This almost approaches WTF level:
The Senate Commerce Committee voted Thursday to send the Child Safe Viewing Act….to the whole Senate for consideration.
The Federal Communications Commission shall consider advanced blocking technologies that–
- may be appropriate across a wide variety of distribution platforms, including wired, wireless, and Internet platforms;
- may be appropriate across a wide variety of devices capable of transmitting or receiving video or audio programming, including television sets, DVD players, VCRs, cable set top boxes, satellite receivers, and wireless devices;
- can filter language based upon information in closed captioning;
- operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creator of such video or audio programming; and
- may be effective in enhancing the ability of a parent to protect his or her child from indecent or objectionable programming, as determined by such parent.
Hey, here’s two ideas about advanced technologies that will protect your children from nipples:
- Get unbent about nudity and sexuality. We’re animals. We do icky gross things that generate sticky fluids. We like to look at naked people. Deal with it.
- Don’t like the language on tv? Turn the fucking thing off!
- Parents could…Oh, I don’t know….get involved in what their kids are doing??? Rather than forcing everyone to put their computer in a burqa?
Thanks (no thanks?) to Wired for giving me something new to grumble about.
7 Comments
What is the DEAL about nipples?? All mammals have them! We’re mammals, ergo, we all have nipples. Why are nipples on females so much specialer than nipples on males? And OMG, women use their breasts to nurse babies! (Apparently men can too, but it’s very rare.)
I think some people just can’t stand the fact that humans are simply another kind of animal.
Curiously, they’re often the same people who don’t think that insects are animals. Hey, not-a-plant, not-a-fungi, not-a-unicellular organism … they feed on plants or chase down game, engage in territorial and/or mating and/or parenting behaviours, and some do cool construction tricks like making webs or paper or wax, or farm fungi or herd other insects … gee, you think they might be ANIMALS?
Gah.
It’s simply because humans are social. If we lived like animals, we could just live in a cave near a stream with rabbits and berries nearby and do nothing else. But societies define themselves, and definitions are relativistic in that they need reference points. To define good and bad, polite and impolite, etc., you need to define the extremes and that’s what we do.
As far as the censoring, though, it’s ridiculous. Why do we want our kids to grow up ignorant of the kind of society they actually live in? Why do kids hit their teens and go crazy? Because they’re not prepared for what’s really out there, had no informed opinion on it? Ya think? Think of all those kids who grew up in the post-war glow, being told they lived in a perfect world, when they came of age during the Vietnam era. The birth of a rebellious counter-culture was just waiting to explode. I’ve never hidden anything from my son, because I want to make sure he has a grasp of all those things he’s about to hit in his teens. I rarely deem anything “inappropriate.” I inform him of the content, and often it’s HIM that deems something inappropriate! We watch all kinds of stuff and actually talk about it.
If the only reason NOT to do something is “because it makes mom and dad mad,” as soon as it’s something that mom and dad won’t find out about, there’s no brakes. But if he’s already got an informed opinion about something, hopefully he will generate his own reasoning about it’s desirability. I was raised mostly this way, and I turned out pretty good.
Oh, I totally missed a chance to link back to this post at Skepchick….
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=392
Uh? Many other animal species are social…
Aren’t we living organisms? Same as plants too
Uh? Sure, but I think we’re a bit more complex than say, naked mole rats. We have quite a bit more reasoning ability, and we seem determined to use it no matter the consequences. We are bound by our instincts even as much as wolves or mole rats, the difference is that in using our reasoning, we make it more complicated. Our social behavior is vastly more complex than other animals. Why do so many people act perplexed at human behavior, on the pretext of it not being logical? We are the product of evolution, which has provided us with a particular psychology, it is entirely logical that we act in the way that we do, despite the fact that the behavior itself does not stand logical analysis. A high degree of reasoning is very recent acquisition, and as any good student of evolution knows, evolution does not produce “perfect” organisms; traits can be conflicting to a certain degree. One trait does not replace another unless that trait is a modification of that trait, instead of being an entirely new trait that only seems to be related. In this case, where we essentially use reasoning to explain to ourselves our (mostly) instinctive behavior.
I don’t think the platypus or the echidna have nipples. I’m pretty sure they don’t. The milk is secreted through pores onto their fur and is lapped up by offspring.
That being said, while I’m not for the legislating of decency and that which can be viewed, there is some argument to be made for the accessibility of certain kinds of content. Try as I might, using the latest software, my children (I have four) my still be able to circumvent blocks on my PC. And while internet sex is probably not the best thing for a pubescent person to base their concepts of sex on (beyond those things they are taught by us, the parents), the incredible world of video-captured death and dismemberment has me concerned. I don’t know what a developing mind would make of such a bombardment.
I really don’t know what I’m saying here. Sorry. I’m against legislation, but I don’t know how to prevent my children for stumbling across horror.
I think all you can do is what another poster suggested–trust that you’ve given them enough values that they will look away if something like that pops up, or at least won’t seek it out.
And, keep an eye on them, if they are small.
But legislating morality I have serious issues with.
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