Sex and Violence (1 Viewer)

[Kevin P]

"I hate all this sex on TV, I mean, I keep falling off."

Then you need to get a bigger TV!
(Sorry, couldn't help it)
KJP

 

[Derek S]

I have a question first. Is sex the same as Love?

i have a six year old daughter, and i would let her watch two people making love.....although this is hard to find on tv. I would not let her watch jenna jameson doing what she does best. we as humans, mainly americans have a big problem with expressing love. as sex with someone you love is the greatest expression of that love. there is tribes in africa that have sex in front of their children. to show them how beautiful it is.....another interesting fact about those societies that are very comfortable with sex, there is very few rapes. hmmmm interesting.

we have this "if we don't show them, they wont find out" mentallity about sex and kids....they are gonna find out about sex, either with your help or not. i for one am gonna teach my kids that sex is sharred between two people that love each other. anything else is just having fun.

sex education in some European countries starts in kindergarten.....teen pregnancy is very low over there...hmmmm interesting.

peace and love (lots of it)

banky41

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

there is tribes in africa that have sex in front of their children. to show them how beautiful it is.....another interesting fact about those societies that are very comfortable with sex, there is very few rapes. hmmmm interesting.

Are they the same tribes that have a 60% positive HIV rate? South Africa is probably the rape capital of the world(I am sure you have heard about infant girls being raped there).

 

[Brian Perry]

Not to mention the female circumcisions (I'm not sure which African countries you're referring to, though.)

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

Anyways I have always heard(usually from talking heads on news shows--fwiw) that rape is about power and not about sex.

 

[MickeS]

Or, as in the South African cases you mentioned above, about ignorance: they think that raping an infant will cure AIDS, if I remember correctly. :frowning:
/Mike

 

[Stacy Huff]

This thread reminds me of the old George Carlin bit. He says that he'd like to replace the word "kill" with the word "f***" in every movie, so you get things like,

"I'm gonna f*** you sheriff, f*** you real slow!"

"F*** the ump!"

"F*** the light!"

Good stuff, if you like Carlin.

 

[Brad_W]

So, is it better to show your young teen someone getting their head blown off or an R-rated sex scene?
On one hand you have a violent image depicting a complete disgard for life including the death of that person not to mention killed in an extreme and ultra-violent manner
or
The natural act between two consenting adults deriving stimulating pleasure from each other in the throes of sexual passion?
In my opinion, when my child is 15 both would be fine. But the point that I am and was originally trying to make was the fact that this guy would allow his kids to watch violence and not sex.
If I had the choice between the two: sex it would be.
I would rather my child watch a drama with sex than an action with violence.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Most depictions of violence in film/TV are extremes of behavior, but as such, they add the impetus for the story. Otherwise, we'd get a lot of films of people just hanging out, talking, talking, hanging out. And since people can do that in real life, why pay to see it. OTOH, in films, you can slip into a world that features more violence in situation, and you can decide who to root for in the battle, the good guys or the bad guys. It's the classic story structure for drama. The violence should be used to provide a reason for overwhelming evil for a conclusion that leads to peaceful situation.

Most depictions of sex in film/TV is provided for the titillation of the audience. Humans just plain get off seeing people bumping uglies, even if it's simulated, it feeds the other part of the brain for sexual fantasies. Sure, there are necessary depictions of sex as a plot device to show the commitment between 2 people, and those stories get told as well. But sex in film is used as a commodity for producers to exploit the film-going public just as much as a body count in a violent film.

Anyhow, sex and/or violence provides incentive for some people to watch a film. That's just demographic analysis. For many others, you need very little of either sex or violence to tell a good story (those would be the films you should show your kids until they can handle the "make-believe" behind the depictions of either violence or sex on the screen).

As for why parents think it's okay for their kids to see violence earlier than sex, well, I think Marty's reply was on target. It's about making sure your kids can distinguish between faked violence and faked sex. It's much easier for kids to distinguish the violence in films as being faked for the purposes of the film. What you see a person get their heads shot off, that person in reality did not die (or suffer decapitation) but his character in the film did. As long as the kid understands this part of films, it makes the depiction of violence more palpable to parents. This is not quite so easily done with depictions of sexual intimacy.

It's your duty as a parent to instill within your kids a sense of respect for sex (as a conduit of intimacy between them and their partner), and a sense of respect for violence (as a means for self-awareness and self-protection because the world is not a bed of roses).

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

If I had the choice between the two: sex it would be.

There is always another choice: turn it off. I prefer my kids not to see either in a movie. I don't even let them watch movies that have a lot of swearing in them. I know they hear it at school or outside of the home but having me rent and show them a movie that has a lot of swearing in them and then telling them they shouldn't use such language makes me a hypocrite(in my eyes anyways).

 

[Andrew W]

Most adults that I know swear. That is because they either work with computers or drive. If profanity had not existed until the invention of the car or computer, it would have followed quickly.

I have a four year old daughter and we watch our language around her because right now, she repeats everything she hears without awareness of whether it is appropriate.

As she gets older, she will obviously be exposed to bad language from many sources. I think it will be important to emphasize the situations and social conditions where it is inappropriate to swear rather than enforce an outright ban.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

As she gets older, she will obviously be exposed to bad language from many sources. I think it will be important to emphasize the situations and social conditions where it is inappropriate to swear rather than enforce an outright ban.

I think the parent has to set an example re. swearing.