SEXIS WRONG

There Has Been No
Sexual Revolution
Jay Gertzman
“American reality . . . stupefies, it sickens, it
infuriates, and finally it is a kind of embarrassment
to one’s meager imagination.”
–Philip Roth, 1962
A glimpse of one hot babe’s nipple excited a load of hard‐ons—
many of the figurative kind—during 2004’s Super Bowl halftime
show. Those made rigid with moral indignation included
the FCC, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Bush, the Parents TV Council,
and Concerned Women of America. Clear‐eyed columnist
Frank Rich saw that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s
presentation was as a whole a seduction dance, previewed
I am convinced that the very same
attitudes and procedures apply
now as did a century ago regarding
the red flags, or taboo signals, that
sexual explicitness raises.
(presumably sans nipple) by CBS and approved as sanitized,
rocking fun that would hold audience attention through the
next $80,000‐a‐second commercial. 1
The next pigskin season was half over when another hottie
visited a team locker room; a star receiver’s eyes widen as
she drops her towel and jumps into his arms. The ball player,
not the audience, sees the goods; no way he’s going back
on the field. It’s a Monday Night Football lead‐in. ABC’s ratings
for the games were down; the controversy could not
but help. More hands wrung in dismay—kids are still up. Parents
hate to let them see hot sex. Adults’ own ambivalence
when exposed to it, a mixture of prurience and moral chagrin,
makes it hard to talk about indecency with their children. The
towel‐off gives commentators on the corporate sports network
a debate topic, a laugh, and a platform spanning several
commercials. And the actress’ show, Desperate Housewives,
gets a ratings goose, even if ABC does not. So does
a CBS outlet in Cleveland. That same night, a local “news
journalist” takes off her clothes to join other volunteers for
an (ephemeral) installation of street art. Among those outraged
was the artist—at the exploitation of his art form. In
mainstream American TV, prurient escapism is a staple even
of local “news” broadcasts. 2 After all, they have to compete
with Entertainment Tonight.
January 2005: Outgoing FCC commissioner Michael Powell
fails to get a conviction in the case of an Internet distributor
of videos dedicated to storylines of extreme
abuse, including rape, of women. Nightline
has three obviously biased principals as talking
heads: an outraged feminist, a Justice Department
official, and the gonzo pornographer who
owns Extreme Associates (his wife is one of
the performers). Ted Koppel, who is leaving
ABC, is not hosting. No First Amendment lawyer appears.
The program is titled “Privacy vs. Morality,” although public
morality can hardly be affected by what all but a few will not
pay to download. The question of harm is begged, and the
distinction between narrowcasting and broadcasting is not
mentioned. Nor is the distinction between how a few psychopaths
and the vast majority of people react to what they
choose to see and hear. There is no study that shows a correlation
between a sane person’s private fantasies and his actions,
but the last word is granted to the Bush administration
official, who vows a full attack on all kinds of obscenity. He
reiterates the 1986 Meese Commission’s conclusion that all
sexually explicit representations are harmful, in an escalating
scale from pin-ups to Playboy to hardcore videos.
George W. Bush’s chief political advisor, Karl Rove (whom
308 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG