TV's Ugly Betty - a hummer in the first five minutes

I dunno, if they're going to have a simulated blow job on the show, the least they could do is clue you in on the parental rating screen. Like TV-14 DLC-T-M.

And Sloan is right: Okay, fine, in this day and age many 12-year-olds know what oral sex is. Doesn't mean that it's so blase and out-in-the-open that you can have implied sucking it without any warning for those parents of the poor kids who're so out of it that they aren't up on the joys of swallowing the salami. Many preteens and teens know about the Holocaust, doesn't mean we should start a sitcom episode off with a simulated Zyklon shower.

Nobody (at least in this thread) is saying ban the show or any sexual content from the airwaves, but is it unreasonable for Middle America's parents to be given a heads up for ... head?

 

Couple of things then.

1. When did this become a forum where the only acceptable response is, "Amen brother?" Aren't people more prone to post when they disagree with an opinion?

2. I have almost 2,800 posts, so for you to generalize the way you did is reckless and dumb. You're as bad as the idiot fans who e-mail that every story in the paper about their team is negative.

 

Somebody wants some royalties from ABC and she wants them NOW.

 

I'm worse than those idiot fans? Oh, dear.

 

Context. I wasn't comparing the two as moral equivalents, I was making the point through obvious (to most people) exaggeration that just becuase someone is old enough to understand something doesn't mean it's appropriate they be exposed to it without the proper warning.

 

You shoulda been watching ReelzChannel instead!

 

Oh, I understood the context, MM. I just think the analogy was way off-base. :

And I agree with what was said earlier, about that being an opportunity for teaching. Too many parents want to be able to control what their kids are exposed to. That's un-possible. ... If you seriously believe that a 12-year-old, even your own , hasn't had much exposure to blow jobs, even if it's just jokes or innuendo -- let alone done it his/herself, which is more common than any of us think -- well, hate to burst your bubble. But give the kids some credit.

Better to try to steer them in the right direction with a mature, guided exposure than leaving it up to their peers or someone else to mislead them on what's (in)appropriate. Overcommunication is always better than not communicating.

Why we don't talk openly about sex in this country will always baffle me. Fucking Puritanic bullshit.

 

Okay, BW: Do you agree or disagree that just because a 12-year-old has knowledge of something, that makes it perfectly acceptable to screen to other 12-year-olds without warning of what's the come? That's what's at debate here, I think, hyperbole notwithstanding.

And I think we talk PLENTY about sex in this country. You got a simulated blow job on an 8 p.m. sitcom. If this is "Puritanic bullshit", I'd hate to see what no limits looks like. Well, I'd probably like it at first and then get really, really scared once we move into the farm animals and pudding pops.

 

No, as bad as the idiot fans. What the fuck is your problem?

 

Here's my opinion on this whole thing.

Yeah, the show implied that Betty's boss was on the receiving end of a hummer. In the context of the scene, the guy was acting strange while being talked to, only to push back from his desk and have his personal assistant get up from underneath the desk. If I remember correctly, she had a pencil in her hand and tried to play it off as if that's what she was doing. Picking up a pencil.

This was an attempt to show, quickly, that the exec type fellow was a philanderer and he messed around with his hot personal assistants.

To combat this, his father decided he was going to hire an ugly woman to be his son's personal assistant so he wouldn't feel the need to mess around with her. And a show was born.

I can only share with you my personal experience when something like this happens. When I was a youngster, I can remember watching movies with my parents and some questionable material came up. It could have been something as simple as this hummer scene. Being the curious and naive kid that I was, I'd usually ask my parents why that was funny...

At this point, my parents would look at each other and do something very important. They'd lie through their teeth. Given the scene, I'm sure my mom would have said, "It's funny because he dropped his pencil and then forced her to pick it up instead of just doing it himself."

As a kid, I probably wouldn't have thought that was funny, but not everything on television is actually funny. More importantly, I'd have an explanation and therefore closure. We would all then move on from the uncomfortable experience.

What am I getting at? Well, instead of ruining everyone else's fun, maybe you should just lie to your youngsters. It'll work if they don't know any better. If, however, your kid actually understood what a hummer was and what she was really doing underneath the desk, you need to sit down and have 'the talk' with them about how dangerous that whole sex business is at their age. My parents were far from perfect, but this is one of the things that I think they handled relatively well, even if they were grasping at straws in a tight situation.

The show was pretty good. I'll probably watch it again. The desk hummer scene did establish something to the plot line of the show. Could they have done something different? Maybe. I'm not certain it would have had the same effect as to why the father didn't want his kid having a hot assistant any longer, though.

 

Yes, we get a simulated blow job on TV, we get a flash of a nipple shield on TV, we get a male ass on TV, and people get up in arms with "oh no, what about the kids!"

The kids don't make a big deal out of it until adults teach them to make a big deal out of it.

And we teach them the wrong example, IMO, by treating blow jobs as if only immoral presidents receive them, or treating masturbation as if it's a sin something to feel guilty about, or by emphasizing abstinence over safe-sex education in middle-school health classes.

We don't "talk" about sex. We hint about sex. We joke about sex. We see pictures, and images, and innuendo, and simulation. What's on TV, and what is in magazines, and what it is on the Internet ... is not reality.

We don't treat sex like it's a normal thing that everybody does. We put it on a pedestal. We act like it's a huge, huge thing -- it's not.

The reality is: It's a part of life like everything else.

And if we treat it like a normal part of life, that there are consequences -- good and bad -- for your actions, and teach kids that it's a normal part of life, that there are appropriate and inappropriate situations/behaviors/etiquette that will bring corresponding consequences, then they'll have a much healthier attitude about it.

But to answer your question: Yes, I think it's perfectly acceptable to "screen it to 12-year-olds," because I don't believe in censorship. I believe in exposure and education. ... If you're not ready to educate your kids to that yet, then shrug it off and say something like Fubar's parents did. But the key is: act like it's normal. Because kids will find out later, that sex IS normal. And if they're disillusioned from so many years of "BAD! BAD! BAD!", then they'll be a lot more casual (in a bad way) about it. You want them to be casual (in a good way.) Meaning, they don't feel obligated to do anything they don't want. They don't succumb to peer pressure. They can be smart about it. ...

Don't scare the shit out of them by telling them that it's "dangerous." It's not dangerous if you're educated about it. And you won't make so many stupid, consequential mistakes, either, like getting pregnant before you're ready or sleeping around with a VD.

 

I'm always open for other ideas, Buckweaver. You are approaching the network hummer as an opportunity, not a problem, which is the right way to approach it. Let's hear your speech as a parent.

Just to set the scene, the boss opens the door and sees his editor, well, with a look like a guy getting a blowjob. The boss startles the editor. The boss finds a pair of panties on a plant. The secretary then comes out from under a desk, licking her lips, and the guy shuffles with his pants.

Use Britney and Samantha (not their real names) for my daughter and her friend. You take it from here:

"Britney and Samantha, ......."