You watch TV with your family at 3 AM? And you tune in to HBO even though they’re showing a show titled “Real Sex”? And then you’re embarassed because your family is there and you just start furiously masturbating?
Man, I don’t think HBO is the source of your problems.
This explanation has always made me wonder, what if someone wanted to run a sexually explicit ad on cable? Would the network just refuse to sell them the airtime on the principle of not wanting to scare off other advertisers?
I’m not sure about ads, but if you watch Comedy Central late at night it’s full of swearing. There was an episode of South Park where they said Fuck something like 50+ times.
As far as sexually explicit ads, some of those phone sex ads are pretty explicit.
I don’t know which channel it was, probably IFC, but I saw Brown Bunny uncut on cable TV. I want my money back. And Chloe Sevigny to act in a movie I make.
To address the OP’s question very directly: yes. They are an independent pay service and are able to show anything they choose.
I would assume showing hardcore porn, however, would have adverse business implications for them that they wouldn’t want to deal with.
There are cable channels that, as I’m told, show hardcore pornography. They’re generally rather expensive.
I don’t know about him, but I’m always pretty happy masturbating.