Hi Mike,
MikeFerrara:
I don't know how many children you've raised but I'll tell you. Limiting the junk your children are exposed to and trying to teach them how to dress is a full time job. We don't watch TV here. I find all the "grow a bigger penis" commercials especially distastful. We don't hang out at public beaches and we do/don't do lots of other things to avoid having to look at all the junk that we don't want to see. Limiting exposure to the constant bombardment is not easy. There just isn't much "G" rated content in the media anymore.
I have read a lot of your posts on Scubaboard, and many of them were good food for thought for me as a much less experienced diver, however, I think that the above misses the point.
We're not talking about an ad for a penis enlargement - we are talking about a rebreather ad with a woman in a bikini that people may or may not find attractive, based on her physical attributes). That's it. Your comparing it with an ad for a penis enlargement is IMHO exaggerated and unfair.
If you find the ad offensive, or demeaning to women, or trash that you don't want your kids to see, that's entirely your choice. I find nothing wrong with the ad (although it may be arguable whether it isn't a bit cheap to use a Bikini-clad woman as an eye catcher, but that's how advertising works).
I agree with you, that the stance on the issue is largely depending on "where you come from". So is the classification of what constitutes "trash" or "filth" and what doesn't. Putting it in an extreme way: people grown up in a rural community, brought up in a very traditional way, and without TV, who have never left their home town, would have a different view on the issue than people who've grown up in a big city with a cosmopolitan population, with lots of media exposure, and are well travelled.
I suspect that we may not reach a consensus.
On the education issue (although that's IMHO off-topic, and the only thing I'll say on the issue):
I'm nearly your age, and I've got 2 daughters, both teenagers. You bet that we are filtering, what they are exposed to. However, isolating them from everything that we may consider "dirty", "ugly" or "undesirable" is, IMHO, not the the right way to go about it (and won't work anyway, unless you lock them up in their rooms at home). Isolating them from everything "bad" and "ugly" will not prepare them for a life on their own, will not open their minds, will not make them ready to stand on their own,and to make reasoned, considered choices and to decide on their own, what's good and what's bad, what's right and what's wrong for them, once they venture out on their own. Feeding them a controlled dose of "real world" and helping them to ask the right questions, and to think about things and make a considered judgment, is IMHO the better way to go.
I'm sure that there are about as many opinions about the "right" way to educate kids, as there are parents.
If mine isn't yours as well - let's just agree to disagree, and get on to something else.
brgds
) Might as well ban pictures of people in swim wear altogether, ...
Maybe just a little more honest about it! 
