People still talk and laugh about how Ricky and Lucy had separate beds on “I Love Lucy”.  The funny thing is, married sex it still largely taboo on television.  It’s fornication and sodomy that’s portrayed more.

The Parents Television Council has received the attention of the Associated Press’ television writer, Lynn Elber, with their latest report on how network television portrays sex.

Marriage gets little respect on network TV shows that instead revel in the pleasures of extramarital and even kinky sex, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study by the Parents Television Council includes a strongly worded condemnation of prime-time TV, contending it "seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently painting it in a negative light."

Strangely, it usually portrays marriage in negative light without focusing on the very real risks for men.

Even more troubling, according to the watchdog group, is what it characterized as TV's recent obsession with what it termed "outre" or bizarre behavior, including partner swapping and pedophilia.

This is a paradox in television programming.  Characters on television are rarely presented as regular attendees of any particular church.  This probably has less to do with hostility towards organized religion than simply wanting as much of the audience as possible to identify with the characters.  The moment you peg them as a particular denomination, a certain amount of the audience is going to think of them as “different than me.”  However, the same makers of television seem to have no reservations in portraying characters as having certain sexual fetishes or philias.

Visual references to practices such as voyeurism and sadomasochistic sex outnumbered married-sex references by a ratio approaching 3 to 1.

When you depict sex as something that happens outside of marriage but you don’t depict or reference  married people having sex, what children pick up is: married people don’t have sex.  It is the same thing in the home.  If a married couple completely hides the fact that they ever have sex, their children are going to get the message that married people don’t have sex, or it only happens rarely.  This will make fornication seem more exciting (get it while you can!), or in some cases, make the children think of sex as something that is always bad.

Now, obviously I’m not suggesting that parents have sex in front of their children.  That’s a very bad idea.  But the children should learn that mom and dad do need and enjoy private time together, and as they get older, that sex married sex is a wonderful thing to be enjoyed frequently and privately.

But TV Watch, a nonpartisan coalition that counts networks among its members and argues that individuals and not government should decide what's seen, fired a volley at the council.

"The Parents Television Council won't be satisfied with television content until they convince the government to enforce their personal, selective judgments," Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch, said in a statement.

There’s nothing wrong with the PTC calling attention to this stuff.  While I wouldn’t like to see a government crackdown on television content, I would like truth in labeling.  The PTC could just as easily accuse TV Watch as pushing to have everyone completely desensitized to fornication, adultery, shacking up, sodomy, and various fetishes.  And another problem is that the negative consequences of fornication and sodomy are rarely depicted.

Among the networks overall, references to adultery outnumbered references to marital sex by 2 to 1. The "family hour" - the first hour of prime-time TV, which draws the most young viewers - contained the highest ratio of references to non-married vs. married sex, the study found.

The solution, besides being informed, is for viewers to support the kind of programming that affirms marriage and purity.

There seem to be three ways of writing a book that is guaranteed get a lot of attention:

1. Be Ann Coulter.

2. Write something sickeningly sappy and/or repacking eastern religious thought that Oprah will like.

3. After working with Bush, write a book that plays to the Left’s criticisms and attacks of him or others in his administration.

How many times have we heard that unrealistic media portrayals of women are driving girls to eating disorders, mental illness, and plastic surgery?  Well, here’s a little twist on that.

KELLY IN AUSTIN writes in to Dear Abby:

My husband gets aggravated with romantic commercials on television -- the ones where men do sweet things for their wives, like putting jewelry on them while they sleep, or pulling out that special gift at the dinner table.

Notice these examples both are about the man spending a lot of $$$ on an object for the woman’s enjoyment, most likely an object that is not practical.

He says the commercials try to make men feel guilty because they aren't like the ones portrayed.

That’s exactly what they are trying to do, and trying to create a sense of entitlement in women.  My own wife was able to easily see through one jewelry commercial that flat-out portrayed a series of bigger and bigger diamonds as “love” growing over the time.

I have tried telling him that men are, indeed, this way, but I couldn't think of any examples other than my brother and my father, who are very romantic.

Some men are that way - buying expensive, impractical gifts.  And some men are romantic in ways that don’t involve payment plans.

Don't most men know how to sweep a woman off her feet?

If your husband doesn’t, why did you marry him?  Most men have some vague idea of what women in general want, thanks to endless media reminders, but women are not clones.  Different women want different things.  An attentive husband with a communicative wife (not one who expects him to read her mind) will figure out how what she finds romantic, and if he wants to please her, he will provide her with romance.

Dear Abby responds:

Gifts are not the only way to make someone special feel loved.

Thank you!

Commercials are created in order to manipulate the public into buying, and if the amount of consumer debt being carried by U.S. households is any indication, that strategy has been extremely successful.

Right – and my wife is glad I don’t take us into debt.  Good financial practices and saving for the future mean more to her than shiny things.

While diamonds may be "a girl's best friend," most women know that a life partner who gives them attention, affection, praise and assistance when they need it is a jewel more precious than any stone could ever be.

Way to go, Dear Abby.

If unrealistic media portrayals are harmful to a girl’s body image, they are also harmful to a boys financial health.  Men are pressured to buy cars they can’t afford, buy dinners they can’t afford, and buy jewelry they can’t afford.  Right now as I type, there are boys being pressured to spend a lot of money on a prom so that a teenage girl can live out the materialistic dreams Seventeen Magazine and like-media have been putting in her head.

As for jewelry – “two month’s salary” is an advertising campaign, not a rule of etiquette.  Men should be aware of that before they buy an engagement ring, and women should keep that in mind when their man proposes.

The fact is, most television programming, and thus television advertising, is directed at women.  Yes, there are some exceptions, but for the most part, television is directed at women or at least with their sensibilities in mind because it is women who do more shopping.  You see these ads portraying men who are everything women say they want, giving women these incredible gifts that must mean these men are at the higher end of the earning range, and yet these men have all of this time to shower their attention on these women.  You don’t see a lot of TV commercials portraying wives as smoking hot, young, and constantly ready for an enthusiastic romp in the marital bed, at least not with their husbands.

On television, we bash men for their “lust” but not women for their envy.

There’s a soap company “campaign” for “real” beauty, that supposedly portrays real (read: not stereotypical bikini or catwalk model) women.  This is understandable, because they are not marketing to men. They are marketing to women, many of whom welcome the message.  It isn’t really about making women feel better.  It is about making them feel good about buying that brand of soap.  Now, how likely is it that we’re going to see a “campaign for real wealth” that portrays average-income men as adequate?  Not likely.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I tend to find the twiggy look or “boy with breasts” look on women to not be as appealing as a woman with natural curves.  That former look is mainly championed by the gay men in the fashion model and theatrical world, not by your average heterosexual man.

But I think women need to understand that just as most women do not look like an airbrushed, carefully lit and posed 20-year-old centerfold model, most men are not in a position to spend like rich soap opera characters.

Only the worst loser freaks don't have girlfriends or boyfriends in high school, and boys should spend $$$ on the Prom.

There's nothing wrong with fornication and very rarely are there ever negative consequences.

If a relationship ends, you should be in a new one by the end of the same day; there is nothing emotionally unhealthy about this.

Gay people are all funny, witty, and very rarely do anything seriously wrong.

Violence against men is funny.  Unless it is violence against a gay man, which is wrong – unless it is consensual violence committed by another gay man.

If a husband cheats, it's because he's a louse who can't control his natural biological urges and in no way is it his wife's fault.  If a wife cheats, it is because her husband neglected her, mistreated her, or didn't give her enough attention; it’s not even really cheating if her “lover” is really romantic.

The more money a man spends buying impractical gifts (like jewelry) for a woman, the more he loves her.

You should get your own television show if a private, amateur video of you fornicating hits the World Wide Web.

Babies are cute and fun and not a lot of work - life pretty much continues as it did before you had the baby.

Marriage is a game.

There's nothing wrong with underage drinking.

It's fine to go on national television and tell the world about your deepest personal secrets, feelings, sins, problems, and mistakes - bringing shame, scorn, ridicule, or embarrassment to your spouse and family, as long as you are telling the truth and doing it for money.

Come to think of it, it's okay to pretty much do anything you want, with the following exceptions: anything you've pointed out as wrong to someone else (it's okay as long as you kept your mouth shut); something that "pollutes"; declaring anything anyone else does as wrong, unless that other person was "judging" - then it was okay to tell them it is wrong to judge.

I’m presenting a series here called Exposing the Religious Right.

The introduction/first installment is here.

The second installment, discussing the motivations/starting points of the RR is here.

I’m hoping that, through this series on the Religious Right (RR), I can shed some light on the RR, especially to other conservatives and Republicans who are wary of the RR.  This is not necessarily to defend the RR and every typical policy position of the RR, but to explain that there IS a logic and practicality to the positions and activism of the RR, as opposed to mere animus and ignorance, as critics allege.

Highly relevant to the RR position I discuss below is their position I discussed previously, that Sex is For Marriage.

‘Adult’ Entertainment is Wrong and Should Be Restricted

Do people in the RR view this stuff?  Some do.  Do some have a porn habit?  It would seem so, according to their own literature.  Yet, the RR’s official stance is against the expansion of “adult entertainment”, for discouraging it, and restriction of access to adult entertainment.

I recall once reading something from someone who worked at a hotel who claimed that orders of video porn would skyrocket when religious conventions were in town.  Hypocritical?  Perhaps.  It does make some sense, though, that people who do not want it in their homes (where their children can access it) might order it at hotel.

So what is the problem with this stuff?

Much of it goes back to Sex is For Marriage.  If sex is meant for a husband and wife in privacy (regardless of location), then viewing this kind of entertainment means watching someone else have or appear to have sex.  Also, very rarely are the performers themselves married to each other.  If the entertainment consists of one performer (think dancing), it is still fostering lust for someone who is not your spouse.

In addition, this entertainment is cited as devaluing women and turning sex into something that is dirty and the human body into a commodity.

According to the RR’s view, this kind of entertainment also promotes unrealistic expectations, and lustful coveting lust, mainly in men.  Husbands should be focusing their attention on their wives.  However, you will not see the RR devote as much energy to fighting romance novels, soap operas, and other depictions of romance and wealth that foster unrealistic expectations and coveting of romance and possessions/wealth in women, or demanding that wives do everything to discourage attention from men other than their husbands.  I don’t see complaints about men being turned into “money objects” in media.  But I digress.

The progressive and addictive nature of porn is also a concern for the RR.  This is especially a concern if the material depicts underage person, even if that person is an artistic fabrication, because it is seen as feeding the pedophilia of someone who will then be more likely to physically act out, or as possibly inciting rape.  The RR also points out that such material can be used to lower the guard or inhibitions of underage persons to make them more easy victims.

Since the RR sees this kind of entertainment as harmful and addictive, they think it is a legitimate function of government to restrict it, especially on the municipal level.

The RR is well aware of depictions of sex in the Bible, but see those depictions as necessary to convey God’s will about sex being for marriage and non-marital sex as being wrong.  In RR thinking, sex is for marriage, not for the entertainment of others.  The human body is not dirty, but rather a wondrous creation of God, but modesty in public is preferred to prevent lustful coveting.

This is another area where Republicans of a conservative or libertarian bent may disagree with the RR, citing an individual’s ability to refrain from viewing/paying for the entertainment, and an individual’s ability to choose to make a living in adult entertainment.

But would America be better off with less “adult entertainment”?  Perhaps.  I confess this is one of those areas where I do not agree so strongly with the RR in its focus and intensity on the issue, preferring to make other issues more of a priority.  I’m more apt to agree that “if you don’t like it, you should change the channel or turn it off”.  There are three potential problems with this, though.  One is that once a bell is rung, it is hard to un-ring it.  Once you've been offended or exposed to the material, the damage is done.  The second is that in the case of public airwaves, the FCC’s involvement is needed to keep broadcasters from “stepping on” each other, and if the government (us) is going to be involved, we have a right to ask that the airwaves not bring us obscenity.  And finally, degrading material influences those around us and possibly our children, and it is impossible to always monitor what the children are accessing.

Some in the RR (and other political alignments, such as some feminists) argue that the “right to free speech” applies to political speech, and doesn’t even extend to images.  This raises the question – what exactly is political speech?  And would the founding fathers really think the First Amendment wouldn’t extend to a political cartoon?

While I can agree that entertainment that is designed to appeal to the prurient is harmful and that just because someone has the ability to make it doesn’t mean that they should, I note that tools such as parental controls and filters can be of even greater use than the channel changer or the on/off button.  The right to free speech doesn’t require that anyone listen.  There’s a difference, however, between discernment and censorship.  It is not censorship if the RR pressures advertisers with a boycott, and that’s exactly what they should do if they believe a form of entertainment is harmful.  Legislating restrictions on entertainment, on the other hand, can be problematic.

As for clubs featuring "dancers" and porn shops - the RR asserts that these locations attract unsavory people who commit crimes, and so they look to keep these businesses out of their neighborhoods.

The RR is not seeking to keep people from having fun with their opposition to "adult" entertainment.  They are genuinely trying to fight what they see is a corruption of our society.