Censoring the Top 40

I was visiting friends in Ft. Wayne recently when a popular song came on the radio. I learned the lyrics from Chicago-based stations, so I was a bit shocked when Hot 107.9 censored “sex” out of the song’s hook:

Cause your se– takes me to paradise;
Yeah your se– takes me to paradise,
And it shows, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cause you make me feel like, I’ve been locked out of heaven 
For too long, for too long.

I know plenty of people in the listening area who, for the sake of public decency, would prefer to scrub the airwaves of any overt sexual reference. So perhaps the station just knows its target audience—consumers who like their media sanitized. But I’m not convinced this is a healthy reaction to popular culture, and it troubles me to think of the role Christians have played in fostering a lukewarm patronage of the arts.