I've never been a fan of people who let their televisions do their parenting for them. I'm even less of a fan of people who let their televisions do their parenting and then blame television for their children's inappropriate actions.This week, the Parents' Television Council, an organization devoted to "promoting and restoring responsibility and decency to the entertainment industry" (from their website-I can't make this stuff up), petitioned the attorney general's office to open an investigation into whether local cable and satellite providers have violated state and local laws by airing MTV's Skins, a show based off the British series of the same name.

Skins is a show about a group of teenagers who, like most TV kids, lead incredibly interesting lives full of sex, drugs, alcohol and-well, frankly, more sex. Although only a few episodes of the series have aired on MTV so far, it's already clear that the adaptation is much less raunchy than its British namesake. That being said, however, several major sponsors of the United States version have already dropped out in the wake of complaints made against the network about the underage sex acts depicted in the show. Last Wednesday, despite the fact that the actors involved in the scenes are all over the age of consent, the PTC called on the Department of Justice to look into whether Skins violated child pornography laws.

Fans of the show reacted to news of the lawsuit with annoyance and disgust, claiming that the American version of the show has not even begun to measure up to the U.K. version, and that the majority of the show aired so far has been "tame." While the insinuation that the show would only get raunchier probably won't do much to dissuade the PTC from its anti-Skins campaign, another fan said, "There are ratings and parental controls-use them to control what your kids are watching and leave everyone else's experience out of it." Another fan agreed, commenting that members of the PTC should monitor their own children instead of complaining about what was available for them to watch. Considering that Skins airs at 10 p.m., one would think that these so-called exemplary parents of young children would be putting their kids to bed well before the show was on.

What do you think is more of a problem, Brandeis? The availability of raunchy shows on television or the failure of parents to keep their 7-year-olds from watching softcore porn on MTV?