Make War, Not Love

I confess that I'm not intellectual enough to keep up with documentary films--most of them honestly seem really boring, and there are too many good movies out there to sit through a snoozefest. However, I recently Netflixed the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which explains the motion picture rating system...or rather, explains that their ratings are almost completely arbitrary and therefore unexplainable. It's an interesting look into the MPAA, apparently one of the most secret organizations in the United States. But I digress.

The most intriguing topic which was breached by the documentary was the issue of sex versus violence in the media. For instance, many grisly movies packed with violence and gore are granted R ratings, while more sexually-driven movies (not pornography, merely sexual) are given NC-17 ratings. While every documentary must be viewed with a grain of salt, I'd say that overall, violence seems to be more acceptable to watch on the screen than sex. And that, well, that just really doesn't make sense.

The thing about sex that nobody really seems to think about is its basic human element. I'm going to tell you a dirty secret: penises, vaginas, and breasts occur naturally on the human body, and I'll venture to say that most of us have at least one. Oh no, did I just say penis? And vagina? I mean, these things aren't alien to the human condition! They're not swear words! Most likely, if you don't have one, you have the other. And a large, large portion of the population, once they reach sexual maturation, use them in sexual play. It's not wrong to have sex, is it? I mean, that's how we procreate, correct? People can argue that sex is only for procreation, while others believe that it should be strictly for recreation, but I'd venture a guess that lots of people believe something somewhere in the middle.

Violence (and I'm not talking about self-defense or hunting here, I'm talking shooting people in the face) isn't a necessary part of humanity. Aggression happens naturally, sure, but the violence portrayed in the media isn't what I would call "normal" violence. Liam Neeson's ass-kicking in "Taken," for example. Totally awesome? Maybe. Normal? Not at all. So why is it okay? Why is it okay to show someone maiming and/or killing people before it's okay to show a normal human function?

Not all sex is normal, of course. Bestiality, rape, child molestation: these topics are heavy, and as far as I'm concerned, belong in a different catagory. It isn't lovemaking between two consenting adults. It's the denial of admitting this aspect of human life that is really confusing.

Our culture is afraid of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Our own sexualities? Each other's sexualities? We are undersexed, we're oversexed, we talk about sex too much, we talk about it too little. I think the problem lies in the extreme overemphasis of sex as an issue. Sex as an issue is complex, it's intriguing, and I think the most important aspect of it right now is that its an untabooed taboo. All anyone can talk about is sex, but we're not really supposed to talk about it. And really, sex isn't that big of a deal.

Sure, it's pleasurable. It can result in children. It can result in the spread of disease. It can result in heartbreak. But come ON, it happens all the time! It's not some sort of momentous event that only happens to certain people of certain races and ages when the moon is full and the temperature's right! It happens pretty much everywhere, pretty much all the time. It's important to be informed about health concerns, but when isn't that important under any circumstance?

I would venture to say that most people are better acquainted with sex than violence, yet establishments such as the MPAA decree that violence is more acceptable than sex in a media outlet. And I have a theory:

For some of us, violence is a concrete idea, and that's a terrible thing. For people like me, though, violence is more abstract. I've never been shot, or stabbed, or hurt in really any way by someone wishing malicious harm. However, sex is closer to us. Many of us participate in it, to make babies or make love. Perhaps it's because sexuality is so real that seeing it affects us in a more profound way than violence. Who knows if that's a good or bad thing?

Not me.