Ron (can I call you Ron? You can call me... [From Comments]

[indiegames]

Ron (can I call you Ron? You can call me Dan. Nice to meet you!) as a gamer and a parent myself, I have to agree with you that violence in video games is glorified, but it also glorified in movies, comic books, and animation. Then again, sex is also glorified in these businesses. It is a business though, and glorified violence and glorified sex sells. Movies with crazy special effects like Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar... They sell. Or glorified martial arts movies these days with people flying around. Glorified entertainment of any kind is a seller, it is what captivates the audience.I do agree with studies that link kids playing violent video games to the very same kids acting out. Me and mom aren't together, and she lets the kids (8 and 9), play Gears of War. My son (8) has this belief that to resolve things in life, you just "kill" the opposition. Honestly, that scares me, and with good reason these days. When he's with me almost every weekend, I don't allow him to play violent games. I do speak up and explain "killing" is NOT how you resolve things. He was suspended from riding the bus twice back to back for beating kids up on the bus recently. First time was in direct control of the response. I grounded him for a day after talking to him about it. The day he got back on the bus, he did it again. Mom in control this time grounded him for a week. Hopefully he got the point about what is acceptable in games and what is acceptable in real life.However, where pornography is concerned (and I honestly have no interest in videos, I find them more humorous and silly), I can't say I'd rather they were watching porn. Granted, you did say "sex", not "porn" in the above. Which porn and sex while very much related, are also very different things. Porn doesn't go out if it's way to point out to practice safe sex, the risks involved from STDs, pregnancy, to a video being uploaded to the internet, or pictures to a cellphone.Yeah, I fully agree sex is natural and wonderful, and there's alot of hipocracy in how it's viewed in society. However, to say mainstream media runs from it? What decade are we talking about? TV commecials about viagra, cialis, enzyte, etc all over the TV. Hell, I was watching TV one night, and no joke, saw a commerical on a major TV station for a vibrator for women. As far back as I remember, late night TV had commecials for 800 and 900 numbers for phone sex. Since when in recent history do we shy away from it? Heck, we had a TV series call "Sex and The City."Worse than porn though, Japanese animated porn... Hentai. I have a massive collection of hentai actually. People complaining here that porn depicts this all screwed up needs to sit down and watch some hentai. Some of the most disturbing things I've seen are in hentai. I've never seen porn on HBO, or Cinemax that portrayed girls being raped in the worst ways imaginable then they end up liking the guy that did it, and help him rape other girls. You'll see that in plenty of hentai though! I'll leave it at that though, as there are crazy people out there who are trying to ban hentai and hentai games from being imported from Japan, and blame games like Rapelay on violent crimes. Riiiight. It's always the games (never the parents in control of what their kids do).In the end, it's about the context in which that which is being viewed is portrayed. A simple love/sex scene in a movie I do believe is far less harmless in comparison to say, Modern Warfare 2. If we're talking about say... Two famous movies for their content.. Natural Born Killers vs Showgirls... I might honestly go with Showgirls. Both movies have a purpose, and executes them quite well in ways. However, I'd say Showgirls is the lesser of the evils because it doesn't follow a path of "this is acceptable and this is OK." Infact, I would almost see it as "here's why you don't wanna grow up to be a stripper or a Vegas dancer!" Still, they will see neither, and I don't own either one. If it was say Friday The 13th vs a movie with you, Ron... It's Friday The 13th.However, as people do note, violence is in our human nature... As far as as history records, there has always been sex, and there has always been violence. It's almost as if we cannot have one without the other.Here we are, apparently civilized, and still in Iraq (I don't understand)... Still in Afghanistan (I fully understand). Kids get out of high school, join the military, a few months later they are grunts on the frontlines, ready to kill and be killed. Some enjoy the bloodshed, some don't. Military orders that are given that knowingly result in civilian deaths. We try to deny it happens though. We get involved in proxy wars that have gone in for centuries, and in so many cases for what? We then turn these wars into Friday night entertainment by making a movie about it, or a mini series about it. I mention this because I saw Black Hawk Down was on TV last night. Great movie imo, but I also force myself to remember such events really did happen. George Romero recently made a movie about how people are fascinated by violence, and compelled to look at it, document it, etc. Violence is natural, it is just repressed because it is not acceptable by civilized society and laws.So Ron, I mostly agree with you, but it also comes down to the context of the content being viewed, and the maturity level of those viewing it. And in either case of sex or violence, should parents for whatever reason allow their kids to view it in ANY context, it should be without question the responsibility of the parent to explain what acceptable and not acceptable in the real world. As for kids getting into the stuff without parents knowing, then those parents need to take more precautions and steps to ensure they can't do that. Most parents I think are too lazy to give a damn.Ron, if you're still reading, thanks for taking the time to read one of my excessive internet posts! I have written far more than I intended. I do have to say though, I was recently talking about you. In particular about how we live in a world where if you drop your pants and whip it out, you get paid. If I did that, people would run away screaming, and I'd be arrested. Seriously... I don't get it! :P~ Dan

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