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Azonic April 17th, 2014 7:45 PM

sex vs. violence
 
one of my favorite topics to discuss.

Basically, we recognize 2 primary sources of "offensive content" which are sex and violence. We recognize that violence involves often inhumane actions, but sex not necessarily. Nevertheless, we see much more violence accessible to young children than sex - for example, why does no one turn a head at children watching people slaughter others in The Hunger Games while everyone is horrified at the thought of children seeing a sexually suggestive image? Why is it okay to read about Hitler's massively violent and inhumane conquests in the Holocaust in school libraries, but not the 50 Shades of Grey?

Also, we know that violence offends many due to the gory and inhumane actions presented in its content, but does sex actually have an offensive basis? Is it not, at its core, just a biological reproductive activity? Why are we so much more offended by sex than violence, and should it be this way?

Flushed April 17th, 2014 8:02 PM

Hope this makes sense, but pretty much what I'm thinking is that because violence is only seen in a primarily negative light that the stigma behind it is much less watered down; it's already accepted as offensive. Sex really has two different sides, the positive biological side, and a negative offensive side, and I think to further distinguish between the two, a larger emphasis is placed on the negative side of sex in comparison to violence. Essentially, violence is pretty concrete, a majority of people agree on its negative impacts. Sex though is more ambiguous, as the positive side can act as a mask for the dangers of the more negative side. So basically, such a phenomena is society's attempt to perhaps "educate" the world/steer clear from a danger that is less apparent.

Oryx April 18th, 2014 5:36 AM

I believe that the influence of religion throughout history is a big reason why this is the case. Take Christianity, the king of spreading their religious values throughout the world; the absolute most important day on their calendar is Easter. Easter is steeped in violence - Jesus is whipped, attacked with the crown of thorns, forced to carry his own cross amidst attacks, and then brutally nailed to the cross and left to die. If Christianity had such a stigma on violence, then they would have to "censor" Good Friday so children could handle it.

On the other hand, there is a massive religious stigma against sex. There's a reason why "Catholic guilt" is a common phrase, the Catholic Church especially is bent on making people feel guilty for their actions so they'll confess. This is paired with the history of Christianity as conqueror throughout the world; their control wasn't based on religion, but based on practicality. Setting rules for sex and making it an action that can only be taken under certain religious circumstances has the happy side-effect (or in this case, main effect) of controlling population growth, and corralling most of the population into Christianity. I mean, even today in the top 25 first-world countries the average amount of people who are Christian is 60% (give or take, I did this calculation using this list and Wikipedia), and what happens in the first world is what influences our global culture.

As the influence of Christianity (hopefully) slowly declines, I hope we can see a decline in the disgust people have towards sexuality as well.

Corvus of the Black Night April 18th, 2014 10:19 AM

What is exactly bad about sex though, when you think about it? Of course there's diseases you can get if you're not careful, but that can happen from a lot of other things too; I think a lot of the negativity involving sex is cultural, coming from an era in which we were less able to protect ourselves.

twocows April 19th, 2014 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azonic (Post 8202852)
one of my favorite topics to discuss.

Basically, we recognize 2 primary sources of "offensive content" which are sex and violence. We recognize that violence involves often inhumane actions, but sex not necessarily. Nevertheless, we see much more violence accessible to young children than sex - for example, why does no one turn a head at children watching people slaughter others in The Hunger Games while everyone is horrified at the thought of children seeing a sexually suggestive image? Why is it okay to read about Hitler's massively violent and inhumane conquests in the Holocaust in school libraries, but not the 50 Shades of Grey?

Also, we know that violence offends many due to the gory and inhumane actions presented in its content, but does sex actually have an offensive basis? Is it not, at its core, just a biological reproductive activity? Why are we so much more offended by sex than violence, and should it be this way?

Well, for one, I thought it was more that 50 Shades of Grey was so absolutely awful that libraries didn't stock it due to lack of demand resulting from a sudden breakout of common sense. Or maybe that was just a sincere hope on my part.

Watching sexual content on a TV program makes me feel like a creepy voyeur. That's all there is to it for me. It's a private issue and, additionally, isn't something we need to see to get the idea. I don't need to hear about the hero's bathroom breaks every few hours, either. I'm not exceedingly averse to it, it's just something I don't really want to watch unless there's some urgent reason to do so.

Violence, on the other hand, doesn't really have that quality. It's not private at all and seeing it doesn't carry that same sense of intrusion. Plus, it's usually a means to create tension or excitement and often occurs spontaneously and at an important point, so cutting away just to avoid it would feel forced and awkward. The important scenes in a fictive work are often where characters come into conflict with each other, and violence can be a natural outcome of that. There's no reason to dwell on it, but just avoiding it for the sake of avoiding it is silly and takes us out of the experience.

Hound of Justice April 19th, 2014 2:31 PM

Humanity was and still is mostly about control power and pleasure thats who we are without any influence from supernatural entities...
Reading history just shows how most of us were monsters who did terrible things
The brain is a strange thing
Sex while being a very good experience may also bring tons of problems...
Seriously i dont see human race surviving for too much more
Soon we will run out of resources
Wars for resources will start
Nuclear bombs will whipe humanity forever
The End
Well atleast im lucky to be born lots of years before this happens

Eevee April 25th, 2014 8:25 AM

I'm thinking this is so because sex is considered adult by society. I'm not sure why violence isn't considered adult too. In my opinion it's far worse than sex. After all, sex is a healthy thing.

lozzop April 25th, 2014 8:39 AM

I think the reason society is more accepting of violence in movies and tv rather then sex, is because why would you show a child sex in a movie? They won't understand what it is and they have no concept at a younger age of why people would have sex, there just isn't much point to showing children sexual images because it'll probably only freak them out and it's probably not important to the story line in a book or movie or whatever. We're more accepting of violence because you understand what violence is at an earlier age, most children probably grew up witnessing some form of violence and it's easier to understand why some people would be violent. I think the reason schools and society think it's more acceptable for children to read about the Holocaust rather then be read 50 Shades of Grey, is because it's important at a certain age to know about the Holocaust, why it happened, why it can't happen again, who is to blame, etc, but 50 Shades of Grey is basically just a sexy book, it is written for pleasure and not knowledge. And to be honest no child really wants to watch a sex scene, violence tends to be a way of moving the story forward in a lot of media however.

Raine April 27th, 2014 4:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twocows (Post 8205545)
Watching sexual content on a TV program makes me feel like a creepy voyeur.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eevee (Post 8216117)
I'm thinking this is so because sex is considered adult by society.

To sum up my personal opinion on the matter regarding sexual content appearing "more" offensive than violence is because of privacy. In my perspective, anything sexual in nature should be kept between the partners rather than being promiscuously displayed to the world. Like twocows mentioned, I find watching mature content like sexual intercourse or even the implication of it disturbing, and uncomfortable; that kind of material should be kept away from the public eye. With that being said though, there is the portion of population that watch pornography for their personal pleasures, which I'm assuming many parents tell their kids is too mature for their eyes.

Oryx April 27th, 2014 5:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lozzop (Post 8216138)
I think the reason society is more accepting of violence in movies and tv rather then sex, is because why would you show a child sex in a movie? They won't understand what it is and they have no concept at a younger age of why people would have sex, there just isn't much point to showing children sexual images because it'll probably only freak them out and it's probably not important to the story line in a book or movie or whatever. We're more accepting of violence because you understand what violence is at an earlier age, most children probably grew up witnessing some form of violence and it's easier to understand why some people would be violent. I think the reason schools and society think it's more acceptable for children to read about the Holocaust rather then be read 50 Shades of Grey, is because it's important at a certain age to know about the Holocaust, why it happened, why it can't happen again, who is to blame, etc, but 50 Shades of Grey is basically just a sexy book, it is written for pleasure and not knowledge. And to be honest no child really wants to watch a sex scene, violence tends to be a way of moving the story forward in a lot of media however.

This logic came out circular and I'm not sure you intended it to; you argued that children don't understand sexual content because they haven't seen it from a young age, so we shouldn't show children sexual content from a young age.

Just like there's information about the Holocaust and the Saw series, there's information sexual content and pleasurable sexual content. For example, something that children can swallow: the stray cat problem many cities have. It would be beneficial to a child to understand that this happens because male cats and female cats have sex, and therefore the best way to solve the problem is to trap strays, spay/neuter them, and then release them back into the wild. Knowledge of reproduction, different ways of expressing affection, and the natural world are all relevant to children.

twocows April 27th, 2014 6:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanille Sky (Post 8220004)
To sum up my personal opinion on the matter regarding sexual content appearing "more" offensive than violence is because of privacy. In my perspective, anything sexual in nature should be kept between the partners rather than being promiscuously displayed to the world. Like twocows mentioned, I find watching mature content like sexual intercourse or even the implication of it disturbing, and uncomfortable; that kind of material should be kept away from the public eye. With that being said though, there is the portion of population that watch pornography for their personal pleasures, which I'm assuming many parents tell their kids is too mature for their eyes.

I think you're absolutely right. Sex is generally seen as something private that happens behind closed doors and I think that really colors our perception of it. Violence is seen in a different context, since it's usually not something that is considered none of your business.


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