I'm going under the assumption that K.E. Davis and G.N. Braucht, in their technical reports of the repercussions of media exposure to pornography (and how that exposure relates to character and sexual deviance), didn't classify "deviance" as a variation from the missionary position.


Of course, I would agree with you that a normal child, raised in a loving and value-based home, isn't going to become a serial killer or psycho from viewing an R movie.

We do hope for more from our children than that, though, don't we? There are so many negative elements all around, and adverse influences which effect the type of individuals those children become. Why add to the negative influence, and actually invite it in the home?

Well I know I certainly do! Haven't ever considered my role as a mother just assuring my child does not murder or rape someone. Why do we have to have such extreme examples. Why not just the idea that kids become desensitized? Why is that not worrying enough to some of you..which in itself is worrying. Seems like only murder or rape would be a good enough excuse for some of you to belive it would be a negative influence. What about peaceful non-aggressive actions in order to resolve conflict? Or how about being horrified by violent behavior that you would not casually walk by a stranger being attacked as if it was just everyday life? Or perhaps just the idea that violence is not an accepted form of behavior and it is not cool to kick cats, or beat on little kids or hit your siblings, or yell and scream for what you want or to throw things and smash up things when you are mad. Oh no we have to place murder and rape as our indicators of negative influences. Why?!

I voted depends.

If a child is exposed to sex and violence without any adult input yes that would be detrimental to the child. I also believe that each child's temperament and personality varies.

For example my daughter was able to grasp at a very young age the concept of realty and fantasy. Much to my amazement.. nothing seems to phase her. My Husband and Daughter laugh at me when I hide my head during suspenseful portions of films. My daughter is not desensitized though, judging by her reaction to 911. In many ways we are still processing that experience (We lived within viewing distance of the Trade Center and Violence came home that day). My son on the other hand tends to take after me in such areas and I tend to limit what he watches and make a greater point of thoroughly processing things that he views with him. He is on a learning curve and being a realist I acknowledge that in our post 911 society he does need to learn to cope with difficult imagery.

As for sex I walk a very fine line with that subject as well. We talk, I allow my children to take the lead as to the level of their understanding and I will never lie to them. I supply them with what I consider age appropriate information and I am amazed as to how much they grasp on their own. I will never forget the day in a ShopRite parking lot that sex came up in a very abstract manner and my 2nd grade daughter began to giggle. I of course could not let that lie and to my amazement she understood. I had given her a book about procreation amongst plants and animals when I was pregnant for my son. She referred directly to the book and then told me well of course she knows how babies are made "well we are all mammals MOM, aren't we?".

I guess in a nutshell I believe that I am in control of the media that my children are exposed to, and I like it that way. What I consider to be pertinent and age appropriate to my children may be radically different than to what others would allow their children. I will respect the choices of other parents, I will also respect their child rearing strategies though I would hope that they respect mine in return. In the end we all love our children and will strive to do the best we can for them. I do not know a parent that feels any other way. For a parent that feels that PBS their only media choice, there are parental controls to aide them.

I do believe that violence in the media has negative consequences on children. I remember back in the mid 90s there was a MTV show that encouraged children to eat glass and stated that their friends would not be hurt if they were shot. I personally believe that such shows that have no regard for the amount of bodily harm someone could endure should be taken off the air.

It would definitely help if you gave ANY sort of information about that show. And given your track record for logical fallacies on this subject, I somehow doubt that the intent was what you think it was. As a matter of fact, I'm not convinced that the show even existed since all of your arguments seem to be "Well, there was this guy, who did this thing, and stuff happened, and he wanted to hurt every rabbit he saw, and now he was desensitized and learned to hate extraterrestrials and orcs, and.....and Grossman agrees with me, so read his book."

But for the sake of argument, let's say it's exactly like you said. The people making the show aren't going around force-feeding anyone glass. If someone chooses to do it, that's their problem. Chlorine for the gene pool.

I do have one question: your example of the "mystery show" proves....what? You haven't shown the harm that actually resulted from this show. Meaning that it actually HAPPENED. Like, in the past, and stuff.

What I find really ironic is that through all these threads there has been only one person refusing to acknowledge any difference between media violence and real violence. That would be you. In contrast to all of us "desensitized" and "dangerous" people, who seem to have learned the difference between real and make believe sometime in the first decade of their life.

Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the show - I only read about it in my high school newspaper.

I believe children are indeed influenced by on screen violence and on screen sex. I believe this because I can still remember being 'impressed' by various things I saw as a child. Most often however what impressed me 'sexually' was often not sex, but other things which left an odd impression upon my childhood mind. Watching the pretty assistant being 'chopped up' or strapped in a box had a very powerful effect on me, so powerful that I can still remember it, though its never caused me to venture into sado masochism. (It did'nt do much to endear me towards magicians either).
There were many other things that influenced me though, old buildings and weird people. I believe that meeting strange and unusual people in the street can have much the same psychological impact on a child, as can the experience of being in the presence of a powerful machine (like watching a bull dozer on a construction site).

I think what people must remember is that children are not simply empty vessels that are filled with outside influences though. They are able to make decision based on experience, and what they know of what they see.
Even though children are very naive, they are not stupid (for the most part) Mother nature has seen fit to supply us with instincts and the ability to make judgements, and I think the best way to make a judgement is to understand the implications of that judgement.

Thus, if you tell your children why it is better not to talk to strangers, rather than simply ordering them to not talk to strangers, then having the additional information (that the stranger might be dangerous) is going to make it easier for the child to make the decision not to talk to the stranger.

How much you want to tell your children is of course up to the individual parent, but I don't believe that any on else has the right to tell parents what they can and cannot tell their children (short of breaking the law of course). I don't think it really matters what the children see on screen, providing they understand what they are seeing.
Its a parents responsibility to monitor the child's experiences and that includes what the child may watch on TV. If the parent cannot adequately explain why the policeman shot the alien, then the parent should not allow the child to watch it happening.

Being what the media would call a "child" myself, i have a personal take on violent movies and video games and the like. If you see someone rape and kill gwenyth paltrow in a movie one would have to be pretty thick to go and rape and kill gwenyth paltrow. "The tv did it therefore its ok!" ITs old corporate farts fearing what they dont understand

I'm not sure how old you are, FWR, but I have two children,
ages 3 and 6. And, if they were to view a movie with adult
content (i.e. graphic sexual content, or violence) it would have
an adverse effect on them. Maybe viewing Silence of the Lambs
would not cause my sons to become murderers, but it WOULD cause
unnecessary emotional stress. So, why expose them to that?
And, the same would go for children above the age of mine.
There is no way these types of films are going to BENEFIT our
youth. If we would do a better job of exposing children to loving,
peaceful, creative movies, our future would be much brighter.

I'm not 3 years old, as you probably assumed but i do agree, movies with "adult content" did cause for me it was the movie Mars Attacks. however it is only some children who are effected by this. i know someone who saw the leprechaun movies at the age of 3 and has turned out fine without any emotional stress. this is very dependent on the specific child. unfortunately there isnt really a way to know how your child will react without exposing them to said material. <---If you can prove me wrong on that.

The point is, it is a risk. No one can tell who will be negatively affected and who will be unaffected. It's pretty safe to say there isn't much benefit that a child obtains from watching adult programs or violence - and if there is any benefit it doesn't outweight the risk that the child MAY be negatively affected.


Just like your child might be able run across the street without looking both ways and no harm come to him, but the RISK is great and the benefit is small - so why chance it?

So, what, exactly, is the point of exposing them to 'said material'?

To say, "Hey! We let him watch Freddy from the age of five until ten, and he didn't turn into a serial killer! We won!"

There is enough evidence (already cited and mentioned) from reputable sources indicating that exposing children to violent imagery is a bad idea. There is no point in testing that theory with your own children.

I voted "It Depends". I do believe that sex and violence can influence kids, but in different ways, depending on how it's presented and handled.

There are a lot of factors to consider.

In theory I don't have a problem with my children seeing a small amount of non-graphic, non-violent sex in films. But in practice, there are a lot of sex scenes that I do have a problem with. I have two daughters, so I'm concerned about how sex is portrayed when it comes to women.

Some examples:

In many American films, a sex scene might include full frontal nudity of a woman while avoiding showing anything other than the bare chest of a man. I would be concerned that this would teach my girls that women's bodies are pleasurable to view, but not a man's. I would prefer either no nudity or equal, limited nudity.

What if the film is depicting a stripper or prostitute? Again, I feel it is sending the wrong message to young girls -- your bodies are for men's pleasure.


As for violence, I also have mixed feelings. I personally flinch and have a deep emotional reaction when I see violence in film (I do avoid seeing "action' and "horror" films for that reason), and my parental instinct is to keep my children away from that.

On the other hand, I have let my nine year old see some films in which there is some depiction of war or battles -- nothing extreme or gory. I think it's important for her to have an understanding (even if limited) of what violence can do. It seems that there is an emotional detachment in the country from the suffering of others in the world.

Of course, when I do let her watch something with that type of content, I do discuss it will her -- I feel that parental handling of the subject matter is very important.

Discussion helps to reinforce the unreality of the film, or even in influential advertisements, for that matter. I remember having discussions with my mother of the "brand name" versus generic. It quickly became apparent how silly it was to spend extra on the label was when the contents were identical to the generic, for example.

Over the past weekend, I attended a matinee screening of Kill Bill Vol. 2. Not only did some families see fit to bring their children under the age of 10, a few women also brought their infants in. Sobbing most of the time, these children were a nuisance to the rest of the viewing audience. My problem, however, was that these parents were fine with bringing their children to this film. During one scene where a character imparts the tragic demise of a fish, one child started crying and the parent told him to be quiet.

My instinct was to chew out the parent and/or inform management, but my friends calmed me down. After all, it is not really my place to tell others how to behave. While I thought it was inappropriate, could I honestly speak up? Is that pushing my moral views onto another person (which I dislike intensely)? After all, the film is rated R, which allows children to attend with parental guidance.

I personally believe sex and violence have little effect on children, although this must be balanced by good parenting and conversation. A good parent needs to inform their children the difference between the reality of life and the fiction of film. There's even a conversation in Kill Bill where one character must learn to deal with the irreparable consequences of her actions.

Children are wise and intelligent, even when many adults do not give them enough credit. They recognize the differences between movies and reality, but it definitely helps if a parent can guide the child into sensible thinking. I grew up prohibited from watching movie violence and sex, but I still managed to see it. I think it is good to show children that the world can be a vicious, cruel place. It's better to slowly expose them to the realities of life than to bubble them up and throw them to the sharks when they have to finally deal with the outside world.

I agree that there are many instances of violence and sex that I would not want children to see (Kill Bill being one of them). But there are people who think overprotecting their children is beneficial, when in fact it can have the opposite of the intended effect. Children have grown up to be serial killers and mass murderers well before movie sex and violence came around. It isn't fair to scapegoat.

I would have to agree with the "it depends" answer to this debate question. The American Psychological Association has weighed in on this and have found some interesting things. For one, they found that the viewing of violence leads children to have a lower level of sensitivity to the pain and suffering of others, it makes them more afraid of the world around them, and they are more likely to act aggressively to others. On the flipside, the APA concedes that the there is a lot of disagreement about whether or not television causes violence. The APA also encourages parents to explain situations to childern:



I have a 15 month old, so I obviously don't have to explain much(it would be ludicrious to do so) but my wife and I have taken the approach of not watching objectionable material in front of our child. When he does get older, yes-we will probably let him watch The Terminator, or other movies like that.

I have watched violent movies in the past (i'm 19) and it hasn't made me "afraid of the world around me".

I think for some it does effect them in the ways APA says it does but it might sometimes cause kids to act aggressively to others. WWF has made some act aggressively. I remember there was a 12 year old who killed his younger sibling when they were "imitating" some moves on the WWF

Growing up I was aloud to watch whatever I =purple] please at what ever age.My mother and I have a open realtionship and if I ever had any questions I could ask her. However since I'm a girl and seeing sex on tv I wanted to know more about it and how it worked. My father is a very privite person and whenever there was sex he would change the channel. My father ignored there was sex in the world and always told me he never did it. ((ofcours I figured out he lied soon)) I think its more important for a father to sit down with a daughter and talk about sex since when a girl dont have a father to turn to she runs to any guy/boy that will show her love and that results in more teen pregnancy. Okay I got off topic I'm sorry. But this does tye in to my point. My point is it is up to the parents and how they want to raise their children. They can limit what they see at home. They can also make it clear to other parents what they wish their child to see. I think it is important for all children at a young age to learn what is right and wrong. I think that you should never say this is pretend. It just messes with a childs head. My mother always told me yes, this could happen in real life and it is wrong and bad and if you do it you will go to jail. Learning what the consequences were made me never want to do it and I never thought as it as pretend. If you tell a child its pretend they could copy and say I was only pretending like the movies. This is a hard issue for me because I agree with both sides of it. and I could ramble for hours. But thanks for listening to my some what opinion

IMHO, absolutely. Our children are being bombarded with graphic sex and violence through all media:
1 - Movies
2 - Television - premium channels
3 - Internet
4 - Magazines
5 - Product advertisements
6 - Billboards
7 - Video games
8 - Etc.

Our young are subjected to the normal amount of peer-pressure, along with all the cracks about size, weight, looks, intelligence or lack thereof, as well as their regular physical development and raging hormones.

One only has to look at the past 20 years to see the increase in teenage violence and pregnancies to see where it's all going. You know, hey it feels good, so why not. Schools are handing our condums, which in effect says, go ahead get all you want, and oh by the way, if she get pregnant - we'll arainge for an abortion - and your parents don't have to know.

Additionally, with more "kids having kids", there is a tremendous failure in their upbringing - they haven't figured out who they are, so how can they raise a child to be responsible and a productive member of society when what they really want to do is "party hearty".

Regretfully, the overall liberal and humanistic doctrines have become intrenched and are negatively influencing our young. It's nothing to hear a child tell his / her parent to go "f" yourself.

President Herbert Hoover once stated:
“Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitiveness to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior.”

“We must seek revival of our strength in the spiritual foundations which are the bedrock of our republic. Democracy is the outgrowth of the religious conviction of the sacredness of every human life. On the religious side, its highest enlightenment is the Bible; on the political side, the Constitution.”

I feel this is as applicable today as when he first said them.

I worked for a mental health facility and especially with children at risk. These kids had a multitude of problems - all were convicted felons. I also sat in the classrooms and worked with them to develop relationships with peers.

The more messed up the kid, the more they had been exposed to sex and violence on TV and movies. Since the TV was usually the baby sitter in most of these households, they got a heavy dose of what was on. Lots of videos rented and played over and over. Then quite a few games that were very violent.

Add that to the mix of parents being arrested, stoned, drunk, beating each other up, stealing, going to jail, etc. etc. and it was a toxic dose that desensitized them. They were more violent to peers and family members.

I agree that we all need to monitor what the kids watch and what they do - but there is so much available out there. It's harder to find things to do and watch that are NOT violent or loaded with sexual innuendos!

Do you have any sources to back this up? I don't have time to research the teenage violence statistics right now, but I've got some surprising data on teen pregnancy. Check out United States Pregnancy Rates for Teens, 15-19. It shows that teenage pregnancies have gone down over the last 20 years, and we are currently at the lowest ever recorded rate. And yes, it does record pregnancies that ended in abortions, so you can't use a "more abortions" excuse to explain this decline.


Ever heard of the V-Chip? It comes standard in all new TV sets now and allows parents to restrict the viewing of shows with certain ratings. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe those liberals (the Clinton administration) that you seem to despise pushed the legislation through to become law. Fancy that, the liberals are actually helping!


I agree with most people on this thread that it's all about putting sex and violence in the right context. For example, there's a joke that George Carlin did a while ago, where he "proves" that rape is funny. Now of course, the actual concept of rape is serious, but he was making a joke about it.

With kids normally seeking out entertainment sources that are purely for entertainment (i.e they aren't watching the History Channel, Discovery Channel, etc.), they may not realize the difference between shows that are meant to entertain, and those that are meant to inform (except that nonfiction shows are boring). Having a responsible adult around to explain this key difference to children most likely lessens the effect that sex and violence will have on their developing minds.

Although statistics may show a decline to some extent in teen pregnancy, we have to consider that these figures are from what has been reported, and take into account that not every teen pregnancy and abortion is actually reported.

http://womensissues.about.com/od/statistic...enpregstats.htm
Teen Pregnancy Statistics
From Nikki Katz,
Teen motherhood statistics, abortions, contraception usage, and more.
The teen pregnancy rate declined 28% from 1990 (its all time high) to 2000, and declined another 6% between 2001 and 2002. But it's still too common and affects way too many teens. Here are some more statistics involving teen pregnancy.
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Teen Pregnancies
• Over eight hundred thousand teens become pregnant each year.
• 10% of women aged 15-19 become pregnant each year.
• 19% of women who are sexually active between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant each year.
• 34% of women get pregnant at least once before the age of 20.
• The United States teen pregnancy rate has declined 28% between 1990 and 2000.
• 78% of teen pregnancies are unplanned.
• 60% of teen pregnancies are in 18 and 19 year olds.
• Teen pregnancies are much higher in the United States than any other developed country - double that of Canada and at least four times France and Germany.
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Teen Contraceptive Use
• 80% of the decrease in pregnancy rate among sexually active teens is due to effective contraceptive use.
• If a teen does not use contraceptives, she has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within one year of becoming sexually active.
• Approximately one in sex teen women combine two methods of contraception.
• Contraceptive use in teens is most often the pill (44%) or the condom (38%).
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Teen Births
• 13% of all U.S. births are to teens.
• 78% of births to teens are to unmarried women.
• 25% of teen moms have another child within two years of their first.
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Teen Mothers
• 41% of teen moms complete high school.
• 1.5% of teen moms get their college degree by the age of 30.
• A 1990 study showed that almost 33% of all teen moms and 50% of unmarried teen moms go on welfare within the first year of the birth of their first child.
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Children of Teen Mothers
• Children born to teen moms are more likely to be born premature and with a low birth weight - which raises the chance of disabilities.
• Children of teen moms are 50% more likely to repeat a grade. They perform worse on standardized tests and are less likely to complete high school.
• Daughters of teen moms are 22% more likely to become teen moms.
• Sons of teen moms are 13% more likely to go to prison.
Teen Pregnancy Statistics - Teen Abortion
• Nearly 40% of teen pregnancies end in abortion.
• In 1996 there were approximately 274,000 abortions among teens.
• The abortion rate among teens has been declining since 1980.
Sources: The majority of this date is from research by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI).

Teen violence is another major problem, and is on the rise especially through the media outlets.

http://www.mediascope.org/pubs/ibriefs/yvm.htm

Music is prominent in adolescent lives: teenagers spend between 4 and 5 hours a day listening to music and watching music videos 1 and name music listening as their preferred non-school activity. 2 Therefore, it is not surprising that government officials, researchers and parents alike are concerned about the impact of music on teenagers. Disturbed by the amount of violence portrayed in modern music, adults worry that these messages are contributing to the rise in violence among kids. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Americans say that violence in popular music should be more heavily regulated 3 and 59% would like to restrict violence in music. 4

http://www.familyfirstaid.org/youth-violence.html
Occurrence and Consequences of Teen Violence
In 2002, more than 877,700 young people ages 10 to 24 were injured from violent acts. Approximately 1 in 13 required hospitalization (CDC 2004).

Causes, incidence, and risk factors of ODD
Homicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24 overall. In this age group, it is the leading cause of death for African-Americans, the second leading cause of death for Hispanics, and the third leading cause of death for American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Asian Pacific Islanders (Anderson and Smith 2003).

In 2001, 5,486 young people ages 10 to 24 were murdered an average of 15 each day (CDC 2004).

In 2001, 79% of homicide victims ages 10 to 24 were killed with firearms (CDC 2004).

In a nationwide survey, 17% of students reported carrying a weapon (e.g., gun, knife, or club) on one or more days in the 30 days preceding the survey (Grunbaum et al. 2004).

Among students nationwide, 33% reported being in a physical fight one or more times in the 12 months preceding the survey (Grunbaum et al. 2004).

Nationwide, 9% of students reported being hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by their boyfriend or girlfriend in the 12 months prior to being surveyed (Grunbaum et al. 2004).

Groups at Risk of Teen Violence
Of the 5,486 homicides reported in the 10 to 24 age group in 2001, 85% (4,659) were males and 15% (827) were females (CDC 2004).
A nationwide survey found male students (41%) more likely to have been involved in a physical fight than female students (25%) in the 12 months preceding the survey (Grunbaum et al. 2004).
A nationwide survey found female students (12%) more likely than male students (6%) to have been forced to have sexual intercourse (Grunbaum et al. 2004).


As you have stated, the "V" chip is an excellent parental control, regretfully, however, it is not as widely used as perhaps it should be. Additionally, the "V" chip is not used in the movie and music industries.

It might also be prudent to take into consideration that under the previous administration Planned Parenthood also expanded their influence in handing out contraceptives as well as providing abortions - without having to inform the parents.

The emphasis is mine because I think this is a crucial point. I don't think that media & violence are the root cause of social problems in this context - surely the poor parenting skills that mean that the TV is used as a babysitter in the first place while the parents are getting drunk/stoned/violent/arrested is more worrying? The two taken together cannot be seen as a good thing, but I know where I would place the blame.

There is a problem with this stance, hoewver - most people don't love the idea, but they accept that the state has a role in regulating the media. Most people in society - and especially in American society - do not see that the state has any business in calling bad parents what they are or taking steps to intervene in bad parenting.

Where the modern economy has more or less shelved the extended family in favour of the nuclear family, the main way that previous generations had to pass on these parenting skills has gone by the wayside.

For heaven's sake - it isn't even compulsory, necessary or maybe even desirable that kids have unlimited access to TV, the internet, and so on, in their rooms. They mostly don't pay for such things themselves - parents give them these things because, er, that's what everybody else does. In a materialistic society, it's all too easy for people with their own limitations to think that giving people stuff can be a substitute for giving them quality attention, especially when mom and/.or dad are holding down two or three jobs to pay for it all.

In this context, I can't help but think that worrying about what should or should not be shown in the SuperBowl half-time show or what words should or should not be Federal offences if said on network TV is something of a nation-wide displacement activity.

Also, thinking specifically about sexual depictions in the media, which nations have effectively allowed soft porn to become part of their mainstream TV entertainment shows? Germany, the Netherlands, parts of Scandinavia, Italy, Japan (where the soft-porn tends to be have a distinct S&M tinge!) etc.

Which nations are still relatively prudish on sexual content of broadcast (as opposed to narrowcast, such as cable or satellite) media? The USA & UK (to a rather lesser degree than the USA - we have Page Three for all it's cheesy worth).

Which of these nations has so fully embraced the market that jobs and housing have become very hard for many ordinary people to keep in balance (the competitive pressure on jobs keeps wages down, but on homes drives prices up - helping to cuase longer working hours and multiples jobs)? Again, the USA and the UK are at the forefornt here.

(Note: I'm talking about degrees here, this is not an either/or issue.)

One last question to make my point obvious - in the developed world, which countries have the biggest problems with teen pregnancy, STD's, violence, and other such areas of concern? Er, the USA and UK. Not the ones with naked female breasts a regular feature in their shower gel commercials.

The bottom line is that a high level of a child's exposure to violent TV/games is not a good thing. I really see no point in even attempting to argue that point.

There is not much sense in fogging that basic fact with comparisons between the US and the "developed world". Yeah, they show a lot of boobs in Europe. In Germany, you get non stop phone sex ads on TV after about 10pm or so. Japan? Oh, they show a lot of strange things on TV and their comics are something else. But you are talking about societies that, at their core level, are fundamentally different from what we have here in the good ole USA. But that's not the issue and neither is your dig at our economic system which is merely the most successful economy in the history of the planet, bar none.

The "root cause" is the breakdown of the family unit combined with that acceptance and tolerance of bad behavior. Violent TV/games just makes a bad situation far worse.

When kids come to accept bad behavior as "normal" we tend to see a lot more of it.

That's just basic human nature.

Sir, your statement is not only intelligent, but concise and right to the heart of the matter. Children learn by example from what they see us adults do, allow and participate in. I remember when I was 11, I tried my first cigarette (Chesterfield) because I thought it was cool and all grown-up.

As I got older, I saw that my parents for the most part were responsible, caring adults with morals, ethics and integrity.

I was fortunate to have a strong family environment which provided me with shall we say a fortress against the ills and influences of the outside world. Regretfully, however, over the past 20 years in our society for every advance in technology we make, we take two steps backwards in morality.

Humanist, liberal and politically correct groups have been undermining our family traditions by whatever means possible:

1 - Kids are given condoms in school without parental consent or knowledge
2 - Teenage girls can get abortions without parental knowledge or consent
3 - Our children can go into a candy store and look at the covers of the porn magazines which are explicit and right out in open view
4 - Many parents do not censor what their children see on TV, especially the cable channels, many of which are pure sex.
5 - etc.

Many of our public officials have eluded to this in their statements. A couple I prefer are:

President Herbert Hoover:
“Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitiveness to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior.”

President (General) George Washington:
“Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Samuel Adams
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader."

Unless we as a people take seriously the foundation and tradition of the "family structure" in our society and restore it to what it once was, we will allow the "Law of Unintended Consequences" to become a reality in such a way as to see our Beloved Nation disintegrate from within.

I agree. Things just started going all downhill as soon as slavery ended, minorities were declared human beings, females were allowed to get jobs outside of the house, segregation ended... all horrible immoral atrocities, the direct result of people who fought against the status quo - the liberals. I wish we could go back to the times of the Puritans where intelligent females were declared witches and subsequently executed... or maybe to the era of Christopher Columbus when the Europeans came to America and decided to commit intentional and unintentional genocide against the Native Americans with their guns, greed, and germs.

I get a big kick out of how conservatives seem to remember a non-existant "golden age" when everyone behaved according to their religion. So tell me, blackops, which decade/century would you like for our "morals" to go back to, hmm?



interrupted for a --->



In some schools, yes. Wow. I agree, it's very immoral to give teens who are going to have sex anyway condoms to protect themselves. It would be much more moral to close our eyes, plug our ears, and go around screaming "ABSTINENCE ONLY OR YOU'LL GO STRAIGHT TO HELL!" and pretend like teen sex doesn't happen anyway. Then, we can blame the "liberal media" when the teenage pregnancy and std rates skyrocket! Obviously, condoms are responsible for teenage sex and not hormones. I mean, before the invention of condoms, no teen ever had sex out of wedlock.



If a teenaged girl gets pregnant and carries to term, I can certainly understand how that is the business of the parents - they'd most likely be taking on some of the responsibility. However, if a teenaged girl has an abortion, I fail to understand how that is any of the business of the parent. The fetus is not in the parents, it is in the daughter.



Melodrama is not an effective debate tactic. All of the stores I've ever been in that have carried pornographic magazines have put them on the backmost shelf, wrapped in plastic. They are not "right out in open view."

... and I'd like the name and address of this candy store that sells pornographic magazines, much less "right out in open view." Or is this more propaganda?



"Pure sex" - especially after that traumatizing "Janet's nipple" episode - is no where on regular cable. This is another hyperemotionalized claim with no validity and purpose other than to perpetuate the idea that the "moral fabric of society is under attack." For a child to see "pure sex" on cable TV, first off, the parents would have to order these "pure sex" channels, and second, they would have to leave the channels unlocked. This in no way indicates some moral crisis, but irresponsibility on the part of the parent.



I'm reminded of a clip that aired on The Daily Show tonight, with Jerry Falwell on "Crossfire" complaining "Planned Parenthood is in most of our schools, and they're passing out condoms to our high-schoolers" that strangely sounds almost exactly like what you said above. The conservative talking points memo that's going around isn't very original. Everything is Planned Parenthood's fault, how dare they encourage family planning! Every female who has sex should have sex to get pregnant!



I couldn't care less about the morals of men who kept and lived in a time of slavery. I couldn't care less about the morals of men who believed in racial supremacy. I couldn't care less about the morals of men who lived in a time of gender inequity and male dominance over every aspect of their wives' lives. I couldn't care less about the morals of men who did not fight tooth and nail, given these severe injustices, to right them.

I don't care about the moral beliefs and opinions of "public officials." Their opinions and beliefs have no more validity than my, or anyone elses', own code of ethics.



Of course. It's the gays and feminists who are fighting tooth and nail to corrupt your version of the "family structure," what with their... love for each other, and their... desire for equal pay, and their... general hedonistic activities. Everything was so much better before liberals came along with their silly ideas of being able to (legally) do what you want no matter what your gender, race, or sexual orientation. If only we could go back to the time when white men controlled nearly every aspect of American society... the good ol' days, indeed.

Edited to add: by the way, your entire post was an extension on the fallacy of Appeal to Tradition.

I took the liberty of taking out most of your rant in order to focus on the key issue of this debate.

Things didn't start going downhill when slavery ended. In fact, the family structure of african-Americans was among the strongest in our society up until the past 40 years or so. Things didn't start going downhill until the 1960'sa when liberals decided they needed to "fix" our society.

And fix it they did. Since Larry Elder can put it better than me by discussing Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, I'll let him (http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1307)

"Virtually every big city newspaper has the obligatory Angry Black Writer sounding the same themes: The country screws blacks; banks refuse to lend them money; cops routinely brutalize blacks; the SAT is culturally biased; racist insurance companies practice red-lining. Addressing these issues, Sowell and Williams expose the truth, a truth far less sinister than the race-hustlers claim.

The verdict is in. We now see the damage done by LBJ's War on Poverty, during which time the black illegitimacy rate grew from 25 percent to today's nearly 70 percent. Evidence shows the existence of a growing, thriving, black middle class well before the advent of affirmative action. Nor does history support the hysterical, emotional view that affirmative action accelerated the black middle class growth.

Sowell and Williams urge blacks to reject welfare in favor of self-help -- breaking the monopoly of public education, privatization of Social Security, and the adherence to responsible moral, personal, and sexual behavior. So who's the Uncle Tom? Those proposing the same old "solutions," or those, like Sowell and Williams, recommending real change? "

The problem with the "progress" that liberals have promoted is that they've consistently excused and even promoted bad behavior like teenage pregnancy, encouraged people to act selfishly by abandoning marriages (and breaking up families) and at the same time declare the enemy is really the concept of "guilt", "tradition", and "family values".

Well, the numbers speak for themselves.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

Mission not accomplished.

ps, I find your avatar extremely offensive. Just to let you know, I'm going to lodge a formal complaint against it.

I'm not sure how old you are, FWR, but I have two children,
ages 3 and 6. And, if they were to view a movie with adult
content (i.e. graphic sexual content, or violence) it would have
an adverse effect on them


(First off, I'm not quite sure how to accurately quote your post, this is my first post, so sorry for the inconvenience). I would have to agree with you on this statement. However, I do believe that you can shelter your child from such movies forever. I am only seventeen at the time, but I remember being aroound ten or twelve and enjoying a good action flick (which includes both violence and sexual conduct) and as far as I can see it has only enhanced my character. I feel that not exposing your children to such a type of movie will mmore suffocate their way of expression than shelter it. Just to recap though, I feel that you are totally justified in giving your six and three year old children tamer movies to watch, just that it shouldn't be that way forever.

It's impossible to really say yes or no to this. What affects some children might have no effect on others.

Exposure to violence can cause nightmares or fear in some children, so I suppose violence can have a negative effect.

Exposure to sex probably does effect children, but does it really do so negatively? For that matter, what counts as a negative effect in this situation? I don't think exposure to sex in movies is going to negatively effect most children unless it's being augmented by another influence, like the children's parents.

I think seeing sex and violence in the same movie could possibly cause children to link the two subjects subconsciously, though I'm not a psychologist so maybe that's just waffle .

Twilight Sky wrote:




I cannot imagine that a child being exposed to sex on tv or in the movies would not have a negative effect. How could the effect not be negative? Everything has its time and place. When children are exposed to sex on tv especially when it is in shows that depict teenagers having sex-- the expectation they draw from it is that it is ok and that it is acceptable. The last thing we want is for kids to think it is acceptable to be having sex in high school. It lowers the bar for behavior that is age appropriate as an adult but not for a child. The "Family" hours of tv viewing are already rampant with this type of stuff. And I think we are paying the price for it in our culture.

Me and my wife just returned from a vacation in Mexico, where a lot of female vacationers choose to sunbathe topless. It is curious to watch the behavior of teenagers who are accoustomed to routinely see woman's breasts (they reacted the same way they would react to me going topless - without any interests or agitation whatsoever (I hope )) vs. behavior of teens who see it as some sort of X-rated action unfolding in front of their eyes - giggling, blushing, agitated... Which behavior is more "normal"? You decide.
Personally constant barrage of violence on TV bothers me more than a "wardrobe malfunction" of any sort showing a part of human body. Human body is natural; violence is not. So if I would join any kind of a crusade that would be against TV violence which became so routine we don't even notice it anymore.

English Horn wrote:



You misunderstand my point. I am not talking about a wardrobe malfunction-- or showing a woman's breast in the shower in a commercial for soap; or sunbathing topless. What I am talking about is the depiction of teens having sex as part of the story line on tv or movies. I am talking about presenting as "natural" teens having sex. That is not acceptable IMO -- because, as you point out, they will ultimately come to accept this behavior as "normal".