Sex or Violence?
 

Sex and Violence are the two biggest sensitivity issues when it comes to the media. Everybody is worried about what we expose our children to, and it's a topic that interests me, because the way I see it, society has it backwards.

More people are worried about exposing children to sex than they are worried about exposing kids to violence. I think this is completely wrong. The most that a kid watching some sex will do is get horny, beat off, and call it a day. Exposing a kid to violence won't make him go out and kill people like that lunatic Jack Thompson seems to think, but if the kid is young enough, it will more than likely disturb him at the very least.

I don't know, both are pretty sensitive issues that don't really affect me, but I'm curious as to what the rest of you think.

They could formulate a plan to rape little Suzy from down the street. Which would lead to sexual violence...but there isn't a place for that on the poll. :(

So I guess I'm neutral on the subject.

Ah, good point. But would it be worse for them to be sexually violent or excessively physically violent?

I think that exposing a child to sex is probably going to be the worst option here though. Violence will disturb a child but I think an erroneous exposure to sex would be more damaging to a child's mental state than an exposure to media violence.

Well, the thing is all about the parenting style. Under perfect conditions, introdution to sex would be worse as it could trigger hormone driven behavior. However, in majority of households, where both parents work full time jobs and the primary care giver is the television... def violence.

It really depends on how old the children are when they are exposed to stuff like this... and probably how intelligent they are in terms of exerting self controls and have a sense of what's realistic and what's not.

Let's say we have a 7 year-old boy, if you show him explicit images of sexual intercourse, I don't think he has enough knowledge to know exactly what the couples are engaging, the kid may have awareness that breasts and genitals are taboos, and may say "ewwww..." and walk off, but there's no driving force for him to try this out.

Violence on the other hand, could be more dangerous if the kid's exposed too much of it, again, you need to count in the fact of self control and integrity that separates reality from virtual environment. Since slapping, beating up others are much easier than taking off your pants and find a partner to have sex with, along with the additional factor of imitating coolness such as beating another kid into a bloody pulp followed by a smirk, and walking away under the sunset, a kid will tend to copy these more often.

Either a child is too young to have any clue about sex alltogether or it is old enough to have a decent education on the topic. Either way, I can't see how accidentally being exposed to sex on the TV would be harmful to a kid with proper parenting.

Sex leads to Violence. So...

O RLY? Would you like to explain that?

I would say that violence is worse than sex just by comparing America and Europe. Europe's TV supposedly has more sex and less violence than America's TV. (From what I hear from people who have been to Europe.) America freaks out over Janet Jackson's boob, but shows autopsies on dead bodies on shows like CSI and such during prime time programming.

If you look at the amount of murders, shootings, etc in Europe compared to America...America has a lot more!

Granted, there are other factors that effect this, but television is not only a good influence on kids, it's also their babysitter.

Exactly.

The same could be said for violence.

Violence would be a lot harder to explain to a child though, as sex is something that occurs naturally that almost every person will encounter in their lifetime; violence is not.

What would you say to little Johnny when a man punches a woman several times before knocking her out? Verses the man making out with her and feeling her up when she's scantily clad?

Why would violence be harder to explain to a child? In fact, the reprecussions of violence are made PLAINLY OBVIOUS. People die, get maimed, and are otherwised changed for the worse. Those who are violent are dealt with - whether dying themselves as a result of their actions or being incarcerated or something along those lines. Violent people are characterized as 'bad people.'

Whereas, most of the time when you see sex on TV, the reprecussions of such activity aren't made obvious to a child. It's just something that people do and it feels good. Very rarely are things like STDs, unwed pregnancy, and other situations that can arise from having sex even mentioned.

So when you tell me that somehow seeing violence on TV is worse than sex, I'm going to have to tell you to get that dumb shit off your mind. Watching someone get their ass beat doesn't make me wanna beat someone's ass. However, seeing a sex scene gave me many a mini-hard on during my formative years.

At the end of the day, neither are real constructive things to be showing young children.

Using Europe as an example, compared to the United States, there is comparatively a lot more sex on television there. The difference is that it isn't generally regarded with distaste or even outrage. Many European countries take a more casual approach to sex and sexuality. And there aren't any startling adverse effects as a result of this. There aren't astounding numbers of STDs, there aren't tons of teenage pregnancies. There isn't an abundance of sexual abuse or rape.

In fact, ALL of these things are far more common in the United States, despite our stigmata towards the "oversexualization" of television and movies.

It all really depends on how a child is educated about things when they are exposed to it initially. Neglecting parental duties can be (but is not always) asking for trouble. I personally wouldn't mind my child being exposed to sexuality, as long as they were properly educated in regards to how to keep themselves safe and make smart decisions when it comes to them partaking in sexual activities.

I personally feel violence on television can be more jilting to a child, just because injury is something they've been far more likely to have experienced in some form or another. I don't have much more explanation for it than that, aside from my personal opinion that watching people injured or killed can just be a little more traumatizing -- and sometimes it's hard to explain to children that it's "not real." Quite often, the violence they see on TV is indeed real, which opens up a whole set of problems.

I don't know if I agree with the notion that overexposure to violence through various forms of media is going to in turn make children violent. However, I can't argue with it being emotionally disturbing to some degree. I personally would find a 5-year-old NOT being upset by the sight of someone getting their head blown off quite disturbing.

Sex is something that can be confusing and weird, but not unexplainable to a child. And it's not an issue unless the parents make it out to be a big deal.

It all depends on the parental upbringing and the child themselves. Sex leads to violence so I voted Sex.

Violence is so obviously wrong... it should be easy to teach kids that - at least I think it should 'cause I'm looking at myself as an example. I used to live in Europe and I remember my teacher brining in Halloween to watch in Grade 4.

Sex on the other hand provokes stronger emotions that may be harder to control than just cheer anger....

But bleh... just my opinion

Many people here have already said it, but I'll repeat it: Europe pretty much proves that exposure to sex isn't harmful. While America is really anal about stopping scenes of sex, Europe is the opposite and is really anal about scenes of violence. Fact is, Europe has a lot less trouble, in general, than we do, so that would mean violence is obviously "worse".

Still, in my opinion, I'd say "neither". If parents do their job, neither sex nor violence should have a negative effect on a child. As such, I didn't vote, because I think good parenting should be the focus, not censorship. Censorship is worse than sex and violence put together, in the long run.

Sex or violence? I'll take both, shaken not stirred.

I really don't see what the big deal is with either. My parents were more preoccupied with making sure that I wasn't over exposed to sex on television moreso than violence. In my family (where there are 4 boys) "violent" behavior is not uncommon. However, I don't think the media was to blame in the slightest. Even before ninja turtles and the Karate kid, my brothers and I were making swords out of sticks and strutting around like medieval warriors bent on destruction. In many ways, it's only natural for little boys to want to feel powerful and they do so by wearing capes, hitting things, jumping from high places, and going everywhere by running at full speed. In many ways I don't think that this is something that boys should ever grow out of. They should want to feel powerful and dangerous, only in a positive way. If guys went out of their way to be men more often, you wouldn't hear women complain saying, "where have all the real men gone?"

On the other hand, sex was more of an iffy thing. I think my parents shielded it from me at a young age because I was the type who'd get an idea and get experiemental. Parents these days are so ready to drop a lawsuit that two 4 year olds can't get away with playing doctor and sneaking a peek at each others respective equipment. Over exposure to an idea and the emotions associated with sex at an early age can lead to some crazy behavior. I think it takes a level of emotional maturity to understand sex that is probably case specific to each child. Parents should take extra care in talking to their kids about sex, and not leave it up to the tv.

EDIT: Just for the record, Night Phoenix is a damn genius.

Violence as sex will always be a part of life sometimes bad but on the whole good as that keeps us going, violence doesn't keep us going

it wouldn't be harder..the other guy is right.my little bro. plays Mortal Kombat,and he's only 5....we ALL know what they do as fatalities in M.K,and he know not to go around killing people...it's just about what you teach a kid...if he can't play a game,it's because of sex,or he's scared of it....so like I said,Night Phoenix is right about that part..

It's strange how in America, we're used to seeing such blatent violence and explosions, and no one exactly has a problem with it. But watching the full frontal in Titanic caused my mom to bitch back in the day.

I think it's just the awkwardness that results from watching nudity with your family. I've seen a MAJOR difference in European films and when I stayed in Europe for a while. The entire society is just so much more accepting about sex, and it isn't boiled down to drunken parties like it is in the states for teenagers, or crazy dorm parties. In Europe it's like sex anytime, anywhere, free love. I love that, but I can't imagine that here.

When you think about it, most of us have grown up with more violence than sex. We always wanted to be the traditional ass-kickers... The Terminator, Rambo, all of those heroes are the badasses. We're Americans, we're gung-ho, it's just who we are. We don't go too far into the existential dramas, we want explosions.

In the end, violence isn't a very good thing for anyone. Sure, younger kids shouldn't be exposed to sex either, but sex isn't REALLY a BAD thing. It's just something that should happen later in their lives. Violence is something that should never happen at all.

And like you said it isn't THAT bad, exposing kids to violence doesn't turn them into mass murderers.

actually,...now I think that sex is worse....now a days,people aren't effected by violence as much(I mean goin out and killing people 'n stuff...or just being bad...)but how many teens do you see goin out havin sex,don't now what they're doin,and "WHOOPS!!! sorry mom!I got a son/daughter!!!" you guys catch my point?...


so they're both bad,but if anything,(can't believe I'm sayin this)sex needs to go down just a tad bit...otherwise we'll need to pay more taxes to teens who were stupid(no offense to anyone...)...right?..

That would be more of a problem of not using contraceptives and bad parenting, if I'm not mistaken, rather than the exposure of sex. Hiding the sex would make people more curious and probably have the opposite effect, whereas teaching about the negatives would help teach the usage of preventative measures and counter that curiosity (at least for a bit).

But I won't get into that too much. I found out a while back that the PP was vicious...

Hang on, sex leads to violence?

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7310/whaakf9zl3.jpg

I would have to agree with Night on this. Though at one time or another they would have to be exposed to it in some way. It would be up to the parents on how to go about with this. Since both are a reality in life that they will have to eventually confront.

I was born into a "violence is better then sex" kind of family. I watched Braveheart when I was 7, Aliens when I was 11, that kind of thing. And the funny part is, every time I would watch Braveheart (up until I was 12 or so) dad would always fast-forward the nudity. The violence never bothered him, and eventually, it stopped bothering me.

I won't say violence is worse then sex, nor will I say sex is worse then violence. Because I simply do not know. All I know are my experiences. And those experiences tell me I turned out ok. We all have our issues and I don't think it's my place to state whether or not people exposed to sex have more issues then I.

Parents need to stop and take a breath and realize what values they are teaching their children. Who cares which one is worse, they're both bad in their own ways.

*shrug* just my two cents.