Are Our Values Backward?

I stumbled across an article today on Drudge about a porn video being shot in a neighborhood park in TN (unfortunately there was not a link provided to this alleged video).

The same mother who complains that her son saw a naked body (in a completely natural act) would not bat an eye when he takes part in virtual murder in video games or watches the same imagery of violence on a screen.

Do we have our priorities backward? If not, should we also not “protect” the child’s “innocence” in all regard to violence too? Is desensitizing our children to violence healthy? Is there any evidence that witnessing a sexual act at a young age compared to a violent act is more detrimental to a child’s “psyche”?

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I stumbled across an article today on Drudge about a porn video being shot in a neighborhood park in TN (unfortunately there was not a link provided to this alleged video).

The same mother who complains that her son saw a naked body (in a completely natural act) would not bat an eye when he takes part in virtual murder in video games or watches the same imagery of violence on a screen.

Do we have our priorities backward? If not, should we also not “protect” the child’s “innocence” in all regard to violence too? Is desensitizing our children to violence healthy? Is there any evidence that witnessing a sexual act at a young age compared to a violent act is more detrimental to a child’s “psyche”?
[/quote]

Supervise them away from both.

C’mon, LIFTICVSMAXIMVS! You KNOW naked bodies corrupt young minds. Sex is not natural. Violence, on the other hand, is part of our hard wiring.

lol

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

The same mother who complains that her son saw a naked body (in a completely natural act) would not bat an eye when he takes part in virtual murder in video games or watches the same imagery of violence on a screen.

[/quote]

It depends on the porn as to whether it is natural. Arguably, if she has one in her mouth, one in her ass, one in her pussy, and one in each hand, I would argue that that is not natural; though it may demonstrate a talent for piano.

Also, do you know this mother allows her child to play violent video games or watch violence or are you just assuming? If you are assuming, your point is null and void.

HEY!! I purposely made the title of this thread “Values Backward?” because I do not like to include the verb “to be” with collective pronouns.

Why was it changed?

[quote]pat wrote:
Also, do you know this mother allows her child to play violent video games or watch violence or are you just assuming? If you are assuming, your point is null and void.[/quote]

Specifically? no. I was not even talking about the particular mother in the news article but rather using the prototypical, suburban mother who is oblivious to the contradiction of allowing ones child to become desensitized by violence at the same time protecting them from sexual imagery.

For all I know the particular mother in the article does not allow violent imagery in her home either.

Not only is it a contradiction in my mind but also very backward. If anything desensitization to sexuality seems more healthy and would lead to an adult male, for example, who can function normally around a beautiful pair of giant tits on a woman – even if she were uncovered and bent over tying her shoes.

Now, I have to be cautious clicking on any of the various links on the internet for fear that a gorgeous woman may appear scantily clad on screen and my femme-Nazi colleagues will become offended all because they have been taught to be ashamed by the female body.

I think, on the contrary, that many individuals get used to the idea portrayed on screen of people solving all their issues with senseless violence – especially those that are portrayed as the heroic figures.

Somehow for millions of years our species survived with the young seeing death, violence and sex (one room huts) not just on a frequent basis, but as a part of life. Now with society making this stuff outright taboo to the young I think it has a fetishizing effect for many. The effect these things have on kids have as much to do with the reaction of their parents and the kids’ socialization as it does with the material itself.

[quote]pat wrote:

though it may demonstrate a talent for piano.
[/quote]

rofl!

I have never really understood what is wrong with either when done as right action and under the supervision of responsible adults to prevent harmful excesses. Both are healthy and positive when seen or done in an informed and open-minded manner.

[quote]etaco wrote:
Somehow for millions of years our species survived with the young seeing death, violence and sex (one room huts) not just on a frequent basis, but as a part of life. Now with society making this stuff outright taboo to the young I think it has a fetishizing effect for many. The effect these things have on kids have as much to do with the reaction of their parents and the kids’ socialization as it does with the material itself.[/quote]

I have no answers to these questions, but I thought this was a very very nice point. I agree. Where the line’s drawn i dunno, but this is a very interesting and, I think, valid point.

how many people trying to uber-shelter their kids from the ‘badness’ of sex and violence and death (in real world terms, mind you, not crazy porn/ultra violence) have screwed their kids up? I point to the vast majority of crazy super-fundamentalists as exhibit A. There’s a reason rebellion in those kids takes place in the sex/drugs/alcohol arena. I know several personally off the top of my head. There’s a reason so many of them go crazy when they’ve been sheltered and restricted, and I think “fetishizing” is a good term for some aspects of that.

Well, there’s a lot of reasons, but I think this is a huge one. Now, I’m not suggesting that people change what they teach their kids in terms of values or that people become hypocrites with their religion (quite the contrary actually), simply that the reactionary sheltering is super retarded.

again, I dunno where the boundary lies between sensible and retarded. I just think it’s an interesting point. Though, to be sure, I think it is infinitely harder to find the sensible balance now with the omnipresent mass media/internet ultraviolent age in full swing than it would be in other places or other time periods, so in a sense I kinda feel bad for people trying to find that balance now.

Now that I think about it a second longer, I think that the fact our world today is so fucked plays into it far more than I thought. The fucked ideas of so many people at large play a big role in socialization of kids, through many outlets. This threat prompts a lot of parents to clamp down tighter, too tight in fact, in an effort to minimize the damage OTHER people’s socialization and outlook has on their kids’ socialization. They are understandably disturbed by a lot of what they see, and then end up contributing to the problem through their fear.

[quote]etaco wrote:
Somehow for millions of years our species survived with the young seeing death, violence and sex (one room huts) not just on a frequent basis, but as a part of life. Now with society making this stuff outright taboo to the young I think it has a fetishizing effect for many. The effect these things have on kids have as much to do with the reaction of their parents and the kids’ socialization as it does with the material itself.[/quote]

I don’t think violence was as prominent in the average daily life of a typical person in history as we may have been led to believe. History, I think, gives a biased view because conflict is always framed as the crank that turns epochs. Ideas, any and all of them, are much more important and play a larger role to society than war. History is human action in the past; human action is the culmination of ideas. Yes, wars have been fought over ideas but all products of humanity are also the result of ideas.

I think violence didn’t become really understood by regular non military society until mass warfare was brought about by mechanization. Before that battles were fought up close and personal and the average person didn’t take part except when they were invaded and or conquered. There is also a real difference between witnessing violence first hand and being desensitized by it through repetitious fake murder.

I think violence is detrimental to the natural progression of ideas which is the essence of humanity. Without ideas we are just monkeys.

As a father I have a problem with this. I dont want my kids looking at porn because I think that it influances them to think that women are nothing but sex objects that they can bebase and then throw away.

I didnt have a problem with them watching to movie 300 because the love scene in that movie was just that, a LOVE scene not BangBus. Now as far as the violence of the film it was a little over the top but the message of the film was very important to me and somthing that I wanted to share with my son.

[quote]jawara wrote:
As a father I have a problem with this. I dont want my kids looking at porn because I think that it influances them to think that women are nothing but sex objects that they can bebase and then throw away.

I didnt have a problem with them watching to movie 300 because the love scene in that movie was just that, a LOVE scene not BangBus. Now as far as the violence of the film it was a little over the top but the message of the film was very important to me and somthing that I wanted to share with my son.[/quote]

Excuse me, when as a male, have you ever felt like porn was reality?

It is a fantasy precisely because reality is different.

[quote]orion wrote:
It is a fantasy precisely because reality is different.
[/quote]

You mean two hot chicks going at it doesn’t happen all the time at college…?

[quote]jawara wrote:
As a father I have a problem with this. I dont want my kids looking at porn because I think that it influances them to think that women are nothing but sex objects that they can bebase and then throw away.

I didnt have a problem with them watching to movie 300 because the love scene in that movie was just that, a LOVE scene not BangBus. Now as far as the violence of the film it was a little over the top but the message of the film was very important to me and somthing that I wanted to share with my son.[/quote]

I agree with this. But I wasn’t talking really about porn at all. Just a general observation. I don’t think others were talking specifically about porn either, could be wrong. Porn basically amounts to a fabricated situation/story/scenario. I was speaking more of a reality-based concept.

[quote]orion wrote:
jawara wrote:
As a father I have a problem with this. I dont want my kids looking at porn because I think that it influances them to think that women are nothing but sex objects that they can bebase and then throw away.

I didnt have a problem with them watching to movie 300 because the love scene in that movie was just that, a LOVE scene not BangBus. Now as far as the violence of the film it was a little over the top but the message of the film was very important to me and somthing that I wanted to share with my son.

Excuse me, when as a male, have you ever felt like porn was reality?

It is a fantasy precisely because reality is different.

[/quote]

Right. But a) kids aren’t fully mentally developed and b) repeated exposure to certain stimuli or fantasies can and DOES have an impact on development. Not all the time, but it certainly does in some people.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
orion wrote:
It is a fantasy precisely because reality is different.

You mean two hot chicks going at it doesn’t happen all the time at college…? [/quote]

Don´t make me cry.

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Right. But a) kids aren’t fully mentally developed and b) repeated exposure to certain stimuli or fantasies can and DOES have an impact on development. Not all the time, but it certainly does in some people.[/quote]

How does a child who has no frame of reference know what he is seeing is a fantasy or even “sinful”. The first time I remember seeing a naked girl I was six. My mom made a point to tell me it was wrong to want to see girls naked (how I interpreted it) and from that day forward I wanted to see them naked but was now ashamed of it.

Had my mother acted casually about this event I may never have been so awkward around women as a teenager thru my 20somethings. Luckily my wife found that to be an endearing quality in me.

Screwing in public? What’s next, taking a dump in each other’s yards, and sniffing strangers’ asses?