[QUOTE=fable]Personally, I think that any society which regards violence as normal and sex as restricted is itself in bad need of therapy, and sick, sick, sick.[/QUOTE]
Make war, not love.
I've never understood the reasoning behind buying little Jimmy combat simulation games and/or fighting match-style games where scantily clad pixelated females in g-strings and wonder-bras (with cartoonish proportions) duke it out with other, similarly depicted females...or with some brute that lives in hell and only comes out for matches against said pixelated females. However, they won't teach little Jimmy the first thing about the human body, responsibility, or what to do with his hormones when they come rushing in. Some people have their priorities straight, but the industry never has, and probably never will.
CYNIC, n.:
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. -[url="http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/a.html"]The Devil's Dictionary[/url]
[QUOTE=dragon wench]I've always had trouble grasping how a society can condone explicit violence while placing taboos on human sexuality. To my mind...the latter is (ideally) one of the most natural and beautiful things in the world, ditto with the human body.[/QUOTE]
Ideally, perhaps--alone with a lover, for example. Why is it that when we think of nudity, we think of beautiful people? Quite frankly, I'm glad that people don't take off their clothing in public.
I've never understood the reasoning behind buying little Jimmy combat simulation games and/or fighting match-style games where scantily clad pixelated females in g-strings and wonder-bras (with cartoonish proportions) duke it out with other, similarly depicted females...or with some brute that lives in hell and only comes out for matches against said pixelated females. However, they won't teach little Jimmy the first thing about the human body, responsibility, or what to do with his hormones when they come rushing in...[/QUOTE]
The reasoning seems to be that if parents teach little Jimmy about sex, he'll have sex with girls instead of just looking at cartoon images of girls.
[QUOTE=VonDondu]Ideally, perhaps--alone with a lover, for example. Why is it that when we think of nudity, we think of beautiful people? Quite frankly, I'm glad that people don't take off their clothing in public. [/QUOTE]
Fair point I guess in my case, there are a couple of reasons for this. One, I really appreciate tasteful black and white nude photography, and usually an image like this is what I use as my desktop. Second, I live in Vancouver, near a clothing optional beach, no less. While there are always exceptions, many people living in this city are quite health conscious and oriented towards outdoors activities. Not everybody I see at the beach has a beautifully buffed body, but the vast majority do in fact reflect a fairly healthy lifestyle, so it is what I have gotten used to.
Though this is getting into an entirely different thread topic. Sorry all
Spoiler
testingtest12
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Spoiler
testingtest12
.......All those moments ... will be lost ... in time ... like tears in rain.
What I think part of the problem is is that people expect too much from the game industry. Video games are not there to raise kids. In fact, lately there have been more adults than ever playing them. Look at this forum. Not very many kids here, and the ones we do have are pretty mature for the most part.
On the topic of nudity and sexuality, as VD said they are ideally very good things. What I have found though, is that those depictions in video games are not generally of the positive variety. It's not often your character is intimate with his/her soulmate. More often he/she gets busy with a prostitute, then robs him/her. I'm not saying that it is intrisically worse than violence, but in many cases the two are equal evils.
And to answer the question of why North Americans shy away from nudity in general I can say this as I have before. America(and to a lesser extent Canada and Mexico) is a Christian nation whether we want to admit it or not, and Christiaty doesn't support nudity or sensuality at all in any form..
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security,
will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." Thomas Jefferson
[QUOTE=jopperm2]What I think part of the problem is is that people expect too much from the game industry. Video games are not there to raise kids. In fact, lately there have been more adults than ever playing them. Look at this forum. Not very many kids here, and the ones we do have are pretty mature for the most part. [/quote]
But we are also a very atypical forum. And although there's no way to get a sense of age online (unless you simply believe unverifiable responses, which isn't sound), the replies clearly indicate that a majority of posters are pre- or early adolescent.
In any case, I can't buy your initial statement, above. To be sure, media of all sorts are scapegoats for politicians and consumer groups looking for a convenient vent to attack for their own lack of responsibility. But at the same, computer game companies develop and release titles that essentially follow the herd, dishing out maximum violence while treating women like sex objects. Would it hurt to provide female heroes who didn't look like blow-up dolls in spandex? If they meant a gore filter to be real, wouldn't they put a password lock on it for parents to administer? If they want to be taken seriously as contributors to society, as they proclaim all the time, wouldn't they develop some titles that require the mind to solve problems--or at least, occasionally involved the use of the brain, after dishing out endless violence? The fact that game companies actually seek out a "mature" ESRB rating in itself is a clue to the fact that want the biggest sales, and hang all the rest.
So mommy and daddy have the first line of responsibility for how their kids are raised. But the media, which consumes their time, needs to exericse a sense of responsibility for their product as well, if only because our environments do influence the ways we develop. When you spend dozens of hours per week around computer games, as many kids do, the fact that they're playing in a morally black-and-white world where you destroy all the baddies and think about nothing else is...disturbing. Except, I suppose, if you're George Bush.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
So mommy and daddy have the first line of responsibility for how their kids are raised. But the media, which consumes their time, needs to exericse a sense of responsibility for their product as well, if only because our environments do influence the ways we develop. When you spend dozens of hours per week around computer games, as many kids do, the fact that they're playing in a morally black-and-white world where you destroy all the baddies and think about nothing else is...disturbing. Except, I suppose, if you're George Bush.[/QUOTE]
I entirely agree with this. I also want to mention, though, that not enough parents take any level of responsability. Instead they simply go by the ratings rather than previewing games themselves. As I mentioned here, we recently had this experience with Fable. The game directly alludes to sex, homosexuality and drinking alcohol; it has a mature rating. IMO, a teen rating would have sufficed. I honestly think (without wanting to sound like a Libertarian, which I'm not ) that there are far too many people out there who expect somebody else to take care of things for them. So, IMO, complacent parents are as much to blame as the media and gaming industry itself.
Spoiler
testingtest12
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Spoiler
testingtest12
.......All those moments ... will be lost ... in time ... like tears in rain.
