In discussions on the SDMB and elsewhere regarding the collective prudishness of the United States, someone will inevitably mention that they heard from a friend of a friend that, while travelling through Europe, they saw hardcore porn on European free-to-air television. Descriptions of German stations are usually graphic andoften include descriptions of bondage, along the lines of “On this one show, there was a guy shoving a dildo into a ballgagged woman strapped to a St. Andrew’s Cross …”
C’mon … is that true? I wouldn’t doubt that Showtime-style erotic thrillers might air on a European station late at night, but hardcore porn showing genitalia in action? Kinky hardcore porn, with whips and restraints and latex and all that? Not on cable, but over-the-air television? Really?
In Germany, no. On publicly receivable TV only softcore (including simulated sex which may well include what you describe) is legal and that only after 11 pm (they fondly imagine all under-16s are asleep by then). I seem to recollect that one pay-TV station planned to transmit hardcore over their encrypted channel; don’t know what became of that.
I just checked the Yahoo tv listings for Germany and there doesn’t seem to be any hard core porn.
It’s on cable of course. And everyone has cable. But I doubt any EU country show hc porn over the air.
Of course, then there are things that technically would be a big no-no on the air in the US, but which nobody cares about here. There’s a brief glimps of Kevin Bacon’s pecker in ‘Wild Things’ which was on at 9 p.m. here not to long ago. Profanity doesn’t get cut and shows such as Sopranos and Six Feet under is shown over the air at about ten at night.
So - I’d venture to say that it’s a myth, in the same way as saying that all European women are topless on the beaches (not true). No doubt Americans have stayed at hotels, where the movie channels late at night show porn, but that’s a different matter.
<blink, blink> When I was there this spring, I didnt watch much in the way of TV, but what I did see was a couple german news shows, CNN in english [Chris so nicely programmed in the english channel for me, I am a news junkie] a fair number of american movies dubbed into german, and american sitcoms dubbed into german [Urkel in german is … sometimes existential. I guess american humor mostly translates into german]
Like I said, we didnt really watch a lot of TV, but nothing overtly sexual was really done on tv. The major thing I noticed on the local news channel was the general whinging about a number of the ‘welfare mothers’ about housing conditions [well, and welfare guys also…one guy lived in what had started out being a very nice brick home of about 1000 square feet, but had let it go unmaintained and there was enough trash in the yard for a good ol’ southern trailer trash family. He wanted the governmet to move him somewhere new…that house had been nnew when he moved in 10 years ago…] and that the general population detested the welfare whingers and felt they were getting a free ride and something needed to be done about them. Made me homsick for the news in america about pretty much the same complaints…guess things really are the same everywhere!
I hate to burst the bubble but yes. There is softcore porn on TV every night in europe. Well at least in england. You see I just got back form over there and every night they have at least 3 channels where they show topless chicks sitting around and talking. ITs mostly a scam to get lonely men to txt message in to try and get laid (with predictable ressuts) and lets face it top less women babbling is just not going to do it for me. BUt its there, its on SKY (cable) and its every night. Make of it what you will :rolleyes:
No, in Germany pornography on TV is illegal.
There is no distinction between terrestric, cable and satellite TV. The regulations are exactly the same and the actual content is pretty much the same, but for obvious reasons some of the smaller channels are only available over cable or satellite.
From what I have heard there are things that aren’t usually found on US TV. Nudity is nothing special on any channel, full and “frontal” (I was a bit amused when I first found out that there is a special term for that in English)
In the evening, after a standard notice that the following program is not appropriate for viewers under 16 or 18 years, there is more sexual content. If the intercourse is not faked, it is pixelated as soon as you can “see something”. This doesn’t refer to movies but things like “behind the scenes of a porn movie” investigative reports. Softcore is not that uncommon, but there is no hardcore at all.
In the UK, there’s a thing called “the watershed”. This means that before 9pm, there are language and image restrictions, but after 9pm when the kids are in bed (yeah, right), anything goes. Programs that contain potentially controversial materials are usually preceded by a warning: “the following program contains bad language and scenes of a sexual nature from the start”. There are a few restrictions: no erections, no flaps, and only very rare use of the word ‘cunt’. For the main four channels, this generally means that nudity in movies, or programs such as Big Brother, is tolerated. However Channel 5 has late-night programs that verge on soft porn.
In Ireland, movies on the state channels RTÉ are shown entirely uncut, and therefore will contain nudity and profanity as far as each movie is concerned - e.g. recently Don’t Look Now, which has a fairly graphic bonk in the middle of it (mmm, Julie Christie). I don’t think RTÉ actually makes programs with nudity, but comedy series such as the superb Bachelor’s Walk had “scenes of a sexual nature”, such as a guy having a relationship with a schoolgirl, and another guy scoring at a party, and frantically washing his cock in the sink before going home with the woman. Also, the execrable RTÉ ‘comedy’ Fergus’s Wedding revolved around an SDBM swingers’ club.
I don’t actually remember toplessness on Benny Hill, though I confirm it on Monty Python.
I also remember being amazed in something like 1978 when, on the satirical show Not the Nine O’Clock News, there was a sketch when a woman walked into a house with one boob hanging out of her shirt.
Her husband said “why do you have one breast hanging out?”
I don’t think hardcore movies are broadcasted in France on over-the-hair television. Softcore, yes on a couple stations, perhaps a couple times a week, late in the evening. Genitalia yes, in action I couldn’t tell for sure, because I rarely watch TV, let alone porn. I watched perhaps a couple of these mùovies over the course of many years and I just don’t remember the content.
Sometimes a soft erotic flick is broadcasted (“Emmanuelle” or “Story of O” style), sometimes a movie with a lot of sexual content, like for instance “37.2 Degrees in the Morning” or “Empire of the senses”, sometimes even at prime time.
As for ordinary movies, full frontal nudity is rather common, and uncensored.
But I doubt you could watch " a guy shoving a dildo into a ballgagged woman strapped to a St. Andrew’s Cross". Maybe on cable-TV, but since I don’t have cable, I couldn’t tell.
Also, there’s normally a rating appearing at the bottom of the screen like -10, -12 , -16, indicating the advisable age for children watching the movie.
I was in Corsica for a couple of weeks last month, and stayed in several different places-- a hostel, several hotels, someone’s house. And one channel always played very explicit hardcore (but not kinky-- no whips, etc) porno flicks after midnight. This was all throughout Corsica. So there you go.
As has been said, soft-core pornography is shown on terrestrial TV throughout a good portion of Europe. In Hungary, we got hardcore pornography on the basic cable service. The Travel Channel flipped over at 11 p.m. to Private Gold. (Private is a pretty famous Swedish adult company dating back to the 60s. Henry Miller was quite fond of their products, apparently.) Anyhow, From 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., it was full-on hardcore pornographic action. It was more-or-less your standard hardcore fare, but the quality of actors and actresses and filming was generally much better than standard American-quality porn. For some reason, though, Private seems to be pretty fond of the multiple guys on one girl action, which I don’t quite understand.
For a little while, though, we did get an Italian station on basic cable which had more…adventurous porn, sometimes involving animals. This channel didn’t seem to last too long, though.
After awhile, the porn stations become just another channel to surf through.
Here in Canada our TV stations often show programs like “The story of Sex”, or “Sexual Secrets” that include graphical video of people making love, closeups of penises and vaginas, and all that stuff.
On basic cable we have more of those programs, plus Bravo and Showcase both routinely show soft-core porn and the occasional hard core if they can get away with it. I was flipping through the channels a while ago and suddenly there was a closeup of a woman fellating a guy. It turned out to be an art film called “Devil in the Flesh”, airing uncut on Showcase. In fact, our ‘arts’ channels seem to be increasingly showing sex - probably because they can’t get ratings with traditional art films. So they’ll use any flimsy excuse to call something ‘art’ if it’s got sex in it. They aired all the Emmanuelle movies, for example. Lotta art there. But hey, it’s a foreign film! It’s multicultural!
They do show hardcore porn on Canal+ (channel 4) at around 3 in the morning here in Paris. Sometimes Canal+ is aired like regular TV and other times, during certain programs, it’s scrambled (when only subscribers can see the program).
Most hotels have subscriptions to Canal+ so if a traveler turns on the TV at 3 am, it’s possible for him/her to view hardcore porn on the regular TV. I honestly don’t know if the porn is scrambled or not for non-subscribers as I’m never awake at that time. The time I saw it :eek: I was staying in a hotel.
But, like clairobscur said, softcore and nudity is quite common.
FilmFour, a subscription offshoot of a British free mainstream channel, does the same thing - the guiding rules seems to be that if the characters don’t look like they’re enjoying it, it’s ‘art’.
Women who work in hotels complain that pay-per-view porn causes some male guests to become “amorous” with them. (No mention of how awful it must be to clean-up after them).
According to the story, “Norwegian law forbids hardcore pornography on video, in theaters and on broadcast television, but it can be shown legally on pay-per-view television.”
In Denmark there are local channels that show hard core porn every night. I just popped by once, and it was really skanky and nasty, probably because it’s so low budget. But as far as legality, pretty much everything goes – though some people are fairly upset because the channels receive public funds.
Also, the execrable RTÉ ‘comedy’ Fergus’s Wedding revolved around an SDBM swingers’ club.