Consider Silence

NEWS FLASH
The earlier you become sexually active, the more likely you are to have lousy taste in music.

This story is suddenly everywhere.
Deep breath...10, 9 , 8 ....

How was this determination made? What rigorously scientific method was applied? What exactly is "sexually degrading music" anyway? Anything with dancers in the video?
Probably.

The study, based on telephone interviews with 1,461 participants aged 12 to 17, appears in the August issue of Pediatrics, being released today.

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the next two years, compared with teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Say what?
They asked a bunch of teenagers - on the phone , no less- about their sex lives...Including a two- year projection of what activities they might potentially start having over the next two years?
Did the quizzer read from a list of activities and ask the kids " so... do you see yourself trying CBTWG within the next two years?"

I wonder if the questions themselves raised any 'curiosity'?

At some point, we all lie about sex. Those lies are likely to be told between the ages of 12 and 17.
All this study proves is that kids who listen to music about sex are more likely to tell phone interviewers that they are sexually active than kids who don't listen to 'dirty' songs.

This same tired old "music is ruining our kids" bugaboo gets trotted out from time to time. It was, is, and always has been bullshit.
Blame someone else. Blame the schools; the music; the government; TV; religion ; fluoridation... blame anything , so long as it puts the accountabilty elsewhere.
Bad parents ruin kids, but it's so much easier to blame it on the bossanaova.


Consider the following exchange between the late Frank Zappa and Congress, Sept 19, 1985.
In 1985 the Parents Music Resource Center wanted to place ratings and restrictions on albums that might be offensive to them.

Zappa, as you might guess, was deadset against this. He felt that it was the parent's responsibility to determine what music, books and other arts their children were exposed to.

(And yes, it's that Sen. Gore)

19 September, 1985- United States Congress

Senator Exon: Mr. Chairman, I might help him out just a little bit. I might make a statement. This is one Senator that might be interested in legislation and/or regulation to some extent, recognizing the problems with the right of free expression.

If it will help you out in your testimony, I might join Senator Hollings or others in some kind of legislation and/or regulation, unless the free enterprise system, both the producers and you as the performers, see fit to clean up your act.

Mr. ZAPPA: OK, thank you.

The First thing I would like to do, because I know there is some foreign press involved here and they might not understand what the issue is about, one of the things the issue is about is the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it is short and I would like to read it so they will understand. It says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That is for reference.

These are my personal observations and opinions. They are addressed to the [Parents' Music Resource Centre] as well as this committee. I speak on behalf of no group or professional organization.

The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years, dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design.

It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment Issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.

The PMRC promotes their program as a harmless type of consumer information service providing 'guidelines' which will assist baffled parents in the determination of the 'suitability' of records listened to by 'very young children'. The methods they propose have several unfortunately [sic] side effects, not the least of which is the reduction of all American Music, recorded and live, to the intellectual level of a Saturday morning cartoon show.

Children in the vulnerable age bracket have a natural love for music. If, as a parent, you believe they should be exposed to something more uplifting than "Sugar Walls," support Music Appreciation programs in schools. Why have you not considered your child's need for consumer information? Music Appreciation costs very little compared to sports expenditures. Your children have a right to know that something besides pop music exists.

lt is unfortunate that the PMRC would rather dispense governmentally sanitized heavy metal music than something more uplifting. Is this an indication of PMRC's personal taste, or just another manifestation of the low priority this administration has placed on education for the arts in America?

Senator GORE. I have listened to you a number of times on this issue, and I guess the statement that I want to get from you is whether or not you feel this concern is legitimate.

You feel very strongly about your position, and I understand that. You are very articulate and forceful.

But occasionally you give the impression that you think parents are just silly to be concerned at all.

Mr. ZAPPA. No; that is not an accurate impression.

Senator GORE. Well, please clarify it, then.

Mr. ZAPPA. First of all, I think it is the parents' concern; it is not the Government's concern.

Senator GORE. The PMRC agrees with you on that.

Mr. ZAPPA. Well. that does not come across in the way they have been speaking. The whole drift that I have gotten, based upon the media blitz that has attended the PMRC and its rise to infamy, is that they have a special plan, and it has smelled like legislation up until now.

There are too many things that look like hidden agendas involved with this. And I am a parent. I have got four children. Two of them are here. I want them to grow up in a country where they can think what they want to think, be what they want to be, and not what somebody's wife or somebody in Government makes them be.

I do not want to have that and I do not think you do either.

Senator GORE.
Do I understand that you do believe that there is a legitimate concern here?

Mr. ZAPPA. But the legitimate concern is a matter of taste for the individual parent and how much sexual information that parent wants to give their child, at what age, at what time, in what quantity, OK. And I think that, because there is a tendency in the United States to hide sex, which I think is an unhealthy thing to do. and many parents do not give their children good sexual education, in spite of the fact that little books for kids are available, and other parents demand that sexual education be taken out of school, it makes the child vulnerable, because if you do not have something rational to compare it to when you see or hear about something that is aberrated you do not perceive it as an aberration.

- -- --- --- --- --- ----

What Zappa is saying is that a well-educated kid will be able spot bullshit when they see it, but that if they are kept uninformed about sexuality and other 'adult' matters, they will form distorted conceptions based on what media they observe, by chance or otherwise. This distorted perception is what causes problems, not crap music.
Crap music can be turned off.

But it's so much easier to blame music.
Or the internet.
Or books.
Or paintings.
Or sculpture.
Or movies.
Or dancing.
or [ this space left blank]

It must be the music.
1,461 American teenagers wouldn't lie about sex, would they?

Maybe this non-story will die out amidst the growing global chaos- perhaps it will gain popularity as a diversion from real issues- who knows?

Same old song , same old song and dance again...