Adult Content on Radio and TV (from Seattle Board)

[michael hagerty]

"Entertainment for Men" was right there on the cover every month, so ESPN was an obvious advertising buy. ESPN wasn't even pretending to try to attract female viewers in 1982.

I actually bought my first issue of Playboy to read an article! It was the then-sensational interview with Jimmy Carter, in which he admitted "lusting in his heart" for women other than his wife. But yes, I did take a look at the centerfold. Several looks, in fact, as she was Patti McGuire, the very attractive future wife of tennis star Jimmy Connors. There was lust in my ... um, heart.

For anyone who wasn't alive then, it's difficult to grasp Playboy's place in American society---especially in the 1960s, and to a somewhat lesser extent, in the 70s.

My wife was a small-town Baptist girl. We were watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime. In 2019, there was an episode where Lenny Bruce appears on a TV show called "Miami After Dark", and I mention that it's practically a frame-for-frame reshoot of an actual episode of Playboy's Penthouse from 1959.

My wife is stunned. A skin magazine with its own TV show in 1959?

Turns out that very episode exists on YouTube, so we watch it, and she sees what America saw at the time...a sophisticated (by mid-century American standards) host in a tuxedo, smoking a pipe, welcoming famous people to a party in his apartment high above Chicago.

A serious discussion of comedy with Lenny Bruce, conversation and music with Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole. No bunnies, no Playmates, no pitch for the magazine.

It lasted two years (it was syndicated and clearance in the midwest outside the major cities and the Bible Belt just wasn't gonna happen). The show returned in 1969 for two more seasons, this time in L.A., as Playboy After Dark with guests updated to include Harry Nilsson, The Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac (then just a well-regarded British blues band) and old guard favorites like Sammy Davis, Jr.

The Playboy Interview, articles written by leading authors of the time, as well as other luminaries (including Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas), the Playboy Jazz Poll---in the 60s, and early 70s, Playboy was a 200-to-300 page magazine with 16 pages of nude women. It was mostly articles. And the articles were, in a lot of cases, must-reads.

It was only later that we learned what was happening at the Mansion, in the Grotto, and why Bill Cosby always seemed to be there.

 

[michael hagerty]

I think both the bands were actually playing. I know Deep Purple actually played "Hush" live. It doesn't have the wild organ intro, though.

EDIT TO ADD: It's obviously a recording of a live performance, but looking at this vid again, it might be lip syncing to a live recording made in a studio somewhere? Kind of hard to tell if it's truly live or not, looking at the playing.

Here's the clip.

Could have been either way, or each way for different musical guests (each week had at least one).

The show was actually shot on a set at CBS Television City. So they were equipped for both a live musical performance and recording/playback/lip-sync.

Also, while "Hush" is from 1968, Playboy After Dark began its run in the fall of 1969. This was just Deep Purple going with its most recognizable hit to date at the time.

 

[michael hagerty]

So, this law applies to the PRODUCER of the content. For example, in L.A., it would apply to big companies like Vivid or Playboy Enteprises, who produce the content themselves and load it onto their own sites.

But Pornhub is an aggregator.They host videos made by private individuals - about 14 new videos every minute and 115,000,000 (115 million) visits per day in 2019. They are like You Tube - just a depository where anyone can load private videos. They just make the web space available and post ads to generate revenue. YouTube is an uploading service, which hosts users' personal videos.

Like FaceBook, Pornhub uses Section 230 of the Communcations and Decency Act of 1996, to defend themselves, which states that an interactive computer service cannot be treated as a producer of information. They are not hosting their own content. They are hosting other people's content, and they say that it is difficult for them to discern from the videos, who is 18 years old and who is not. So, they have little incentive to remove potentially profitable material.

And that is what got them sued in 2020 and 2021:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/18/pornhub-lawsuit-rape-child-porn-sex-trafficking/

Pornhub claims immunity after video shared of Alabama teen’s alleged rape

The porn website urged a Birmingham federal judge to dismiss the girl's lawsuit, claiming it has "broad immunity from liability for content posted to its websites by third parties," according to a court filing.

www.al.com

The first lawsuit named the credit card company VISA as a co-defendant, since it processed membership payments (and as it does with all transactions, earned a transaction fee for each one). VISA (and MasterCard) subsequently stopped doing business with PH.

In looking all this up, I find that MindGeek sold PH earlier this year. The new owner is a Canadian Private Equity firm called:



.....wait for it......



(seriously, swallow the coffee and set down the mug before you scroll any further)







Ethical Capital Partners.

 

[michael hagerty]

Anti-porn is aging out, except maybe in the religious right.

True once. Less so now. Increasingly, moderates and liberals (and I think Kelly, Daryl and myself have made it pretty clear that we're not part of the religious right) are simply reading the room and seeing that there's too much smoke for there not to be a pretty serious fire as regards rape, exploitation, underage exposure and involvement in the content and human trafficking.

Yes, Gen-Z tends toward sex-positivity, but you should not confuse that with porn, especially porn with that sort of human toll.

What you're not seeing here: ONE production company going bad and an entire industry condemning the actions of that rogue company.

For all the hoopla in the media over "red states" zeroing in on photo IDs to access sites like PH, what gets overlooked (of course it does---America constantly forgets to check the rest of the world) is that much more liberal societies when it comes to sex are considering the exact same thing for the exact same reasons:

France moves to block access to pornography sites for minors

France will present this week a digital-certification mechanism to oblige pornography websites to effectively control the age of viewers on their sites from September, French digital minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday.

www.reuters.com

It's curious that no one here seems to have any opinion about hip-hop and rap songs that are all about sex, minus the bleeped out F-bombs and other bleeped words. Some guy or woman rapping about getting or receiving various types of sex, on songs being played on the radio where even kids can hear it -- somehow that is not problematic but some talk host discussing porn would be. It just doesn't add up.

C'mon, Boombox. Despite how anyone may feel about the content, people are not (to my knowledge) raped, abused, drugged or sold into human trafficking in the production of a hip-hop record.

I don't care to hear either on the radio, but then, radio caters to the demos that like porn and like hearing that sort of sexual lyrical content in the music they consume. The same demos aren't into talk radio of any type, so there's probably no chance of the return of Dr. Ruth anytime soon.

I'm gonna let David tackle that one in terms of demos.

 

[michael hagerty]

Those are companies who operate as businesses. But that doesn't apply to individuals who can create any user name they wish and upload any content they wish, just as they do on You Tube. They're anonymous. No way to track them down.


Linked below is Gen. Zer Billie Eilish's comments to Howard Stern where she remarks that her brain was ruined by porn starting at about age 11. Eilish was 19 at the time, awkwardly trying to chat with a befuddled 68 year old Stern, who makes $100 million dollars a year enthusiastically promoting the roughest porn possible to his majority male audience, who believes that it is the women's role to shut up and submit. Eilish catches Stern off guard by commenting that women don't behave in real life sexual encounters the same way that they are required to behave in porn movies -- and Stern is lost. He is just lost. It has still never occurred to Stern that women are anything more than a sperm receptacle or a plastic doll. He's clueless.

Billie Eilish says watching porn as a child ‘destroyed my brain’

Singer says exposure from the age of 11 messed her up when she began dating as ‘I was not saying no to things that were not good’

www.theguardian.com

I didn't wake up this morning thinking "I'll go online and defend Howard Stern", yet here I am.

Show me in that linked article where Stern is off-guard, lost and clueless in reaction to Billie's comments.

All I see is "was speaking on the Howard Stern Show", "Eilish told Stern" and "in the same interview with Stern."

Howard moved on from the pornstars and all that a long time ago. In his second marriage, with three daughters, he's aware of some of the damage "old Howard" did:

Howard Stern Says He’s Changed. How Much? (Published 2019)

“I am the poster boy for doing everything offensive. I’ve done insane things. But everything I did, I make no apologies for, because I was trying to entertain people.”

www.nytimes.com

 

[michael hagerty]

But in the area of making mountains out of molehills, this has become very exaggerated in both its possibilities and its potential.

Which was obvious from post #1, David.

One more day and I'll close this, hopefully forever.

Amen.

 

[michael hagerty]

What surprises me more is that stations that play this material get ad dollars.

As you say, the bad words are edited or blurred. But the content is sexist and highly demeaning in many cases. I think that the fact that Hip-Hop and reggaetón / trap are predominantly produced or performed by members of minority groups tends to insulate the music from a degree of criticism...

... at this point even outspoken me worries about any comment I make being construed as racist...

... or maybe the "old white guys and gals are so outta' touch they don't listen to those songs and if they did, they would not understand them.

But, yeah, the lyrics of lots of current songs don't pass the Baby Boomer morality test.

There's a large section of America that thinks "Born in the USA" (Bruce Springsteen) is a pro-American anthem.

If a record has a beat and a hook, most of the audience is going to have no clue what the lyrics are, much less think critically about them.

 

[vchimpanzee]

7th Heaven (a head shop) and Priscilla’s/Cirilla’s (adult store) advertised on some of the rock stations here in KC around 20 years ago during the day, but I don’t know if they still do.

I remember ads for Priscilla's on a conservative country station (not as conservative is the typical classic country station is now).

I don't think the ads made it clear what kind of store this really was, but there was some suggestion. And yet this was a country station that played gospel music at times.