Bob CollinsIt’s not often the Federal Communication Commission publishes porn:
… a woman and a boy, who appears to be about seven or eight years old, are involved in an incident that includes adult female nudity. As confirmed by a tape of the program provided by ABC, during the scene in question, a woman wearing a robe is shown entering a bathroom, closing the door, and then briefly looking at herself in a mirror hanging above a sink. The camera then shows her crossing the room, turning on the shower, and returning to the mirror. With her back to the camera, she removes her robe, thereby revealing the side of one of her breasts and a full view of her back. The camera shot includes a full view of her buttocks and her upper legs as she leans across the sink to hang up her robe. The camera then tracks her, in profile, as she walks from the mirror back toward the shower. Only a small portion of the side of one of her breasts is visible. Her pubic area is not visible, but her buttocks are visible from the side.
The racy narrative is part a 25 page tome (See pdf) issued by the buttoned-down Federal Communications Commission on Friday that a 2003 scene of the ABC series NYPD Blue violated decency standards by being “titillating and shocking.”
The FCC also let it be known that organized letter-writing campaigns by a few organizations work, even if it took the government five years and who knows how much money to determine that the scene “depicts sexual organs and excretory organs — specifically an adult woman’s buttocks.” The ABC lawyers response? They argued buttocks are not sexual organs, to which the FCC said, “we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense.” Next?
The FCC ordered TV stations to pay $1.43 million in fines, the second-largest indecency award ever.
Area stations ordered to pay the fine include KSTP in St. Paul, WDAY in Fargo, WDIO in Duluth, WXOW in La Crosse
