Exposure to Sex and Violence

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The Bib-iest of Nickels
Straightforward question at the bottom...

Growing up, something I always found curious about my childhood was the way violence and sexuality were treated.

In-particular, my exposure to them in film. I had a thought about this earlier after stumbling across a website link made to educate parents on whether or not a film might be too mature for their child. What brought on the thought is the way sexuality had top-billing whereas it was made to seem like violence played second fiddle to that. Some might argue I'm overthinking that, which is alright, because I'm not really criticizing them, it really just brought on my current train of thought and I'm curious whether this parallels with any other people's experience.

As a kid, I loved horror films.

I loved horror films a lot and my Mom who was the parental figure through most of my life, was more than accommodating of that fact. I loved A Nightmare on Elm Street the most, but I also watched Halloween and Child's Play, and many more. In-terms of violence, I never had any real restrictions. In-general, this wasn't problematic, because I think I had a firm grip on-reality, I was able to not take anything I saw on television at face-value because I approached the characters as fictional and make-believe.

In-general, I don't really want to get into the debate about "how old" a child should be before they are allowed to see certain films. I really feel like that debate is played out and, mostly, the consensus is it depends on the maturity and impressionability of the person watching the film.

Something curious I do want to talk about is the 2005 film Hostel. Dubbed "torture porn," a phrase I'm not really a fan of, Hostel was about some recent graduates who went on a hiking trip and later encountered a man who convinced them to head to a Slovakian hostel, telling them it had attractive women spilling out the wazoo. Long-story short, although the hostel had its fair share of lookers, the man neglected to tell them they'd be tortured in various ways.

The reason I mention this film is because it captures the crux of what I am getting at. I was ten-years old when Hostel was released and while I definitely remember the violence of the film having a certain staying power, it wasn't something that startled me or had any long-lasting effect. I was never encouraged to look away from what was happening on the screen, ... except when naked women were involved. This was a rule that wasn't enforced very well my Mother who, as I said, mostly let me have free rein as far as my intake of horror films (a genre that often fancies full-frontal nudity), but if my family and I actively watched a film together, she encouraged me to "cover my eyes". (Little did she know them sheets I covered my eyes with were quite thin!)

I wouldn't consider my Mom very strict about most things, and, really, my take away from this is: for some reason or another, she was (at that time) of the belief that a woman's breast were something I didn't need to see, but watching a woman have her eye brutally burned with a blow-torch was fair-game.

Question: - While growing up, did you ever encounter situations where it seemed like nudity or sexuality was perceived as more heinous or "evil" than committed acts of violence in film? Whether it be your parents' personally, someone you know, or a different dynamic that applies. Why do you think that was? Do you think this mind-set has changed in recent years?



Interesting question, unlike you I didn't have a firm grip on reality and in my mind Freddy Krueger so ****ing real, not now of course but back then the fear was palpable, somehow I am aloud to watch a movie about a horrifically burnt, gleefully sadistic child murdering demon but I'm not aloud to watch porn. I'm not sure why that makes sense.

I guess it really depends on each persons individual preference or not having a preference and when and where you are born, many different factors etc




Question: - While growing up, did you ever encounter situations where it seemed like nudity or sexuality was perceived as more heinous or "evil" than committed acts of violence in film? Whether it be your parents' personally, someone you know, or a different dynamic that applies. Why do you think that was? Do you think this mind-set has changed in recent years?


Yep.
I think most people are brought up in a similar way.


Just had a look online at the BBFC tbh.
I think there's an interesting point to make about how movies are classed, and what is allowed in a movie today, compared to yesteryear.


Before the year 1984, the BBFC wouldn't just put ratings on movies, they would actually censor them and order studios to edit them. I not, they would edit the movie themselves before allowing it to be released to the public.
This was for everything from nudity to violence, and even bad language.
Movies made years ago, and I'm talking 40+ years, were tamed down by film classification boards. Sure they had violence and stuff, the kill scene at the start of Jaws is pretty scary, but movies were edited, or, they just didn't even think of putting certain things in movies in the first place because it "wouldn't be tasteful".
If you go back further, Psycho (1960) was the first movie to have a toilet shown in it. It was actually deemed to be a little risqué to feature a shot of a toilet.


The point I'm making, is the changes to the BBFC in the year 1984:
People were used to movies being "made safe". Anything that was deemed as overly violent or sexual was called either a Video Nasty or an Exploitation movie. Failing that, it was straight out porn, and could only be found under the counter in backstreet independent rental stores.
The change made to the BBFC meant studios were able to add more stuff that was initially considered a no-no... and most importantly, people could now watch these things.
From my own experiences, this meant my parents basically allowed me to watch anything. I was born in 1982, just 2 years before movie classification changed in the UK.
My parents are the generation who had to make the choice on what my generation could watch based on a new system of classification... and you know what?
Movies that were a little more violent than before, or were more gory, or they were showing stuff that used to be deemed risqué was, well, kind of an exciting prospect.
I mean, why not let the kids watch it?


There might be a little naivety there, considering the worst my parents saw in films was a toilet in Psycho, and some gooey puppets in Carpenter's The Thing... they didn't see crap like Hostel and Saw on the horizon, but then again, who could have?


Like every other parent out there, my folks basically said I could watch anything, as long as it wasn't pornography.
I think in their mind it was a case of "Movies are now more violent, but they're just movies. There's nothing wrong with a bit of action."



I think this may be a little indicator of the United States society as well. Sex and nudity has always been a little more closed-door in this country compared to some of the other developed countries of the world.



My parents were never averse to me watching violence when growing up and I was never bothered about them being in the same room at the time. I never enjoyed sex with them in the same room though, just far too embarrassing.



The two are definitely treated differently. I don't find that inherently ridiculous or hypocritical, though. They're not the same. They're not equally imitable, and they don't have the same effect on viewers, particularly young ones.

I guess I find it silly when extreme violence is shrugged off but people are simultaneously Puritan about sexual content of any kind. That's kinda arbitrary and short-sighted. But outside of that I don't think there's any issue with distinguishing between the two and being more concerned with exposure to one than the other.



My parents were never averse to me watching violence when growing up and I was never bothered about them being in the same room at the time. I never enjoyed sex with them in the same room though, just far too embarrassing.
Im 32 years old, and to this day for some reason I cant watch a sex scene in a film or tv with someone else in the room without blushing, no matter how tame or graphic it is.

Ive always found societal attitudes to depictions of sex hilarious because they're so contradictory. We are so utterly prudish about it and about hiding it...yet at the same time, it is everywhere. To the point that sex education in schools still teaches very little beyond basically the biology of reproduction. Oh, and STDs. We learn nothing of pleasure, consent, protection, relationships, same sex, contraception etc. but can readily access dirty magazines and internet porn which just gives everybody a false view of the whole thing! But then the same society will up the age rating on a film because you got a shot of a side boob there! The fact something like that is more cause for censorship than having someone disembowelled on screen or taking a hammer to the face is utterly bizarre.

As it is, I think it is easy for society to blame depictions of sex and violence (and computer games, they always get the blame too) for bad behaviour in real life. As with anything, most people can watch something with gratuitous sex and violence and disconnect fantasy from real life. If you're the kind of person who wants to go out and commit mass murder because you watched a violent horror film, you had issues to begin with. Freddy Krueger never made you do it.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I watched Nymphomaniac with my mum. I wouldn't have the balls to watch a pinku eiga with her. She wouldn't like it anyway...
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I watched Nymphomaniac with my mum. I wouldn't have the balls to watch a pinku eiga with her. She wouldn't like it anyway...
I watched some Italian female prison sexploitation with my dad... when I was 11. Well, he didn't watch it all but he was there long enough to see what I was watching with my big brother.



Originally Posted by McConnaughay
Question: - While growing up, did you ever encounter situations where it seemed like nudity or sexuality was perceived as more heinous or "evil" than committed acts of violence in film?
It is a ludicrous double standard held to this day and at times inverted towards the opposite extreme.

I would actually bet that if you were to aggregate peoples' experiences, you'd find that sexuality is a greater taboo in conservative homes while violence is a greater taboo in liberal homes. I think your point about maturity is at the base of any argument you could reasonably make, but the concern about corrupting your child could really reach extremes in either direction.

On one end, a parent might say partial nudity is off-limits, but allow their kids to watch movies in which peoples' heads are graphically split open with axes. On the other hand, blatant sexual themes may get a free pass, but if that kid makes a finger gun? Grounded for a week.



The finger gun thing actually happened to me. And you wanna know the "funny" part? One of my younger siblings took over my room and years later loaded it up with Nerf guns. One of my most enduring memories is being told that although I was 11 years old, I was not a "teen" yet, and therefor was too young to play Soul Calibur II, which was a fighting game I had not only admitted to playing on numerous occasions previously, but featured no blood whatsoever.



Even leaving aside the age thing, I already knew what was in the game, not only had I already played it, but I continued to play it at friends' homes after the fact. All because it was too "violent". I had seen dinosaurs eat people in Jurassic Park multiple times at home by this point, this was a ****ing stupid line to draw and it felt so unfair that well over a decade later I still remember it.



Make no mistake the fear of sexual exposure is arguably more ridiculous because by the time you're old enough to comprehend what it is your parents don't want you to see, you're already going through puberty and curious about that stuff anyway. The Hostel example is one of the most absurd examples I've heard of yet, but it doesn't surprise me.

Now it so happens that to this day, I still don't like graphic gore or casual sex interjected into movies, BUT had I never watched movies without them I'd have missed out on a lot of experiences and on principle I object to denying people the freedom to access something they are mature enough to handle.

As a complete fluke, the first time I saw blatant nudity in a movie was when I saw the shower scene from Porky's at an older friends' house. I knew at the moment I would never have been allowed to see that, but now that I had, guess what happened?

Absolutely ****ing nothing. Because it's just nudity. Everybody's naked. You stick clothes on a person and then suddenly what they're hiding is 100% too hot for television. Apply the same principle to shoes and you get Chinese foot binding. Apply the same principle to socks and you get Japanese zettai ryouiki:



Ironically, the more you conceal and make a thing taboo, the more sexualized it becomes. I wonder what kind of negative consequences that might have?

In general the entire topic of censorship is stupid and you can make the same points about the erasure of swear words, cigarettes, alcohol, or hand gestures.


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My mother wouldn't let me go see Planet of the Apes (1968) with my older brothers when it was being re-shown in the theaters (early 70's), not because "Taylor" gets shot in the neck, or his astronaut partners get stuffed & lobotomized, but because there were reports that you'd see Charleton Heston's hiney and partial frontal nudity!



Like many above I have always found the different attitudes towards sex and violence in movies hypocritical. However, it's so ingrained in society that I myself have fallen victim to that behaviour.

When I found out that my cousin, a teenager, was a big horror fan and wanted movies from my collection, I gave her edited soft copies (deleting nudity and sex but not the gore) instead of giving her the DVDs.

I am hugely anti-censorship, and yet I did that. I guess our attitudes change when in concerns our family members. Sounds daft in a way, but that's how it is.



I wouldn't consider my Mom very strict about most things, and, really, my take away from this is: for some reason or another, she was (at that time) of the belief that a woman's breast were something I didn't need to see, but watching a woman have her eye brutally burned with a blow-torch was fair-game.
Yeah, there's definitely something off with that mindset. I know what I'd prefer to look at.



Ya'll are just descendant of the ancient Romans Instead of having gladiators, slaves and Christians die horrible deaths in the Coliseum for entertainment... now you just pop in the latest ultra violet torture flick and satisfy that ancient animalistic need to see suffering, by digital means. Think about it, nothing much has changed has it?



Weird is relative.
If I had kids I wouldn't want them to see extreme violence or sex in film until they're at least 14, but I wouldn't actively "recommend" anything that style until they were 17 or 18 or older. That seems reasonable. (If they wanted to watch it before then they'd find it anyway.)



The Bib-iest of Nickels
My parents were never averse to me watching violence when growing up and I was never bothered about them being in the same room at the time. I never enjoyed sex with them in the same room though, just far too embarrassing.
I never enjoyed sex with my parents either.



The Bib-iest of Nickels
Ya'll are just descendant of the ancient Romans Instead of having gladiators, slaves and Christians die horrible deaths in the Coliseum for entertainment... now you just pop in the latest ultra violet torture flick and satisfy that ancient animalistic need to see suffering, by digital means. Think about it, nothing much has changed has it?
I understand what you mean, ... but, in an interest fact, did you know Coliseum matches weren't (at least mostly not) to the death? Roman gladiatorial affairs were often treated as barbaric and unruly duels to the death, but they were actually treated as professional athletes that made their living fighting, not dying.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I remember wanting to rent Starship Troopers and the person at Blockbuster said it was very mature, as a warning for my parents. So my mom told my dad to watch it and then make the call to see if I can. He did and said I couldn't. They told me it was too gory and violent. But I think it was because of the nudity. I was around ten years old.

Second; I was watching True Lies with my dad on VHS. It came to the striptease part and he stopped it, fast forwarded the scene and then continued the movie. I only saw a glimpse of it when he thought he had passed it and pressed play, but it was right in the middle. I closed my eyes and he laughed.

My uncle rented Demolition Man and let me watch it. My parents always complained to him about the film, said it had too much swearing for me. I don't remember watching it with them at all.

I love horror films and watched a ton growing up. So I think for my parents, it was more the sex/nudity aspect over the violence.

Maybe because they thought there was a greater chance of me going out and having sex over going out and killing a bunch of people. Who knows.
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My uncle rented Demolition Man and let me watch it. My parents always complained to him about the film, said it had too much swearing for me. I don't remember watching it with them at all.
That is perhaps the most godawful ironic movie to come down on too.