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SEX AND VIOLENCE :: 07/06/06 When people want to complain about the content of the media, there are always two things that it ultimately boils down to: sex and violence. For whatever reason, these things are often talked to as the twin devils ruining our wholesome television, movies, and music. But do they really go hand in hand? I argue that they don't - either in real life or in the mind of the censors. The thing is, the American people are much more shocked by sex than they are violence. No one complains that the news shows countless images of blown up corpses and beheading when covering the war, but if they were to show a nipple... my God! The FCC would fine them in a second. Imagine if instead of being an orgy of low budget violence, The Hit was a low budget amatuer porno. I doubt it would have had the positive reception it did. Think of it this way: the idea of the ratings system is to prevent kids from seeing things that are "inappropriate" because it might influence them to do the same. So would you rather your 15 year old kid murdered someone and cut up their body, or that they had sex with a consenting partner? I'd like to hope that the answer is obvious. I do see one legitimate reason for the imbalance in censorship between sex and violence (if there is such a thing as legitimate censorship). No matter how many brutal murders a guy sees, he is extremely unlikely to go out and kill someone, let alone want to; however, if a young guy sees a hot woman having sex, it's likely to get his mind (and blood) moving. I'm not saying we should be showing people hard core porn the instant they hit puberty. As one of my friends told me, 'there's a time and place for everything.' I just don't understand why the time for violence is so much sooner than that for sex. As a wise man once told me: 'I would much rather live in a world where everyone was having sex than one where everyone was killing each other.' |