A new clarion call is echoing through TV stations across the US: No sex please ... we're American.
The furore over singer Janet Jackson baring a breast during the Super Bowl half-time show has wiped a slew of sex scenes and raunchy videos from America's TV screens.
Prudishness is sweeping across the mainstream TV networks which were stung by the outpouring of criticism over Jackson's "Nipplegate." Last week music channel MTV withdrew six of its racier videos from its daily schedules, switching them to slots after 10pm.
The videos included Britney Spears's latest single Toxic in which the catsuit-clad singer simulates sex in an airliner lavatory.
Other bands whose videos were dumped from the daytime include rockers Blink 182 and Incubus.
MTV admitted its move was a reaction to public pressure.
"Given the particular sensitivity in the culture right now, we're erring on the side of caution for the immediate future," a spokeswoman said.
Mainstream shows have not escaped either. ABC has become the first major network to consider broadcasting an "desexed" version of an episode of its hit police series NYPD Blue to parts of the country where time differences mean it goes out before 10pm.
The series' producer, Steven Bochco, is so angry that he has refused to make the edits himself.
Other major networks have already made similar programme changes. CBS has removed a shot of a naked man from its crime series, Without A Trace, while NBC deleted a two-second shot of an elderly woman's breast from ER.
Jackson's performance during the Super Bowl, where singer Justin Timberlake ripped off part of her bodice at the climax of their duet, unleashed a wave of criticism that has stunned television executives.
Thousands of viewers rang to complain. One woman, Tennessee banker Terri Carlin, even filed a class action lawsuit claiming millions of dollars in compensation.
America's powerful conservative and religious lobbies have joined the outcry.
"The last thing a parent expects to see when they sit down with their family to watch the Super Bowl is Janet Jackson's breast ... to feature a show that requires parents to send their kids out of the room is unconscionable,' said Rick Schatz, president of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families.
The outrage has reached Washington, where politicians gathered last week for congressional hearings on ways of tightening America's indecency laws and keeping a tighter rein on broadcasters.
Some experts believe the recent editing of sexual content from mainstream TV means the industry is censoring itself before the law forces the issue.
It may be too late. The hearings were marked by sharp attacks on the morality shown on TV.
"I share the displeasure and fatigue of millions of Americans about the erosion of common decency on television," Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, told the panel.
The TV regulator called Jackson's Super Bowl performance a "new low in prime-time television" and "the latest in a growing list of deplorable incidents."
US Congress may raise tenfold the fines for indecency that can be imposed on a station or network to US$275,000, or even stop them broadcasting.
Many US states are in revolt against TV's sexual content. Complaints to the FCC have risen from 346 in 2001 to 250,000 in 2003, revealing the sexual conservatism of much of the US.
Joanne Webb, a Texas woman with three children, is facing a prison sentence after fellow residents of the small town of Burleson told police she sold sex toys at Tupperware-style parties.
Texas law says the toys can be sold only as novelties. As soon as Webb told her customers their sexual uses she committed a crime.
Webb, who faces two years' jail and a US$4,000 fine, was arrested in an undercover police sting in which she sold officers a vibrator and explained how to use it.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to