Canada Takes The Plunge

Shelley Fralic reads more like a Canadian T.V. guide than a reporter as she laments the rise in pornographic material on mainstream Canadian television by cataloging the Friday night fare. Sexumentaries, as they’re called by our neighbors to the North, Seymore Butts’s reality t.v. program and Sin City, a sexual travelogue that has some would say one lucky host searching the world for sexual practices populate Canada’s Friday night Showcase Channel. So has pornography finally arrived in the mainstream in Canada? I frankly don’t know whose standard to use and I certainly don’t know enough about Canadian culture to suggest one way or the other whether she’s right or wrong. But I do know that Canadians have always been more liberal on social and sexual issues than we have. I also do know that they have a shockingly low rate of murder, that they have far fewer abortions than we do but proportionate to our respective populations have about the same number of procedures performed. They have one of the most literate populations in the world. I know they don’t have hang ups about youth trying alcohol in the form of wine and they more than tolerate homosexuals. They have successfully incorporated them into their society. I’m wise enough to know that good parents, whether Canadian or American, are smart enough to recognize why children shouldn’t be watching these programs and the steps necessary to prevent it from happening. I also know that these same, smart parents should be able to enjoy a healthy sex life and if these programs get their juices flowing, well, more power to them. Sex doesn’t have to be a dirty thing that corrupts minds, blunts healthy emotional growth or perverts children. If anything and anyone, Shelley Fralic, by suggesting her outrage at the level of adult programming on a Friday night in a very progressive society clearly intended for adults, exemplifies how sex perverts, corrupts and demeans. Oh, and Shelley? It’s cable, dear.



--MOC BLOGGER