What I find interesting is that people are horrified at seeing a little skin on TV, but nothing has been said about the message "It's OK to sexually assault women" ! - In South Africa we have had bare breasted woman on prime time TV for years with no ill effect, no-one gets excited, worked up etc - there is nothing sexual about it, just part of African culture. One of the top stars would do live appearances at sports matches topless, and I don't recall anyone rioting, or losing their minds.
What I find offensive is the sexual content, the dry humping, crotch grabbing, and blatant sexuality on Primetime TV. I give my kids a hard time, no MTV, no Friends, Will & Grace etc, no internet access, and what the heck gives with cartoon network and Adult Swim. Regardless of whether its 'free to air' TV or not, some of that stuff on TV is just sick. I don't see anyone complaining about the sports pom pom girls, or the Coors twins which all get primetime airplay, and what is that all about, sex, and sex selling products. Does anyone explain this to the kids.
Just about every cricket match or rugby game I have attended in the past we have had streakers, usually the local students (yeah the drinking age is 18), and usually it is done in jest, I can remember an International cricket match between England and Australia, and a bare breasted lass ran onto the field, live television and all, and the batsmen chased the cheeky lass, and spanked her on the bottom, made for some great TV - I was a kid then, don't remember being traumatized by it at all.
I can bet if no-one had made a fuss or said anything about the Jackson/Timberlake incident, it would have disappeared into obscurity, now we are going to have to live with this making VH1's or MTV's most shocking moments on TV, and why, because the numbskull paying public want to see this crap. Half this stuff which makes the most shocking TV moments is ho-hum in most parts of Europe, Africa and other parts of the world. This stuff gets hyped to kingdom come and people buy into it.
Lets face it, stuff like this keeps the FCC in business, the bigger the fuss that is made about these issues, censorship, morality etc, keeps someone in a job. There are people right now, the so called protectors of our public morality, sitting down, devising ways to deal with this stuff, deciding what is right for us, and how they will handle it. The more hype they can add to it, the better they look. This is all just fodder for the TV shows, the news networks, the spin doctors, and TV evangelists. I am sure they are all secretly thanking Janet and Justin for giving them a life.
And, why do I say this, because I live in a small conservative town, in a large conservative state, and work for a small conservative company, and the reaction and consensus here has been pretty much ho-hum, no-one is up in arms, no-one is bursting a blood vessel, for a few hours yesterday this was cooler talk, most of the people who watched the game, missed the flash, some had a look on the net to see what they missed. The interest and hype disappeared as fast as it came.
There are more serious issues to life, well .. at least my life anyway.