Then, as now, horny boys still try sneaking into R-rated films

Before terrorist threats and airport scanners and optic recognition systems, life was a lot simpler. To wit: Young teenage boys just wanting to get into an R-rated film. Kids who gamely fashioned fake IDs that purported to prove they were 16 and thus permitted to see naked women on screen. One time, I actually tried filling in one of those blank ID cards that comes inside a new wallet (it didn't work). Well here it is decades later and naked women are still available and waiting - and horny underage boys are still trying to sneak into R-rated films. Except they're not having much luck. Only one-in-four are able to buy tickets, according to a Federal Trade Commission undercover shopper survey in which 13-16 year olds tried to get in without parent or guardian. That's down from one in three in 2010. (The FTC survey also involved video games, DVDs, and CDs.) Among movie exhibitors, AMC had the best enforcement rate, with only 5 percent of the kids allowed to buy a ticket. At Carmike, however, more than 40 percent got through. As a Deadline post points out, it's not known how many kids buy tickets to a PG film and then just sneak into a theater (multiplexes weren't around in my day). Or maybe they're not even trying, considering what you can see on Internet these days. As you might guess, the Motion Picture Association of America is crowing about the results, and their commitment to protecting kids. Yeah, right.