“The outrage that the F.C.C. pretends to feel is false”

I often use emotional responses to swearing as an example of Albert Ellis’s approach to mental health (he was, after all, “the first psychologist ever to say ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ at the American Psychological Association conference”). Anyway, Ellis argues that our emotional responses are not about particular events (like swearing) but are a function of the way we interpret events (for example, I will respond differently to swear words if I decide to think differently about them). Yet again, the FCC is trying to decide if saying “fuck” and “shit” on live TV is always punishable, and thus, censorable (or vice versa). One judge says that even if Bono simply says that winning an award is “really, really fucking brilliant” it is still about sex!

(W)hatever the speaker’s intentions… “a substantial part of the community, and of the television audience, will understand the word as freighted with an offensive sexual connotation.”

But if that is the criteria for censorship, how long before people can no longer say “69” on television? I would guess that “a substantial part of the community, and of the television audience, will understand the word as freighted with an offensive sexual connotation.” But if I simply count, “67, 68, 69, 70” and you think simultaneous oral sex, I’m sorry, but you’re the pervert.