Sex or Violence?

I would have to say that violence is more of a byproduct of sex than the other way around.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

dumb question.

violence involves pain, humiliation, people getting hurt.

Sex (most of it) involves two people giving each other pleasure and it is an expression of emotions such as care and affection.

seriously, how can there be a question of which is worse for children???

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Sex leads to children born out of wedlock, which is the leading cause of poverty in the United States, which in turn is a primary cause of crime and violence because impoverished people lack the education to work in the legitimate sector so they do things like sell drugs, rob people, and shoot people in order to get money to support the kids they have out of wedlock because they have sex.

It all goes back to sex.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

To be strict, both sex and violence have their own sets of negative influences.

Thus I think it is wrong to focus on suppressing one versus the other. Either you suppress both or don't.

The best example I can think of, and I hate to acknowledge this, is Japan. There, both sex and violence are given a relatively free reign in media as long as it is within certain bounds of Japanese taste. The society overall is not that much worse off for doing so, since they understand there are set boundaries between public and private lives. Their crime rate is incredibly low. Sexual deviants can do whatever the hell they want so long as they don't try to make it known to the world. So there is a very distinct level-thing going on in Japan where in the public sphere, it's all relatively tame, while underground is full of extreme things. They have an outlet for those tendencies. And so long as it doesn't come to harm, it's fine.

That's what lacking in places like Europe where outlets of violence are suppressed thus leading to such exorbitant displays of crime going on, such as in France right now with the youth violence and in the USA where abstinence only education is leading to more sex. There needs to be safe outlets for both things or we'll continually recoil constantly with each instances of school shooting or date rape.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Isn't Japan the place where there's always stories of middle school girls sleeping with 50 year old men in order to buy fashion accessories usually comes from? I could also swear reading that Japan has one of the lowest rates of reporting sexual crimes (such as rapes) to incidents in the Westernized world due to their large amount of social stigma towards the victims of such crimes?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, I never claimed Japan was progressive. The overarching model they run on is "anything goes, so long as you keep quiet about it, and everyone else will be none the wiser". That's what you get when with a shame-based society.

I have no base to determine whether or not it is better than censorship.

FELIPE NO

Of the two, which do the majority of posters here not only partake in, but enjoy?

Granted, the poll asks about children, and for them both can be potentially dangerous. But still...

Definitely going to go with the unnatural act here.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Look at it this way, lets say you have two kids infront a TV screen, a boy and a girl. Neither of which have ever seen a TV none the less watch one. Let's say you have to teach them something about life with one of only two 5 minute videos in hand. One video is of a guy being beating to death with a baseball bat. The other is of two people having sexual intercourse then achieving orgasm. Which video would you rather show your kids? I'd pick the second one, sooner or later they'll have to learn about sex anyway. Violence? I think they can live without that.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

You people fail to recognize the simple fact that the consequences of wanton violence are plainly clear to everyone. People die, get maimed, and severely hurt.

However, the consequences of sex are not presented in the same way. It's simply something that is pleasurable. But what entertainment featuring sex in a provocative way fails to show the fact that STDs exist and that childbirth out of wedlock is the single largest contributor to poverty.

While neither is preferable to show to young children, it is completely arguable that sex is just as bad, if not worse than violence.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

You people fail to recognize the simple fact that the consequences of wanton violence are plainly clear to everyone. People die, get maimed, and severely hurt.

However, the consequences of sex are not presented in the same way. It's simply something that is pleasurable. But what entertainment featuring sex in a provocative way fails to show the fact that STDs exist and that childbirth out of wedlock is the single largest contributor to poverty.

QFT

A child would experience more trauma, I think, from seeing violence at an early age. However, I also think the effects would be shorter lasting than those of seeing sex at the same age. As Night Phoenix pointed out, "the consequences of wanton violence are plainly clear to everyone," while the effects of wanton sex are not quite so obvious. Exposure to sex on TV might actually be a little beneficial, if it was shown in a more realistic light. I might be more apt to turn on my bloody TV then, too. :P

Maybe I can shed some light on the whole "sex leads to violence" thing:

Sex is the one thing that pretty much every lifeform on the planet has in common. It's the one drive through which we can relate to every other animal. Without it, there is no LIFE on EARTH. Well, certainly no multi-cellular life, anyway. Sex = life.

Violence is the exact opposite. It's death, it's destruction, it's pain, it's suffering. It's also the other necessary component of life, since nothing can live without death. And, if nothing was alive, there'd be no pain, and nothing could die.

Bullshit argument, if you ask me.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Generally, I also believe it depends on how old the kid is when exposing them to these ideals. If they're an infant, it'll do little to them. You can easily change their behaviors as they develop into a toddler learning how to read.

But if it's an adolescent whose greatest times of joy and fun are birthday parties and amusement parks, then they're more likely to adapt and take in these ideals as mere play things. "Oh, it looked so easy when the guy on TV stabbed the man with that knife." What's to stop a child from mimicking such actions when it seems so easily done by actors and reality TV?

Arguably though, I think violence would have a greater effect of influence than sex. I also agree that the majority of society has it backwards in thinking that demonstrating sexual acts is worse than influencing violent behavior. If I had to pick and choose for a child I may have in the future, I'd let him/her induge his/her time into sexual activities than to watch him/her throw knives at a bullseye. At least he/she'll learn the dangers of misuse of sexual acts. (HIV, etc.). I don't have any kids yet, and I may not. So I really can't make too big of a point. But theoretically, this is how I believe it to be should I be the one observing and making decisions.

How ya doing, buddy?

Violence and sex are kind of ingrained in human nature. Sure, violence in movies is always overblown and super-fantasized, but violence is kind of inherent in human nature. I would even go so far as to argue that on some levels it is necessary.

Fist fights are sort of inevitable, I think, and really, I don't see any problem with a little scuffle, a little bare-knuckle or a bar fight. It's when someone goes beyond that and starts pulling weapons that shit gets out of hand.

Sex is something that's also a base function of human nature, or nature period, but is misrepresented in movies. I think the difference between America and Europe is the way in which sex is presented in the media, which has a large impact on the way in which it is regarded by society.

I was speaking idiomatically.