What do the following two groups have in common?
Group One: Domino's Pizza, Ford Motor Company, Old Navy Stores, Red Lobster, Volkswagen, GE appliances, Windows Server 2003, Acuvu 2 contact lenses, eBay, T-Mobile, and the movies The Runaway Jury and The Last Samurai.
Group Two: oral sex, mutual orgasm, masturbation, shaved genitals, lesbianism, public nudity, sex in a public restroom, pornographic movies, and the promotion of rampant fornication.
Group One provided sponsorship for NBC's latest you-don't-want-to-see TV, Coupling.
Group Two accounted for what passed for humor in Coupling, the raunchiest half-hour yet shown on prime time network television.
In case you missed the premier episode (and subsequent episodes), congratulations. The National Broadcasting Company threw this garbage out to see how much foul smell they could get away with, and this one really stinks. Even the laugh track was as phony as the storyline of this alleged comedy — Susan breaks up with Patrick who is going to date her best friend, Sally, while Steven is trying to break up with bisexual Jane so he can go to bed with Susan, and is best friends with Jeff who works with Susan, with whom he once tried to have sex.
These people speak of “dating,” which in the modern vernacular, does not mean dinner, a movie, and a handshake at the door. It is the current euphemism for having sex outside of the God-blessed sanctity of the marriage of a man and a woman. “Dating” is the disinfected word, just like “affair” is the sanitized word for “adultery.”
On its premier night, I watched Coupling twice — the first time and last time. Having read several early reviews, I knew what to expect, and my lowest expectations were exceeded. So, if Domino's Pizza, Ford Motor Company, Old Navy Stores, Red Lobster, Volkswagen, GE appliances, Windows Server 2003, Acuvu 2 contact lenses, eBay, T-Mobile, and the movies The Runaway Jury and The Last Samurai think that their sponsorship of this trash is an appropriate place to put their corporate seals of approval, I will think twice before supporting any of them in the future.
(David Sisler's newspaper column, Not For Sunday Only, is in its 14th year of weekly publication. Not for Sunday only is based on news events, sports, popular songs, motion pictures and personal glimpses. The message is: the Christian faith is an everyday happening – it is not for Sunday only. The columns are thoroughly researched, and never indicate denominational bias. For reprint permission, or to subscribe to Not For Sunday Only, contact Mr. Sisler at david@mirkids.com.)