When Decency Ends

Rush Limbaugh made an issue of a column written by David Brooks in the New York Times yesterday, so I read the column myself to see what gave him cause to make such a fuss about it. Limbaugh thought it was shallow and nonsensical.

After reading Mr. Brooks’ column, The Flock Comedies, I decided to revise my own column for this week. I had one all ready to go, but this subject has been on my mind for a while, especially after I viewed a couple of sitcoms that featured a similar theme. That theme was masturbation.

I am not writing this from a religious standpoint, and those of you who know me well are aware that I am anything but a religious person. No, I’m opining over the lack of decency we are seeing these days on TV and in the other media.

Perhaps you’ll call me a prude, but I don’t think that discussion of masturbation between mixed sex groups—or for that matter, between same sex groups—is appropriate, realistic or the least bit funny. In other than a sex education class, or a psychiatrist’s office, I don’t think it is a topic for conversation. Period!

I won’t dignify the shows by naming them, but the topic was not only talked about openly by the loving couple, but also by their co-workers and other close friends. Of course there was the usual canned laugh track to make it appear to be comical. I guess that if you put a laugh track on a non-humorous, unrealistic conversation enough times, some people are going to believe it really is funny.

Well, I for one, don’t! I think it is a symptom of the degradation of our society that we can take a private and personal matter and make it seem to be an everyday topic around the drink cooler or in the bar or restaurant.

I don’t want you to misinterpret me. I am not naïve, and I’m not waging war against the act, only against the portrayal of it as a topic for sitcom humor. If that makes me a prude, then so be it. It still bothers me to hear people use foul language in mixed company, too.

When decency ends, respect ends with it, and we have little enough respect for each other as it is without exacerbating the lack of it.

You might want to read The Flock Comedies in the New York Times 10/21 edition for yourself. I obviously made a connection with it.