Howard Stern

Can't find the thread about him, so I'll start a new one…

First they came for Howard
Why isn't everyone who cares about free speech rallying around the embattled radio personality?

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By Dan Savage


April 14, 2004 | Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed "King of All Media," was booted off six radio stations owned by those Iraq war boosters at Clear Channel Communications, after the radio network was slapped with a half-million-dollar fine by the Federal Communications Commission because of his show. It all could prove to be a serious blow, though, if the King of All Media winds up starving to death in a ditch as a result; well, he's got no one to blame but himself – if that man hasn't socked away some of the tens of millions of dollars he's raked in over the years, then I have absolutely no sympathy for him.

Professionally, though, I'm more than concerned for Howard. I'm furious and distressed, actually. While I'll admit it's been thrilling to watch Stern, famous momma's boy, battle FCC chairman Michael Powell, famous daddy's boy, and his flock of flying monkeys, when the hammer came down on Stern last week my eyes were suddenly opened. It's not just that I make my living, however meager it may be in comparison to Stern's, doing something similar. Indeed, I was accused of being "the gay Howard Stern" early on in what I laughingly refer to as my "career." (It was a rival advice columnist who made the charge – whatever happened to Isadora Alman, anyway?) I'm not having a "First they came for Howard Stern, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't an insanely wealthy shock jock …" moment. I don't think I'm next on the hit list; my column is published on newsprint and the Net, not broadcast on our precious airwaves, the only scarce natural resource the Bush administration is remot ely interested in defending. Thanks to the First Amendment, they can't shut down "Savage Love." Not yet, anyway.

No, what distresses me about Stern's predicament is that civil libertarians, lefties and sex radicals aren't furious and distressed, too, and that they're not rallying to his side – and they should be. Stern's fine, and his dismissal from those six Clear Channel stations, is the result of an April 9, 2003, show in which Stern discussed anal and oral sex. With his co-host, Robin Quivers, Stern raked one of his regulars, Stuttering John, over the coals about something John revealed about his sex life on the air during a previous show. Mr. and Mrs. Stuttering, apparently, enjoy anal sex – quite a lot – but they've been enjoying it a lot less since Mr. Stuttering blurted out this fact on the radio, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Stuttering. The moral of the segment was this: "You have to respect your partner's right to sexual privacy – particularly if you want to keep banging away at her ass." In another segment, Stern discussed a product called "Sphincterine," a kind of spray/wipe/lotion for men who suffer from "swamp ass." The guest invented the product after his girlfriend called off a blow job because he was rank. The moral of this segment? "Good personal hygiene is important."

Both segments featured a lot of toilet humor, and Stern presided over them with his trademark salaciousness. (The transcript is available here.) And while most of Stern's male listeners no doubt tuned in on April 9, 2003, to enjoy the shock jock's bathroom humor, they nevertheless came away with two valuable lessons. Based on the mail I get every day at "Savage Love," I would venture to guess that there are millions of men out there who need to be reminded to keep their mouths shut about their sexual conquests, and to shower on a regular basis. And if I may go out on a limb, I'd venture to guess that a disproportionately large percentage of these men listen to Stern's show. More power to Howard for informing these stank-butts of the importance of sexual discretion and good personal hygiene in a way that they could understand.

Showing our support for good personal hygiene and sexual decorum aren't the reasons why civil libertarians, lefties and sex radicals should be rallying to Howard Stern's side, however. (Though you never know when you might wind up in bed with a Stern fan.) At bottom, this is an issue that transcends Howard Stern's right to obsess over lesbian sex acts and the size of his own penis on the radio five mornings a week. It's also bigger than the right of his millions of listeners to enjoy his brand of humor and, as we've seen, learn valuable lessons. We should be concerned because what's being done to Howard Stern is part of a concerted effort by religious and cultural conservatives to stamp out the sexual openness that has come to define mainstream culture over the last 20 years.

Frank and explicit talk about human sexuality became a virtue in the wake of the AIDS epidemic that hit in the early 1980s. The United States had already been through a sexual revolution, but mainstream culture – television, radio and film – preferred to focus solely on the social impact of the sexual revolution (see "Love American Style," "Three's Company," et al.), avoiding all talk of actual sex. It wasn't until a new and fatal sexually transmitted disease emerged that Americans were forced to discuss not just the sex we were supposed to be having (heterosexual, missionary, procreative), but the sex many of us were actually having (hetero and homo; oral, vaginal and anal; procreative and recreational). AIDS forced Americans to start having open, honest conversations about sex and desire. It was an adult conversation about sex, and like all adult conversations about sex it involved a lot of humor. Dying is easy, as the AIDS epidemic made clear. Talking about sex is har d – and the sudden need to talk about sex in the wake of AIDS opened the door not just to condom commercials on television and safe-sex pamphlets in our mailboxes, but sexually explicit humor on "Friends," "Sex and the City," and Howard Stern's radio show.

So now Howard Stern is in trouble for talking about sex like an adult, for using humor, and for doing it on the radio – something he's been doing for more than a decade, something he was celebrated for doing until very recently. Stern didn't say or do anything obscene – not by the standards of the communities where his show is aired, and certainly not by the standards of the people who tune in to his program. George W. Bush's version of "the feds" are after Stern for what he symbolizes – the '90s' sexual openness, frank and humorous discussion of desire – and Stern is not the only one they're persecuting. The through-the-looking-glass treatment of Janet Jackson after the Super Bowl, the Justice Department's ongoing investigation of mainstream porn producers, the prosecution of a woman in Texas for selling sex toys – these are all dots that someone needs to connect to the treatment of Stern. And the right's culture warriors are not just moving against sex: Tommy Chong is in jail for selling a few bongs while Rush Limbaugh, abuser of maids and illegal drugs, is walking around a free man.

Perhaps this is a "First they came for Howard Stern …" piece. And it's time for those of us who value the freedom of adults to speak in public, and value the idea that not everything on radio or television (or the Internet) has to be suitable for children, to speak up. After all, what the hell good is free speech if you can't speak freely about swamp ass?

Originally posted by Random Balls:
First they came for Howard
Why isn't everyone who cares about free speech rallying around the embattled radio personality?

The more appropriate question is:

"Where were all these self-proclaimed 'free-speech defenders' back in 1995 when Stern got a fine nearly four times as large as his current fine?"

the very most important question is where can one obtain the product "Sphincterine" ;)

http://www.mintyass.com/

Originally posted by Ball Girl:
the very most important question is where can one obtain the product "Sphincterine" ;)

So Americans cut the foreskin off because they don't wash properly, now they have a product to hide the skanky arse smell…..if you doodles just showered regularly it would eliminate all these personal hygiene problems you all seem to have.

how about we get rid of howie for being a horse's ass, rather than dragging the us constitution through the hate-fueled, republican re-writing machine once again

he started out amusing but then evolved into the pathetic jack-off we know today

Having traveled extensively in both America and Europe, I can confirm that many more Europeans are walking around with body odor than Americans, and they don't seem to care a hoot about it.

Not that a little body odor is a bad thing on the right person. Certainly better to smell your love's natural body odor than icky perfume or cologne.

Originally posted by Bollocks:
So Americans cut the foreskin off because they don't wash properly, now they have a product to hide the skanky arse smell…..if you doodles just showered regularly it would eliminate all these personal hygiene problems you all seem to have.

Originally posted by Random Balls:
Having traveled extensively in both America and Europe, I can confirm that many more Europeans are walking around with body odor than Americans, and they don't seem to care a hoot about it.

[/QB]

Don't judge the whole of Europe on just France!!!!!

Originally posted by Bollocks:
So Americans cut the foreskin off because they don't wash properly,

No it's because jewish girls won't take anything unless it has got 10% off!!!! ;)

Or Greece?

Originally posted by Bollocks:

Originally posted by Random Balls:
Having traveled extensively in both America and Europe, I can confirm that many more Europeans are walking around with body odor than Americans, and they don't seem to care a hoot about it.

Don't judge the whole of Europe on just France!!!!! [/QB]

Originally posted by Random Balls:
Or Greece?

Originally posted by Bollocks:

Originally posted by Random Balls:
Having traveled extensively in both America and Europe, I can confirm that many more Europeans are walking around with body odor than Americans, and they don't seem to care a hoot about it.

Don't judge the whole of Europe on just France!!!!!

[/QB]

Why do you think it's called GREECE~

Greece!!!
F both of you - I resemble that remark, er I mean I resent that remark!!!

Originally posted by Groundkeeper's Willy:
No it's because jewish girls won't take anything unless it has got 10% off!!!! ;)

funniest thing I heard all day

from the sphincterine testimonials page:

<img src="http://www.mintyass.com/images/whale.jpg" alt=" - " />

&

"It's Like Altoids for your Ass!"

and during all this fox is getting away with The Swan

ggw, I just got around to reading Savage's piece. Great. I'm quite surprised there's not more clamor over not just Stern but the wave of things in general. It should be infuriating to true conservatives, as this is the religious right at work (and pretty good proof of their increasing success), not the political right.

Where'd the piece come from? I usually see Savage in Salon or the NY Times, and I didn't come across this. Somehow I don't see you as a Salon reader…. :p

I pulled it from Salon. My apologies to Dupek and you for not citing my source.

Originally posted by Bags:
ggw, I just got around to reading Savage's piece. Great. I'm quite surprised there's not more clamor over not just Stern but the wave of things in general. It should be infuriating to true conservatives, as this is the religious right at work (and pretty good proof of their increasing success), not the political right.

Where'd the piece come from? I usually see Savage in Salon or the NY Times, and I didn't come across this. Somehow I don't see you as a Salon reader…. :p

I am definitely not a reader of Salon.

my bad…I had it in my head that ggw had posted the article (see, I knew he'd never read Salon)…sorry balls. Nice piece. The article, I mean.

May 3, 2004
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
The New York Times

Fighting for Free Speech Means Fighting for . . . Howard Stern
By ADAM COHEN

Legal rulings about indecency have a way of quickly slipping into ridiculousness, and so it is with the Federal Communications Commission's recent decision imposing $495,000 in fines on Clear Channel for broadcasting an episode of the Howard Stern show. The F.C.C.'s opinion focuses on a program in which the self-proclaimed "King of All Media" interviewed the inventor of "Sphincterine," which the commission huffily calls a "purported personal hygiene product." A key factor in its analysis, duly noted in its "Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture," was that the segment contained "repeated flatulence sound effects."

Call it the whoopee cushion doctrine. It is hard to believe that the government now regards flatulence jokes, the lamest staple of gag gift stores, as grounds for taking away a broadcast license. But since Janet Jackson's unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, the F.C.C. has been furiously rewriting the rules. Another edict holds that broadcasters can lose their licenses even for "isolated or fleeting" swear words, a doctrine arising from a single gerund uttered at the 2003 Golden Globes.

Don't bother calling the commissioners philistines â?? they do it themselves. In the Golden Globe ruling, they admit their definition could put D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce off limits. Not surprisingly, though, the F.C.C. has started with Mr. Stern. He has long been a favorite target; more than half of the $4.5 million in fines the F.C.C. has imposed since 1990 has been on him. The payments were once just overhead for his highly profitable show, but with the fines soaring, and broadcast licenses at far greater risk, the economics are dramatically changed. After the $495,000 fine, Clear Channel dropped Mr. Stern from its six stations. He remains on 35 other stations, but no one can say for how long.

It would be hard to quarrel with a broadcaster that dropped Mr. Stern on grounds of taste. Turn on his show or pick up his biography, "Private Parts," and choose your reason, from his peculiar fascination with the sex lives of dwarves to his on-air interrogation of his mother about her sex life. But government fines, not high standards, spurred Clear Channel.

It is Mr. Stern's offensiveness that makes his cause so important. The F.C.C. is using his unpopularity as cover for a whole new approach that throws out decades of free-speech law. The talk right now is over the colorful battles between Mr. Stern and Michael Powell, the head of the F.C.C. But when the headlines fade, the censorious new regime will apply to everyone. The danger it poses to the culture is real.

On March 18, the F.C.C. issued orders that spell out, as the commission puts it, "a new approach." Some of the standards are objectionable on their face. The F.C.C.'s inclusion of "profanity," which it concedes is often synonymous with "blasphemy," means, a coalition of civil liberties groups, media organizations and artists points out, that "the most commonplace of divine imprecations, such as 'Go to Hell' or 'God damn it,' are now actionable."

As disturbing as the new rules, however, is the F.C.C.'s warning that it does not intend to hold itself to any specific definitions of indecency. The commission states, at the end of a list of vague categories of forbidden speech, that it will "analyze other potentially profane words or phrases on a case-by-case basis."

While making its criteria hopelessly vague, the F.C.C. is removing longstanding protections that give speakers breathing room. While the law has long said that violations must be "repeated" before a penalty can be imposed, the F.C.C. now says an isolated incident is enough. Instead of requiring that offenses be "willful," the new rules hold that a broadcaster's good-faith efforts to understand highly subjective standards are "irrelevant" to whether it will be punished.

This new legal landscape will stifle important artistic expression, since broadcasters will be afraid of wandering too close to an essentially undefined line. It also raises a real danger that indecency will be used to stifle political dissent. Among the comments Mr. Stern is in trouble for are a schoolyard epithet used about President Bush and another aimed at a Republican congresswoman.

The combination of unknowable rules and draconian penalties is already having a chilling effect. There are reports of radio stations banning classic songs like Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" and Elton John's "The Bitch is Back." The television show "ER" recently edited out a brief shot of the exposed breast of an 80-year-old hospital patient. And the satirist Sandra Tsing Loh was fired by a public radio station when an engineer failed to bleep out various words that were meant to be bleeped for comic effect.

Even Mr. Stern has been transformed by recent events. He now regularly talks about the F.C.C. on his show, and his Web site has a quotation from Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, discussions of the presidential election and voter registration information. More uplifting content than usual, but it is taking Mr. Stern's time and energy away from sphincters, flatulence and all the other vulgarities he has a constitutional right to obsess about.