It’s More Fun to Sell Sex Than Protection

TV’s Risque Business * TV gives conflicting messages about sexuality. Entertainment programs employ sexual references daily. Yet the networks and most stations ban or discourage ads that deal frankly with birth control and AIDS protection.

Sex, condoms and videotape.

Fact: Television networks reject paid commercials for prophylactics out of fear of offending viewers who squirm at the mention of sex and AIDS.

Fact: These same networks embrace TV scripts that emphasize casual sex, thus indirectly promoting the kind of indiscriminate lovemaking that feeds the AIDS epidemic.

Hypocrites!

TV is no bordello. While many mainstream theatrical movies continue showing sex, mainstream TV still just talks or giggles about it.

In trying to compete with bawdier cable, however, the networks have dramatically increased their sexy patter this season. Far worse, they have done so at an hour--8 to 9 p.m.--that is particularly accessible to young children, an hour once reserved for “family viewing.”

The A. C. Nielsen Co. estimates that a whopping 12.6 million children between the ages of 2 and 11 watch TV from 8 to 9. Obviously, their lives are shaped by more than what they watch on TV. Nevertheless, here is some of what’s been available to them this season in comedies airing at that hour:

* On the premiere of “Uncle Buck” on CBS, a woman suggested to Buck that they “do it” under the table.

In a more recent episode, Buck’s teen-age niece greeted his girlfriend at the door. “Can I help you?” the niece asked.

“Because if she can’t, I can,” cracked her 7-year-old brother as he hitched up his pajama bottoms.

In the same episode, Buck weighed his girlfriend’s marriage proposal. “Before you decide,” a friend advised, “I’d give all your organs the right to vote.”

* NBC this week ran a promo for “Grand” during a “Ferris Bueller” station break. In the promo, guest star John Goodman appeared to be coming on to a woman at a bar when he said: “I have a bomb in my pants.”

* In an episode of ABC’s “Who’s the Boss?,” Mona the grandmother told daughter Angela that she was planning to join her boyfriend at a jazz club. His nickname is “Fingers.”

Angela: “What instrument does he play?” Mona: “He doesn’t.”

* On the season premiere of NBC’s “A Different World,” a female student decided to sleep with a suitor to please him, and ultimately didn’t do it only because a homeless Japanese girl moved in with the guy instead. In a promo for Thursday’s episode of the same series, Whitley the spoiled debutante attempted to win back her boyfriend, who had dropped her for another woman. She was seen kissing him passionately, then pushing him downward.

* On the season premiere of CBS’ “Doctor, Doctor,” there were references to pimps, foreplay and sperm.

* On the premiere of Fox’s “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” Parker confronted his high school principal with a video of her in a steamy embrace with a teacher.

* Aphrodisiacs were discussed in an early scene in the premiere of “The Flash” on CBS.

* On a recent episode of NBC’s “Fresh Prince,” Prince’s trendy teen cousin told him she had gotten a tattoo with her boyfriend’s initials. “Where no one will see it,” the boyfriend added.

* The premiere of NBC’s “Hull High” included a story line about a female student posing nude in the boy’s locker room for a photography assignment. The same episode also showed boys ogling the wiggly posterior of a sexy female teacher.

* The new male teacher in ABC’s “Head of the Class” has the hots for the gorgeous assistant principal to the extent that in one episode he told his students that seeing her made him “randy,” or sexually aroused.

* Vasectomy and pregnancy were the major focus of the premiere of “Evening Shade” on CBS.

* The season premiere of ABC’s “The Wonder Years” had the narrator, as the teen Kevin, reporting that French kissing his girlfriend Winnie was one of his summer activities. There was also a scene showing Kevin and his friends eyeballing a girl sunbathing in a two-piece suit with her top undone. “She wants us,” one of the boys said.

In another episode, Kevin’s friend, Paul, revealed that he was a virgin.

* In a coming episode of “The Simpsons” on Fox, the state’s governor is said to have been “felt up” by her boyfriend when she was younger.

And so on and so on.

It’s not that these excerpts are all gratuitously raunchy or necessarily meant to titillate. On the contrary, they range from the unredeeming crudeness of “Uncle Buck” to the honest and sensitive portrayals of youthful sexual exuberance in “The Wonder Years.” Moreover, many of the present crop of 8-to-9 p.m. series happen to center on high schoolers, making sexual awareness a natural theme.

However, it’s the sheer number of these casual, often flip, sexual and anatomical references that is appalling, indicating that the front lines in the Big Three networks’ war against Fox--and all four networks’ competition with cable--have been extended to early prime time.

Extending well beyond the relatively isolated examples of past seasons, the shows cited above represent a massive infusion of sexual content in early evening, a disturbing and profoundly irresponsible programming trend that exposes young and impressionable viewers to a set of potentially desensitizing values concerning sexual behavior.

What warped universe is TV living in, anyway? At a time when AIDS is still an awesome peril and the teen pregnancy rate is still as swollen as an expectant mother’s belly, a segment of TV is cavalierly implying to kids that sex is as routine as their sneakers.

But no national commercials for prophylactics on ABC, CBS and NBC. No AIDS public-service announcements that say those naughty words condom and rubber , either. When it comes to these, the networks abruptly become born-again puritans.

TV’s entertainment programs promote the sex. Let someone else promote the protecting.

It was in 1975 that the television industry--feeling the hot breath of the Federal Communications Commission, which was being pushed by Congress--adopted something called the “family viewing hour.” Actually, it was two hours--7 to 9 p.m.--the idea being that entertainment programs appropriate only for the entire family (sex and violence unwelcome) would be aired in this block of time.

Although possibly well-intended, the concept had the scent of censorship and became embroiled in a legal challenge. Meanwhile, as the 1970s gave way to the Ronald Reagan epoch of deregulation that loosened the bonds of responsibility on all of broadcasting, the “family viewing hour” concept died of attrition. Now, nary a trace remains.

This is no prude’s lament, and a “family hour” inscribed in stone may indeed be going too far. But let’s have some restraint here. Haven’t viewers the right to expect at least a small slice of squeaky-clean prime-time in this prurient pie?

Even if you’re the parent of a 7-year-old and no square. Even if you’re hip. Even if you’re urbane. Even if you like sexy stories and racy jokes. Even if you saw “Henry & June” and were turned on. Somewhere , shouldn’t there be just a little bit of TV that you can watch in the presence of your child without feeling uncomfortable or being ambushed by a raw one-liner? Shouldn’t you also be able to leave your kid alone in front of the set at 8 p.m. and be confident that he or she will not get a wisecracking lesson in human anatomy, sitcom-style, or hear from guys with bombs in their jeans?

Of course you should. But the trend is just the opposite. So write the networks if you don’t like what you see. In no way is this a plea to sanitize all of TV, only to make a small portion of it a little bit saner.