I'm about as liberal a parent as they come - raised by Norwegians who are not exactly shy when it comes to matters of sex - but I can't help but think many posters are being a bit rough on the mother here.

I see sex as beautiful and have let my son watch R-rated sexual movies since he was quite young, but not violent ones. He seems to have a very healthy attitude about sex.

However, I do think it's perfectly resonable to leave your suite for a couple of minutes and expect your young children to flip channels looking for cartoons without being subjected to hard-core porn. Seeing commercials with barebreasted or naked women is hardly the same as what was described (and it is unfortunate the poster had to mention that a couple was mixed race or lesbian, for that matter).

Those suggesting the parent should have more control of their children obviously don't have kids. She could have gone into the bathroom and had this happen. Someone suggested unplugging the TV - in my experience most TVs are hard-wired into the walls of hotels. Should she have pulled the cord out of the wall and damaged the property?

As for the excuse that it's far more tolerated in Europe, again in my experience growing up in one of the most sexually liberated countries, children still don't see porn. They see topless women; they see naked people on the beach; they learn that sex is as natural as anything else. They don't watch oral sex at age 5 or 8. The more sexual shows don't begin until 11 p.m. or midnight. This was apparently pay-per-view and not what most Europeans would have in their homes.

There's even a proposal now that would ban sexist or raunchy images on television or in advertising across the European Union that's being considered in Brussels. So this is not just a puritanical US thing.

The hotel should have had a blocking feature.



[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 07-26-2003).]