The recent Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. seems to confirm what I’ve been seeing for years as a high school teachers: people are generally more freaked out about their kids seeing nudity or sexually provocative material than they are about their kids seeing violent material. For the record, I don’t show sexually provocative material to my students. I do send home parental permission letters for the movie Amistad because it is rated R, mostly for the nudity aboard the slave ship. I get more objections from parents on that one than when I show the D-Day clip from Saving Private Ryan.
The whole concept that viewing nudity is more harmful to kids than violence puzzles me. While I sure didn’t want my own kids watching porn flicks and in general kept them away from R-rated movies, I was more concerned about them having nightmares from graphic violence than I was about them seeing a naked body.
Any ideas why graphic violence is less objectionable to many people than graphic sex?
It’s the stupid Holier than thou Christians fault.
Not the normal level headed ones, just the ones who like to stand on their soap box.
Think about it tho’.
Is my child more likely to slit somebody’s throat with a rusty knife? Or is he/she more likely to have sex with someone someday?
Hmm, that’s a real brain scratcher that is.
I think parents believe sex exposure at an early age is much more graphic and influential than violence…Kids are already exposed to so much violence, like video games. Violence is more accepted, it’s everywhere if you think about it. Sex seems to be the ‘dirty’ topic.
Some folks get upset when they see someone getting some putang or man sausage they can’t have. On the other hand, most people don’t get particularly jealous when they see somebody getting the shit beat out of em and think “man, I’d like to get some of that”.
Unless Mikey or Becky is a sociopath, he or she is far more likely to watch a sexual scene and be inspired to act it out than a violent one. I’m be surprised if more people had to deal with bailing their kids out of jail for assault than deal with teen pregnancy and teens contracting STDs, so it’s not surprising that they’d worry more about watching something sexual giving their kid “ideas.”
This. Christianity especially in its more extreme forms is anti life, anti pleasure; killing the “bad” people is good, but enjoying sex or most any other pleasure is Sin.
Because as a society we like violence and hurting people in general. We’re willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the military and prisons but hate the idea of spending money or effort on helping people.
Media violence is almost always simulated. A fake knife is slitting a rubber throat & red corn syrup is gushing out. (I can watch any a ReAnimator/Living Dead splattergore marathon anytime. I can’t watch a bit of Faces of Death.)
However, media nudity is not simulated. Breasts are breasts. Genitals are genitals.
Example- the rape of the writer’s wife in A Clockwork Orange is made far more horrid by seeing the droogs stripping her.
Well, hitting/cutting/shooting people irl is actively discouraged and punished at all age levels. Fucking, otoh, is actively encouraged…so long as you’re over a certain age. It seems perfectly reasonable to think kids would more likely to actually be influenced by sex than by violence.
Because the Buy Bull is real particular about who you can and cannot sleep with and what you can do with them, but general mayhem up to and including mass murder of everyone on the planet is A-OK! Remember, out of all of God’s creation (you remember, that PERFECT AND OMNISCIENT GOD), that only Noah and his family didn’t deserve a drownin’ .
So now I have saved Der Trihs the need to post in this thread!
Unless I am really, really into the movie, if the actors are made to do something that I wouldn’t want to do I am sympathetic and kind of derailed from the movie. So, I know that the violence is all fake violence, but somebody getting naked is really getting naked, and some actor throwing up onscreen is really throwing up–I mean they may be spitting out canned pea soup, but that in itself is horrible.
So you can argue if (as an example) somebody really had sex in a certain movie, but the fact is if two actors are rolling around naked together, that’s close enough.
So it’s not that I object to it, but it stops the fantasy.
They used to cut away after a kiss, and then show them smoking in bed. Now you see all the sex and if somebody smokes in a movie it gets an NC17 rating.*
ETA I think I may be exaggerating. Probably it’s just an R
Exactly. It’s common sense. Teenagers have strong sexual urges. Younger children soon will. Watching movies and TV with sex scenes can help normalize the process for young minds and thus make it more likely that they’ll actually do it. On the other hand, there’s little similar danger from watching a war movie like Saving Private Ryan.
Well, it IS. If a couple of teenagers who were planning on going to college or whatever have to drop out to raise a kid, maybe go on the dole, then it is a bad thing. My friend was an honors student, bright as a button, can quote Shakespeare, do differential equations, you name it. Got knocked up by some bozo who is nowadays in prison and she is in and out of rehab with her mother raising the two year old for the most part…
Personally I can’t wear a condom, but I have had all kinds of wild sex but one thing I don’t do is come in a fertile woman’s vajayjay. There are lots of satisfying things that a man can do with a woman that don’t involve that.
But a lot of people are just too damn dumb and they think the old in and out is all there is to sex. Very sorry state of affairs, really.
Not that violence is good. But stupid sex can really fuck up your life.
Right, but most parents are more concerned about stupid sex than stupid violence. They’re also more likely to hear about stupid violence and to feel like they can step in and do something about it if it occurs, whereas they may feel that controlling what movies their kids watch is as much input as they’ll get into what kind of sex the kids have.
