Sex and Censorship

[scotth266]

You see, in the US, sex is seen in a far worse light than violence in media: hence the uproar.

Not at all--have you seen any protests organized against movies that show male genitalia? Whereas in Japan, an entire segment of hentai (tentacle porn) arose partly in response to the fact that it's illegal to portray male genitalia in Japan. I've seen at least two movies in the U.S. with live male genitalia in them, and there are probably quite a few more out there. The problem is that people take the ratings on movies more seriously because the market is developed and people have gone to and seen R-rated movies that are CLEARLY not appropriate for children. (I've seen R-Rated movies that I think weren't appropriate for ANYONE, regardless of age!)

Whereas, people still buy M-rated games for their kids regardless of age because they don't take the warnings seriously (or even know they exist). That, and the groups that do take the age-appropriate warnings seriously are usually obstreperous jerks trying to *ban* mature content rather than just help people stop exposing their kids to it.

Even the movie thing doesn't work perfectly, as evidenced by the 8 or 9-year-old kid I saw at a Watchmen showing. I wonder how the hell his parents explained that movie to him, or if they even tried.

Ok, there's one scarred 8-year-old....

But to your response: movies with giant blue penisis in them isn't exactly the same as watching giant blue tentacles have sex with someone....
Regardless of that, the issue here is that games are the movies of this generation. Movies had to fight long and hard to be able to get to the point where they are now, and games are just starting out in this fight. Hence the uproar about Mass Effect.
In 10-20 years, sex in games will be the way sex in movies is now: present in full force. Until then though, there will be several hard-fought battles.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I don't expect hard-fought battles, I expect Feature Creep, which is usually what happens anyway.

 

[Altorin]

"sex, even prostitution, is usually legal, at least when compared to murder."

I lolled.

 

[mooncalf]

"As a culture we need to embrace nudity like other forms of art embraced it long ago if video games will ever evolve as an art form."

A good quote in itself, but can pornography and prostitution be boiled down to just nudity or art?

Why is nudity automatically porn or prostitution? Sure that is one side of the spectrum but isn't there another? Can't a game use nudity in a tasteful manner? Look at the GTA DLC, sure alot of people were shocked. They accused Rockstar of putting it in for shock value. It wasn't Rockstar that made it shocking though. It was society.

Please don't mistake me, nudity isn't automatically anything. Remembering Dangerious' examples, the streetwalkers of GTA3 were never actually nude, besides that little rocking car animation was funny.

One modder made the hot coffee patch, not society, using scraps from the cutting room floor which Rockstar had forgotten to tidy away. The resulting scandal IMO was indeed overblown, but that was society's response, and conservative people in our societies won that round.

 

[squid5580]

"As a culture we need to embrace nudity like other forms of art embraced it long ago if video games will ever evolve as an art form."

A good quote in itself, but can pornography and prostitution be boiled down to just nudity or art?

Why is nudity automatically porn or prostitution? Sure that is one side of the spectrum but isn't there another? Can't a game use nudity in a tasteful manner? Look at the GTA DLC, sure alot of people were shocked. They accused Rockstar of putting it in for shock value. It wasn't Rockstar that made it shocking though. It was society.

Please don't mistake me, nudity isn't automatically anything. Remembering Dangerious' examples, the streetwalkers of GTA3 were never actually nude, besides that little rocking car animation was funny.

One modder made the hot coffee patch, not society, using scraps from the cutting room floor which Rockstar had forgotten to tidy away. The resulting scandal IMO was indeed overblown, but that was society's response, and conservative people in our societies won that round.

I was refering to the full frontal of a certain male in the Lost and the Damned. The only mistake from the Hot Coffee was it should have been AO especially on the console versions.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

People are too touchy about everything. Why there's any censorship period in an M RATED GAME is beyond me.

 

[mike1921]

I once watched a video on youtube about this, the person made a very convincing arguement. He said something of the lines of, "As a culture we need to embrace nudity like other forms of art embraced it long ago if video games will ever evolve as an art form."

I think parents would shit bricks if they went to a site like Fileplanet and found all the nude mods there.

Sounds like this guy if you paraphrased: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFywW99Uvwc

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

People are more prudish when it comes to video games than with other genres like film or anime. Just look at Watchmen with its glowing blue penis and sex scenes or Elfen Lied which featured gratuitous violence in every episode and nudity/sexuality in most. Neither generated anywhere near the outrage of hot coffee.

I for one blame parents. Yes parents, because so many of them are too dumb to read the rating labels that are on the box then cry for censorship after buying Leisure Suit Larry or Grand Theft Auto for an eight year old.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Sex is seen as a lot worse in the U.S than sex, so I guess that might be it.

Sex is more taboo in the U.S. then violence. Therefor sex is judged more harshly then violence. Why exactly this, I don't know.
p.s. this quote is a paraphrase.

 

[Pr0]

To butt in late on the topic.

I'd just like to point out that very little pornography actually rates as "art" and no its not because I have a problem with pornography, I just don't consider two monkeys screwing each other at the zoo art and about 98% of all pornography, especially since the dawn of the internet, falls right about into that category except the hominids in question are slightly more evolved physically.

But, the censorship of sex in games has always pissed me off to a certain degree, as an adult gamer, and a life time gamer since the Coleco/Intellivision days, I sort of get a little unhinged every time a good title stops just short of the mark of finally coming straight out and saying "Yes we know you 30 somethings are playing too, this game is for you". I get a little tired of having my gaming experiences limited to simply disemboweling human beings in the most brutal ways imaginable...but if theres a nipple involved anywhere its suddenly too racy for games.

Games are no longer the domain of children. There are childrens games, and there are adult games...and adult games shouldn't be crapped down the river simply because children also play games.

Theres no reason why I should not be able to enjoy/accept sex and sexual content in the games I choose to play as long as a PARENT somewhere is ensuring that if they choose not to let their children be exposed to that kind of experience, that the child isn't.

And the whole holding back of the arts industries, in general, as a crutch for lazy, inept, ill informed parenting, is the biggest red herring of our modern age.

"Oh its okay Billy that you're using a chainsaw to saw your friends player in half, but don't let me catch you watching nude women. God forbid I find out my son is heterosexual...or worse....hes watching nude men...that would be horrible, so much more horrible than him literally sawing his friends in half....with a chainsaw, in an online game."

Its sophistry, mutilation is acceptable, stimulation is not?

As I like to say and am often quoted as saying....."F*ck this Planet"

And I believe this subject deserves the self quotation.

 

[Iron Mal]

As some have said before me, video/computer games are still generally viewed as being for 'kids only' and as of such whenever a panic is started surrounding a game (even if it has a 15 or 18 rating and thus shouldn't even be played by kids in the first place) one of the first concerns will always be something surrounding the concept of 'what about the children!?'.

Which of the two do parents worry more about? Their children becoming slightly more agressive and a bully on the playground as school? Or their children potentially becoming sexual deviants and sex offenders?

 

[Spacelord]

I think it's because viewing sexual content has a physical reaction, whereas violence not so much.

Also that a kid playing 'gears of war' in the park with his friends, running about and shouting 'bang' isn't gonna cause any problems, whereas if he's in the park simulating the hot coffee mod with 'friends', there's going to be raised eyebrows.

You know, that's the first time I've ever come across a reasonable argument for censoring sex more than violence. I'm sure a lot of censor-happy people feel this way, but nobody has ever managed to express it before that I've read or heard. It makes a lot more sense when you put it this way than the usual "think of the children!" non-argument.

Maybe I'm getting old, but that was a HUGE issue about 12 years ago: kids re-enacting the Power Rangers and skinning a knee in the sandbox, next day a mass hysteria about how the Power Rangers should be banned because of it inciting violence in children. They actually succeeded here. Anxious housewives and religious pundits managed to bully most networks into a Power Rangers free Holland.

Anyway: aren't kids that are clever enough to install a third party mod succesfully also a bit too sensible to drop drawers at the monkey bars?

history lesson ^^

Awesome I didn't know that. Thank you!

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

Well this again is an issue caused by silly parents giving a 10 year old child and 18+ certificated game.
I know there are far more things to it than that. But if a game says on the metaphorical tin "Contains scenes of a sexual nature, strong violence and offensive language" and a parent give their child it, they shouldn't be offended when the game has exactly what it offered.

I think half the issue here is with parents getting uppity about their kids seeing this stuff.

I mean at the movies kids under 18 wont be allowed in to see a film (unless they look convincingly older, like i seemed to when i was younger.

 

[The Hairminator]

There really are a lot of prudes in the world, seeming that violence seems to be more harmless than love.

 

[Same River New Water]

Maybe I'm getting old, but that was a HUGE issue about 12 years ago: kids re-enacting the Power Rangers and skinning a knee in the sandbox, next day a mass hysteria about how the Power Rangers should be banned because of it inciting violence in children. They actually succeeded here. Anxious housewives and religious pundits managed to bully most networks into a Power Rangers free Holland.

Come to think of it, back in the mid-90s I was living in New Zealand and the same thing happened there: kids were banned from playing Power Rangers at school. So of course, being typical 8-year-olds, we played the exact same games and if anyone asked we said we were playing "Space Ninjas".

And the next year, back in Australia, the school tried to ban kids from playing British Bulldogs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Bulldogs_(game)] - so we renamed it French Poodles, semi-confident that made it ok. Kids are hilarious.

 

[ssgt splatter]

My understanding is that kids are innocent, and parents want that to last as long as possible. And it is a lot easier to tell little billy that the red stuff is really ketchup then giving him an early birds-and-the-bees talk.

Ok, this has been bugging me ever since I first heard this phrase, why do they call it the birds and the bees talk? How do birds and bees have anything to do with it?

 

[blood77]

My understanding is that kids are innocent, and parents want that to last as long as possible. And it is a lot easier to tell little billy that the red stuff is really ketchup then giving him an early birds-and-the-bees talk.

Ok, this has been bugging me ever since I first heard this phrase, why do they call it the birds and the bees talk? How do birds and bees have anything to do with it?

Well little billy it works like this:

A bird lays and egg, then a bee comes and stings it thus "fertelizing" the egg so it can hatch into a chick.

But this is why we have wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birds_and_the_bees]