I have trouble working up any animosity toward the Discovery Channel or those who put the show together. Probably there is not one person there who makes all the show/don't show decisions so that could lead to some inconsistency. And it's not like they have any reasonable guidelines from the government as to what is/is not permissible.

I believe that the root of this problem is that the FCC exists to begin with. But right next to that is the fact that the FCC is cowtowing to a religious organization called the Parents Television Council- an organization which has dramatically driven up the number of complaints to the FCC in recent years and which is responsible for nearly all of the complaints the FCC receives. Here's yet another example of people coercing their fellow citizens into complying with their personal whims by threat of force. We now have a tiny minority of people dictating what everyone can watch instead of using the freakin' off button on their television. Of course there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the government to do this, but it's not like there are a lot of people around who give a crap about the government complying with its own laws for its own actions anyway.

Regarding guns, it's very difficult to hold up one end of a discussion in which four other people are taking the opposite side and changing the focus of the discussion repeatedly. I try to limit myself these days to getting into those sorts of discussions only when I believe I have an opportunity to influence the other person's stance. I kind of suspect I won't be contributing anything to that discussion.

For me it's not about The Discovery Health Channel, but about the deeper implications of a society that is terrified to look at a little skin, or two (or three) nipples.

I would be worried about that, too, if I thought that were the case. But when I see that something like 99.8% of all indecency complaints to the FCC are coming from one organization, I don't get a Society Is Terrified to Look at Nipples vibe. I get a A Few Religious Fundies Are Terrified that Society Will Look at Nipples Vibe. What worries me is that they are allowed, even aided and abetted, to weild such control over everyone else.

I don't agree. It wasn't just them complaining after the Super Bowl.

I ran some numbers.

The article I linked to refers to this source which quotes the Mediaweek article (I can't find the original article available for free at the moment):
"Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)" Okay, so we have 540,000 complaints about the Super Bowl of which we don't know how many came from PTCers.

I also found this source which puts the number of Super Bowl viewers in any given minute at 89.6 million, and from the U.S Census, I calculate that the number of adults in the United States over the age of 19 in July 2004 is a bit over 212 million (someone might want to check my math on that- my eye was tending to wander columns a bit).

When I do the math, I get that around .6% of all the Super Bowl viewers at the time of the nipple flash (and only around .3% of all adults over the age of 19 in the United States) were sufficiently bothered to file a complaint with the FCC. To flip that around, 99.4% of viewers and 99.7% of all adults in the United States were not sufficiently worked up over the nipple flash to bother to file a complaint.

How does this translate into "a society that is terrified to look at a little skin, or two (or three) nipples", even assuming that NONE of these complaints came from the PTC?

It's simply not statistically sound to say that just because people did not complain about the Wardrobe Malfuction at the Super Bowl, that they weren't offended about it (and to make the grand assumptions you made).

I can't speak to your statistics at all. I'm talking about people I work with, people I've heard on talk radio, people I meet at the cafe, etc... We live in a repressed culture. I meet them every day.

If we go by the statistical abuse you cited up there, than I suppose it's also fair to assume that a majority of the people who have never called the FCC to complain about nudity are likely nudists themselves, and into free love and wife swapping.

It's not statistical abuse, because I wasn't citing this date to prove a positive claim that nobody or hardly anybody was offended by the nipple flash. You can look up and see how I didn't ever make that claim. I did positively claim that most people were not agitated to the point of filing a complaint, and that claim is well-supported by the data unless you want to argue that the source data is wrong.

I have called into question (see my question to you at the end of my post) your claim that we live in "a society that is terrified to look at a little skin, or two (or three) nipples" is entirely unsupported, and not terribly consistent with what little data we have on the subject.

Now as for statistical abuse of another sort, what society are you talking about specifically? If by "society" you mean only "people I personally know or have observed" or something extremely limited like that, then there's really no arguing with you. I interpreted your comments in a much more general sense, though that may have been a leap on my part.

OK, that's it. I'm putting the forum online. The comment system is just not a good fit for ongoing discussions. I like to keep these debates raging, but it's a management nightmare for the blog.

And now I'll proceed to add fuel to the fire. If I may be so bold as to speak for Rich with regards to statistical abuse, I'd say that the stats on the number of reports to the FCC regarding the SuperBowl pig skin...I mean Janet Jackson's nipple...mean absolutely nothing. The stats do not indicate any level of concern, disgust, intentions, or anything else. They only mean that 0.6% of the total number of viewers contacted the FCC. Period.

For example, suppose I watched the Super Bowl and was offended. I thought it was crude, inappropriate, and uncalled-for. It prompted me to take action. I have now stopped watching Super Bowls with my small children or at all. Long ago I realized two things. First, the Super Bowl will be peppered with sexist commercials and displays of infantile and violent behavior that I'd rather my kids not be exposed to. Second, the FCC is useless and complaining to them is a waste of time. My reaction and opinion is not taken into consideration into your interpretation of the statistics. That stat says nothing of what society really feels about the events surrounding Ms. Jackson's unveiling. All it says is that 0.6% of the viewing public reacted by contacting the FCC, not that 0.6% had a negative opinion of it.

Kirsten, you're citing a number. A COLD, HARD number, which has little meaning without far more context. I'm actually getting out and talking to people, and taking a real sample.

Do it! Do it! Do it! (I will even make a donation a little later this week to support that effort.)

Alright, let's forget the data on the Super Bowl. I only ran those numbers because Rich made a vague reference to that seemingly in support of his point, and I didn't think that reference actually helped him.

My main question is what leads us to believe- aside from biased samples of personal observations- that we live in a "society that is terrified to look at a little skin, or two (or three) nipples"? Because it's WAY more statistically suspect than anything I've posted to draw that conclusion based only on casual personal observations that happen to stick in one's mind (unless, as I mentioned, the society Rich is talking about is narrowly defined).

Yah, I'll put the forum up pronto. Feel free to donate. Heck, you can be the first on in your neighborhood to own a Bloodthirsty Vegetarians shirt. :)

Back to the argument...

I'm not so much interested in either anecdotal evidence or FCC stats. What speaks volumes is how the networks reacted to the wardrobe malfunction. They really aren't concerned about FCC fines when 30 seconds of Super Bowl time nets them millions. They're scared silly of advertisers. And, advertisers are scared silly of alienating current and potential customers. Money walks, as they say. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, the ad agencies, advertisers and network programmers are a better guage of the public's opinion of nipple exposure.

I don't know that I buy that as a good measure of public opinion, but I'm willing to consider it. What would that metric look like?

Good question. Because the inner workings and decision making within networks, ad agencies and sponsors are so...inner...I doubt any rigor can be applied to such factors as "sentiment" or "public opinion".

While we may not be able to use it as a strict measurement, it certainly can be an indicator. I so wish I was more clever and could work in an inappropriate reference to 'Johnson & Johnson'.

While we may not be able to use it as a strict measurement, it certainly can be an indicator.

Not if my metric can't. I've thought about this some more, and it seems to me that your metric suffers from a similar problem to the complaint you made against mine.

Let's say that Advertiser Buy This Stuff observes displeasure from Customer Subgroup We Are Terrified of Nipples over The Terrifying Nipple Flash Incident of 2004. Customer Subgroup WATN is a tiny yet vocal subgroup of General Population Mostly Don't Care. However, General Population MDC mostly doesn't care, and the majority who don't care don't make any noise either for or against TTNFI2004. Advertiser BTS can and does respond to Customer Subgroup WATN's outcry without any consequence among General Population MDC so it opts to preserve a small customer subgroup since that will not hurt it among the larger general customer population.

General Population MDC's reaction and opinion is not taken into consideration with this metric either which was your complaint about the data I provided. So that stat says nothing of what society really feels about the events surrounding Ms. Jackson's unveiling either.