Some nights I have trouble going to sleep. If I lie in bed on these nights, I will never fall asleep at all. So, I move to the couch, watch TV, and eventually drift off at 2am. The only thing worth watching between midnight and 2am are the Seinfeld re-runs on our local Fox affiliate and NASA TV. The other shows are less than desirable viewing material.
I am old enough to remember when MTV actually showed music videos. These days, however, the channel is littered with "reality" shows. While channel surfing one night I ran across Tila Tequila (whoever she was), a bisexual woman "searching for love." There are contests in which both men and women compete for her affections. I paused long enough to see the contestants gyrating and stripping down to their underwear, some completely bare, inside steel cages. Apparently this is the kind of foundation on which true love is built... or not. Tila is trying to find true love for a second season because the previous relationship didn't work out. How unexpected.
Then, there is the Independent Film Channel. Now, before I complain, I must admit that I have seen a few good movies on IFC, namely, Shattered Glass and House of D. However, I have run across some of IFC's content which is—if it looks like it, smells like it, and tastes like it, you call it what it is—pornography. I am certainly no prude, but movies like Bully and The Dreamers, which have both been on recently, are disturbing. Bully combines explicit sexual content with explicit violence, and Dreamers combines explicit sexual content with explicit sexual content. Not exactly the kinds of movies you want to watch with the family (or at all).
I am not singling out MTV and IFC. They are simply two examples among many channels which air less than quality programming. Other late night shows are not quite as graphic, but still laced with sexual content. Cheaters is one such show. VH1's Surreal Life and Flavor of Love are two others (yes, VH1 also used to show music videos). I do not remember content like this, say, ten or fifteen years ago. I wonder what my daughter, who will be born in July, will be exposed to when she is fifteen.
Jason Byassee published an excellent article in the January 2008 issue of First Things called "Not Your Father's Pornography" in which he describes the state of modern "adult" material (why call it "adult"? it's really quite immature) and its effects. He mentions that while late night television shows have "the key parts (barely) scrambled... it didn't matter—the pornographic effect was the same." That titillating effect serves to encourage the viewer to continue to watch so that the network will receive more advertising dollars. Or, in the case of the Girls Gone WIld video series, the viewer might become inclined to actually call the number on his screen to order. Pornography, hard and soft core, is widely and easily available because, according to Byassee, "porn works." The porn industry is awash in money and wants to continue to make more of it. And the industry does not seem to mind making their money at the expense of the souls of human beings.
The most typical argument in favor of pornography is that it is protected under the first amendment right of Americans to freedom of the press.
If we are completely honest with ourselves, we must admit that freedom of the press has absolutely nothing to do with pornography or sexy late night TV shows. The publishing industry and giant multimedia conglomerates did not exist in the eighteenth century so the framers of the Constitution did not have them in mind when composing the Amendments. The "press" that the framers were referring to was the printing press, not modern publishers or the hard-talking reporters with press passes in their hat bands that we see in the "B" movies of the 1940s and '50s. They used the press to disseminate their ideas of what a government should provide to its people. Our freedoms of speech and press were intended to protect such a right of the right of the people to participate in a free exchange of ideas without fear of retaliation by those in authority. Pornography is not intended as a free exchange of ideas, but rather as entertainment. The porn industry and makers of lewd television shows would have a substantially better argument claiming protection for their material under their and their consumers' right to the pursuit of happiness. But because such activity cannot lead to true happiness I do not see the point in pursuing it. Furthermore, pornography and for-profit television are businesses, and as such are non-human entities to which a "right of the people" should not extend.
I am often tempted to unplug my television and rip the satellite dish off my roof. I could live without it. Civilized human beings lived without television for 1,950 years after the birth of Christ and, as most historians suggest, for at least 10,000 years before his birth. However, pornography was still available, even to the most ancient cultures, but you had to go and get it. As Byassee suggests, one actually had to attend the live sex show. It was not broadcast to your home via the electromagnetic spectrum. If I want porn, I should have to go and get it. I should have to turn it on if I want to see it rather than having to turn it off if I do not want to see it.
Because television and other media are simply tools, devices, their existence is not a moral issue. The use of media is the moral issue and television is simply one example. Ultimately it is up to the individual how he will use it, although if users were forced to turn on the porn they might be less inclined to view it. The bottom line is that because I do not want to watch the low quality programming on TV, I must find decent alternatives when I do want to watch. Unfortunately the alternatives are few and far between. Thank God for NASA TV.
