You'd be hard pressed to beat Pahrump, Nevada for gratuitous billboards. When I last drove through, the semi-nude billboard gals offered "bath and massage services." Now, you might think that even the most Vivarin-addled long haul trucker would get the implication of massage when juxtaposed with a photograph of barely dressed hooker. But, just for dullards, these billboards had the tag line "Pssst, there's more!"
More than a naked lady massage? Whatever could that be?
Perhaps its the Wasp in me that just gets offended by the out-in-the-open quality of the whole thing. I don't know who said it, but I agree: you have the right to do whatever you want behind closed doors, as long as I have the right not to hear about it.
As for your award, many congratulations. Send a SASE to Unfogged and you can claim your check, certificate, and congratulatory ham.
I think I should add a little more.I have fairly decent childhood memories, I think, and I remember a number of times when scantily clad women came on TV or movies, and my parents were worried about me seeing it. Trust me, I was not harmed by it. Most of the boys my age (7, 8) already had a soft-core mag somewhere, anyway.
Ha! Well, I like that better than the billboards in Florida thanking God for our Maximum Leader, and I think it's easier to explain to the kiddies. Besides, it's time for us, as a nation, to untwist our collective shorts.
So I'm the only one vaguely offended by a billboard for an escort service next to a major highway in a major non-Las Vegas metropolitan area. Guess I should speed up those plans to move down to Alabama.
Then when the children cease being the future and become the present, they will have the choice about whether to allow those billboards.
But let's look at it this way: you claimed the children are our future, thereby implying tha the billboard has corrupting effects upon the children which will carry on unto their adult lives. What, exactly, is that corruption? Let's say Ogged, having seen many raunchy billboards as a child, watches 5 porn movies a week, while I watch none. Am I morally better than Ogged, and, were a leadership position to open, therefore better suited to occupy it?
Even this example gives, I think, too much credit to the billboard. Ogged was much more likely to have aquired his porn habit from watching his friend's sister strip.
But maybe this isn't a moral argument at all, but a matter of taste?
I don't know why we are usually more concerned about our kids seeing tits and asses than seeing people blowing each other to bits... I would tell my child: "she is a person who works hard for an honest living and that he or she should always respect a person who works for living."
FL - Do you object to the advertising of an illegal activity, or the use of a scantily-clad model to advertise an escort service? The fact that it's an ad for an illegal actvity mildly bothers me, but it's not like it's a giant billboard with the caption Smoke Crack, It's Refreshing!. I don't mind the escort service bit at all - I think it should be legalized and regulated anyway. (Better for public health that way.)
I don't have a kid so maybe I'm naive, but I really don't see the problem here. Why not just tell the kid the truth? People like to have sex, because it's a way of being close to someone, and it feels good. But it's hard to find people we want to be close to. You know how you like little neighbor Bobby, but not really little neighbor Joey? It's like that. So people sometimes pay other people to have sex with them, so they can pretend that they're close to someone. But it's very sad, because though pretending can be a lot of fun, you shouldn't have to pretend that you're happy. Want a cookie? I sure do.
I find public violation of the law distasteful*, even when I disagree with the law, as I'm not saying I do in this case. (And I take it that this sort of escort service is, for all intents and purposes, a prostitution ring.)
Forget about the children-- what does the billboard say to me? Doesn't it say something deplorable about human sexuality and its role in eudaimonia?
OK, I'm done with my John Finnis impersonation now.
*yeah, I'll throw in something about civil disobedience if you want it.
I guess we just differ on whether laws ought to be followed just because they're laws. And what does the billboard say to you that you find deplorable? What does it say that you don't already know?
Thinking about it, I'm really puzzled by "deplorable." Insofar as I find prostitution mainly sad, objecting to the billboard seems to me a lot like objecting to a billboard showing orphans.
excellent. The claim is only a wattering down of the more accurate claim that the person disapproves of what the billboard is advertising, and not just for the kids. Further, appeals to children's sensitivities are always appeals that the argument is self-evident, and therefore seeks to pre-emtively close off any argument.
Doesn't it say something deplorable about human sexuality and its role in eudaimonia?
It's because of this concern that I said I would be more sympathetic to Unf being offended. But as I also implied, this might be a matter of taste. As it is, I'm not convinced that escort services are deplorable. Would it be better if escort services were not necessary to meet certain needs? I think probably so. Is it a good thing that there is an institution which will meet those certain needs if ordinary social interaction doesn't suffice? Maybe.
Not to be snitty, but I'm still waiting for someone to enumerate the harm that will come to anyone, child or adult, from seeing the billboard. Or if not harm, to provide another argument for its removal.
*yes, I did want. It is an imperative that we challenge unjust laws!
"I guess we just differ on whether laws ought to be followed just because they're laws."
Well that's the problem with creating laws that most people think are ridiculous, so as to pacify a noisy minority.
I take it that you, among other things, have never speeded and have never created a mix tape.
I don't want to completely belittle the issue --- for all the laws that I think are ridiculous, there are probably plenty that others find ridiculous that I love. Personally I'm all in favor of controlling liquor and banishing smokers out of public spaces. So I suspect the problem may be a problem with the very idea of law.
Some laws should be probably be social mores rather than laws; things that people do just to be polite and be good citizens. The problem, of course, is that that doesn't work in a country full of pricks who, when asked to turn down their stereo, not talk in a movie theater or suchlike respond by saying "show me the law that says I can't ...".
So the real answer, probably, is that a society that is determined to mock politeness, gentility and (at least public) morals is one that can only be controlled by law, but law being a blunt instrument, is destined to be unhappy in various ways.
Like Unf, I hadn't realized the harm principle (and libertarianism) had achieved such empery that public ads for prostitution are presumptively OK. Good to know. Double good to know that even time-worn exceptions to libertarian principles (but we're not all autonomous choosing selves *as children*, right Ms. Rand?) are getting ruled out.
Not to get all political philosophy-y in what is ultimately a naked lady discussion, but there seems to me a certain glibness here about a) what rights a community has to control public space, b) the extent to which a pervasive culture cannot be opted out of through market mechanisms, c) that children are different from adults, and d) that the way a society publically displays sex is a contentious topic, and not just because a bunch of squares are all uptight on it, man.
I'm willing to discuss a, b, and d, baa, but I get really annoyed by invocations of children in morals discussions, when it seems unarguable that kids aren't "naturally" disturbed by nudity, or much of anything else, and that what's at issue is precisely what we adults think they should find objectionable. If we can decide that advertising for escort services is a bad practice, then we can talk about how to deal with the kids, but the kids don't tell us anything in advance about whether it's bad.
Let me elaborate breifly on why appeals to "the children" have a real, non-Mrs. Lovejoy value.
As you know, ogged, many justifiactions for political liberty and libertarianism rely on the notion that we are autonomous, self-interested, and freely-choosing: "if you don't like X, don't do it," "whatever happens between consenting adults is no one else's business," etc. Count me a big, if critical, fan of arguments like these.
We all know, however, that this model of the self is just that: a model. Our preferences are shaped by culture, and we can be propagandized and deluded. We do not always know what is good for us.
Though imperfect, the "liberal self" model may adequately approximate adults. For children, however, it is systematically inaccurate. There is a reason "what ever goes on between a thirty-year old and a consenting five year old is OK with me" never became a household phrase. Heck, even the architects of a floating Randian utopia, recognize that rules for children have to be different. When you've lost Objectivist floating utopian designers, you've lost main street!
My objection (and my objection to ogged's proposed explanation to little Johnny or whoever) is to the weak argument that "because I am uncomfortable explaining this to my child, it shouldn't be there." Then again, I haven't been thrilled with sounding like a libertarian, either, believe you me.
I think the problem isn't the naked lady and the little kid that sees it. Nor is the problem sex. The problem is a particular attitude towards sex and sexuality, especially women's sexuality, that is expressed at least as much in the desire to shield chidren from the billboard as it is by the billboard itself. Sex, and especially naked ladies, are naughty and dirty and shameful and therefore really, really desireable, the slutty whores, and you can sell almost anything with a picture of a sexy lady but we don't want children to see it because they're innocent and asexual.
Bullshit. I have a kid: I'm here to tell you, kids are so very not asexual. And exploiting sexuality for profit is a lot harder to do when it's treated, not as a rare, naughty commodity, but as something that everyone has.
So, like I said: my kid sees a naked woman and a naked man fairly frequently; hence the nudity on the billboard, in and of itself, is not a problem. He knows about sex, more or less (hell, we've fucked while he was in our bed); hence explaining what sex is isn't the problem. The problem is that it's exploitative and, arguably, degrading. And that's as easy (or hard) to explain as it is to answer the question he asked the other morning: "Mama, why are they advertising on tv for people to become soldiers, when being a soldier is bad?"
Explaining shit to kids isn't something to avoid. It's called education.
I think we do probably agree, and I think I also agree with baa (omg, I can't believe I just said that) that there are serious issues at stake here. I don't like your explanation, though, both because it focuses on the john's point of view in the prostitution exchange, and because (as a result) it doesn't address the real issue of the billboard, which isn't prostitution as simple economic transaction (no big deal), but the more complex problem of exploiting and commodifying women.
Huh, that's just not on my map. I wouldn't explain it in those terms even to myself. Or rather, to be more conciliatory, I'd likely see what you're calling the exploiting and commodifying of women as symptoms of more general problems.
I liked it better when as a 11-year old I had to find those kinds of ads in the hollow tree in the public park where the 18-year olds left their sticky stash of stolen free papers advertising escort services and the like.
Furtive shame at puberty creates a lifetime foundation for a life's worth of sexual excitement. Putting it up all over the place like this deprives the children of the future of lots of fun later on.
I'm semi-serious about this: billboards like this banalize sexuality, quite aside from any other issues they raise. There's something to be said for maintaining a social consensus about the relative prurience of adult sexuality.
This seems like an empirical question, though maybe an unanswerable one: how much is furtiveness a necessary part of the pleasure of sex, and how much is furtive enjoyment a consequence of our contingent practices? Which is to ask, can you take the furtiveness out of sex? And, if you could, would it still be fun?
Yes, but they don't make sex banal by bringing it out into the open. They make it banal by making it simple and stupid. A lot of porn does the same thing.
Ogged, in what sense is exploiting women by reducing them to sex objects merely a symptom, rather than a fairly major problem in and of itself?
Uh, seriously b? Start with Aristotle's conception of the world as available for handling, throw in Christian notions of an interior, true self, put the two together in that nadir of Western philosophy, Descartes' Meditations, in whose thrall we still live (more or less) and you have a world in which everything is primarily taken as an object, severed from us.
I agree the unique status of children doesn't itself determine the rules. It might suggest, however, that we structure the culture to give parents more control of how children get exposed to certain highly charged subjects. If many parents in a community find explaining X to their kids uncomfortable, perhaps that is a prima facie reason for banning billbaords on X. It is not so baffling that many people would prefer their kids not learn about prostitution from a billboard at the age of 5. I am rather baffled by the purported bafflement expressed here. On further googling, it turns out that a group of Pahrump citizens did object to the "Psst, there's more" billboards. I don't see anything wrong with Pahrumpians using using the usual mechanics of small community obstruction (zoning, ostracism, denying construction permits) to get them taken down. Anyone else?
Just an aside: bitchphd -- do you really think being a soldier is wrong? Is being a policeman wrong too?
baa, actually, pseudonymous kid's dad was a soldier for more than 10 years. So, no--what a 4yo says isn't always evidence of what his parents believe ;)
However, I do think that war is wrong, and I do think that being a soldier is problematic as the primary purpose of an army is to wage war. And I think that policing as it's often practiced is problematic, too (big surprise). So we try to explain to pseudonymous kid the distinction between people and actions: soldiers aren't "bad," they're just people. War is bad. I think our actual party line is that soldiers (and police) are there to protect people when others want to start a war or hurt them, but that sometimes, unfortunately, people tell soldiers to start a war and sometimes, unfortunately, police make mistakes. And that is bad, yes.
1. we structure the culture to give parents more control of how children get exposed to certain highly charged subjects. My problem with this is the implied notion that it's up to the parents to determine what their kids learn. This isn't entirely true: I'll go further than you, even, in saying that if a community finds X or Y objectionable, then the community finds it objectionable, and the kids are a red herring. The "what kids are exposed to" argument always irks me, because it's too easy to go from that to arguing that parents are exclusively responsible for enforcing community standards, thereby letting the community have it both ways (we disapprove of prostitution, but obviously we provide a market for it).
2. If many parents in a community find explaining X to their kids uncomfortable, perhaps that is a prima facie reason for banning billbaords on X. Key word here: PERHAPS. But not necessarily. Again, I don't think that discomfort is a good marker for what you do or don't tell kids: I think discomfort is often a marker for having a double standard (i.e., using women to sell shit is ok or unremarkable, but somehow selling women isn't ok). I think explaining nuances and double standards to kids is something people oughta do.
No, I don't really see anything wrong with a community deciding to ban X, Y, or Z. Sometimes. Then again, I do have a problem with a community banning, say, the teaching of evolution. My real problem is with using "discomfort around children" to avoid the real problem of hypocrisy and/or sexism. Just for example.
You'd be hard pressed to beat Pahrump, Nevada for gratuitous billboards. When I last drove through, the semi-nude billboard gals offered "bath and massage services." Now, you might think that even the most Vivarin-addled long haul trucker would get the implication of massage when juxtaposed with a photograph of barely dressed hooker. But, just for dullards, these billboards had the tag line "Pssst, there's more!"
More than a naked lady massage? Whatever could that be?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 3:09 PM
Kids see naked ladies all the time. They're called "Mom."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 3:32 PM
Is that what naked ladies are called? Try that out next time you're at a strip club, Unf.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 3:35 PM
It's what the naked lady in this house is called.
Well, "mama," to be exact about it. You can probably get away with that at a strip club.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 3:37 PM
Kids see naked ladies all the time. They're called "mom."
And the award for response least likely to pacify social conservatives goes to....
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:06 PM
Now there's an award I'm proud to win.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:11 PM
Check out the new subtitle!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:20 PM
Perhaps its the Wasp in me that just gets offended by the out-in-the-open quality of the whole thing. I don't know who said it, but I agree: you have the right to do whatever you want behind closed doors, as long as I have the right not to hear about it.
As for your award, many congratulations. Send a SASE to Unfogged and you can claim your check, certificate, and congratulatory ham.
Posted by unf@unfogged.com | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:25 PM
Why? should that billboard offend children? Being "harmed" by sexual imagery is learned, not inborn. Cf: three posts down.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:32 PM
I think I should add a little more.I have fairly decent childhood memories, I think, and I remember a number of times when scantily clad women came on TV or movies, and my parents were worried about me seeing it. Trust me, I was not harmed by it. Most of the boys my age (7, 8) already had a soft-core mag somewhere, anyway.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:34 PM
Ha! Well, I like that better than the billboards in Florida thanking God for our Maximum Leader, and I think it's easier to explain to the kiddies. Besides, it's time for us, as a nation, to untwist our collective shorts.
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:43 PM
I'm with Larry. I find it a lot easier to explain sex to pseudonymous kid than I do, oh, ads on television for the military.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:45 PM
Now you're with Larry? Good lord woman, give it a rest.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 4:48 PM
So I'm the only one vaguely offended by a billboard for an escort service next to a major highway in a major non-Las Vegas metropolitan area. Guess I should speed up those plans to move down to Alabama.
Posted by unf@unfogged.com | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 5:00 PM
I'm more sympathetic to you being offended by the billboard than the notion of being offended on behalf of "the kids."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 5:41 PM
Michael, the children are our future. Think about it.
Posted by unf | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 5:44 PM
Ogged, I don't see a ring on this finger.
Not that that would make any difference, but I'm just saying.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 6:12 PM
Then when the children cease being the future and become the present, they will have the choice about whether to allow those billboards.
But let's look at it this way: you claimed the children are our future, thereby implying tha the billboard has corrupting effects upon the children which will carry on unto their adult lives. What, exactly, is that corruption? Let's say Ogged, having seen many raunchy billboards as a child, watches 5 porn movies a week, while I watch none. Am I morally better than Ogged, and, were a leadership position to open, therefore better suited to occupy it?
Even this example gives, I think, too much credit to the billboard. Ogged was much more likely to have aquired his porn habit from watching his friend's sister strip.
But maybe this isn't a moral argument at all, but a matter of taste?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 6:59 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 7:12 PM
illegal = you're against it?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 7:15 PM
the terrorism thing just confuses the hell out of me. i'm against terrorism and all, but that just seems so...out of place...
i...just...don't...understand...
Posted by d | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 8:00 PM
I don't know why we are usually more concerned about our kids seeing tits and asses than seeing people blowing each other to bits... I would tell my child: "she is a person who works hard for an honest living and that he or she should always respect a person who works for living."
Posted by Leuf | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 8:11 PM
FL - Do you object to the advertising of an illegal activity, or the use of a scantily-clad model to advertise an escort service? The fact that it's an ad for an illegal actvity mildly bothers me, but it's not like it's a giant billboard with the caption Smoke Crack, It's Refreshing!. I don't mind the escort service bit at all - I think it should be legalized and regulated anyway. (Better for public health that way.)
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 8:21 PM
Actually, let's return to the original question: how does one explain to a kid what the naked lady is advertising?
Well, you could lie. Say she's advertising a soft drink, or beer, or electronic equipment, or a car, or . . .
Whatever all the other naked or half-naked ladies are advertising.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 8:44 PM
Hey, did you guys see this? It seems kinda apropos.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 9:02 PM
I don't have a kid so maybe I'm naive, but I really don't see the problem here. Why not just tell the kid the truth? People like to have sex, because it's a way of being close to someone, and it feels good. But it's hard to find people we want to be close to. You know how you like little neighbor Bobby, but not really little neighbor Joey? It's like that. So people sometimes pay other people to have sex with them, so they can pretend that they're close to someone. But it's very sad, because though pretending can be a lot of fun, you shouldn't have to pretend that you're happy. Want a cookie? I sure do.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 9:05 PM
An escort service is not illagel... even in the midwest.
Posted by Leuf | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 9:13 PM
I find public violation of the law distasteful*, even when I disagree with the law, as I'm not saying I do in this case. (And I take it that this sort of escort service is, for all intents and purposes, a prostitution ring.)
Forget about the children-- what does the billboard say to me? Doesn't it say something deplorable about human sexuality and its role in eudaimonia?
OK, I'm done with my John Finnis impersonation now.
*yeah, I'll throw in something about civil disobedience if you want it.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 10:05 PM
I guess we just differ on whether laws ought to be followed just because they're laws. And what does the billboard say to you that you find deplorable? What does it say that you don't already know?
Thinking about it, I'm really puzzled by "deplorable." Insofar as I find prostitution mainly sad, objecting to the billboard seems to me a lot like objecting to a billboard showing orphans.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 10:20 PM
Forget about the children
excellent. The claim is only a wattering down of the more accurate claim that the person disapproves of what the billboard is advertising, and not just for the kids. Further, appeals to children's sensitivities are always appeals that the argument is self-evident, and therefore seeks to pre-emtively close off any argument.
Doesn't it say something deplorable about human sexuality and its role in eudaimonia?
It's because of this concern that I said I would be more sympathetic to Unf being offended. But as I also implied, this might be a matter of taste. As it is, I'm not convinced that escort services are deplorable. Would it be better if escort services were not necessary to meet certain needs? I think probably so. Is it a good thing that there is an institution which will meet those certain needs if ordinary social interaction doesn't suffice? Maybe.
Not to be snitty, but I'm still waiting for someone to enumerate the harm that will come to anyone, child or adult, from seeing the billboard. Or if not harm, to provide another argument for its removal.
*yes, I did want. It is an imperative that we challenge unjust laws!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 10:29 PM
"You know how you like little neighbor Bobby, but not really little neighbor Joey? It's like that."
Yep, that's a good way to explain it to the 7 year-old. "Sex is great, go try it out with Bobby."
Posted by adb | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 10:39 PM
All the other kids are doing it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-10-05 10:42 PM
"I guess we just differ on whether laws ought to be followed just because they're laws."
Well that's the problem with creating laws that most people think are ridiculous, so as to pacify a noisy minority.
I take it that you, among other things, have never speeded and have never created a mix tape.
I don't want to completely belittle the issue --- for all the laws that I think are ridiculous, there are probably plenty that others find ridiculous that I love. Personally I'm all in favor of controlling liquor and banishing smokers out of public spaces. So I suspect the problem may be a problem with the very idea of law.
Some laws should be probably be social mores rather than laws; things that people do just to be polite and be good citizens. The problem, of course, is that that doesn't work in a country full of pricks who, when asked to turn down their stereo, not talk in a movie theater or suchlike respond by saying "show me the law that says I can't ...".
So the real answer, probably, is that a society that is determined to mock politeness, gentility and (at least public) morals is one that can only be controlled by law, but law being a blunt instrument, is destined to be unhappy in various ways.
Posted by Maynard Handley | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 4:58 AM
Like Unf, I hadn't realized the harm principle (and libertarianism) had achieved such empery that public ads for prostitution are presumptively OK. Good to know. Double good to know that even time-worn exceptions to libertarian principles (but we're not all autonomous choosing selves *as children*, right Ms. Rand?) are getting ruled out.
Not to get all political philosophy-y in what is ultimately a naked lady discussion, but there seems to me a certain glibness here about a) what rights a community has to control public space, b) the extent to which a pervasive culture cannot be opted out of through market mechanisms, c) that children are different from adults, and d) that the way a society publically displays sex is a contentious topic, and not just because a bunch of squares are all uptight on it, man.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:26 AM
I'm willing to discuss a, b, and d, baa, but I get really annoyed by invocations of children in morals discussions, when it seems unarguable that kids aren't "naturally" disturbed by nudity, or much of anything else, and that what's at issue is precisely what we adults think they should find objectionable. If we can decide that advertising for escort services is a bad practice, then we can talk about how to deal with the kids, but the kids don't tell us anything in advance about whether it's bad.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:54 AM
Let me elaborate breifly on why appeals to "the children" have a real, non-Mrs. Lovejoy value.
As you know, ogged, many justifiactions for political liberty and libertarianism rely on the notion that we are autonomous, self-interested, and freely-choosing: "if you don't like X, don't do it," "whatever happens between consenting adults is no one else's business," etc. Count me a big, if critical, fan of arguments like these.
We all know, however, that this model of the self is just that: a model. Our preferences are shaped by culture, and we can be propagandized and deluded. We do not always know what is good for us.
Though imperfect, the "liberal self" model may adequately approximate adults. For children, however, it is systematically inaccurate. There is a reason "what ever goes on between a thirty-year old and a consenting five year old is OK with me" never became a household phrase. Heck, even the architects of a floating Randian utopia, recognize that rules for children have to be different. When you've lost Objectivist floating utopian designers, you've lost main street!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 9:57 AM
The anti-terrorism disclaimer made me think of this prank email to a 'family values' strip club: http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/shizzypage29.html
I'm sorry I can't do the link thing, but the site is very hilarious. Parts not work safe.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:02 AM
ogged,
Certainly 'protect the children' gets abused, but at some point they should be taken into consideration.
Even if nudity was accepted and prostitution was legal we may, as a society, choose to restrict children from exposure to it.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:06 AM
Yes, rules for children have to be different, but that doesn't tell us what the rules ought to be. Is all I'm saying.
So, on your "a," I'm not sure I see the relevance, since the billboard is, in fact, up, and doesn't seem to have drawn any protest.
I agree that b and d are worth discussing, but I'm not sure what you'd say about them in the present instance.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:09 AM
My objection (and my objection to ogged's proposed explanation to little Johnny or whoever) is to the weak argument that "because I am uncomfortable explaining this to my child, it shouldn't be there." Then again, I haven't been thrilled with sounding like a libertarian, either, believe you me.
I think the problem isn't the naked lady and the little kid that sees it. Nor is the problem sex. The problem is a particular attitude towards sex and sexuality, especially women's sexuality, that is expressed at least as much in the desire to shield chidren from the billboard as it is by the billboard itself. Sex, and especially naked ladies, are naughty and dirty and shameful and therefore really, really desireable, the slutty whores, and you can sell almost anything with a picture of a sexy lady but we don't want children to see it because they're innocent and asexual.
Bullshit. I have a kid: I'm here to tell you, kids are so very not asexual. And exploiting sexuality for profit is a lot harder to do when it's treated, not as a rare, naughty commodity, but as something that everyone has.
So, like I said: my kid sees a naked woman and a naked man fairly frequently; hence the nudity on the billboard, in and of itself, is not a problem. He knows about sex, more or less (hell, we've fucked while he was in our bed); hence explaining what sex is isn't the problem. The problem is that it's exploitative and, arguably, degrading. And that's as easy (or hard) to explain as it is to answer the question he asked the other morning: "Mama, why are they advertising on tv for people to become soldiers, when being a soldier is bad?"
Explaining shit to kids isn't something to avoid. It's called education.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:10 AM
we've fucked while he was in our bed
Oh good lord, there go all our Catholic readers.
Not sure I see the objection to my explanation. Seems like you and I are basically in agreement (except for all your sinning).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:16 AM
I am your Catholic reader.
I think we do probably agree, and I think I also agree with baa (omg, I can't believe I just said that) that there are serious issues at stake here. I don't like your explanation, though, both because it focuses on the john's point of view in the prostitution exchange, and because (as a result) it doesn't address the real issue of the billboard, which isn't prostitution as simple economic transaction (no big deal), but the more complex problem of exploiting and commodifying women.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:38 AM
I gotta say, I am feeling the wisdom of repugnance, big time.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:51 AM
problem of exploiting and commodifying women
Huh, that's just not on my map. I wouldn't explain it in those terms even to myself. Or rather, to be more conciliatory, I'd likely see what you're calling the exploiting and commodifying of women as symptoms of more general problems.
What's repugnant, baa?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:53 AM
I liked it better when as a 11-year old I had to find those kinds of ads in the hollow tree in the public park where the 18-year olds left their sticky stash of stolen free papers advertising escort services and the like.
Furtive shame at puberty creates a lifetime foundation for a life's worth of sexual excitement. Putting it up all over the place like this deprives the children of the future of lots of fun later on.
I'm semi-serious about this: billboards like this banalize sexuality, quite aside from any other issues they raise. There's something to be said for maintaining a social consensus about the relative prurience of adult sexuality.
Posted by Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:54 AM
This seems like an empirical question, though maybe an unanswerable one: how much is furtiveness a necessary part of the pleasure of sex, and how much is furtive enjoyment a consequence of our contingent practices? Which is to ask, can you take the furtiveness out of sex? And, if you could, would it still be fun?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:06 PM
Yes, but they don't make sex banal by bringing it out into the open. They make it banal by making it simple and stupid. A lot of porn does the same thing.
Ogged, in what sense is exploiting women by reducing them to sex objects merely a symptom, rather than a fairly major problem in and of itself?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:09 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:13 PM
Uh, seriously b? Start with Aristotle's conception of the world as available for handling, throw in Christian notions of an interior, true self, put the two together in that nadir of Western philosophy, Descartes' Meditations, in whose thrall we still live (more or less) and you have a world in which everything is primarily taken as an object, severed from us.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:19 PM
I agree the unique status of children doesn't itself determine the rules. It might suggest, however, that we structure the culture to give parents more control of how children get exposed to certain highly charged subjects. If many parents in a community find explaining X to their kids uncomfortable, perhaps that is a prima facie reason for banning billbaords on X. It is not so baffling that many people would prefer their kids not learn about prostitution from a billboard at the age of 5. I am rather baffled by the purported bafflement expressed here. On further googling, it turns out that a group of Pahrump citizens did object to the "Psst, there's more" billboards. I don't see anything wrong with Pahrumpians using using the usual mechanics of small community obstruction (zoning, ostracism, denying construction permits) to get them taken down. Anyone else?
Just an aside: bitchphd -- do you really think being a soldier is wrong? Is being a policeman wrong too?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:23 PM
And of course it's true that repression is wicked hot.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:25 PM
Ogged, have you read Steinbrugge?
baa, actually, pseudonymous kid's dad was a soldier for more than 10 years. So, no--what a 4yo says isn't always evidence of what his parents believe ;)
However, I do think that war is wrong, and I do think that being a soldier is problematic as the primary purpose of an army is to wage war. And I think that policing as it's often practiced is problematic, too (big surprise). So we try to explain to pseudonymous kid the distinction between people and actions: soldiers aren't "bad," they're just people. War is bad. I think our actual party line is that soldiers (and police) are there to protect people when others want to start a war or hurt them, but that sometimes, unfortunately, people tell soldiers to start a war and sometimes, unfortunately, police make mistakes. And that is bad, yes.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:34 PM
I initially read "eponymous" for "pseudonymous," and thought: how cruel!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:37 PM
HA! Next time, maybe.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:39 PM
Back to the subject at hand:
1. we structure the culture to give parents more control of how children get exposed to certain highly charged subjects. My problem with this is the implied notion that it's up to the parents to determine what their kids learn. This isn't entirely true: I'll go further than you, even, in saying that if a community finds X or Y objectionable, then the community finds it objectionable, and the kids are a red herring. The "what kids are exposed to" argument always irks me, because it's too easy to go from that to arguing that parents are exclusively responsible for enforcing community standards, thereby letting the community have it both ways (we disapprove of prostitution, but obviously we provide a market for it).
2. If many parents in a community find explaining X to their kids uncomfortable, perhaps that is a prima facie reason for banning billbaords on X. Key word here: PERHAPS. But not necessarily. Again, I don't think that discomfort is a good marker for what you do or don't tell kids: I think discomfort is often a marker for having a double standard (i.e., using women to sell shit is ok or unremarkable, but somehow selling women isn't ok). I think explaining nuances and double standards to kids is something people oughta do.
No, I don't really see anything wrong with a community deciding to ban X, Y, or Z. Sometimes. Then again, I do have a problem with a community banning, say, the teaching of evolution. My real problem is with using "discomfort around children" to avoid the real problem of hypocrisy and/or sexism. Just for example.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:49 PM
For "selling women" substitute "women selling themselves." I'm not gonna defend pimping, at least not today.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:51 PM
Whack whack. Is this horse dead yet?
link
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 3:06 PM
Ha! I just clicked the Pahrump link, only to find that it's a real place. I thought it was a play on "harrumph."
By the way, mightn't the already-sexual-ness of kids be a reason to worry more about what they're exposed to?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 3:10 PM
I can't believe you think I would make up Pahrump. No one could invent Pahrump.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 3:23 PM
Ok, then you're on the team that worries about what everyone is exposed to. Good luck with that.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:16 PM
Ah, then there was this poor family who was just settling down for some christmas choirs.
Who the hell relies on public access for church services? Get the hell out the door and go to church!
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:40 PM
Ah, don't give her a hard time. At least she had a sense of humor about it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:43 PM
Ah, the yule log keeps on burning...
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-12-05 8:00 AM