My Two Cents.

Let's clear up something once and for all. There is no visible sex on U.S. television! It's all talk. Even the scrambled U.S. Playboy cable channel is chaste compared to some of the free broadcast programs in other Western countries.

The myth that America's television screens are overheated by sex is purely in the minds of a small number of viewers. But thousands of pundits, in order to jump-start sluggish newspaper and magazine sales, insist on perpetrating this false picture (e.g., New York Post of April 25 and Family Circle of May 15). The myth of sex on U.S. television is also used to stimulate fundraising by so-called "puritanical" organizations that are obsessed with sex. Critical scholars suggest that commercial television actually does more to foster prejudices than to overcome them. Sex is one of those.

Television in the U.S. is neither erotic, sensual nor pornographic: it's just talk. Oprah Winfrey recently complained that talk show audiences are so jaded [by talk] that it would take a live sex broadcast to stimulate them. It has been calculated that U.S. television airs more than 14,000 sexual "situations" and innuendoes" per year. On the other hand, there are 20 to 30 acts of violence per hour on U.S. TV. That's why associations like The Citizens Task Force on TV Violence, which includes 28 national organizations, exist. There is no such task force for sex, which clearly demonstrates that for most viewers, violence is more "obscene" than sex talk. Even the TV-M (Mature audience only) rating warns that a show "has profane language, graphic violence and explicit sexual 'content,'" not "graphic" sex, only "content," a code word for "talk."

Meanwhile, violence on U.S. television is not effectively denounced. In order for politicians to criticize violence, they have to associate it with sex. Former Senator Bob Dole, for example, called upon the "TV industry to clean up its act from promoting loveless sex and graphic violence." What's graphic is not the sex, but the violence.

While sex on U.S. TV tends to explore gender issues and roles, it is never graphic, and nowhere near as explicit as the printed reports on Monica Lewinsky's sexual performances with then President Bill Clinton. The French blame "the divisive politics of American feminism" for this state of affairs, but I'm more practical. When Americans complain of "gratuitous titillation" on U.S. television, I wonder if the problem is actually the "gratuitous" part. Would it be better if paid? After all, advocates' actions always target the head to reach the wallet.

Gay themes, including same-sex kisses, appear frequently on U.S. television. But, its negative perception is a matter of a sexually repressed culture: I kiss my father, while most American males shake hands with their old man.

And, let's not forget that the U.S. is the world's largest producer of porno flicks. It has the world's highest number of teen pregnancies. The Federal government and many U.S. states still practice the death penalty (like Iran, Iraq and other violent countries) and the U.S. is the only developed nation without guaranteed health insurance for children. Sex talk on television clearly should not be a primary concern.

This misguided attitude is now being exported to other countries. Sex and the City, which is mostly "talk" about sex, has created controversy in Australia because of its "uncensored portrayal of sexuality." In Italy, where nudity and graphic sex is a primetime TV staple, would-be censors are using the sex element to attack satirical shows. And in the U.K., a few commentators are starting to criticize "too much" sex on television.

With television being as popular as it is, it's not surprising that there have been mountains of sociological research on its effects but please, let's try to be hard-core realistic!