The Right to Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Lubricant

Well it doesn’t have much to do with Entertainment Law (ok well maybe a little bit), but I’m having some issues. I had my First Amendment class today and we were talking about free speech (obviously), but we started talking about certain standards of what possibly should be restricted speech. Then of course people started talking – which is a good thing in a class like this. BUT, today it was just ridiculous. There are a few women in our class who have families, and very often they relate what we are talking about in some way to their children. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this, everyone brings whatever they want to the table and that’s what makes the class great. Today, because we were talking about the obscenity restrictions, a woman in our class started talking about ho she felt certain things should not be on television. The specific thing that was brought up was a commercial for personal lubricant. She stated that she felt the commercial, though done “as tastefully as possible most likely”, was what she considered to be obscene. Once she stated numerous other women in the class spoke up in agreement. They all went on further to say how difficult it is to explain those things to a child. The discussion was centered on the lack of restrictions that we have on television nowadays, and how that affects children. According to them, they should have a right not have to feel embarrassed with their child when a commercial for personal lubricant comes on after dinner while they’re watching Everybody Loves Raymond.
Honestly, I GUESS I can kind of understand where they are coming from, slightly, ever so slightly. And I really do applaud their parenting skills, BUT I have some issues with this. First of all, I understand that you might not want to explain the intricacies of personal lubricant usage to your 6 year old. HOWEVER, don’t I have a right to not live my life like I’m a 6 year old? I think Howard Stern said it best when he stated, “I always hear, ‘what about the kids, what about the children’ well what about me?” And it’s true – what about me? I’m not under my parents’ roof anymore, let alone having my television watching monitored – why shouldn’t I be able to see a commercial like that. Maybe I’m in the market for a new personal lubricant, maybe it is truly to my benefit to be able to see that commercial. And even if you wanted to put some kind of time, place and manner restriction on it (if there isn’t one already), is a commercial of a woman sitting on a bed in pajamas with candles around her (JUST HER) really just too much? I would think you would see more disturbing things on the news!
The other thing that really just got to me was the whole argument of, “well you don’t know if you don’t have kids.” I’m sorry if you don’t want your kids to see certain things on TV, and I KNOW you can’t monitor them 24-7, but why should I have to alter what I get to see because your little Johnny is curious about some stuff he sees? And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not tell me that I don’t understand your argument because I myself do not have kids. Yes, I do not, however, that does not make me brain dead and simply because you are Offspring-Active does not mean you are either… SO let’s think about this stuff rationally, don’t just do the parental defensive thing where no one can give a valid opinion/answer to your argument simply because they have not been specifically in your shoes. Just because I have chosen not to go down that road in life yet does not mean I cannot bring up valid rebuttal arguments to yours when it comes to a First Amendment discussion. It’s not that I mind people given their opinions, as I stated previously, that’s one of the few great things about law school – but I do have a problem when your opinions are dismissed simply because you may look at things in a different perspective.
SO basically, the whole point of this little tirade was, let’s all just respect everyone’s opinions (even if you feel your perspective is more enlightened when it comes to something) when it comes to First Amendment issues because you KNOW where there’s free speech there’s opinions. And secondly, I have a right to know that my local drugstore will be stocking a “new and exciting product brought to me by KY”, I have a right to learn about that on the TV and I shouldn’t have to wait till 3 am to see it.