Love this thread and topic I’ve been thinking about this so much.
A lot of good points all around. All I can add is that I have a light case of anxiety.
I used to watch lots of “comedies” growing up and “kid appropriate” stuff that
had plenty of violence and I’m convinced that it led me to have a probably somewhat exaggerated fear of violence when I went to high school and college. It seemed
so “easy” for people to do. Yes my anxious nature played a role, but it was definitely
related to all the tv stuff as well.
Of course in the worst case scenario, seeing sex can lead a curious 15 year old girl to get pregnant which can be a pretty bad result.
Question is, do you totally ban sex because in SOME extreme cases these things can happen? I came out ok in the end after all that violence, I think most kids with good households will come out ok after seeing the sex.
At least make TV shows that have BOTH, and let kids and parents choose.
The movie ratings are actually a voluntary system, no government or FCC involvement.
And the ratings come from a secret panel of raters (who appear to be quite a bit more conservative than most Americans thee days). For example, inter-racial sex or gay/lesbian sex will get stricter ratings than other sex. And the money behind the film seems to make a difference – films from the big studios (who provide most of the money behind the system) seem to get more lenient ratings than films from independent filmmakers.
Seeing sex? It seems to me that merely being aware that sex exists and not having a proper sex education can result in this.
It seems that in the mind of some people (not talking about you, here) 15 yo girls are innocent doves who would never come up with the idea of interacting with a boy if they weren’t perverted by the evil medias and the godless secular society.
Sex is hidden because society in general still has a major hang up wrt sex. And somehow is convinced that seeing sex or nudity is harmful for kids. Recently someone wrote here (a very liberal board) “experiment with your own kids” in relation with a sex ed video that was showing genitals. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that a kid could be harmed by seeing genitals, unless he has been brought up with the understanding that nudity is dirty/evil (and even then, he wouldn’t be harmed, rather embarrassed). And it makes zero sense to me too that a sex ed video wouldn’t include a view of genitals (*)
If people have already an issue with nudity being shown in sex ed, the chance that they could accept it in another context is nil.
(*) FTR, even though I’m not American, I faced this attitude when I was in a conservative rural middle school. A sex ed book was removed from the library because there were nude pictures of adolescents in it. It was replaced by another sex ed book intended for 5-6 yo (we were 11-14), that didn’t include any picture.
Brilliantly said. Again , love this thread cause everyone is so much fuckin smarter than me here. Another observation, ever notice how on British or European tv interview shows when sex is brought up people just talk comfortably about it, when it ever comes up on American TV, even on “hip” shows like Ellen DeGeneres, or Howard Stern there’s a tension. Like it’s a bunch of 15 year olds talking about sex.
Giggling, joking - some of it is funny, but it’s also retarded and disturbing how uncomfortable the “culture of sex” is here in the USA. These are adults that have long passed the “awkward” stage, and in their personal lives they probably go apeshit in the bedroom, but even the “cutting edge” of them as a WHOLE, as a SOCIETY, still get awkward when talking about it, even when they try to show they’re not shy, by telling stupid jokes to cover it up.
So I guess it’s just part of us here in the US, probably stemming from the puritanical religious, probably also stemming from “political correctness” that is necessary in a “melting pot” culture, people are careful not to offend. It’s good that we respect each other and are careful.
But going back to the whole premise of this thread, we’ve GOTTA TRY to start introducing sex and intimacy so at least EVENTUALLY people will loosen the fuck up about it and see that it’s beautiful, and poetic and the best stuff on earth if done with the right person. And if you’re not gonna do that, at least fucking get rid of the gore, explosion, death, corruption. Be equal about it.
Maybe also start an OPEN discussion in school and society in general about why some people feel more comfortable with violence, than tenderness. Abuse at home can do this to people.
This is a zombie thread, hard to hold people accountable for things they said three years ago. It was a moot point back then, it’s a moot point today. It’s just a cute old-fashion legacy from the pre-internet days. My question is what problem are we solving by letting anybody say “fuck” on TV? On the other hand we’re saved from having to look at Janet Jackson’s left titty, where’s the balance?
But you’re not going to accomplish this just by “showing more sex”; the context matters. When characters in movies or TV are shown, or even alluded to, having sex, how often is it “with the right person” or in the context of a loving relationship? Usually it’s because it’s exciting or titillating, or significant to the plot, which often means there’s some sense in which the people involved shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.
I think personally I would have said the reverse also worked. If people believe in the sanctity of something in particular, they’re more readily prepared to ignore or dismiss claims of respectability or worthiness for those things which don’t fall under that umbrella. The sacred thing is the only thing that truly matters - so why does it matter if we wreck everything else?
“Shameless” albeit a cable tv show has some crass, but also beautiful intimacy, especially with Emmy Rossum’s character. I don’t watch much network tv, but I believe “how I met your mother” and a lot of the comedies have nice scenes.
The drama shows I think use sex to depict a certain conflict in a relationship, so it may not be as “wholesome” but still very intriguing and I wouldn’t say it’s disturbing.
Actually kind of interesting.
And even if one believes that the vast majority of sex depicted in prime time
has a connotation of being not the purest, I still don’t see where the argument can be made that violence is any better. Someone has written up above that the difference is that seeing violence won’t make most kids kill.
Maybe not kill, but it can make them much more afraid in general. Or just upset,
sort of like swallowing something disgusting. It’s now in your system and an innocent part of you gets taken away too soon.
Sports (not all) - if anything - is a much healthier approach I think to showing kids that anger/violence exists, but there are healthy ways to get that out of us. It’s probably at least ONE of the reasons that in America we have a relatively low amount of Timothy McVays.
There’s nothing hypocritical about saying violence is okay but nudity or swear words aren’t. It may seem a bit silly or a sign that we don’t have our priorities straight but it isn’t hypocritical.
Edit: I should really check the date on posts I answer. I essentially made the same reply to MrDibble that I already made in 2012.
As far as the OP is concerned, the answer is right here. We can thank St Augustine for setting the tenor for Christian views on women and sex. Of course, Europeans seem to have “gotten past” this more than Americans. I think it’s easy to forget that a great many of the first wave of Americans were Puritans, and their attitudes have left a mark on several hundred years of, er, posterity.
Here’s what I’ve been seeing in Bible Belt for, well, some number of decades:
[ul]
[li]Sex as part of marriage is a sacred duty, not to be enjoyed or discussed.[/li][li]Sex outside of marriage is dirty and nasty (the people involved shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing).[/li][li]Women, with their vile breasts and vaginas, force helpless men to have sexual thoughts which cause urges that most men can’t resist. Showing off these awful sexual parts creates temptation. We MUST protect innocent men from temptation.[/li][li]Since grown men can’t handle seeing nudity without thinking about sex, it should be obvious that children will be ruined by it. They will be consumed by sexual thoughts. They might touch themselves. They might touch each other.[/li][/ul]
You have to sympathize with the Puritans. Look at how they’ve battled to protect us all from the disgusting sexual parts of women. Unfortunately, they haven’t fully succeeded. Thanks to Hollywood, women have been parading breasts and vaginas in front of cameras for years, and it’s clear that the moral integrity of this country has basically been destroyed by all this skin. It’s so bad now that the only way to protect the children is to home-school them.
For myself, I think this notion that sex is nasty and naked bodies are dirty or immoral is like an insidious poison. It has seeped so deep into parts of our culture that we have a country full of people with sexual hang-ups and a failure to understand even the basic mechanics of the act. And a still-too-large minority of people who are obsessed with policing everyone else’s use of their genitalia.
I don’t see how we can ever consider ourselves as enlightened while we’re still terrified of breasts and vaginas.
One thing I don’t see mentioned in this thread…you can get away with a little female flesh, particularly if no one seems to be having any fun. However, flash a penis on camera and it’s porn, plain and simple. For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is to protect women from temptation…I think it’s because the system was set up by men who didn’t want to risk being shown up by younger, better-equipped competition.
To the people claiming they’re against nudity because nudity is real…
Would you be okay with an actress wearing pasties over her nipples and her vagina, and then having realistic nipples and vaginal lips CGI’d onto her body?
They already CGI blood, slit throats, etc for The Walking Dead. They even CGI fire in most shows these days, so it wouldn’t be hard to CGI the body parts and make it close enough that you can’t tell the difference.
You’d be okay with that, right?
If you’re not okay with that, then you need to admit that your offense is not because the nudity is “real” but because you just plain don’t like it and don’t want other people to see things you don’t like.
Except the Puritans were in the minority and a lot has changed since then. The folks who settled in the northern part of what is now the United States came for God and cod. Those that settled in the southern part, what you call the bible belt, pretty much came to make money with little regard for God.
[quote]
[li]Sex as part of marriage is a sacred duty, not to be enjoyed or discussed.[/li][/quote]
This isn’t an attitude the Bible Belt got from the Puritans. Seriously, those folks fucked like rabbits as a robust sex life was an expected part of marriage.
Sex outside of marriage was certainly frowned upon but newly married Puritan couples often had children well before 9 months after their wedding day.
I think we’ve got to look a bit beyond the Puritans to get a handle on current American religious and moral thought.
I don’t understand it at all. I’d much rather my kids see a boob or hear the F-word than see someone get their head blown off. Can I say boob on here? I did. Twice.
Oh I don’t know. Perhaps if the situation were reversed too many people would get ideas and fighting the infidels might lose it’s national appeal? Must avoid free love flower people mindset at all costs, lol
I don’t know why I didn’t say this three years ago, but Frank Miller (no relation best I can tell) in Censored Hollywood suggested that the difference is, if the kiddies watching imitate the naughty sex they see on screen, they’ll enjoy it and do it more, whereas if they imitate the naughty violence, they won’t enjoy it at all.
