My thoughts on the piece

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council:

"The intention is clearly to bring up this sexual desire, and I don't think that's beneficial for our society"
To paraphrase, he's saying to bring up sexual desire is not beneficial. I am unsure if he means to bring it up as in to arouse, or as in to bring it up as a discussion topic. I personall think bringing up topics about real things is beneficial because it aids society's understanding of it. As for arousing people, maybe not, but it's not really depricative either so I'm not sure why that matters. Cotton candy isn't exactly beneficial for society either but I don't protest it. Or maybe arousal is bad? Sounds suspiciously like it could be any one of the three Abrahamic faiths to me...

"They are being exposed to sex and to talk about sex, before they're even old enough to even think about having sex."
It's hard to know what he means by 'exposed to sex'. Sex as a topic, or literally being exposed to real sex? There's a difference between seeing sex IRL and seeing it in a porno. There's a difference between seeing it explicitly in a porno and seeing it implied by nudity and closeness in a romantic or comedy film (or for that matter, IRL in the shadows versus up close and personal kind of stuff). Or does he mean being exposed to the topic of sex? Well certainly, being introduced to ideas based on things that exist in real life are very harmful, much more harmful than being introduced to ideas based on things that are not real, like Santa Claus or other dead people we pretend have magical powers and are still around and make holidays about.

Furthermore, 'to talk about sex' illustrates that. Obviously, witnessing conversations (even fictional ones) pertaining to sex does stimulate thought. It is undeniable. I do wonder though, of Sprigg's insight as to how he knows how old people should be when it is permissable to think about something. Obviously they are old enough to think of it if you take it literally as thinking about it seems to be whole problem here, and it wouldn't if you were unable to think about it, kind of like how babies are unable to think about quantum physics.

"Television is going downhill fast, and the programmers sometimes seem to me to be racing each other to see how they can push the envelope in terms of negative sexual content."
I think Sprigg is jumping to conclusions, either by inserting his opinion that the content these programmers are racing to push (calling it negative) or implying that they're doing so because it is negative. Personally, I don't think programmers give a shit about it being negative. More likely, they want ratings, and want to do things to get them, including being unique by showing things others are too afraid to risk showing. Actually, I think pretty much EVERYONE who does it is very apprehensive about doing it. They're afraid of the consequences, but bravely proceed in spite of them.

I would hardly describe such progression as a 'race'. It's more like a cautious trek down a steep hill getting chased by zombies. The zombies are slow (not necessarily by design, they might be fast zombies like on 29 days later but the fast ones just fall past you because they're not very coordinated, there's also no middle ground for 'em) and you want to run right downhill but you can't because of the danger so instead you go down fast enough just to get ahead of your partner to avoid getting eaten but you don't race down because then you'll fall and die or else get knocked out and by the time you wake up the zombies ate you and there's no escape.

I see the harm in the rise of sexually transmitted diseases," said Sprigg. "I see the harm in the increase in out of wedlock pregnancies and births. We see the harm in the increase in single-parent households. All of these things have significant harm for the country
I am thinking this guy doesn't look broadly enough. STDs are increased by things besides promiscuity, such as population density and drug use. Considering it rises alongside pregnancy it's probably characterized by a lack of condoms. The lack of that can be blamed on a lack of sex ed. The problem here is that the same people trying to protect people from the consequences of sex are often the same trying to keep them from data on how to prevent a great deal of said consequences.

I think this guy's a bit biased about certain issues too, because there isn't inherant harm in having a single-parent household. I do admit though, odds are with 2 parents you're more likely to get more attention and stuff. Honestly I wish these guys would focus more on ratios than on total number of parents though. 2 parents with 5 children 1-5 may possibly have a harder time raising that many kids than a single parent with 2 children 1-5. It's just math. Of course it's not always the case for those with group skills but not all parents have those, it's not something we commonly teach (a day care provider might know them though) since most parents don't have that many kids of a certain age all at the same time, or really even in a lifetime.

Of course the 'out of wedlock' stuff is utter BS. You can have 2 parents living together raising a baby just as competantly or more competantly than a given married couple. I personally think it makes a better rolemodel to stay together for love rather than paper.

I'm glad that they let a sensible guy like that Marty Klein chime in on things. Good for Stossel to end on that high note. It may have taken up less space, but good sense does tend to be more abbreviated. Which... does not bode well for me :D

*watches the listirine ad* K so that's the article... as for the vid... hey um was this or the article what people meant by 'age of consent 2'? It doesn't seem to address that issue, so it's not the best choice of label if that's the case. He's tackling a related issue but that's about it. 'Stossel on sex' maybe?

The part where he's showing Sprigg the chart fails it at least with the clip they show on the .com because I can't even see anything but a blank white piece of paper. You'd have to judge by Sprigg's lack of protest that the charts were not blank though, lol.

Sprigg makes a good point on the vid (they don't put this in the article) that until problems go down to zero (although I don't really consider out of wedlock pregnancy an inherant problem, I think unprepared/unwilling parents are more accurately what the problem is) you need to keep promoting positive values... having sex in the media does not interfere with the promotion of positive values.

In fact, it helps to clarify them, I think, as it stimulates conversations and allows you to explain the reasons behind your values to your kids so that they will better understand them. People do not tend to accept values on a say-so basis, but rather through recognition of their utility. Without being exposed to sex, it's appeals and its consequences, advocation for or against it can easily fall on deaf ears and be uninteresting.

So yeah, very interesting news piece.