Why is watching violence more acceptable than nudity/sex?

[Ivor the Engineer]

I can think of lots of possible explanations, but I'd be interested to see what other people think are the reasons for the difference.

E.g., last night in the space of one hour from 9pm to 10pm I watched on a national free to air TV station: a man being poisoned and dying of a heart attack; women being beaten; men being shot dead/executed; a man being choked to death. Yet if a free to air TV station had broadcast a programme which graphically featured men and women masturbating to orgasm in the same time slot, I imagine every single page of the Daily Mail could be filled with the letters from appalled people who 'don't want to see that kind of thing' on TV.

Why?

 

[Belz...]

Sex is evil ?

No, but seriously it might have something to do with sex being "real" while the violence is fictional.

It might also have something to do with us being desensitized (is that the word ?) to violence while nudity and sex, not so much.

Sex does still carry some sort of stigma, while simultaneously being the thing lots of people obsess about. Go figure.

 

[sgtbaker]

I can think of lots of possible explanations, but I'd be interested to see what other people think are the reasons for the difference.

E.g., last night in the space of one hour from 9pm to 10pm I watched on a national free to air TV station: a man being poisoned and dying of a heart attack; women being beaten; men being shot dead/executed; a man being choked to death. Yet if a free to air TV station had broadcast a programme which graphically featured men and women masturbating to orgasm in the same time slot, I imagine every single page of the Daily Mail could be filled with the letters from appalled people who 'don't want to see that kind of thing' on TV.

Why?

There is also a limit to how graphic the violence can be on broadcast television. I don't believe they showed any uncensored footage of any of the beheadings that made it to the internet, either. I've seen programs that get pretty graphic on the sex side as well, though.There was one program on one of the discovery channels that shows a woman's cervix during an orgasm. The History of Sex (I think that is what it was called) was pretty graphic. If it's considered educational, it's not considered pornographic.

 

[Aepervius]

Sex is fun, violence is serious. So to the "puritain" mind (insert /sarcasm tag or /joke tag) something like sex (fun), dance(fun) or music (fun) should be forbidden or restricted because any fun removes you from thinking of god. Violence OTOH teach a moral lesson : if you don't do god's will, you get pain , a lot of it.
(remove /sarcasm tag or /joke tag)

I am not sure this is fully a joke.

 

[SatanicSheep]

To me it's not. I'd much rather watch sex than violence.

 

[JFrankA]

Ivor, I agree with you. In America, violence no big deal. I know some people who I used to go to college with, who are now very religious. One was so happy to get his boy his first gun, yet will rant and rave about how bad new adult book store is that opened in his town.

It seems to me the same kind of double standard where people say "pot should be illegal because it is a gateway drug" while drinking a beer.

 

[The Painter]

...
E.g., last night in the space of one hour from 9pm to 10pm I watched on a national free to air TV station: ...Yet if a free to air TV station had broadcast a programme which graphically ...
Why?

You're wacthing FREE TV. You have to pay for sex.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

Short answer: People are stupid.

Long answer:

Religious nuts make all sorts of claims regarding sins and lust.

Pseudoscients make all sorts of claim that watching sex or nudity will cause harmful effects on children.

I have yet to have seen any major evidence to support either of those.

 

[WildCat]

I can think of lots of possible explanations, but I'd be interested to see what other people think are the reasons for the difference.

E.g., last night in the space of one hour from 9pm to 10pm I watched on a national free to air TV station: a man being poisoned and dying of a heart attack; women being beaten; men being shot dead/executed; a man being choked to death. Yet if a free to air TV station had broadcast a programme which graphically featured men and women masturbating to orgasm in the same time slot, I imagine every single page of the Daily Mail could be filled with the letters from appalled people who 'don't want to see that kind of thing' on TV.

Why?

Uh, the violence was fake but the sex in your example was real?

 

[WildCat]

Ivor, I agree with you. In America, violence no big deal.

I know, you never hear any complaints about Grand Theft Auto, for example, or other violent video games.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I know, you never hear any complaints about Grand Theft Auto, for example, or other violent video games.

It always struck me as odd that people seem more accepting of violence in movies than violence in video games.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Uh, the violence was fake but the sex in your example was real?

That's a possibility. But most people don't get worked up about boxing matches being shown on TV.

 

[Java Man]

Control

Just the same way it was prohibited to print the Bible in any other language than Latin. So is sex "banned" so to speak from the common man. If you didn't know Latin, much less so read it you had to go to church to get the word of God. That allowed the church to set a "toll road". In the same manner if you can't find spiritual fulfillment through sex you need someone or something else to provide it.

By turning sex into something sinful it's not as filling and no matter how much you have you don't quite fill yourself. Leading in some people to all sorts of perversions.

Just my 2 cents

 

[WildCat]

It always struck me as odd that people seem more accepting of violence in movies than violence in video games.

Are they? I hear plenty of complaints about violence in movies. Hell, in the movie version of Charlie's Angels the Angels don't even have guns, and this was specifically because they thought it would be too violent.

Then we have:
http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/publications/reports/stateindustryviolence/main.asp

http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_tv_violence

http://www.ridgenet.org/szaflik/tvrating.htm

http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/healtheducation/violencechildren/violencechildren.html

http://www.abelard.org/tv/tv.php

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/television-violence-and-children.html

I could go on and on... there is no shortage of groups railing against violence on television.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

It always struck me as odd that people seem more accepting of violence in movies than violence in video games.

Couldn't that be explained by watching violence in a movie being passive, while being violent in a video game is active?

 

[SatanicSheep]

It always struck me as odd that people seem more accepting of violence in movies than violence in video games.

I think because the moralizers are idiots and there's somehow more personal involvement in pushing up, down, up, down, A, B, start, select and seeing a prostitute get murdered than just simply pushing play on a DVD player.

 

[WildCat]

That's a possibility. But most people don't get worked up about boxing matches being shown on TV.

Most people don't get worked up about sex and nudity on TV either. How many complaints do you think the FCC got about Janet Jackson's nipple?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Most people don't get worked up about sex and nudity on TV either. How many complaints do you think the FCC got about Janet Jackson's nipple?

How many complaints did the FCC get about Janet Jackson's nipple that didn't come from the "Parents Television Council", a fringe group of wackos with horse-sized bees in their thimble-sized bonnets?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

I could go on and on... there is no shortage of groups railing against violence on television.

Small minority groups. Generally people get the TV and films they find acceptable to watch.

 

[WildCat]

How many complaints did the FCC get about Janet Jackson's nipple that didn't come from the "Parents Television Council", a fringe group of wackos with horse-sized bees in their thimble-sized bonnets?

And if you clicked on the first link in post #14 you'd find these same wackos are also against violence on television. This kind of destroys the meme that the people complaining about sex don't complain about violence, doesn't it?

But that's the problem with the FCC, all they need to launch an investigation is a single complaint in a country of 300 million. Nothing is put into perspective.