Actually, the original UK version was actually pretty good and very popular in the UK (it aired on BBC America to good ratings). Even the sad MTV rip-off (the UK producers involved) was better than I had expected. The big difference is that in the UK, the age of consent is 16, and so while the UK version was racy and controversial for some of the same reasons in the UK, it involved teens who had a legal right to engage in consensual sexual activity as adults would and the fact that late teens have enhanced rights short of full adult rights in the UK, unlike the US where one is still legally one class of minor or still a "child" right up to 17 years and 364 days. Here in the U.S. the MTV version does seem a bit like slime in the context of our mostly 18 years of age for consent (some states 16, I believe), and the MTV version seems much more defiant of adult authority than the UK version.
I think the problem with Skins USA version is that it is on the wrong channel. MTV's core audience is 13 year old girls and Skins really is inappropriate for that audience. Hilarious that MTV airs the warning of "Adult Content" when they know their demographic are "tweeners", mostly girls, far from the TVMA rated Skins age appropriate level. If the show were on another channel with a more adult demographic, this would not be news. But my word, I have seen worse on The Real World with it's far more callus vapid sexual exploits and verbal and physical abuse and violence aired as a template to the mostly 13 year old girl audience who dominate the MTV ratings.
All that said, parents should do what I did whenever my nieces came to visit and watched TV: Lock out MTV. They didn't like it at all, but too bad. Involving the government is rarely a good idea, especially today when we have the technology to lock out any programming or channel we find inappropriate for our kiddies.
