SEX AND TV
by Marianne Williamson

So now that we've cleaned up and completely homogenized the Super Bowl commercials and mid-game entertainment, I guess we can all feel much better. Phew, thank goodness we handled that. God forbid there might have been a breast showing anywhere. How simply disastrous that would have been, what with so many children watching and all.

In fact, as a mother of a fourteen year-old girl, what bothered me about the horrified reaction to Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction last year was the implication that breasts are bad. I didn't mind my daughter seeing a breast; she has a couple of them herself. What made me uncomfortable was the message that they are something to be ashamed of! Would we have gone nuts if Justin Timberlake's breasts had been exposed? Of course not! The deeper, more significant issue here is the continuation of woman-hating projection of guilt onto the female body, created by the very same so-called moral and religious forces that then express such outrage to see it exposed. There is nothing either religious or moral about making a woman's body seem dirty.

But I tell you what I do mind: supposedly healthy, prime time, admittedly otherwise entertaining comedies in which people discuss sex like it's after dinner candy, a casual hobby or a joke that sometimes works and sometimes (oh, too bad) simply doesn't. Now that concerns me for the morals and emotional well-being of my child. Millions of American teenagers sit and watch some of their favorite actors discuss sex and love as though they are mere comedy -- which they are not.

To me, the sexual content in primetime comedies has become a far more corrosive element in our society than a woman's breast showing here or there. What we should be concerned with is America's popular conversation about sex. The sexual revolution of the nineteen sixties exposed a lot of old hypocrisy, but it also created a whole new slew of monsters. How many millions of us learned the hard way that casual sex can deeply wound -- the heart, the soul and even the body? How, with AIDS not yet driven from our midst, can we all be so complacent about popular comedies -- playing night after night -- that make having sex seem about as important a decision as where to go for dinner or shop for a new pair of shoes? I am not a prude, but I find all that unconscionable.

I want my daughter to be proud of her burgeoning womanhood, but I also want her to be very clear that it is her most priceless and precious gift from God. Above all else, it is not to be taken lightly, by herself or by the males around her. But we cannot expect our children to take sex too seriously, when so many of America's most beloved, primetime TV shows are making it the fodder for so much comedy.

Ah, well. Slowly but surely, these things might change. Hollywood writers and producers will have kids themselves. They'll see what they're doing, and hopefully they'll reign themselves in a bit. Until then, as parents we have to provide our own counterforce; talk to our kids, make sure they understand the dangers of casual sex, and try to provide another kind of picture: sex as holy, sex as pure and sex as love.

Madonna's book entitled SEX, which came out years ago, was a disgusting presentation that I threw out of my house. But then she had her own kids, and now she's the epitome of righteousness. Go figure. So yes, please, Jennifer, get back with Brad and have a baby. And Debra and Courtney, I'm so glad you have little ones in your arms now. A few years down the road, you might have rethought some things. I suspect -- and hope -- that certain lines of dialogue won't feel so right to you anymore. You won't want your own kids to hear it, and then ours will be a lot better off.

Oh, Hollywood. Go have more children. Fall in love with their innocence. And think about what you are doing.