Splicetoday

Sex
Jul 15, 2008, 05:45AM

Post-Liberation Taboos

This columnist discusses American's strange relationship with sex and popular culture. Apparently it's alright to have a wealth of movies, television, and music dominated by both subtle and blunt sexual innuendo, as long as it remains in the subculture.

We've come a long way, baby. At least that's what we'd like to think.

In 1986, the most controversial film of the year was David Lynch's Blue Velvet, a film about a sleepy, picket-fenced small town and its salacious, crude undercurrent -- and probably for good reason: It's probably the only Academy Award-nominated film that prominently features both erotic asphyxiation and lobotomy.

The ensuing uproar seems understandable, at least until you realize the most controversial film in 2005 was probably the only Academy Award-nominated film that prominently featured two cowboys who scandalously fell in love.

You'd think we'd have learned something from Lynch, but judging from the evidence presented in a Florida obscenity trial this month, it's small town America that is still living in a bubble.

The defense, arguing in favor of a porn site operator, is using Google Trends to show that Pensacola residents generally prefer an "orgy" over an "apple pie," according to Google search records.

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