and provided you denounce that which is plainly in need of reassessment.
But, irrelevant of the morality of fornication, does its portrayal in the media encourage its enactment in society? As with those aspects of so-called sexual indecency discussed above, its influence via the media is only limited by the intelligence of those into whose brains it is projected. An educated person, or even an uneducated but emotionally healthy person, even a child on a path of healthy emotional development, will see sex on television for the purpose of pleasure and appreciate it on its own terms and on their own terms. Viewers of Friends have the intelligence and the maturity to appreciate Joey as a comic character. Sure, he sleeps with lots of women for pleasure, and sure he isn’t always exactly mature in his approach to this, but I dare you, I dare you, to label him a bad influence. It can’t be done. People realize the hyperbolic nature of his character, just as they accept the exaggerated and glamorized world of topless models and internet web-cam girls. It is an entirely fictional sub-culture and only the prudish meddling of would-be do-gooders reveals any real threat in the mass of silicone, bikinis and sexual promiscuity.
As for homosexuality, the subject of the debate is not whether it should be limited on television and even in education, but whether it should be projected as acceptable at all. I’m afraid I must take a very definite stance on this subject, and I accommodate no views to the contrary. The fact that the Christian right-wingers, and others (I do not want to be unfair), put homosexuality forward as an example of sexual immorality is a truth which I sorely wish I did not have to face. That such views still circulate society and are considered valid is unthinkable. It’s appalling and disgusting and outdated and utter nonsense. To the peddlers of such twaddle, may your walks to work be forever plagued by rogue dog-turds and your tax returns be riddled with administrative mishaps. Propagating homosexuality as a sexual immorality is a practice which is, thankfully, dying and very soon the dusty, decaying shepherds of mankind in their cavernous churches will have to amend their moral code or be rinsed away as sense and compassion prevail over blind faith and occult, Sunday morning mutterings.
I think that might have sounded a bit uncompromising and a tad lacking in diplomacy, but really? Think about it. I’d like to add also that certain officials within world faiths and certainly many hundreds of thousands of religious individuals are doing a splendid job as far as adopting more lenient, humanitarian viewpoints is concerned. My somewhat over-enthusiastic rambling is directed at a very small minority of die-hards and not to those who go about their spirituality not bothering anyone. If it makes them happy, good for them. But enforcing strictures pertaining to passages in a text many centuries and, further back, thousands of years old and written by the over-excited hands of flagellated zealots and uttered from the corpulent lips of bureaucrats with unquestioning civil obedience on their minds, that my friends, is no way to conduct one’s self.
Realizing how perilously close I have approached digression, I feel obliged to wrap up what is already an overly long Blog entry. I hope I have aroused your curiosity and encourage you to consider the topic for yourself. Consider the nature of censorship as well. History is saturated with instances of rulers limiting what their subjects are exposed to “for their own good” as is your everyday life. Consider the role of sex in society, its effects, the feelings and opinions it inspires, the divides it creates. Compare this sociological complexity with the raw simplicity of the act itself. For anyone not too mentally exhausted by this discursive marathon, I remind you that I wholeheartedly welcome your own views on the morality of televised sex, the lamentably ongoing stigmatisation of homosexuality and the perceived obligations of religion to inform media policy, and whether such obligations even exist.
Now, if you don’t mind, Michael has kindly allowed me to borrow Florence & The Machine’s album, Lungs. Since, on moving day, within the space of two hours, I saw her on GMTV, read about her in our flat’s dog-eared copy of Heat magazine and heard “Kiss With A Fist” for the first time, I am now terribly infatuated with Florence Welch and require some alone time with the album. As you were.
Jamie
