This Veteran’s Day, the ABC network decided to broadcast Steven Spielberg’s outstanding World War II epic, “Saving Private Ryan”. The contract with Spielberg dictates that the movie may not be cut or overdubbed in any way, meaning that ABC was forced to air the movie with the proper definition of FUBAR and soldiers not screaming “Oh, heck, darn, shoot!” when their legs are blown off by a grenade. The network showed disclaimers and warnings at the beginning of the movie and at each commercial break, just as they had done the two previous times they had shown the movie.
However, 66 ABC stations, serving one-third of the national viewership, pre-empted the movie, citing concerns over potential FCC fines. New guidelines passed by the FCC in the wake of the Surprise Attack of Janet’s Jiggler have now made the potential fines levied against broadcasters incredibly expensive. Many of these media companies got a little scared that one of their delicate viewers would be too dumb to read a disclaimer, too stubborn to change the channel, and just literate enough to write a complaint letter, thus bringing down millions in fines against their bottom line.
There weren’t any worries about the broadcast of realistic war violence, though. No need to worry about the viewers seeing screaming US soldiers with limbs freshly separated from their bodies or entrails pouring out of bellies or exploding skulls spraying brain matter. War is heck, you know. But if someone were to hear the F-word, well, they might… what? Go do it?
What is it about the F-word that makes otherwise rational people spout off such irrational logic? And how is it that someone can take offense at hearing one particular syllable that’s just one letter away from “funk”? It’s perfectly okay to scream for some good time funk, but if you throw a “c” in there you’re indebted millions to the FCC and glared at by some. That kind of language should be reserved for vice presidents at the Senate, not the television.
Perhaps it’s because the F-word is the most primal word to describe sex, and if there’s something we definitely can’t handle in our Puritan-descended society, it’s sex. It was Janet’s Bare Mocha Mammary that got us into this current mess – we can’t have the kiddies seeing the gland that nature designed for their infant nourishment. Why did she have to spoil the halftime of the national celebration of our steroid-fueled, violent collision, land-war simulation game by whipping out her nipple-shielded sex pillow? (The NFL cheerleaders, wearing a third as much clothing as Janet, were positively shocked.)
The resignation of Attorney General Ashcroft reminds us that the war against solitary unclothed bosoms has been going on for a while. It was Ashcroft whose pure Christian morality was so offended by the single nude brass booby of the Statue of Justice that he spent $8,000 of our taxpayer dollars to cover it up. Let’s see, torture of prisoners, incommunicado detentions, secret spying on citizens, raids on paraplegic medical marijuana recipients, no morality problems there… wait, is that a bare brass tit? Let’s get that covered up right away before the country goes to hell in a handbasket!
This perverse fear and loathing of sex is a driving force in so many of these completely distracting and irrelevant morality arguments. Take the issue of these gay marriage amendments. One of the mailers circulated by the anti-gay forces warned that if gay marriage were legal, we’d soon be teaching our schoolchildren all about gay sex. Other arguments warned that we’d be legitimizing the gay lifestyle against the wishes of the majority. Apparently one of the worst things we could do in our society is recognize that some people have sex differently than other people. Because some methods of orgasm-inducing slippery genital friction have the power to cause the downfall of civilization. (Don’t ask me how, but somehow that’s how Rome fell, they tell me.)
It even creeps into the argument about abortion. The people with such a fear and loathing of sex want to be sure that anyone who does have sex is forced to bear children as a result. So naturally, these people are leading the charge to provide meaningful sex education and birth control to our young women, right? Wrong! They vehemently argue for abstinence-only education (“Just Say No” worked so well on illegal drugs, after all,) because telling kids how to protect themselves would only make them want to have sex. Otherwise, teenagers would never even think twice about sex until they are married, right?
Another sick sign of this sexophobia attacking our culture is a recent move by some pharmacists, backed by the American Pharmacist’s Association, to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions for women. The pharmacists in question cite their moral opposition to birth control as their motive for refusing to do their job. In some cases, the misogynist pharmacists went as far as not returning the prescription script to the women. You just know that if there was a radical lesbian feminist pharmacist refusing to fill Viagra prescriptions she’d be out on her ass before lunch. I just hope this type of moral clarity doesn’t spread to vegan steakhouse waitresses, twelve-stepping bartenders, and gay Republicans. No, wait, I do wish that kind of clarity for the last group.
Of course, the ultimate portent of this sex-obsessed regression came in the late-90’s scandal of a President lying about extramarital oral sex. The lie about sex was cause for impeachment and round the clock investigation, yet current presidential lies about the rationale for sacrificing soldiers remain unprosecuted and are forgotten by the media. For as “Saving Private Ryan”, the Super Bowl, and the War in Iraq have shown us, violence is to be revered, celebrated, and undertaken as a first resort. But talking about, showing, or having sex is to be fined, hidden, or punished.
I don’t think there are any better arguments for having progressive female politicians in charge of the government.
