Why do European kids need less "protection" from nudity and sex on TV?

Great Debates
1

Firstly, is there indeed much more nudity and sex on broadcast TV in Europe, in general, as I have been led to believe?

If so, then are European kids suffering from whatever bad effects the folks who complain about their kids seeing Janet Jackson’s tit are worried about? I’m not sure what those effects are, but are, say, German kids suffering from these afflictions because they haven’t been as vigilantly protected? Or are non-American kids somehow more hardy and can resist the dangerous sight of a nipple more effectively without becoming a serial rapist or whatever?

Have any of the groups that regularly protest things like The Tit That Shook America laid out what they are worried about, and used European stats to back up their claims? To make up an example, have they made claims that nudity leads to kids experimenting with sex earlier and getting pregnant, and then showed stats that a European country with regular TV nudity has a higher teenage pregancy rate?

Or have they simply said “me no like” with no claims that can be challenged?

2

I think teen pregnancy is higher in the US than Europe… but TV has little to do with it I venture… but the lack of sex ed most certainly does. Puritan mentality doesn’t help. Europeans much more open to sexuality than American or us Latin Americans.

The TV censorship is just a reflection of things…not a cause.

3

Three French boys are walking down the street, one 5, one 7, one 9 years old. The happen by an open window and see a couple inside in the throes of passion.

“Look!” says the 5 year old. “A man and a woman, and they are wrestling”

The 7 year old looks in the window and says “Fool! Zey are making zee love!”

The 9 year old looks and says “Oui! And badly.”

4

And the 11 year old looks and says: “Shouldn’t he be wering a condome?”

And that’s the crux of the matter. Come on people, breasts are some of the first things people ever see after first opening their eyes to this world. Having sex is an animal instinct that isn’t going to go away by pretending it doesn’t exist, that only causes teen pregnancy. Masturbation doesn’t cause blindness, if anything it prevents rape.

We are some of the most sexually liberated people in the world and have some of the lowest abortion rates in the world. Correlation doesn’t always mean there is a connection, but in this case, it’s as obvious as the sea receding 400 meters portenting a Tsunami.

5

Actually, television in Europe is used to broadcast PSAs and commercials for birth control. Normally, it shows a child or children tearing stuff up, being abominable, and a teenager at his/her wits end. This is then followed up by a short blurb about condoms or contraception packages from health care centers. The fact that sex is legitimized allows for better acceptance of sex education, which in turn allows contraception into the hands of teenagers.

Here, if all a child is told is to abstain, what are they going to do when hormones cloud their judgement as a teenager? They obviously can’t ask mom and pop for a condom, and the stigma is so strong that they feel self conscious about purchasing birth control and don’t.

Now back to topic…

European television does not censor sex and nudity because they consider it a normal and natural occurence. They DO censor violence, however. I’d rather see nipples than decaptations, but I guess I’m not like most of my fellow americans.

6

<enter resident ex-pat Brit>

As someone born and raised in good ole’ Blighty, and who’s lived Stateside since…oooh, 1996 or thereabouts…I honestly have NO idea why nudity and sex are so frowned upon by this great nation. I do know that it seems more than a little…well…ridiculous, frankly.

I too would rather see nipples and bums (come on, in England we have Page 3 for heaven’s sake…we have boobs over breakfast, which gives an odd meaning to “fried eggs”, now I think about it…) than decapitations and multiple murders. I believe there’s a commonly thrown-about statistic alleging that before the average American child has reached 18, he’s seen something like 18,000 murders on television.

But, apparently, no nipples.

Nipples…murder…nipples…murder…nope, it’s a no-brainer for me :smiley:

7

In Ireland most people have both Irish and British TV.

On British TV, there are titties galore, but there’s a thing called “the watershed” on UK TV that doesn’t allow nipples or genitals to be shown before 9 pm (when the kiddies are supposed to be in bed… which I doubt). Bottoms are fair game for anyone, and are regularly shown in commercials. The only time we see buttocks censored is on on US programmes and channels like MTV. There was once a female nipple shown in a TV ad but this was withdrawn after a complaint. Erect penises are still verboten.

Irish domestic programmes are more conservative, but the main state channels (RTE) have a policy of showing every movie uncensored, so there is nudity there.

And the continentals go crazy for it.

I don’t believe the exposure to naked flesh has an adverse effect on childrens’ development.

8

But wasn’t Janet Jackson’s tit boring? She isn’t IMO particularly good looking. I doubt kids anywhere on this planet have suffered from seeing her tit. Except for teenagers who were familiar with porn and thought “c’mon, what a lousy hooter.”

9

According to my 15 year old nephew, who is still safely hidden away in the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales…

“Aw, but her tits weren’t that good to start with…seen nicer tits on me mam’s friend down the street!”

I’m assured that this sentiment was indeed the general consensus, at least, the part about Ms Jackson’s boobicles not being “that good”. I can’t comment on the friend down the street.

10

Post a picture of the objects in question, and we can deliver a considered judgement

11

The better looking ones are the ones that are dangerous? Next time I see a really great set, I’m gonna say “Damn! Those could cause some damage! Did you see those? They could warp a whole schoolyard of kids!”

12

Some data on comparative teen pregnancy rates here, in the section titeled “Rates of teenage Childbearing in the US…” (sorry I cannot cut/paste ATM as I am on a kiosk terminal). The studies cited are from 1998/99 so the following numbers are a bit dated: US teenage birth rate = 2 x England’s/3 x Australia’s/4 x Germany’s/6 x France’s/8 x the Netherlands’/15 x Japan’s.) Note: teen childbearing rate does not equal teen pregnancy rate, of course. For Germany the few sources that I could find said that somewhat more than half of teen pregnancies are aborted and that of 135,000 registered abortions nationwide in 2001, 7,600 concerned minors.

As for exposure to nudity in media, frontal nudity was pretty common here on e.g. the covers of newsmagazines (i.e. what lies around in family living rooms) etc. since the 1970s - softcore TV offerings were only introduced in the 1980s with the opening of TV to for-profit stations. These programmes are on the decline BTW - I suspect because of the ready availability of internet porn…

BTW am I correct in assuming that pictures of unclad mammaries are available to US teens, and the strict regulation of broadcast TV is an anomaly within the media spectrum?

13

Yeah, for us, the hullabaloo over Janet Jackson’s breast was a storm in a tit-cup.

14

AFAIK, there aren’t really many unclad mammaries available to US teens who don’t have net access and/or pay-per-view TV. There are no unclad mammaries allowed on the vast majority (if not all) of US stations, and thus, Ms Jackson’s Nipple was quite the Sunday surprise. We don’t like that sort of thing here, obviously. Boobs are the devil’s pillows! Didn’t any of you ever watch Carrie? :stuck_out_tongue:

Unfortunately, nudity IS very strictly governed on US television, and indeed the printed media too. There is nary a nipple to be seen anywhere outside of an “adult” bookstore. I’m really not sure why, having only lived here for 8 or so years. I went from a veritable boobfest in England, to being starved of boobification virtually overnight when I moved here.

I’m sure I’m traumatised, but to what degree is anybody’s guess really!

15

When I was 15, lots of the girls I went to school with had better tits that Janet Jackson. And a few of them showed them to me in all their glory, and let me do more with them then just look. :wink: I rarely watch television today, but if I had been watching the Superbowl with other people when this Janet Jackson event occurred, likely I wouldn’t have thought it significant. Is US boadcast TV today so prudish a tit briefly showing on the air is shocking? Where I grew up in the 1970s the local PBS station used to show British comedies where occasionally topless women were shown. Really. Not only did this station show titties every now and then, they got government funding. Have I entered a time warp, and tits can’t be shown on US TV again?

16

Well firstly I’m again seeing pretty inaccurate generalizations about American schools.

Let me clear a few things up:

  1. I graduted from HS in the 1980s

  2. I took the maximum number of biology credits offered, and the hardest biology classes offered. I was taught about evolution in depth, creationism was never mentioned, save by a few religious students who were purposefully trying to rile up the instructor.

  3. We learned about the metric system from very early grade school and on.

  4. In sex ed in the 5th and 6th grade we learned all about STDs, condoms, how pregnancy works et cetera. We had to take “refresher” sex ed classes in 8th and 10th grade.

In these classes we were shown graphic pictures of genitals affected by late stage syphilis and et cetera, very nasty. We were shown PSA type movies about teen pregnancy, were taught how to use condoms again, probably 6 times I was taught how to use a condom by the school system. We were told about a full gamut of birth control options, the pill et al.

We had to take health classes from 7th-11th grade, and in every one of these health classes there was a section on STDs, sexuality, birth control.

In my opinion after all of that there is no valid argument that American teens don’t know the risks of copulation. There is no valid argument that American teens don’t understand how pregnancy works, or how a condom works because of the educational system. If the teens don’t know, then they skip a lot of school, and probably fail a lot of classes while they are in school. Because these sex ed/health classes were some of the easiest required classes in the whole system (other than PE.)

I can’t imagine that since the 1980s we’ve actually regressed and don’t teach our children the risks these days.

The biggest problem IMO with getting kids to use condoms is two fold. One, most people in general prefer condomless sex to sex w/condoms. And two, due to societal stigma it’s hard for a teenage to go into a store and buy condoms.

I’d also say parents are much heavier “abstinence only” focused than schools, in general.

Remember that I grew up when AIDs killed very quickly, and the panic over AIDs was 10x greater than what it is now. We were drilled about safe sex a whole lot more than I think many of you seem to remember (because I know I have people of my generation on this forum) or want to remember.

As for the television issue (now that I’ve cleared up some glaring inaccuracies I’ve been seeing lately) from what I’ve seen most nudity in European television isn’t all that blatantly sexual. Just seeing a female breast doesn’t teach you anything other than “hey, this is what they look like unclothed.” And porn doesn’t teach anything of value either other than technique, and lots of porn is unrealistic in that regard.

Porn of the American variety would also probably be harmful for young males because they’d think themselves genitally inadequate if they were led to believe porn star penises were the “average” size. And young women would be harmed if they were led to think real women looked like porn stars.

I think educational programming on American TV has actually gone down since the 80s. But I think that’s because it was boring and lame and kids just refused to watch it.

Does no one remember all the 80s specials and regular series that would teach children “life lessons” about alcoholism, teen pregnancy, domestic violence et cetera? They were famous for how corny and hackneyed they were.

17

That’s exactly how I felt when reading this thread. I was like “did no one grow up with me? Does no one remember this??”

18

Unless of course these teens have cooperative girlfriends. :wink: At least in my day, kids actually did things like that. When I was a teenager in the US even at the local drugstore where they sold magazines nobody even batted an eye when I went to the counter with a copy of Playboy. Then again is was the 1970s, and even Jimmy Carter did an interview with a Playboy reporter. Attitudes must have changed a lot in the US since when I was a kid.

19

Just want to say: The latest, best evidence is that U.S.teens overwhelming do use contraception.

Further though to put some stats out there: Only about 1/3 are getting sex ed in school

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55856-2004Dec10.html

20

"At the same time, nearly 10 percent of young women described their first sexual encounter as “non-voluntary.”

That seems like a scary statistic to me. :frowning: