ORANGE : Parents Oppose Cable TV Sex

After Chuck Davis’ children finished watching “Power Rangers” on television on a recent afternoon, Davis flipped through the channels and was shocked by what he saw.

Scenes of sexual exploits and explicit sounds came from their cable service--so Chuck and Kathi Davis quickly ushered their 10-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl out of the room and called the cable company to complain.

Now they want the company, Cablevision of Orange, to stop the images from going to homes without permission. The Davises are also checking with other parents who are worried about the pictures on their sets.

“It’s terrible,” Kathi Davis said. “It’s 5 o’clock, prime hour for children to be watching television.”

Joan Emge of Orange said she was concerned about her grandchildren when the same images and sounds were showing up on her television two months ago. She called the company and had the images scrambled.

“Once children see this, they would never forget what they saw,” Emge said. “Children don’t have a chance to be children anymore.”

The Davises were so concerned about the transmissions that they contacted U.S. Rep. Chris Cox (R-Newport Beach) on Friday. Officials at Cox’s office confirmed that they will contact the Federal Communications Commissions to try to stop such unwanted images.

Cablevision of Orange supervisors said they have had only a few, isolated complaints. A recent complaint was traced to a converter box problem, they said.

“If there have been other problems, we need to have those customers call us so we can do something about it,” office administrator Linda Johnson said.

Similar problems have occurred in other Southern California cities. Earlier this month, about 50 angry residents in Ventura County successfully pressured a cable provider to block out a pay-per-view adult network that was appearing on televisions without being ordered.