What Donahue is Teaching America
Phil Donahue's popular daytime program is a national favorite. But Dr. Richard Neil, a Ft. Worth dentist, has succeeded in persuading about 100 local and national advertisers to stop sponsoring Donahue.
Dr. Neil has been labeled a "censor"and attacked by the media. Why is he so concerned about Donahue? After all, this is a show with the ad slogan, "All Kinds of People . . . Like You." (To find out what Donahue thinks you're like, keep reading.)
What follows are descriptions of actual Donahue programs—the dates come directly from the transcripts of the programs. Dr. Neil's examples (I've left out a few of them) are taken only from the first five months of 1992.
I really debated whether or not to use these. They are explicit and offensive—but not nearly as offensive as the shows themselves. Because of these descriptions that 100 companies stopped sponsoring Donahue.
By all means this page shouldn't be viewed by your children. But the fact is, as Dr. Neil points out, that Donahue is broadcast in many parts of the country at times during the day where many young children end up watching. (When they flip from channel to channel their natural curiosity about sexual things will hook them on Donahue.)
This is poison for the minds of adults as well—but Dr. Neil is appealing to advertisers not to sponsor this barrage on the psychosexual development of American children. If you are struggling with sexual temptation or memories of childhood abuse, I'd recommend not reading what follows, as it could do you more harm than good.
If you do choose to read, and it makes you sick or angry, it should—hopefully sick and angry enough to be sure you're not watching this program and that you're making sure your children aren't either.
12-11-91: A transvestite and two transsexuals discuss whether or not he should become a woman. They then discuss penis transplants.
12-12-91: A wife says she is a nymphomaniac. She has men to her home to have sex while her husband hides in the closet and films it with a videocamera. She discusses having orgasms while driving down the freeway by herself.
12-16-91: Four teenage topless dancers perform their dances. Their mothers discuss how proud they are of them.
12-27-91: Homosexuals discuss having sex with many men, without informing them that they have AIDS. Oral sex and mutual masturbation are discussed.
1-2-92: A man is in his third marriage, but he does not have sex with his present wife. Instead, he sleeps with his first two wives.
1-8-92: Guests include a telephone sex operator, and erotic TV talk show hostess, and three strippers. They discuss their abilities to excite men.
1-9-92: A woman tells of her father kneeling over her bed and performing oral sex on her. She also had intercourse with her brothers. The next guest says his brother caught him masturbating and "started having me give him oral sex."
1-14-92: A college senior applies for a clerk position in a costume shop. The owner says, "Let me see your boobs." He tells her he will hire her as a stripper, but that later on the girls "do a little more, sitting on faces and stuff."
1-23-92: Two mother/daughter stripper teams discuss their shows.
1-31-92: Women discuss having sex with prisoners in the visiting rooms of prisons.
2-3-92: Married couples describe group sex and their sex partners in swinging clubs.
2-10-92 A sadomasochist mistress describes her dungeon in her apartment with "my pornography and my racks and my cages" built for her sex slaves.
2-12-92: Men and women discuss a woman's orgasm and the usefulness of masturbation.
2-17-92: A women tells of her affairs with married men. Her husband allows them. She says, "I tell him all the details. He gets off on it."
2-18-92: A transsexual describes a sex change operation after a lengthy lesbian relationship. The grandmother of one of the partners is very fond of the transsexual and wanted to hop in the back seat of the car and "let her make love to me." Donahue says, "Well, that's one hell of a grandma, I'll tell you that." The guest describes how he can have male genitalia from 5 to 12 inches in length.
Another guest was born a woman, became a man, went back to a woman, and now is a man again.
2-20-92: A teenager wrestler is gang raped by teammates. One person tells how his coach massaged him and then "ejaculated all over me."
3-4-92: A 6th grade boy is having sex with a 35-year-old cafeteria worker at his elementary school. A woman relates how her supervisor in college discussed using a Tootsie Roll Pop as a sexual device with his wife.
4-9-92: A married man with three children discusses having anonymous sex with other men. He says, "I see it almost as a gift, because I can experience the good of both worlds."
4-16-92: A mother has an affair with her teenage daughter's boyfriend. She picks him up from school, takes him home, and has an "encounter" with him.
4-22-92: A married couple discusses the possibilities of having other people over for dinner and sex. One person says "My husband gave me permission to have sex with other men as an anniversary present."
4-23-92: A woman discusses her role as the high priestess of sex in the Church of the Most High Goddess, where sex is sacred. She says, "I have sex for religious purposes, to purify people." She has had this purification ritual with 2,759 men. Another guest says she likes to have sex with more than one person at a time.
4-24-92: Description of a girl who was forced to have oral sex and intercourse with her father in front of a son who was having sex with the mother.
4-27-92: A woman says her boss grabbed her breasts and discusses having sex with him on the window sill. A second woman discusses having oral sex with her psychotherapist on a towel in his office. A third woman discusses having sexual intercourse with her minister on the floor of his office.
5-5-92: The first guest talks about his mother "fondling" and "massaging" him at a young age. The next guest describes his memories of his mother. At age 3 1/2 he recalls, "She's naked and I'm lying between her legs . . . She placed my head in between her legs and she asked me to use my tongue." The third guest had intercourse with his mother at a young age. Donahue asks, "How is an erection managed under these circumstances?" They then discuss erections and orgasms.
5-8-92: Panel of men discuss the many women they had sex with. One man, a male stripper, says in a good month he is probably with 20 different women, sometimes 2 or 3 at the same time. He estimates he has slept with over 2,000 women. Another man says, "I get their phone numbers. If I ever get horny, I just call them."
5-12-92: A baby-sitter discusses having sex with two people at the same time.
5-14-92: One man tells about having sex with a woman in the parking lot and in the dark room. A woman discloses that she had sex with two men at the same time.
5-18-92: A woman slept with her husband's brother and claimed she was raped when her young son walked in on them. Donahue quotes the man as saying he "went there to get pussy."
This is just the beginning. I didn't talk about the program entitled My Mother the Slut.
Phil Donahue is outraged that Dr. Neil would dare attack his program, and that sponsors would dare to stop supporting it. (So far Baskin-Robbins, Clorox, Wendy's, Dole, Starkist and Nestle are among the many that have done so.) Though Dr. Pepper, Montgomery Ward and Sara Lee at first said they weren't going to pull their adds, after reviewing Neill's materials and rethinking it, they pulled them.
This means major revenue loss to people who seem unfazed by anything but the dollar sign. Donahue has felt the heat enough that his producer—Multimedia Entertainment appealed directly to some of Neil's supporters, in an effort to stop him. In a letter to Focus on the Family, Multimedia president Robert L. Turner wrote, "Dr. Dobson, I am confident that you know that Donahue, the man and the show, have espoused values of humanity and tolerance and established an unmatched reputation for socially relevant broadcasting throughout its 25 winning years."
If you want to support Dr. Neill's efforts, or for assistance in cleaning up television at the local level, you can write to Dr. Richard Neill, P.O. Box 330128, Ft. Worth, TX 76163.
If you decide you want to express your opinion to the three leading sponsors of Donahue—who have ignored Dr. Neil's appeals—you can write to:
Chrm. Melvin R. Goodes
Warner-Lambert Company
201 Tabor Road
Morris Plains, NJ 07950
Chrm. Robert J. Vlasic
Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Place
Camden, NJ 08103
Chrm. Edwin L. Artzt
Procter & Gamble
P.O. Box 599
Cincinnati, OH 452012
