Commentary by Judie Brown
When I first heard about the recently produced documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, there was no real desire on my part to dig into the subject. After all, I thought, what has this got to do with ending abortion and stopping the spread of promiscuity that accompanies the entire panoply of birth control products? It didn't take me long to figure out that this film and the proponents of the film have everything to do with it.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is one of the film's staunchest promoters. This organization has even provided those who visit its web site with a bird's eye view of the film director's perspective by presenting an interview with the filmmaker, Kirby Dick. It seems that our cultural attitudes about sexuality are one of Mr. Dick's concerns. But that's not the worst of it.
In order to comment, I had to know more than what Planned Parenthood is selling; I had to go to the source and see for myself. With that in mind I visited the film's official web site, and that is where the lights went on. This film and the web site that discuss it are jam packed with the sort of sexual innuendo ? my mom used to call it porn ? that leaves one wondering how anyone could waste a minute on such trash. But maybe it is precisely that trash that attracts them.
For more than 40 years the entire western world has been on a track that descends into places beyond imagination. The time has long since passed when modesty preempted perverted language and sensuous movie scenes. The average television fare today, even during the day, is filled to the brim with anything and everything sexual.
But that is not what the producers of this movie want anyone to think. They are not satisfied with "Desperate Housewives" run amuck and "Days of Our Lives" sin. Oh no. You see they want the "G" rating for films that present the viewer with either a long line of deleted expletives or the explicit presentation of total frontal nudity or both. You can learn all that in about sixty seconds on the web site.
So why would Planned Parenthood want anything to do with such low life? Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but Planned Parenthood is the architect of the very kind of unseemly sleaze that the producers of This Film Is Not Yet Rated want everyone to have the chance to experience.
Let's take a moment to put this film in perspective, starting with Planned Parenthood's very own medical affairs director, Vanessa Cullins, M.D. In an online column, Cullins answered a question about when the "right time" would be for parents to begin talking about sex with their children. In response, she tells the reader that "understanding sexuality is a lifelong process." She also explains that Planned Parenthood experts suggest that by the age of five children should be taught the "basics" including the names of all their body parts and that their bodies belong to themselves. She continues by suggesting that somewhere between the ages of 9 and 13 children should be taught that "sex is a natural, pleasurable part of life. They should be familiar with birth control methods and sexually transmitted infections, and of course the dangers of sexual abuse." In other words, a five year-old is not too young to begin the indoctrination process which leads to heightened curiosity, which leads to the practice of sexual behavior that leads to sexually transmitted infections ? and abortion.
There's nary a word about the amazing value of chastity before marriage. That is considered a judgmental term, a subjective term and a goal that most young people are incapable of achieving anyway, according to Cullins and her peers. Why burden a kid, they would ask, with an unreachable goal?
Further, when the recent news about government approval of the human papilloma virus vaccine was still evolving, it was Planned Parenthood that suggested to the government that young girls needed to be vaccinated prior to their first experience in sexual intimacy. Their recommendation was that girls at age 11 or 12, or prior to entry into the seventh grade, should be vaccinated and that the vaccine should be mandatory. The reason, which is not really a shock to anyone with an awareness of Planned Parenthood's basic love for lust, is that they deplore those of us who have what they call a "false ideological agenda." In other words, if you support chastity you are an ideologue; if you support promiscuity you are mainstream.
Got that? Well I hope you do, because they are not far off on that estimate. The facts scream at all of us for attention. They are the same facts that encouraged the producers of This Film Is Not Yet Rated to push on, full steam ahead.
Sex sells; virtue does not.
Suggestive language sells. Wholesome discussion falls flat.
Racy photos sell. Pictures of women or men clothed modestly do not.
Where there is that kind of consistent repetition, marketing the erotic pleasures of the body, what follows is not really all that shocking. The statistics make that perfectly clear. Eighty percent of Americans, including all Christians, whether single, married or still in high school, have no problem with birth control. One statistician recently said that by the age of 40, about 60 percent of American women will have had at least one abortion; many will have had many more than that.
What does this tell us about our culture? To begin with, it reveals the sleazy underbelly of our cultural fascination with sexual sin. It exposes the venereal mentality that occupies far too much of our national psyche.
This is precisely why Planned Parenthood is traveling down the road with the likes of the people who produced and directed This Film Is Not Yet Rated. While Planned Parenthood's interview with the director of that film is designed to make the movie rating system appear to be biased against sexually explicit films, the fact is that the goal is to mainstream what is currently defined as porn. In other words, Planned Parenthood and the producers of This Film Is Not Yet Rated would love to see "G" or "PG" ratings for wicked film content, and they are pressing the public to join with them and sign a petition in favor of such ratings changes.
Far be it from me to ever be described as a prude; but it is obvious that sexual saturation ? a condition our culture suffers from in spades ? has contributed to an increasing desire for earlier abortion, escalating pressure for vaccines to protect the young from sexually transmitted diseases and deafening demands for freedom from God and all that is holy. A nation that cherishes self gratification more than self mortification is a nation that has clearly succeeded in rating sex as the number one priority.
Release issued: 5 Oct 06