The Parents Television Council is accusing broadcast networks of promoting extra-marital sex while portraying sex between married couples as boring, burdensome or non-existent.
The conservative special-interest group said that during one prime-time period last fall, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in marriage by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. Scenes implying sex between unmarried partners outnumbered similar scenes between married couples 4 to 1.
PTC said the study was based on observing 207.5 hours of scripted prime time series during four weeks from Sept. 23 to Oct. 22, 2007. It calls its report “Happily Never After: How Hollywood Favors Adultery and Promiscuity Over Marital Intimacy on Prime Time Broadcast Television.”
The results “suggest that many in Hollywood are actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently showing it in a negative manner,” PTC President Tim Winter said.
“Even more troubling than the marginalization of marriage and glorification of non-marital sex on television is TV’s recent obsession with outré sexual expression,” he said. “Children and teens are now exposed to a host of sexual behaviors that less than a generation ago would have been off-limits for broadcast television.”
He said he was referring to suggestions in TV shows of threesomes, partner swapping, pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality and sex with prostitutes. He also noted TV is featuring more discussion of strippers and references to masturbation, pornography, sex toys and kinky behavior.
“Behaviors that were once seen as fringe, immoral, or socially destructive have been given the stamp of approved by the television industry,” he said.
(Editor: Baumann)
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Comments (5)
Why do you print what these idiots say every time they issue a press release? Their agenda is obvious, their "scientific method" non-existent, and their conclusions are absurd. They cloak their 19th century agenda in concern for "children" while treating every show equally, whether it's on at 7 pm or 10 pm and ignoring technology that prevents children from watching content parents find inappropriate. And they ignore the most obvious remedy of all -- if they don't like what's on TV, they can either 1) buy their own channel and put whatever they want on it or 2) TURN IT OFF.
Posted by lynn | August 5, 2008 2:35 PM
completely, totally and utterly... true! programmers are moving the line and then stepping over it, repeatedly.
Posted by bfcrtv | August 5, 2008 2:37 PM
Lynn, expecting viewers to simply turn it off isn't fair to those who are offended (and who SHARE the public airwaves with all others). If someone put poison in your city's water supply, would the obvious solution be, well, turn it off and drink bottled water? No, we'd stop the people from poisoning the water. Likewise, decent folks don't want public life poisoned. Public airwaves are like public drinking water. If you want lurid, indecent programming, then rent a DVD. Or watch pay cable smut. But normal folks want programs that won't shock the children or grandma. You know, it's funny how the classic movies of Hollywood were able to tell a story without gratuitous swearing and indecent exposure.
Posted by Doug | August 5, 2008 3:31 PM
It is sheer laziness. They use these cheap ploys as a replacement for quality writing. If they would write decent shows, they wouldn't have to resort to this crap. Pushing the line should have stopped with premium cable. That way it isn't on the public airwaves.
Posted by Joanna Jurgens | August 5, 2008 4:28 PM
Isn't fair to those who are offended? What planet are you from, Doug?
Posted by T Dog | August 5, 2008 8:15 PM