America's Prudish Nature

Hot on the heals (can a month-long gap be considered "hot on the heels"?) of my last sex rant, I come to you with a story (which of course inspired this rant) I saw a little while back.  It's a report about a family in Rahway, New Jersey that was forced to put clothes on a SNOW SCULPTURE after an anonymous complaint.

Can we please stop it with this ridiculous fear of sex?

I can't be the only one who sees the complete hypocrisy of the media.

We live in a country where MMA fights are broadcast on cable television, yet we still have an investigation from the FCC about a nipple that was shown for about half of a second SIX YEARS AGO!  The FCC calls the exposed breast "graphic and shocking".  Wait....I'm sorry....How in the hell is a breast graphic and/or shocking?  And it's more "graphic and shocking" than a guy getting his face beaten in on live television?

Commercials have demonstrated that it's okay to show as much of the top of the breast as physically possible.  TV shows and movie trailers can show the bottoms of the breasts.  Awards shows can zoom in on as much side-boob as they please.  And none of this warrants (not Warrant) a six year government investigation.  But show the forbidden one square-inch of nipple for a fraction of a second and you'll be demonized and portrayed as a detriment to society. 

And television is not the only place where sex is seen as a blemish on society.  Defamer has a long list of movies where the MPAA has either botched the rating or influenced the editing of a movie (which is censorship, I don't care how you defend it).  This kind of thing makes me irate.

Why would a movie like the Dark Knight (great movie) get a PG-13 rating?  Seriously MPAA? You think the Dark Knight would be appropriate for a 13 year-old?  But take three scenes riddled (seewhatIdidthere?) with dead bodies and replace them with two seconds of a topless woman and suddenly Christopher Nolan is a perverted maniac who has to make cuts just to get an "R".

So the message I'm seeing so far is that it's okay to show ridiculous amounts of violence as long as you don't use too many "bad" words or show a boob.

Let me ask the three of you who will read this a question:  Have you ever heard of anyone who was traumatized after seeing nudity in a film?  Even the ones with actually sex scenes instead of just a topless shower scene? I'm talking about mainstream, theatrical movies, not the films your uncle made in college.   I have never personally known a sex scene in a movie to cause anything more harmful than a little excitement or an awkward chuckle.  I've never seen anyone have to close their eyes so they didn't have nightmares about Kate Winslet's breast in Titanic.  But I have known many people, including myself, that find graphic violence hard to watch many times. 

Personally, I would much rather my son see breasts or a sex scene in a movie than see someone shot in the head.  I just cannot fathom how naked bodies can be so despised.  Let's be honest; everyone over the age of 12 is thinking about sex all the time anyway.

Is it just that the masses are all embarrassed that we're a sex driven society and we're always thinking about it?  Is that why we feel the need to condemn it publicly?

Or do some people honestly hate seeing the stunning beauty of the human body at its finest?