sex or violence- which is worse?

[I STIK M]

I recently had a casual talk with a liberated jew- that is what he calls himself. an older man, with grandchildren, he had been in a debate over weather the sex or the violence would be there first concern with movies. he believes that pornographic films would be less harmful to a child viewing than the war movies being put out now, or the violence in action movies. he has never seen a pornographic film and thought "what could be wrong with seeing people making love". i delicately explained that pornographic films may not ,neeserily be seen as people making love. i would love to hear what everyone has to say, if you have to put one before the other?

[Periwinkle]

If I HAD to choose between porn and violence... I'd pick the porn.

And for dd and ds... none of the above.

[Live~Laugh~Love]

I am thinking of the extreme violence, or porn........That is a good, hard question, I am not sure.....He watches neither.

[boatbaby]

There can be a positive to sex. If there is no voilence in the sex, then hopefully somebody is enjoying themselves. Sex is a natural act (again if it is not combined with violence). It can be explained easier in my opinion.

There is never a positive to voilence.

But no, neither is appropriate for a young child to watch.

[srain]

Violence is worse. If there's no violence in the porn, really- why would it matter?

[merpk]

Would better be able to answer if I wasn't so weirded out by your first line. I know that you'e reporting that it's what he said about himself, but he certainly said other things in your conversation that you didn't state verbatim in your post ... so am just, well, weirded out.

[jenoline]

I'm not sure about violent movies vs actual porn, but in general our culture views violence as more acceptable than sex (just "regular", loving sex - not anything "pornographic"). Just look at your average movie rating. Violence in movies is much more accepted, even in G-Rated films (especially animated ones). If anyone has sex in a movie it seems to be instantly R-rated.

Now, I've seen some porn and I don't think any child should see it. It's in a category of it's own, and doesn't qualify as healthy sex. gotta go, dd waking!

[MiamiMami]

Violence for sure. I feel more compelled to shelter my dd from violent images, actions, words than from sex.

[numom499]

Originally Posted by I STIK M

I recently had a casual talk with a liberated jew- that is what he calls himself. ?

What do you think that means..."liberated jew"? liberated from what or whom?

Also, weird that you mention that. if it was an african american or a lesbian, would you had said...I was talking to this black guy (what he calls himself) toaday and blah blah blah...?

[mammabear]

I don't understand the idea if debating porn or violence. IMHO, both are innapropriate. There is no question in my mind about that.
And why would anyone choose one over the other, unless you were being held hostage and were being forced to choose between the two, I wouldn't even think of choosing either. get what I'm saying?

[AntoninBeGonin]

Sex.

As for the liberated Jew comment, it seems to me the OP mentioned that because that's what the guy calls himself, no harm intended. Perhaps she thought it would give you a better perspective to understand his point of view.

~Nay

[Drummer's Wife]

I would say violence. That being said my children have probably seen more violence on tv than sex. Seems like there are more scenes with violence in them than sex at least in movies.

[tara]

Yeah, I don't get why his being Jewish is pertinent, but... sex, for sure.

[sapphire_chan]

Since pornography is often violent sex, I don't think that's a good example of sex being better or worse than violence.

If there was loving, healthy, sex between two adults (or more if it's *truly* necessary for a non-sexual aspect of the plot) in a movie, I would not stop my future children from watching the movie if the movie was generally good. Ubiquitous or gratuitous sex purely for titillation? Those movies, they won't get to watch until they can explain to *me* what's bad about them.

[Ruthla]

Originally Posted by numom499

What do you think that means..."liberated jew"? liberated from what or whom?

Also, weird that you mention that. if it was an african american or a lesbian, would you had said...I was talking to this black guy (what he calls himself) toaday and blah blah blah...?

Somebody who defines himself as "a liberated Jew" has a certain mindset that will color his attitudes about life. What I gather from this is that he's not Torah observant and probably doesn't know much about the Torah perspective on life (though he might think he does.) At least, that's been my experience with people who self-define as "liberal Jews."

Back to the initial question: It's hard to answer. Both graphic violence and graphic pornography can be very damaging to a child.

Violence is always wrong, plain and simple. A child viewing graphic violence may be emotionally scarred by the experience, and possibly numbed to actual violence in the world. I don't object to violence in context- if the movie portrays the consequences of the violence rather than glorifying it.

Sex is a natural, wonderful part of life- so viewing it might be "OK." However, because sex isn't "always wrong" the way violence is, I don't want my children to learn sexual values that are not my own. I beleive that sex is a gift from the Almighty and shouldn't be wasted in casual encounters. My girls have already seen graphic pornographic movies (in K-2nd grade) thanks to their ex-stepdad, and I'm still working on undoing that "sex is gross" way of thinking. Yes, pornography is gross (IMO) but sex can and should be something beautiful.

I recognize that my children have free will and will make their own choices when they get to be adults, but it's still my job as a parent to instill in them the values that I believe will benefit them, and to guide them through childhood and the teenage years.

[Danae]

I would prefer my daughter see a sex scene than any sort of violence. In fact when we were in Albertson's last night they had some really violent war movie on at the customer service desk (to push a new release). Liberty ran over to the counter and was glued to the images. I was so upset that I complained to the store manager. He apologized profusely and turned it off!

[UnschoolnMa]

My answer would depend on the W's. Which is worse for Who, What, When, Where and Why? Both sex and violence have been good and bad in my life at various times so there is no 1 answer from me I guess. Too many variables.

In general I would say violence is worse. I do not often have to deal with violence either with being violent myself or being on the end of someone else's violence...but I do enjoy sex. I do not think that violence is always wrong (self defense or defending someone else occasionally calls for violence and I've got no beef with that).

My children haven't really been censored from violent or sexual media. They have been guided by caring parents about what a movie/video game/TV show has in it and why they may or may not want to watch it. We have discussed the violence and sex on TV, and we have discussed real life violence and sexuality. We have helped them find their safe limits with these things. We'd never have an issue with a movie due to nudity, sex scenes, etc. And my Ds at age 14 watches films with more violent content than I myself care for (Man on Fire with Denzel Washington etc) but that is his choice to make.

[MamaTaraX]

Define porn.

I think violence is worse because violence is violence and porn can be positive sex. Since the oriignal question was actually asking about "sex" in general, then by all means, violence is far worse to me. Sex is normal, healthy, natural. Have my kids seen sex scenes? Yep. They've even seen their parents have sex. Violence we try to curb. It's in so much though, unfortunately, that sometimes it evensneaks by without knowledge. And whoever up there mentioned about a movie having violence butbeing Rated-G but any hint of sex and it's suddenly R has a really good point. Our sociey it is so wacky in regards to sex. It's how we all got here (even if it was in a petri dish) but we turn away fro mit and shelter our kids from it a little too much. And we do a disservice by doing so. I havea friend who grew up with very sheltering parents. They all grew up having no idea antyhign about sex, where did babies come from. When one got pregnant, boy were they surprised. They had no idea that the act they had done and the baby they were growing were connected. I'll never shelter my kids fro msex. Violent sex, yes, but sex in general, no. Nudity is ookay, it'sjust a human body. Human bodies loving each other isn't bad either and I never want my children to think anything is wrong with sexuality.

Namaste, Tara

[Irishmommy]

Depends on the violence, depends on the porn.

[zinemama]

This question is flawed.

In terms of the sex and violence that the average kid is exposed to in the media, this isn't a fair question. The average kid is exposed to an awful lot of violent imagery in everything from cartoons to commercials to movies. But the average kid is not exposed to porn. Scenes of people kissing, maybe some raunchy talk, people in bed and making out (or whatever you want to call it) are common. But porn? I really don't think so. I don't think that "violence vs. porn" is a question any parent (or very few) really wrestles with.

Now if it were framed as, "Which is worse, the violence in the media or the sexual imagery in the media?" that would be a reasonable question.

For me, there's no question. Violence is far, far worse. Sex is a positive part of being human. While I wouldn't sit my kid down to watch "Sex in the City" (nor would he be interested), it wouldn't bother me nearly as much as him watching some slasher movie.

Edited to add: I didn't mean to say the OP should not have posed this question in the first place; just that it's not a question that I think parents deal with irl.