The guest host on the latest This American Life introduced one of the segments in a profoundly misleading and potentially hazardous way, thanks to his thinking's being warped by erotophobic ageism. I wrote him as follows:
You opened this piece with a disclaimer that managed to be wrongheaded in two opposite ways simultaneously, by saying it "acknowledges the existence of sex, and it's probably wrong for young children."I might have added that the disclaimer before a segment of Snap Judgment concerning suicide, also on NPR a couple hours later, was by contrast perfect in its general applicability: "Sensitive listeners and people with small children should be advised that this broadcast does traverse some dark territory."
On one hand, you thereby suggested that the mention of sex made it wrong for young children, despite zero evidence that there's any age before which hearing about sex is apt to cause problems. I would refer you to this brief filed by sex researchers and others in opposition to the misnamed Child Online "Protection" Act: http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/ashcroft.pdf.
On the other hand, the same wording implied that the mention of sex was the ONLY reason the piece might be "wrong for children." In fact, it was less about sex than it was about genital mutilation, a violent, bloody, and painful human rights violation. There's considerable reason to think young children might be traumatized by hearing about this, yet your mention of only sex in the disclaimer gave no clue. Had I any children, I'd naturally have assumed (as in fact I did) that the line about children reflected only the mention of sex, and that I consequently had nothing to worry about. And then my children might have had nightmares.
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