Violent games worse than Porn?

[Qui-Gon Glenn]

I, and many parents on this forum, would disagree with you.

Of course most parents would disagree, whether the assessment was accurate or no.

 

The old adage is still as true as ever - One bad egg spoils the whole bunch, at least in terms of reputation for modern parents. I feel that in this case there are far more bad eggs in the dozen, yet still I feel just as strongly that over half of parents are doing the best they can for themselves and their children.

 

I meant no disrespect to any parents in this forum - I assume, and this may be too generous, but the majority of parents hanging out around here are more intelligent than average, better educated than average, and more interested in their kid's lives than average - if for no better reason than they share with their children the love of Star Wars

 

As for porn v. violent games in the ultimate bad-off for kiddies - if I have to choose, serve the children porn. Of course, I have a sorta Brave New World attitude towards sexuality.... warped, I know.

[Miltiades]

Sex > violence.

[Ping]

I have no problem with nudity, but that's very different from porn.

 

Asking if violence is worse than porn is like asking if vomit is worse than diarrhea. Regardless of how you feel about it for adults, neither is good for children.

 

I agree with you here.

[Totenkopf]

Sex > violence.

 

Only if you're personally involved. Otherwise.....I'd rather watch a movie or play a game w/a lot of violence than sex.

[Darth333]

That is quite simply,

. Have you seen the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel? The immodesty of it!

 

My thoughts, exactly...especially since the restoration and the removal of the "vine leaves" lol... Human stupidity FTW! ...We are a damned race IMHO and it's definitely not because of the Sistine Chapel ceilings & the like - d3

 

I think that the first thing is to define what porn means as the concept seems to vary quite a lot...at least for some people.

 

I, and many parents on this forum, would disagree with you. Yes, there are a lot of absentee parents, I'll agree on that. I think that has a lot to do with both parents working to make ends meet, or single-parent families where the mom or dad are working 2 jobs to support their kids. Some of it is sheer laziness. Some of it I think is new parents don't have enough training on parenting and need to learn. Some of it is lack of knowledge on how violence and porn affect youngsters, because we as adults are rather desensitized to both violence and sexual content. Many don't understand that these things affect children very differently from adults. Some of it is lack of knowledge on how to use the parental controls. How many people have trouble just programming the clock on the DVR?

Still the notion of what's acceptable and what is not varies a lot from a culture to another. I was reviewing movie ratings a few months ago just for fun and while we are just across the border (Quebec, Canada - movie rating is of Provincial jurisdiction and not national), several movies rated R or NC17 in the US due to their sexual content were rated 13+ (teenagers) or even G here and in several cases it was vice versa for violence...

[adamqd]

Sex is beautiful and natural, violence is not... but, Porn is ACTUAL sex, Video games and Films aren't Real Violence and Crime, so Porn is worse for an underage viewer IMO. But it's kinda like asking do you want to be Punched or Kicked? You don't really need to experience either tbh.

[disbeliever]

Porn is a bad thing?

[machievelli]

 

I think that the first thing is to define what porn means as the concept seems to vary quite a lot...at least for some people.

 

Still the notion of what's acceptable and what is not varies a lot from a culture to another. I was reviewing movie ratings a few months ago just for fun and while we are just across the border (Quebec, Canada - movie rating is of Provincial jurisdiction and not national), several movies rated R or NC17 in the US due to their sexual content were rated 13+ (teenagers) or even G here and in several cases it was vice versa for violence...

 

Back during Nixon's first administration they created the President's committee on Obscenity and Pornography. The idea was the Feds could create a 'rationale' for what was really porn, and the States could create laws using it to restrict what they wanted to.

 

It was the most stacked committee of it's time in history. Mothers of teens, churchmen, conservative business people. The kind you would think have a specific idea in mind. After about 20 million dollars and two years, their decision was 'Porn is in the eye of the beholder'.

 

Everyone has that one kink that to them is erotic, and to anyone else is just plain sick. My ex worked briefly at a phone sex place, and lost her job because a caller started in on his specific kink and she busted up laughing. She was still chortling as they cut her last check.

 

As to what that kink was, of for that matter what mine might be, use your imagination...

[Tobias Reiper]

I don't really care whether or not Pr0n is bad or violent games are bad for kids, because they (the kids) obviously don't, and it's futile to try and stop 'em.

Most kids these days delve into sex anyway, so I don't think watching it really matters at that point, and if a kid's mom won't let him play an M rated game, chances are his friend already has it and they view it anyway.

[Blix]

I'm probably going to regret saying this, but playing violent games has never made me want to go out and suplex old ladies or destroy people's cars with a broom...err, keyblade.

 

same thing with pr0n, i've never been inclined to throw on a g-string and star in the worst adult film ever because I "might" have seen some bad 80's smut.

 

case in point: people/kids immitating what they see in movies/games means they're playing too much and need to go out and play some football. As for the adults...well therapy is always an option.

[machievelli]

I'm probably going to regret saying this, but playing violent games has never made me want to go out and suplex old ladies or destroy people's cars with a broom...err, keyblade.

 

same thing with pr0n, i've never been inclined to throw on a g-string and star in the worst adult film ever because I "might" have seen some bad 80's smut.

 

case in point: people/kids immitating what they see in movies/games means they're playing too much and need to go out and play some football. As for the adults...well therapy is always an option.

 

Never regret speaking your mind, kid. If you have ever read Mazes and Monsters, the same thing was said about Role Playing games, and comments about how (Insert here) causes unseemly behavior have been said since Ben Franklin, right up to Evils being censored (They showed him only from the Belly Button up on Ed Sullivan in the 60s) because his gyrations were supposed to incite women into frenzies.

 

It all boils down to 'I don't like it and I wish they would stop themselves'.

 

As Robert Heinlien in the Moon is a Harsh Mistress said People don't pass laws to stop themselves from doing something, they do it to stop people from doing things that offend them.

[urluckyday]

I think porn can warp a kid's mind to some level of perversion.

 

However, I think that just like Violent games/movies, the only way the person is going to be affected in a great way is if they have some other sort of problem. I watched a lot of violent stuff when I was a kid...nothing ridiculously gory, but I was in love w/ the old WW2 movies, and I turned out just find. I don't abuse animals, hit women, and I've never even been in a fight, all after watching war, action, fighting movies as a child that were intended for teenagers and even adults.

 

It all starts w/ parents. Bad parents = bad lifestyle one way or another.

[Darth333]

case in point: people/kids immitating what they see in movies/games means they're playing too much and need to go out and play some football.

I think this is overly simplistic.

 

I remember that one of my past secretaries who had five kids used to cross the street when she'd see a panhandler while accompanied with one of her kids so that they wouldn't have to see "that". She use to say it would "traumatize" them instead of explaining to them what was going on. I think the same goes with a lot of other things. That being said, it doesn't mean there can't be other influences IMHO, lots of factors come into play... several kids with good parents can also turn towards unexpected things...

 

Nevertheless, when I was 13 or so, I think every kid in my class had seen a p0rn movie (there was "that" public channel airing soft porn shows at 11Pm every night. Even teachers at high school used to make fun of that show ).

 

I believe that education and how things affect children begins with parents and how they explain things and/or react to events when in the presence of their children.

[Blix]

My problem/concern is polliticians zeroing in on videogame violence (or videogames in general) as the reason for growing violence and gun-related crimes. And I agree full-heartedly that the parents need to step in and really differentiate the difference between reality and videogame-reality.

 

I'll admit that my parents never sat down and gave me a lengthy lecture about it but they did say "that's a videogame, it's fantasy-so you can't go out and do what you see."

 

I never did, but also common sense plays a big factor even as a kid I knew right from wrong and didn't go out starting fights with people. People who are going out doing those sort of things might have some mental condition or are just trying to get attention for whatever reason.

 

My main thing is that I don't believe that videogames encourage anyone to be violent especially with the new disclaimers they post on the games. Now maybe impressionable kids maybe encouragable, but with good parenting and plain common sense one should be able to discern fantasy from reality.

[juansaman]

My view here is that por and violence is something we don't like for our kids, but we can't keep the inocence forever, which I think is one of the problems of most of parents.

Sex taboo has damaged human behaviour and morality. A lot. And a lot of people doesn't receive an explanation or any word about it and have to discover their sexuality alone. Or through friends or similar, what could be even worse. Most of people will not have a problem with that, but there is people who can get confussed.

 

You know what? Nobody is going to avoid that the kids discover and/or enjoy of porn.... Like we all did. It's one of the laws of life.

I caught my 11 years old boy using porn on the internets. After that I could do two things: being mad at him which leads to nothing as that will not change his natural urges, or talk with him, which I did, explaining the difference between porn and reality, and that girls are not meat with holes, and of course, the danger of those sites (mostly about virus). I suggested him to use another kind of material as it seemed me a bit of hardcore and to use his imagination since then when nature calls.

I secretly bought a playboy magazine for him and if he does better at school, I'll give it to him.

I'm not pretending to be a model, but I did what I wished for my father to do with me about that matter.

 

Violent games? Just let them play when you know they have a bit of a brain to put in place that kind of violence and to not take it too lightly. Letting them to get used to that kind of violence without any meassure leads to an apathy I don't like. If once they play those games they love them or hate them or anything at all, will be their call. I know that my boy knows how to difference a videogame from reality, nevertheless I prefer to let him play Monkey Island and more regular games by the moment, and I'm waiting to play with him Battlefront when I got more free time and see how he reacts when killing a rebel soldier.

[jonathan7]

I'm going to make an un-equivocal statement; watching Pornography does infinity more harm to children than playing violent video games. I was going to post a whole load statics from studies related to aggression and video games, and also studies on the effects of Pornography. However in the Times this week was an extract of a book about today's young women which will make my point far more effectively;

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6990891.ece

 

It's long, but worth the read.

[Te Darasuum Mandalor]

Depending on the game, I'd say they are about the same. For instance, KOTOR, battlefront, ect. have violence, but is different than BEING violent. Most M rated games have stuff like murdering and sex and stuff, but some M games like HALO oe WHDOW don't. So, basicly what I'm saying is is that it depends on the game. SOme games like GTA and and FABLE have a mixture of that as well as violence, thats why I don't play those type of games. Any other opinions?

[Ghost]

I've seen both happen. I know a couple kids who are obsessed with porn, and cant stop thinking about it. Their personality has completely changed. Although, M games can be damaging too. Cursed Internet