Why is nudity considered worse than violence/curses in movies and games?

[Trollomore]

Yes, but I can see where it is coming from. For instance, just take a look at the Iraq war. As much as the US was hated around the world for going into Iraq without cause. The issues that seemed to galvanize the most negative opinions were the photos coming out of Abu Ghraib or stories of US soldiers rapiing Iraqi women. Such things were relatively few, but even one is understandably viewed as too many. On top of that, these things often led to other acts of violence, either as revenge or as a cover-up. Terrible as Dafur is, the story of soldiers being ordered to rape 12 & 13 year old girls is generating more international action than years of murders and starvation. There is something about the human psyche which seems to universally says that among all crimes, these sorts of crimes are the worst. And yet, all societies are guilty of them, western or eastern it makes no difference, from the Japanese "rape of Nanking" to the US "rape of Iraq".

And where do these acts originate? But in the perverted fantasies stimulated and condoned by pornography.

People are not stupid, they do not need to be told what to watch and what to not watch.
Anyone who would deem it as acceptable to rape someone in real life has a mental illness.

Vikings raped women and I doubt porn made them do it.

Please read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_rape

Also, I see that you're a Christian, and just like any religious person I'm sure you love your scripture (at least the parts they pick, the rest (as we know) discard it with the line "it was ok at the time" or any such).
So here's some for you now, just for you to mull over:

"They must be dividing the spoil they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man…" Judges 5:30 and "For I [God] will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses looted and the women raped;..." Zechariah 14:2

 

[alcurad]

People are not stupid, they do not need to be told what to watch and what to not watch.
Anyone who would deem it as acceptable to rape someone in real life has a mental illness.

mostly agree, it really depends on the person at that,,

 

[Keltoi]

I think the real issue is children. Adults can choose whether they wish to be exposed to pornography or not. But the changing nature of our culture has all but pushed sexuality onto our children at a very young age. I'm not talking sex education either. The music and movies our children are exposed to make it very difficult for a parent to shelter their children from it.

 

[Muezzin]

I was wondering this before. I stopped watching movies and shows that had gratuitous sexual references or jokes but then I still play videogames with gore/violence and cursing in it?

It seems like I mind cursing more than I do gore and violence and hate nudity above all but writing this now it seems... backwards?

All are bad I know but for some reason I'm having trouble seeing violence on par with nudity.

So guys what are your views?

My view is human beings are inherently messed up and destructive, and this is further evidence supporting that view. We'd rather expose our kids to images of the destruction of human life than the creation of it. Ideally, we'd expose them to neither, of course.

Heck, forget kids, think about grown-ups - would you be more embarassed being caught watching an ultra-violent action movie or some ultra-rude nudie flick? Not many in polite society would even want to watch an ultra-rude nudie flick to begin with. That's good. But how come we're so quick to go and watch Arnie blow the hell out of something? Yeah, it's fun, but why do we as audience members find this sort of violence fun to watch?

On a more basic level, it's pretty revealing that conflict is the core of drama, and tragedy the core of comedy.

Ah well. That's enough misanthropy for one day.

 

[alcurad]

My view is human beings are inherently messed up and destructive, and this is further evidence supporting that view. We'd rather expose our kids to images of the destruction of human life than the creation of it. Ideally, we'd expose them to neither, of course.

but muezzin, the example doesn't support the proposition, that happens nowadays, not throughout all time.

anyway, perhaps the values of patriarchal society are that way, too much sexualized nudity and you have a weaker population less capable of enacting violence, justified or not is another issue.
although as it were, nudity in our modern societies has lowered the status of women significantly, women are usually used for their looks regardless of where, it is an effective means of advertising, but it has worsened the situation, in my view most western societies don't have much objection not to mention awareness of that.
my main point in my first post was that nowadays especially nudity and what it entails are easy to maintain, violence is not.

 

[Muezzin]

but muezzin, the example doesn't support the proposition, that happens nowadays, not throughout all time.

Er... It pretty much has happened throughout time. What's happened is, we've found more ways and better technology to exploit it.

Humans have lust and bloodlust. They just choose to indulge the latter publically. Roman gladiators? The general sort of 'glory of battle' mentality throughout most civilisations? Capital punishment as community entertainment? Modern blood sports? Boxing?

The more usual sort of lust has been and will be indulged privately forever.

Same goes for conflict being the basis of drama and tragedy the basis of comedy. These are all very primal things.

anyway, perhaps the values of patriarchal society are that way, too much sexualized nudity and you have a weaker population less capable of enacting violence, justified or not is another issue.

I don't know. Bloodlust and normal lust are two equally destructive extremes. It's just weird that we tend to think the former is somehow less embarassing than the latter.

although as it were, nudity in our modern societies has lowered the status of women significantly, women are usually used for their looks regardless of where, it is an effective means of advertising, but it has worsened the situation, in my view most western societies don't have much objection not to mention awareness of that.

Oh, I agree about what you say about the objectification of women and everything. That sort of behaviour is not right. I just find it weird that people tend not to find ritualised violence wrong. Heck, I enjoy watching action movies and the like (I'm a male born in the 80's, I didn't have much of a choice ) - I'm just curious as to where exactly this sort of destructive machismo in a lot of people comes from, and why we tolerate, or even celebrate, it.

 

[Grace Seeker]

What an absolute shocker of a statement to make.

Peace

Yes, but I can see where it is coming from. For instance....
And where do these acts originate? But in the perverted fantasies stimulated and condoned by pornography.

Could be quite the opposite.
There was been rape long before mass pornography.

Did you read the articles? Yes, there was rape before mass pornography. But one of the key words here is your modifier, "mass".

Greetings Grace Seeker,

In all of the situations you mention, violence is the major problem, not nudity.

Peace

Yes, I clearly said that there was a difference between nudity and pornography much eariler in the discussion.

 

[Grace Seeker]

Ted Bundy may have been looking at a lot of porn but some reports state he was diagnosed with 3 different personality disorders, which left him with a will to dominate others without remorse.

Probably not the best example of what pornography might do to your average man (or woman) on the street.

Granted that Bundy was more than your average sicko, but he also was more than your average mass murderer. What Bundy's life points out is that these things begin long before we see the effects. There was a time when Bundy appeared and behaved normal. If one goes into prisons (and I have worked in them) one finds three things: alcohol, drugs, and pornography. These things are shared factors among 75-80% of any given prison population. (At least in the USA, which is all I know.) Now, I don't mean that these are things they are accessing and sharing in prison (though that is true too), but I mean that they were involved in these things at one level or another before they committed the criminal acts for which they were ultimately sent to prison.

 

[BlackMamba]

In the Quran Allah tells men and women to lower their gaze (Surah Noor ayah 30-31). If a movie has nudity then it is real nudity like its real women without clothes. So it would be haram to look at.
But violence in movies is fake, its not real. The blood coming out is like ketchup or something. So while it might not be good to watch violence, its not as bad as nudity.

 

[Azy]

Granted that Bundy was more than your average sicko, but he also was more than your average mass murderer. What Bundy's life points out is that these things begin long before we see the effects. There was a time when Bundy appeared and behaved normal.

Bundy 'behaved normal' most of the time, of course he did, that is part and parcel of his disorder and how he managed to evade capture for so long. You could probably meet up with him 5 minutes after he'd strangled a woman and had sex with her corpse and not notice anything unusual about his demeanour. Bundy expressed that he didn't understand social relationships in his early teens and it's suspected he killed his first victim when he was 14.

Slightly twisted upbringing too.

If one goes into prisons (and I have worked in them) one finds three things: alcohol, drugs, and pornography. These things are shared factors among 75-80% of any given prison population. (At least in the USA, which is all I know.) Now, I don't mean that these are things they are accessing and sharing in prison (though that is true too), but I mean that they were involved in these things at one level or another before they committed the criminal acts for which they were ultimately sent to prison.

90+% ate bread and drove a car, it doesn't necessarily mean there is causation.

"empirical research designed to clarify the question has found no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behaviour among youth or adults."
- United States Commission on Obscenity and Pornography

"The aggregate data on rape and other violent or sexual offences from four countries where pornography, including aggressive varieties, has become widely and easily available during the period we have dealt with would seem to exclude, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this availability has had any detrimental effects in the form of increased sexual violence. ... As far as the other forms of sexual violence are concerned, the remarkable fact is that they decreased - the more so, the more serious the offence." - Kutchinsky, 1991

"the vast majority of people can view the kind of so-called pornography I've been talking about and not be moved this way. Why?" - Ted Bundy

 

[Woodrow]

I suppose over time people have become numb to exploding limbs and the f bomb. Nudity is probably the last thing "we" will eventually become numb to. It probably isn't that far off.

True, that is basically Festinger's inoculation theory of personality development.

We adapt to what we are frequently exposed to and it eventually becomes the acceptable norm from our view.

This is the big danger of exposure to nudity, it becomes acceptable and harmless to us. We are accustomed to seeing people daily, it is a very small step going from seeing dressed people to seeing nudity etc. Nudity and inappropriate sexual behavior are already close to being seen as acceptable to each of us, as a result very little exposure is needed in photographs, movies, games etc. for us to accept it as normal and becoming ingrained as acceptable part of our personality.

 

[Chuck]

Bundy 'behaved normal' most of the time, of course he did, that is part and parcel of his disorder and how he managed to evade capture for so long. You could probably meet up with him 5 minutes after he'd strangled a woman and had sex with her corpse and not notice anything unusual about his demeanour. Bundy expressed that he didn't understand social relationships in his early teens and it's suspected he killed his first victim when he was 14.

Slightly twisted upbringing too.
90+% ate bread and drove a car, it doesn't necessarily mean there is causation.

"empirical research designed to clarify the question has found no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behaviour among youth or adults."
- United States Commission on Obscenity and Pornography

"The aggregate data on rape and other violent or sexual offences from four countries where pornography, including aggressive varieties, has become widely and easily available during the period we have dealt with would seem to exclude, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this availability has had any detrimental effects in the form of increased sexual violence. ... As far as the other forms of sexual violence are concerned, the remarkable fact is that they decreased - the more so, the more serious the offence." - Kutchinsky, 1991

"the vast majority of people can view the kind of so-called pornography I've been talking about and not be moved this way. Why?" - Ted Bundy

well here is bundy's own words:

In the Dobson interview before his execution, Bundy said that violent pornography played a major role in his sex crimes. According to Bundy, as a young boy he found "outside the home again, in the local grocery store, in a local drug store, the soft core pornography that people called soft core...And from time to time we would come across pornographic books of a harder nature...."[109] Bundy said, "It happened in stages, gradually. My experience with pornography generally, but with pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality, is once you become addicted to it — and I look at this as a kind of addiction like other kinds of addiction — I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Until you reach a point where the pornography only goes so far, you reach that jumping off point where you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it would give that which is beyond just reading it or looking at it."[109]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy#Pathology

 

[Azy]

I think there might be a problem with applying the behaviour of a sociopath/psychopath to the (relatively) normal people around you.

 

[Woodrow]

I think there might be a problem with applying the behaviour of a sociopath/psychopath to the (relatively) normal people around you.

Unless you see a connection between sociopathic behavior and environment. (Psychopathology is an illness, not related much to environment) However, sociopath behavior can be taught to "normal" people. ie: The guards at Auschwitz, Radical group exposure KKK, Skinheads etc.

The same factors occur from over exposure to violence, nudity etc. A person's acceptance of either becomes more liberal with more exposure. Changing the person's personality to accepting that which the "norm" does not accept, in other words sociopathic behavior or acceptance of such.

 

[Azy]

Unless you see a connection between sociopathic behavior and environment. (Psychopathology is an illness, not related much to environment) However, sociopath behavior can be taught to "normal" people. ie: The guards at Auschwitz, Radical group exposure KKK, Skinheads etc. The same factors occur from over exposure to violence, nudity etc. A person's acceptance of either becomes more liberal with more exposure. Changing the person's personality to accepting that which the "norm" does not accept, in other words sociopathic behavior or acceptance of such.

A true sociopath is not simply someone who behaves differently from the norm but is very different psychologically speaking. They generally have some abnormal brain development and suffered an uncaring or abusive upbringing, and as a result do not feel emotion in the same way others do, if at all.

 

[Woodrow]

A true sociopath is not simply someone who behaves differently from the norm but is very different psychologically speaking. They generally have some abnormal brain development and suffered an uncaring or abusive upbringing, and as a result do not feel emotion in the same way others do, if at all.

That is more of a description of an amoral personality disorder. while it is true sociopath behavior is an indicator of an amoral personality a sociopath is not necessarily amoral.

 

[Azy]

That is more of a description of an amoral personality disorder. while it is true sociopath behavior is an indicator of an amoral personality a sociopath is not necessarily amoral.

I think some degree of empathy is required for a person to be moral and a lack of empathy is essentially one of the hallmarks of a sociopath.