Note: This article pertaining to Should Children Be Protected From Sex, Violence, Alcohol, and Profanity While Traveling? was originally published on Sunday, August 23, 2015 at 1:45 in the afternoon and has been updated. This article is part one of two parts. The article that is part two of this series is found here and will be updated and republished on Tuesday, August 26, 2025.
In recent years, a number of colleagues in the travel space have written articles pertaining to passengers who view illicit content on their own portable electronic devices while aboard airplanes — even when sitting next to children aboard airplanes. Combine that with the fact that the in-flight entertainment aboard many airplanes contains content that could be considered inappropriate for minor children who are younger than 17 years of age. Those factors — among others — prompted the republication of this article.
Should Children Be Protected From Sex, Violence, Alcohol, and Profanity While Traveling?
This article pertaining to the official confirmation directly from a spokesperson at Hilton that was published on Saturday, August 22, 2015 of the elimination of on-demand adult video entertainment from approximately 715,000 rooms in its hotel and resort properties worldwide reminded me of this article I wrote about a mother of two young children who posted a petition wanting four commercial airlines and NBC Universal to stop showing violent and sexually inappropriate movies and television programs on drop-down and bulkhead screens aboard airplanes.
Sarah Coburn-Rothermel allegedly witnessed several movies with French dialogue almost twelve years ago showing scenes with domestic abuse and sexual situations accompanied by English subtitles laced with profanity. That petition was signed by 3,653 people in support of the mother of two young children who lived in Tulsa at the time; but somehow, the petition closed with 3,615 supporters, which is 38 fewer people.
Hilton Worldwide was not the first lodging company to execute such a policy. As I reported back on Sunday, January 23, 2011, Marriott International, Incorporated implemented an official policy to remove adult content from new hotel rooms.
The comments which had been posted in response to the article — most of which were against the petition in question — prompted me to wonder: should children be protected from sex, violence, alcohol, and profanity while traveling? Is censorship the right course of action in this case?
My Own Personal Experiences Growing Up
Please allow me to relate a personal story to you. I had an extremely close relationship to my paternal grandfather, who I respected and admired.
When I was a child, my grandfather enjoyed drinking one small bottle of beer every night after dinner. For some reason, he eventually abandoned this practice without notice years later; and he never was an alcoholic.
He called me into the dining area of the kitchen one evening after dinner — when I was about five years of age or so — and wanted me to try a sip of his beer. I had no interest; but he insisted. The beer tasted horrible to me — and it must have been apparent: he laughed at my reaction. I never wanted to try that swill again…
…and I never did. I cannot stand the taste of alcohol to this day.
Even when my friends were drinking when I was a teenager, they wanted to see what I was like if I was inebriated. No amount of peer pressure would force me to even sip an alcoholic beverage — let alone get drunk.
To this day, there is a long line of people who would love to see how I would act if I were drunk — especially given my personality while sober, as that can at times be beyond wacky.
In my adult years, colleagues enjoyed imbibing in alcoholic beverages after a long day of work — especially when traveling on business. They would invite me to try a beer. After replying that I did not enjoy the taste of beer, they would insist that I would have to “acquire a taste” for it.
Acquire a taste? Why?!?
Both of my parents smoked cigarettes. My father invited me to try one when I was young. I declined, but he did not insist. I would not be surprised if the invitation from my father to try a cigarette was similar to the invitation from my grandfather to try a beer: to satisfy a curiosity I never had in preventing me from possibly wanting to indulge later on in my life.
Both of those attempts were successful.
Despite the supposed theory that children are more than likely to pick up the bad habits of their parents, the smell of second-hand smoke was more than enough to deter me from ever wanting to smoke anything — such as cigars, cigarettes, pipes, crack, and marijuana — and to this day, I still have no desire to smoke. The closest I have come to smoking is enjoying smoked meat in Montréal — but that is a story for another time.
In fact — despite my parents, relatives and friends cursing on a regular basis — I vowed at a young age that I would never use profanity. As a part-time actor, I refuse to use profanity if it is in a script. Usually the director and writer will work with me, as there is always a way around using profanity. To this day, I do not even use mild profanity, let alone strong profanity. Why? Because to me, profanity serves absolutely no purpose. Sure, it might be funny in a comedy routine — but not if it is used gratuitously or excessively, in my opinion.
I still enjoy watching cartoons created from as many as 90 years ago. They are filled with violence — yet somehow I am not a violent person; nor have I been traumatized or mentally scarred in any way as a result of Elmer Fudd blowing the beak off of Daffy Duck with his shotgun or Jerry dropping an anvil on Tom.
Final Boarding Call
A petition will not protect children from sex, violence, alcohol, and profanity, in my opinion — nor will shielding them from those activities. Prohibition in general has proven to be ineffective over the centuries. Rather, proper parenting and supervised controlled exposure could go a longer way towards protecting a child — similarly to experiencing illness at a young age to develop a stronger immunity later on in life. Unlike a certain former spokesperson for an international chain of sandwich shops who admitted to guilt of engaging in sexual activities with children younger than the legal age of consent as an example, I vehemently believe that a child should not perform a sexual act or commit violence at a young age; but shielding that child from witnessing those activities at some level when they are presented as a movie or television program is virtually impossible to do, as they are a part of life for many people.
At the most basic level, the child should receive proper guidance. Explain the consequences of violence — as well of as the abuse of drinking alcoholic beverages and engaging in sexual activities — to a child as early as possible but at an appropriate age. Detail the benefits of sex and alcoholic beverages; but also suggest when and how they should be used. Empower the child to form his or her own opinions and decisions about sex, violence, alcohol, and profanity rather than to forcefully ban it from the child without explanation — which in turn may only foster his or her curiosity all the more due to repression.
Although I agree that some times and places are more appropriate than others, if an adult wants to watch entertainment containing sex, violence, or profanity — or imbibe in an alcoholic beverage — while in a hotel room or seated as a passenger aboard an airplane during a flight, that should be the choice of that person. If the person is using a portable electronic device, that person should take reasonable measures to avoid exposing fellow passengers as much as possible to his or her choice of entertainment. That choice should not be removed solely due to the censorship of someone else who does not want his or her child to be exposed to those activities — whether in real life or via recorded content.
Just to be clear, I do not view the decision by a lodging chain such as Hilton Worldwide to eliminate offering the option of selling adult content as a form of censorship — if only because with the advent of the Internet, there are actually more choices that are less expensive which are no longer “officially sponsored” by the hotel property attempting to sell it directly.
Despite having been exposed to those vices, I do not drink alcoholic beverages, engage in violence, or use profanity — but I have no problem with people who drink responsibly, curse, or want to watch violence as entertainment. Those are their choices; and I stick to my choices.
What are your thoughts pertaining to that petition? How should the conundrum of questionable content shown while traveling be solved, mitigated, or improved? What do you believe is the best way to deal with sex, violence, alcoholic beverages, and profanity where they pertain to children?
All photographs ©2015, ©2024, and ©2025 by Brian Cohen.
