An amazing column in last Friday's San Francisco Chronicle. Very difficult to excerpt, it's that good. Please read the entire story.
Monday Night Softcore:
Who dares call into a TV network to complain about sex? And can they be stopped?
Do you know who they are? Do you already have an answer?
Can you say who it is, really, who shrieks and cries and calls into the networks regarding "racy" advertising during macho ultraviolent NFL games, calling it sinful and wrong and hurtful? Can someone tell me? Is it a deep unknowable secret? Is it perhaps the most baffling and exasperating question of our age?
Because we need to know. We need to know because I know no one who does this and you know no one who does this and we all understand that most normal and relatively well-adjusted citizens of this fine and deeply jaded nation don't navigate the world wielding such a shockingly uptight and sexually destitute worldview. At least, not around here they don't....
But here's the problem: These people, these groups, these sects of viciously concerned and violently moral people now appear to be the single most powerful and dangerous and rash-inducing hunk of our society today, and that includes fans of either Paris Hilton or Dave Matthews or Axe male body spray.
Why do we need to know? Because these people, they apparently now have the ear of the FCC and hold in their dry fingers the shriveled testicles of most major media conglomerates and they own the very flop sweat adorning the forehead of pasty demon-god Karl Rove, and they are the drawled barely articulated expression of gratitude muttered under the breath the aww-shucks born-again president of the United States. Is why.
