What's Worse For Children? Violence Or Pornography?

Well it's that time of year again. It seems during the middle of summer is when politicians, which I can only assume have heat stroke, make insane laws and implement policies that serve the emotional agenda of a very few, while trampling on the rights of many.

The UK recently announced they are going to be blocking pornography, by default on all ISP's that operated in the country. You can opt out of course according to them, but that's besides the point. Actually the point of this thread is to ask a very simple question.

Would I rather my children see violence and gore on the internet, or sex? Which one will be more detrimental to their mental health?

You see we live in this puritan's society it seems. The West and Europe have some how created a society where the things that should be appalling and never accepted are glorified and celebrated. Meanwhile we stigmatize other subjects that are either entirely natural parts of growing up and being human or very important social issues that the PC crowd prevent us from discussing.

I'll say it plainly and some people may disagree, but you'll be hard pressed to get me to change my mind.

Violence, should be discouraged. Imagines of violence and gore, things such as torture, rape, mental and physical trauma, all of these things should make you sick to your stomach. You should NEVER be sitting in a movie theater watching the latest installment of saw while thinking to yourself "man this is awesome".

This is conditioning. Conditioning and propaganda which makes it easy for your to justify violence that doesn't' directly effect you. Violence such as the kind that people in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer. Or the people of the Congo as another example.

If violence was treated the way it was suppose to, then I firmly believe our apathy towards foreign affairs and the treatment of those who aren't your neighbors, would be vastly different if not non-existent.

The same line of logic could be used towards sex. If we stopped demonizing people's sexual orientation and sexual choices, regardless of how much we disagree with them on a personal level, our society would be focused on many more important issues.

I'm not saying let the child molesters roam free, don't' get wrong, this is from the standpoint of legal, consenting adults having the right to do as they please, without being shamed for it. How many of your young adults and teenagers go through years of unhappiness and distrust of people, simply because they aren't allowed to express themselves?

What could those people accomplish if they weren't mired in their personal issues for all that time? It's ironic, considering the West and Europe are some of the most sexually active places in marketing and advertising.

We will use sex to sell just about anything, even purity rings for Jesus. Yet we carry this double standard and we all pay the price for it.

What are your thoughts ATS? Is it all as backwards as I propose it is, on these two topics?

~Tenth

I agree with you for the most part.

Sex is natural and doesn't normally hurt anyone.

Violence is almost always wrong.

Good thread and i interesting question,

I would suppose the only reasonable answer is that it should not be a choice between either or, both harm our children.

If I had to pick however I would chose pornography, assuming we are talking about hardcore stuff, like the rape porn that the has been in the news quite a bit lately.

I agree with banning such pornography through ISP's so long as it does not go any further and the system actually works.

I don't think however I would agree with censoring violence online it would lead to the censorship of stupid stuff and it could grow and grow and even start to cover stuff like the news at a extreme end of the scale. Hardcore rape porn however is different, i think its sick that Google makes money out of advertising from the search results of pedophiles and fantasist rapists so i agree with any move to stop that.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Well, you get to be my last reply of the day before I go roast in the sun for several hours, hanging rain gutter on my house. It's a fitting one, though.

Which is worse? I have absolutely no question or hesitation in my mind for it. Violence is worse. Far worse.

I can even articulate my reasoning without writing a book to explain it. lol... Sex is something I want my kid to learn about. He needs to appreciate, respect and hopefully, develop a healthy enjoyment and interest in it during his adult life. It's what families are made from, after all.

Violence, on the other hand, is something I unfortunately feel he needs to be aware of and capable of defending from. Even..initiating, should circumstances demand it. However, I never ...ever... want him to become 'used' to violence or become numb to seeing it in film or reality. Nothing good and everything bad comes out of that path. It may be required to survive ..but only the insane look for it or hope that comes.

So, if I were King for a day, so to speak? We'd have the gratuitous violence back in the formerly 'Adult' section and..well, the United States isn't other nations. We couldn't just open the market to porn mags and sex on demand as something normal for kids to watch. I mean, it'd be the ultimate mind screw for the poor kids, given the hard core taboos our society has made of it .....but in time, I wouldn't mind seeing sex and nudity replace violence. Not add to it...but literally replace, for what is the more common to find on TV and media.

(No one ever died of consensual sex ...unless that other factor was added in without one's consent)

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

If I had to pick however I would chose pornography, assuming we are talking about hardcore stuff, like the rape porn that the has been in the news quite a bit lately.

I meant porno in general. I agree entirely with the violent pornography ban.

I don't think however I would agree with censoring violence online it would lead to the censorship of stupid stuff and it could grow and grow and even start to cover stuff like the news at a extreme end of the scale.

Doesn't banning pornography end up the same way? Now I can petition the government in the UK to remove television ads for beer commercials, since they could be seem as pornographic in nature. What about premium TV channels that air porno like content?

It's a very slippery slope you enter when you try to ban something that is prevalent in our society, that most of us have no idea they are using it to sell us stuff or get us to think a certain way.

~Tenth

Nice thread. I've often debated this exact topic, and I always come to the same conclusion... When sex is treated like a terrible, naughty thing, this perverts natural social development, and can lead to violent, aggressive sexual behavior as a result.

The more society hides sexual activity, the more bizarre and shameful fetishes seem normal once one is exposed to the world of sex. At least, this is my theory.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Ahhh well if your talking about your run of the mill pron then yeah I probably say that it harms our kids no more that a violent movie.

But when i ask my self would i rather have my kid watch "the Terminator" or "Shaving Ryan's Privates 3", i would pick the terminator.

I must say this is a really interesting question and like i say i think the answer isn't one or the other our kids should be exposed to neither until they are old enough to understand and comprehend what they are seeing.

Why make an arbitrary division? A lot of porn is violent and one has to wonder how many people go into that business who have 'normal' childhoods, and how many are in it because they feel they have no other options or were abused as children and consider this level of humiliating employment somehow a good idea.

I'd love to see a societal experiment were ALL violence and overtly sexual content in movies and teevee were banned for oh, ten years or so, to see if the level of crime and especially violence against women was reduced in any way.
Our current trajectory into ever more gore and shock value 'entertainment' certainly isn't helping out civilization in any way. Of course, a lot of Hollywood writers and producers would have to find other employment since writing true dramas and comedy without all the gutter crap actually requires talent.

Here's a clue for 'good' entertainment writing: If you wouldn't want to see your story or action happen to yourself, a loved one or a random stranger, for gawdssakes, don't write it into your script. Ditto if you wouldn't want your four year old to happen across it by accident on the teevee when left alone for a minute.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

I can even articulate my reasoning without writing a book to explain it. lol... Sex is something I want my kid to learn about. He needs to appreciate, respect and hopefully, develop a healthy enjoyment and interest in it during his adult life. It's what families are made from, after all.

Violence, on the other hand, is something I unfortunately feel he needs to be aware of and capable of defending from. Even..initiating, should circumstances demand it. However, I never ...ever... want him to become 'used' to violence or become numb to seeing it in film or reality. Nothing good and everything bad comes out of that path. It may be required to survive ..but only the insane look for it or hope that comes.

This is exactly the the opinion I myself hold as well. My kids are aware of violence, and they know what goes on in the world but because we never introduced them ourselves to violent films or games, our children have no interest in either for the most part.

I've found they are far less jaded about the world, than then friends who are heavily into TV and movies that contain that sort of content.

~Tenth

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

I must say this is a really interesting question and like i say i think the answer isn't one or the other our kids should be exposed to neither until they are old enough to understand and comprehend what they are seeing.

That certainly would be the ideal answer.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower

What's Worse For Children? Violence Or Pornography?

I guess I hope that it's just a cultural phase that will eventually play out and go away. And we do ignore it... every time there is some horrible incident of violence, we settle for knee-jerks just so we can say we tried... even when we don't.

But, then again, the whole concept of parenting even when we ourselves may not be parents, is long gone. Our society no longer accepts responsibility for itself on the individual level, much less across the whole dynamic of being a family of mankind.

Besides that, Hollywood (among others) is raking in the money with every drop of blood splattered, every limb hack sawed from a body in some movie or video game...

... the knee jerk is a profitable dodge.

reply to post by signalfire

Why make an arbitrary division? A lot of porn is violent and one has to wonder how many people go into that business who have 'normal' childhoods, and how many are in it because they feel they have no other options or were abused as children and consider this level of humiliating employment somehow a good idea.

It's no arbitrary at all actually. Violent porn actually accounts for very little of the industry. It's considered a niche and most of the people who work in the rest of the industry would love to see it go away.

I won't get into a conversation about the porn industry and it's pros and cons. It's an industry like any other, and much like there are Oil Companies who screw around and do bad things, so is the same in porn.

The first problem is see is this:

humiliating employment somehow a good idea.

You have an emotional bias towards the subject. You consider it humiliating, others consider it empowering, and others just consider it work. There isn't this rule that says you must be broken in order to enjoy that kind of work.

Our current trajectory into ever more gore and shock value 'entertainment' certainly isn't helping out civilization in any way. Of course, a lot of Hollywood writers and producers would have to find other employment since writing true dramas and comedy without all the gutter crap actually requires talent

Another good point actually. It is easier to write the easy stuff than it is to make anything of substance and value these days. It's a bit funny, because those that do write for the sake of creating good, high quality entertainment, are often ignored.

~Tenth

Depending on the age i guess.. however, violence is easy to imitate then porn.

Kids are not really interested in porn till they reach like what 12 or 13? but violence is favored since like age 6.

How often you seen a 10yr old trying a fighting "move" he learned on a show on his 7 yrs old brother?



Porn can easily be blocked, they will eventually figure it out how to disable it but that won't happen until they are a bit older.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Perhaps the reason we continue to maintain the "taboo" of sex is because our (Western) culture recognizes the power of sex as a motivational tool for marketing.

Perhaps, if we were to "normalize the presence" of sex and sexual images, our consumer-driven society would lose one of, if not the most, its powerful "tools" (pardon the pun!).

Thus we "normalize" violence and violent images, claiming that they are actually "cathartic" (and not desensitizing and de-humanizing), while maintaining sex and sexual images as tantalizing and usefully motivational for commercial exploitation?

reply to post by Bhadhidar


That's certainly an interesting theory, and it would not surprise me in the least bit.

Originally posted by Bhadhidar
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Perhaps the reason we continue to maintain the "taboo" of sex is because our (Western) culture recognizes the power of sex as a motivational tool for marketing.

Perhaps, if we were to "normalize the presence" of sex and sexual images, our consumer-driven society would lose one of, if not the most, its powerful "tools" (pardon the pun!).

Thus we "normalize" violence and violent images, claiming that they are actually "cathartic" (and not desensitizing and de-humanizing), while maintaining sex and sexual images as tantalizing and usefully motivational for commercial exploitation?

This.

Sex is a very powerful tool of control, so much so that religions fear it's power. This is one of the main reasons sex is stigmatized in religion. Sex is a direct threat to the authority and power a church has over its members.

But violence? Oh that's OK (especially in the Old Testament). Heck, religious leaders need people to be violent to force others to follow.

I call it "followship" instead of "worship". People blindly follow what some guy says because "he's got it figured out so I don't have to on my own".

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Very Deep thread.

Well, I would like to say that violence is worse for the Children. How does a parent turn it off, when the World has violence happening all around them? You cant.

Video games, TV, News, Sports, etc........ Unless you live in a protective bubble you cant turn it off. I guess the same goes for Pornography, but its a bit easier to regulate that, as a parent.

Anytime you try to hide truth it re-emerges in a highly destructive form. Regardless of whether it's sexuality or aggression.

reply to post by sonnny1

Well, I would like to say that violence is worse for the Children. How does a parent turn it off, when the World has violence happening all around them? You cant.

I agree you can't turn it off and I agree they are going to see it around them in real life. My point is that we should stop giving them 'fake violence and aggression' so that when they do see it real life, it generates the type of reaction that is suitable.

Surprise, anger, disgust and a feeling of needing to help prevent any and all of those things from occurring is the goal we should strive to achieve.

It's not the exposure that's the problem is the over exposure that leads to them normalizing the images and ideas they are being presented.

So over exposure I guess.

~Tenth

I agree with banning such pornography through ISP's so long as it does not go any further and the system actually works.

Ok, First of all i completely disagree. I dont care what it is nothing and i mean NOTHING should be BANNED on the internet. The internet is an OPEN source of information and the government has no right to ban anything. Go head and work on getting those black market sites where you can get drugs or arms delivered to your house shut down. See, getting sites shut down is one thing but banning a whole subject matter is unacceptable. You say as long as it does not go any further, but thats how going further always starts. Find a little kink in the armor, get support, ban something, pass a law making it legal to ban content at the governments leisure and then we have a government run internet filled with what they want it to be filled with. I can literally go on forever about why this topic enrages me but ill get back to the original question.

Violence is much worse for our children than watching sex. I know from my own experiences as a young kid that watching pornography allows you to explore sex and learn things. I understand that theres hardcore porn out there like rape porn and what not, but if your not into that you will immediately click off it because to most people its gross, to those who dont think its gross you obviously have some thinking to do about talking to someone because thats not normal.

Violence and pornography dont only exist on our computers though. They are in our video games, our tv's and magazines, they are in almost all forms of media nowadays. For that reason i think banning one of the two from the internet is just an excuse to have more control over the internet because of the rising threat of cyber-warfare. Even if you banned them they would still be able to been seen somewhere else people!