A number of years ago, there was discussion on the news about the “disgusting” movie Basic Instinct (I actually don’t know if they used the word disgusting, but you get my point), and my dad said something interesting.

“I’d rather my kids see a movie with sex in it versus something with violence in it.”

“Cool!” my brother and I both said. “Can we go see Basic Instinct?”

“No,” he said (naturally).

Keep in mind, a few days earlier he had taken us to see Die Hard 2 (which at one point had the highest body count in Hollywood history).

I bring this up because the other day at lunch – by the way, you will notice that I get annoyed at lunch quite often, which would lead a normal person to find different lunch partners, but no one ever said I was normal – someone brought up True Blood, discussing the nudity and sex in the show, essentially calling it soft-core porn.

Another guy brought up Spartacus (the new Starz series, not the gay man’s signature movie), saying his brother had told him that it was the hardest core soft-core porn he’d ever seen.

What neither of them mentioned was that True Blood is loaded with vampire-esque violence, with graphic scenes of these creatures “turning” their prey, and Spartacus, through 3 episodes, has shown more limbs and heads being chopped off than any TV series I’ve ever seen (and I watch a lot of TV).

Apparently somewhat graphic sex is profoundly worse than extremely graphic violence.

And that is something I cannot fathom.

A few years ago this nation literally went insane after one of Janet Jackson’s tits was shown on the halftime show of the Super Bowl (thanks Janet and Justin…you’ve doomed us to an eternity of Tom Petty, Paul McCartney and The Who for our Super Bowl halftime entertainment). New censorship rules were put in place, Janet became a pariah (the next week the guy who’d torn her shirt made a “triumphant return” at the Grammys, which I never really understood) and the NFL took a moral high ground of “not allowing this filth on their games”, while meanwhile ignoring the fact that hundreds or thousands of their former players were suffering debilitating injuries as a result of the violence in the game.

As my favorite comedian Lewis Black said, “It’s just a tit.”

We turn on the news every day and see the horrors in Haiti and Iraq and Afghanistan (and that’s just the places this xenophobic country cares about), and it’s stuff you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Well, unless it’s one of those people who caused some of those atrocities…I wouldn’t mind that. But dear God show someone’s tit on TV and the country goes batshit. Show some sex on some TV shows intended for mature audiences and it’s discussion worth, but the murder and dismemberment in the same shows warrant nary a mention.

Baffling.

I realize that we’re a nation that was founded on puritan values and borne and strengthened of war. But it really amazes to me that we haven’t evolved to the point where sex is seen as something natural and beautiful and, God forbid, a helluva lot of fun.

Then again, I’m in the middle of an epic dry spell, so maybe the fact that I watch a lot of porn skews my view. I’d like to think that’s really not the case.

My devious little mind hopes that all the children of these people either wind up in porn or on stripper poles or they wind up as serial killers who learned how to kill from all the TV shows their parents let them watch because they didn’t have any boobies on them.

Nah, that’s not true. I really don’t want serial killers. That’s harsh.

But bring on the strippers and porn stars! (Ladies only please.)