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Home :: NFPRHA Blog
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9/2/2008
New Parents' Television Council Report: Heterosexual Relationships Underrepresented
By Malcolm Harris
The Parents Television Council (PTC) released a report last month about sex on television entitled Happily Never After: How Hollywood Favors Adultery and Promiscuity over Marital Intimacy on Prime Time Broadcast Television. To come up with the report, it sounds like a bunch of PTC members sat in front of their TVs armed with their notebooks and indignantly scribbled down every reference to sex. I was pretty sure that's what groups like the PTC did for fun, but now it's confirmed.
One stand-out passage from the report is, some of the once-taboo-for-TV sexual behaviors that are now found on prime time television include threesomes, partner swapping, pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, and sex with prostitutes, in addition to depictions of strippers, references to masturbation, pornography, sex toys, and kinky or fetishistic behaviors. I want to know what channel the PTC is watching because it sounds more interesting than mine!
Whatever they're watching, to refer to pedophilia on an episode of Law and Order is not the same thing as advocating sex with children. As for necrophilia or bestiality, I don't think teens everywhere are out having sex with dead people and horses because they saw it on TV.
Would PTC President Tim Winter rather teens read more instead? I don't think he'd be able to stomach Flaubert, never mind Henry Miller.
The report bemoans not only the frequency of illicit (not occurring within the bounds of heterosexual marriage) sexual encounters, but also the lack of married sex. As Winter said in his analysis of the report, These study results suggest that many in Hollywood are actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently showing it in a negative manner.
Besides making me wonder how they feel about HBO's Big Love or gay-married sex, what I find peculiar is the use of actively undermine. It's very strong language. This means that networks aren't producing shows to make money or to make good television, but to systematically destroy the institution of marriage. The report whines that married people have more and better sex and that this isn't reflected in their under-representation on TV. Cue the much-deserved Aw Hell no, from the more-underrepresented people of color, queers and women.
What the PTC seems unable to grasp is that television networks aren't out to reproduce reality. You know what's overrepresented besides strippers and adulterers? Beautiful and talented medical professionals. And vampires. You know what else is underrepresented (besides all the groups I named earlier)? Lawn mowing. I think television executives are actively trying to undermine the institution of lawn-mowing. If those godless deviants had their way, we'd all just let our lawns grow wild!
The truth is married sex doesn't advance any sort of plot. Married people are assumed to be sleeping together; it's the other ones viewers want to see. And when the report claims that married sex is represented negatively, they shouldn't be surprised. Who wants to watch a show about a happily-married couple and all the married sex they have? As often is the problem with reactionary social conservatives, Winter and his cohorts at the PTC can't look beyond sex.
I'm not sure how getting a ring and a piece of paper makes sex any better than it would be in a long-term relationship, but if the PTC knows, then it should get married and get started. In the meantime, the ways in which television deals with sex require some serious attention. Where are the PTC complaints about the lack of overt safe-sex practices on TV? How often do we see one of those attractive doctors or vampires strap on a condom? Where are the frank discussions of health risks associated with unsafe sexual practices? They're a lot less common than good sex between married couples. Women on TV are still tagged with the worst feminine stereotypes, especially within the context on marriage, and yet I don't see PTC complaining about that.
So if the PTC wants to scrutinize network TV, why don't they look for ways to improve public health instead of how often their sex life is represented?
Posted on Tue, 02 Sep 2008, 02:17:32 PM
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8/28/2008
Family PlanIt Needs You!
By David Castillo
Family PlanIt and NFPRHA are on the hunt for a communications intern to come work with us in our Washington, DC office.
If you're an undergraduate student studying journalism, communications or a related field of study and you're passionate about reproductive health care in this country, then NFPRHA is where you need to be.
Right now is an especially critical time for family planning. Just last week, the Bush administration proposed regulations that could have a disastrous impact on family planning and contraception in America. We need good and talented people to join us as we fight back against this assault on women's health
Our interns receive a high degree of respect and substantive work. We're not afraid to give them major projects.
Some of your greatest (and also most fun) responsibilities will include blogging regularly for FamilyPlanIt and maintaining and updating all of our social networks. NFPRHA puts a special emphasis on its communications outreach and is a deadline oriented environment. You won't be disappointed with your experience here.
Click here to see the job description (as well as others at NFPRHA) and send us your resume today.
Oh yeah....we also offer a stipend and school credit!
Email me if you have any questions about this or any other opportunities at NFPRHA and FamilyPlanIt.
Posted on Thu, 28 Aug 2008, 01:36:04 PM
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8/27/2008
Maybe the Greatest Ringtone Ever?
By David Castillo
One of the most awesome ringtone downloads to hit the scene in a while has got to be from condomcondom.org.
The BBC World Service Trust has launched the site and the downloadable ringtone in an effort to promote safer sex and to erase the social stigma attached to condoms in India. As you might know, HIV/AIDS is a growing problem in India. The Advocate reports that nearly 2.5 million Indians are infected. The BBC group (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) as well as other Indian health experts are hoping this ringtone will make people more comfortable with talking about the illness and safer sex in general.
This is a great site and it's an awesome way to get people talking seriously about sex. It's also pretty freakin' hilarious. We could all stand to be more comfortable talking about sex and the precautions necessary for us all to have as much of it as possible.
Check out the site and the ringtone. It's sure to put a smile on your face.
Posted on Wed, 27 Aug 2008, 01:03:05 PM
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8/22/2008
An Open Letter to Secretary Leavitt
By Mary Jane Gallagher
Dear Secretary Leavitt,
I write to you concerning new regulations your department submitted this last week. Although the latest draft does not contain the same overt anti-contraception language as the earlier draft, we in the family planning community still have some questions and concerns.
We are deeply concerned that the new rules could infringe on access to family planning services. You mentioned in your comments that groups might seek to press the definition of abortion. We know what that means. There are forces at work that seek to deprive American families of their access to safe and effective methods of contraception by expanding the definition of abortion to include these resources.
Already, groups opposed to contraception have announced their intention to "press the definition." Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life, an openly anti-contraception group, told The Wall Street Journal that her group would do exactly that. She said it would be excellent if states were deprived of their family planning funding for insisting on providing contraception. Not abortion, Secretary Leavitt, but contraception.
If these rules are interpreted to include contraception, it would be disastrous for the millions of Americans that rely on federally-funded health care providers. Families would have no way to ensure their access to comprehensive medical services. In a time when there are over 47 million uninsured Americans, we must protect the inalienable right to choose whether or not to have a child.
Furthermore, these regulations could interfere with multiple state laws. These are compassionate laws that do things like require emergency rooms to offer rape victims emergency contraception so that they need not deal with the added pain of an unwanted pregnancy. From the far right to the left, we are all interested in ensuring that children are born to families that are prepared to care for them while still protecting the rights of health care professionals. If these rules are extended to contraception, that goal will become harder to attain.
HHS and the family planning community have maintained a delicate balance between the rights of families to access medical services and the consciences of individual medical service providers. If interpreted incorrectly, these regulations risk seriously disturbing that equilibrium.
What I ask of you, Secretary Leavitt, is to clarify the rules as they are proposed. Release a statement saying that pressing the definition of abortion to include contraception is an unacceptable distortion of these regulations. You can preserve access to comprehensive family planning with just a few words. Until you take these steps, we have no choice but to assume contraception was the target all along.
Sincerely,
 
Mary Jane Gallagher
President & CEO, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association
Posted on Fri, 22 Aug 2008, 05:57:43 PM
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8/21/2008
Game Time
By Malcolm Harris, New Media Fellow
It's the day we've all been waiting for. HHS has issued the proposed "conscience" regulations and all of us at NFPRHA are hard at work reviewing and planning our next moves. We want all of you to know that we're on it, all hands are on deck and that we won't let Sec. Leavitt and the anti-contraception lobby force these regulations on medical service providers and their patients.
Please go back over our past blogs to see what we're dealing with. We'll have more information for you shortly, until then here's the link to the full online copy of the regulations so you can see for yourselves. Know that we're fighting back and it's far from over, but don't rest assured. Get online and e-mail your whole address book, call in to a talk show, write your congressperson, do something! We can only win with the help of all you who care, and it's game time.
Posted on Thu, 21 Aug 2008, 01:24:05 PM
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