Penn & Teller's Bullshit!

I love this show! Out of two full seasons and the two new episodes I have seen, I have only disagreed 0n their opinion on one show! That is pretty amazing. It's a difficult show in that there's an overabundance of foul language (something that I don't mind in general but find excessive here) but the content and the research into different topics and the arguing sides of that topic are well worth the consistent overuse of the word "fuck".

However, in re-watching the pilot, where they discuss people who communicate with the dead, Penn Gilette explains all the foul language - apparently that is a little too much even for them - but has to do with avioding litigation over slander or libel or both. Well... OK, then. I like the fact that even Penn finds all that colourful language to be too much, but that it is not there for shock value or anything of that nature.

Topics that they cover:

First Season:
  • Talking to the Dead
  • Alien Abductions
  • End of the World
  • Second Hand Smoke/Baby Bullshit
  • Sex, Sex, Sex
  • Feng Shui/Bottled Water
  • Creationism
  • Self-Helpless
  • ESP
  • Eat This! (Diets & Food)
  • Ouija Boards/Near Death Experiences
  • Environmental Hysteria

Season Two:

  • P.E.T.A.
  • Safety Hysteria
  • The Business of Love
  • War on Drugs
  • Death, Inc.
  • 12-Stepping
  • The Bible: Fact or Fiction
  • Exercise vs. Genetics
  • Hypnosis
  • Recycling
  • Profanity
  • Yoga, Tantric Sex, Etc.
  • Fountain of Youth

Season Three:

  • Family Values
  • Circumcision
  • Saving Wildlife
  • There's a lot more, but I don't have it on DVD yet...

Season Four

  • Boy Scouts
  • Prostitution
  • The Death Penalty (not yet seen)
  • Cryptozoology (not yet seen)

OK. I am totally on board with almost everything. We disagreed about circumcision. I prefer my penises (peni?) without a foreskin. Some women don't, although personally I don't know any that do. Penn certainly wasn't OK with it but then, this is not something that men will think about too deeply as it would be a distressing thought. However, most men I know prefer to be circumcized. None the less, it's OK to disagree.

But we do see entirely eye-to-eye on the other topics. I am not at all (even slightly) a believer in Creationism. How could the scientific mind ever wrap itself around that? Death, Inc. zeroes in on the racket that is the funeral home business, which prays unmercifully on the bereaved to soak every possible penny out of them. No one who knows me needs to ask whether I think the Bible is fact or fiction. No mystery there. And love is absolutely a chemical issue!

Latest one I saw was Prostitution. I am a 100% proponent of prostitution being legalised. I am convinced that legalising it would allow the prostitutes to be a lot safer from violent or abusive johns and pimps; disease; drugs; and getting ripped off. I also do not feel that it is appropriate for the government to step in and tell me that I cannot do this out of what...? Some kind of misguided morality? Giving into a prudish and stupid public? Where does the government get off telling me that something I can give away is something I cannot charge for? Let's think about that...

So I can be a total "hussy" and sleep around indiscriminately and give myself away to every man and/or woman around, have group sessions, engage in all sorts of sordid, odd, aberrant or outright deviant sexual behaviour possible, do S&M, be a dominatrix, be into leather, bondage, scat (not ever), phone sex, screwing in public, sleeping with the old and the young, using animals as part of my act (again, yuck, but people apparently do stuff like that) and all sorts of other diversive things, but I cannot charge for it and it's OK...

Oh, but wait! It is also illegal to sleep with anyone other than your spouse if you are married. Again, over-governing? You had better believe it! Only in the United States could laws that stupid be passed! I love this country but some of the things we go out of our way to do are inexplicably stupid.

If you go to Nevada, home to the Bunny Ranch and other houses of ill repute, you pays your moneys and you gets your sex - or whatever you were hoping for - legally, cleanly, without having to find a seedy hotel or trying to sneak it in your vehicle. I am totally on board with that! No one should have to go through all sorts of weird contortions to get laid (unless you are into kinky positions!). While the super-attractive can seduce all the people they want and get all kinds of action with little to no trouble, the not-so-good-looking are relegated to masturbation - or sneaking around using women who are supporting a drug habit and possibly rife with disease to get a little action. I find that much more objectionable.

And lastly there is the argument that this personifies women as objects. Well, to some degree we are - men are wired completely differently from women when it comes to sexuality. I don't see any issue with being an object of lust or desire to Luis. No more than he should mind me seeing him in that fashion as well. Sex is very different for men, though. They are visual creatures, where women are tuned into a little of everything - smell, sound, sight, the ruse of romance...

Well, I'm all for legalising prostitution!

Anyway, go Penn & Teller! I hope they can change some small part of how people see things.

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