PTC Complains About CSI Episode

The Parents Television Council has filed a Federal Communications Commission complaint over an episode of CBS' CSI: Crime Scene Investigation that featured infantilism, a fetish where participants derive sexual and emotional pleasure from the clothing or toys or infants or by role-playing as children or infants.

In this case it was a rich, obese guy in a diaper who jumps out a window.

"Apparently, CBS has learned ABSOLUTELY nothing [emphasis theirs] from the record-breaking $3.5 million fine levied against parent company, Viacom, in an effort to settle scores of indecency complaints," said PTC.

Actually, it was a consent decree settlement, not a fine, which wiped away all complaints except Janet Jackson without any finding against Viacom save for a single Infinity violation that the FCC needed to preserve for its warning to all stations about multiple violations. Several CSI complaints were among those dismissed, according to PTC spokeswoman Kelly Walmsley.

CBS declined to comment on the complaint.

CSI has a history of dealing with kinky sexual themes, but then again, it is set in Las Vegas.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.