The CRTC and Porn, or How Many Double Entendres Can Fit in One Post

It’s old news by internet standards, but recently the CRTC was in the headlines for issuing notice against a few adult video cable channels.  The problem?  Among other things, not enough Canadian Content.  So the CRTC is telling those channels they need to include more Canadian porn in their programming or risk losing their license. 

Naturally, this elicited howls of laughter, and more beaver jokes than I care to recall.  But there is a serious issue with this, so let’s not beat around the bush.

The CRTC is DEMANDING the increased sexual exploitation of Canadian women and men. 

I’m going to focus on women here, as porn is often discussed in and around the issue of women’s rights.  The debates typically end up running in circles.  One side argues porn is an exploitation of women by the oppressive male patriarchy.  The other says porn is just another way women can freely exercise their sexual liberty.  The two camps beat each senseless other until someone sane locks things down or Goodwin’s Law finally gets invoked. 

So is porn freedom or oppression?  Liberty, or exploitation?  Simply (well, maybe not simply, but), it’s both.  No matter how freely you choose to enter pornography, doing so means your body and sex are being exploited to make someone money.  In short, you are being pimped. 

Curiously this is happening just after the Supreme Court struck down some of the laws surrounding prostitution, forcing a major rethink on how we approach it.  So we have the situation where the government is asking how do we protect women and reduce prostitution while at the same time a bureaucracy is demanding more women be paid not only to have sex, but to have it recorded and broadcast around the country.  On top of that, this same bureaucracy is responsible for ensuring other TV broadcasters do not show sexually explicit or exploitative material.  And this of course is all on top of the general concerns about how women are portrayed in media in general, and how that influences our society. In short, 

THIS IS INSANE.

The government’s role is to protect people from exploitation, not force people into it.  I understand the reasoning for Canadian Content rules and how they are meant to help develop and promote Canadian cultural content.  These rules should be removed for porn channels.  Pornography and sexual exploitation are not a part of Canadian culture we should be developing.  

Kids without TV

Okay, sort of without TV.  For the last three years, we have had telus internet and tv.  While the quality of service has been good, the rates have constantly climbed upwards.  What's the point of a locked in contract if they can jack the rates when they want?  So when our time is up in January, we are ready to give telus the boot. 

Our kids had gotten used to having tv.  For a long time it wasn't really a problem - even if it was on, most of the time they weren't watching it anyways. But over the last six months they have become a lot more zombie like when watching it.  This concerned both me and my wife. 

The excuse to actually do something about it came a month ago when we moved back to new west. Between visiting relatives, piles of boxes and uncertainty as to where to put the tv, it basically got tucked away for three weeks.  

The fist week was hard for the kids. They were much crankier, quicker to get angry, and bickering with each other far more often. 

Interestingly, they never got upset specifically about the lack of tv. Moods were definitely soured though.  But after a week, things slowly started to mellow. My son had been rapidly improving his reading skills the last six months, and instead he would take a book to his bed and sit there for a while. 

Our daughter started getting more physical with us, wanting to use me as a jungle gym all the time instead of just half the time. We already enjoyed playing board games together, but it started happening much more frequently. We made even more trips to the playground or the swimming pool. 

After three weeks I'd say the dynamics were just as good as they were before the tv disappeared. It was no epiphany or miraculous improvement in how our family live and love each other, but it was good. 

The kids vegged out less, but that also meant the grown ups couldn't veg as much either. Some days were tougher than others, but in the long run it's better for us too. 

Eventually, thought, boxes got unpacked, furniture set up and the tv returned.  We used the opportunity to impose much stricter limits on the amount of tv we watch. Our plan is to dump cable and go to Netflix come January.  We are still keeping the Wii and DVD collection, but at least we will be making our screen time more focused. Hopefully we have a little less zombie and a little more fun.