So I’m watching surgery on television. Actually, it is some emergency room show, and it just happens to have guts and doctors cutting into people and so on. It was on TLC for those of us who know what that is.
So here’s this lady, right? and she’s all dying from something terrible, I’m sure. And she is cut open right up the center, and I mean they have her guts all pushed aside and her intestines are hanging out. Really pretty, as I am sure you can imagine. This was offset only by what must have been THE most beautiful breasts on earth. Or so I would imagine, because when I see fucking entrails splayed out I do not expect a nipple to be censored by the nifty blurring effect.
That’s right, there she is, guts all splayed out and unconscious on a table, but her boobies were just too much to show. Was it TLC or her? And does it really matter?!?! My goodness. If I was going to squirm at breasts I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be any happier about innards on display.
Struggling to understand reality, I switched channels and stumbled upon the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day”. Now, I like this movie, honestly I do. I think it was actually handled much better than I expected it to be, and dealt with some seriousness in the middle as well.
We cut to commercial, and when those are over I get the warning screen. “This movie blah blah contains some sexuality”. That’s it: just, hey, there might be some sexuality (not SEX not NUDITY just [sub][sup]sexuality[/sup][/sub]). What do we return to when the movie starts playing again? If anyone has seen this movie they might take a wild guess. Go ahead. Yep, that’s right, the series of scenes where he kills himself over and over and over again.
But let’s take it easy on the kiddies, ok? Some sexy scenes might be coming up.
Maybe they’re doing you a favor. Because I would be pretty disturbed to find myself turned on by beautiful breasts (I mean if I were turned on by breasts in the first place) while seeing the same woman’s entrails all over the place.
But maybe you guys are better at compartmentalizing than I am :D. (Hmmm…come to think of it, Revtim’s post pretty much indicates that you are…ya sick bastards :D)
That said, I take your point. Of course, the only really disturbing and terrible thing people in general and children in particular must be protected from at all cost is sex :rolleyes: .
Well, erislover, there’s just the slightest remote chance that the TLC producers were not focused on sparing you the sight of breasts, but on providing just a little bit of privacy to the patient, who probably could care less about intestine groupies but doesn’t want millions (or thousands) of people gawking at her breasts.
People can be funny that way.
As far as I’m concerned, my colon is off limits - bub.
Privacy?! I could see her insides! The only way I could see more of her would be if the doctors would get out of the way so the camera could get a better shot!
Now there’s a weird double standard – I watched breast reduction surgery on TLC not too long ago, and they showed every square inch in and outside of the breast. They even showed the poor severed nipples sitting alone in some saline solution while the breasts were, er, reduced. Everything was shown up until the breasts were put back together.
I do think that I saw bare breasts on MTV once, as part of a documentary on cosmetic surgery.
This ties in nicely with what I’d recently posted over in the Cafe. I watched the infamous ‘snuff’ film Flower of Flesh and Blood (it’s not real, by the way) this week, and noticed something that I found sickly humorous: Japanese indecency rules forbid showing pubic hair in movies. The makers of the film got around this by having the “killer” slowly slice open the “victim”'s abdomen, scoop out her intestines, and place them over her crotch. Since her pubic hair is now covered her own blood-soaked entrails, the scene is no longer indecent.
So it’s not just the US that has some screwed-up priorities. From what I’ve seen of regular tv, though, boobies seem to be ok.
I’ve always thought Americans rather prudish and very bizarre about what we show on TV and billboards: 99% of the breast is actually acceptable, but never show a nipple. The bare buttocks of both genders are pretty much okie-dokie (ref. Two Virgins by John Lennon and Yoko Ono), even when it might infringe on child pornography, but genitalia are banned even as Calvin Klein shows the obligatory bulges. Camel-toe is okay, too, as are nipples outlined in fabric (but not sheer, where darkness might show through).
Downright neurotic, if you ask me.
Anyway, I was in Europe a little while ago (summer of 2002, in fact) and I noticed much more nudity in the general media. The only thing I didn’t see out in public on billboards and magazines and such were genitals. It was different, but not uncomfortable, even for someone as introverted as I.
As for the OP, well, that’s just sad. Sad, I tell you. What’s next, the Merck Manual with black bars? The Expurigated Grey’s Anatomy? Technical terms in the medical dictionaries replaced with naughty bit', really naughty bit’, and `naughty bit so naughty we cannot even mention it here’? I say, if you’re going for a medical show, go for the gusto: Show the human animal as a full being, nipples and gentials and all, and give the censors the day off. Post disclaimers first, saying that this show will not be edited and everything the cameras captured will end up on your screen. Don’t try to make surgery into a peepshow.
Bordellos are built with the bricks of `morality’.
When we took our kids (age 9 and 10) to see Elizabeth, it was interesting to note that all the sex scenes were behind some kind of barrier, but all the burnings and beheadings and gory, bloody violence was right out in the open…
Yesterday I was watching A Baby Story on TLC (hey…it was the middle of the day, I was home and it was on). Anyway, they made a point of showing the baby’s head crowning, but blurring out any detail of the mother’s pubic area.
One of those things I thought was odd…not like the average person like me could tell what was what with the baby’s head in the way and all.
Our magazines can sometimes have rather unusual standards.
For example, the American version of Maxim and Stuff magazine (2 mens magazines) do not show nipples. They’ll show pictures of porn stars in the act, topless women, etc but genetalia and nipples have a star or pineapple or some other funny picture covering them. The British versions DO occasionally show an uncovered breast. But I think the funniest is ‘Gear’ magazine. Gear magazine has some sort of ‘compulsory nipple shot’ in each mag. When I got a subscription to it, EVERY issue had ONE photograph in which you could see the woman’s nipples. Not two, not zero, one.
Whether it was the patient’s decision or not I question it as a rather strange standard. I don’t care whose decision it was. Now, had just her face been blacked out, maybe I can understand that…
I was rather impressed watching the reduction surgery where there was perhaps one or two brief shots where there were visible nipples. I mean, it’s in a medical context. Sliced-open breasts are just not attractive (aside from that .001% of people out there SOMEWHERE I’m sure) even if they are nipple-equipped. I’m mystified.
:D)
