Why is sex in gaming worse than violence in gaming?

With Arkham Knight getting the M rating, I've noticed some talk from people in regards to other games getting that rating. One of which, was God of War. They felt the nudity and sex was too much "for a 10 year old, but the violence was ok." It always struck me as odd that we view sex as more of a taboo than violence....

In my opinion, violence is much worse. Boobs are boobs. Sex is sex, but violence.. violence is hurting people. Physical harm, mental harm. Violence in extremes takes lives, and causes chaos and anarchy. It is nasty and evil and scary. But sex... boobs, ass, vagina, penis? Those body parts provide us pleasure. They make us happy. We adore them in classic art such as in paintings and statues.

The most popular video game franchise these days, Call of Duty, is about killing well into the thousands, even tens of thousands when your average gamer is finished with just one installment. Yet, include a sex scene and you have these blood-thirsty gamers somehow objecting to it. They love sex in movies and books... yet in games, it somehow seems more wrong. Parents are upset to see sex in their games, yet let their kids play these violence shooters.

Why... is that?

Its a Western thing. Violence is a simple, "who cares" subject in American entertainment. I heard some of Europe feels the another way around. ( If actually true) I think sex is less harmful than violence, but it seriously depends on the setting and intend. Rape ect. is 18+, but even then I find it distasteful.

Yeah, it is a Western thing. It's ok to kill someone, but not f*** them. Great logic.

I think it had to do with the early Puritan beliefs. I remember studying about this in my American Studies class.

At least when it comes to movies, I think there is the issue of false analogy here, but I think the issue is the same when it comes to games. There is very little difference between the fictional display of sex and the real thing and in porn, no difference at all. Violence, on the other hand, is entirely special effects.

I would put this thought problem to you...let's say your significant other has to choose between two roles in a movie...in one role he/she has a fictionalized sex scene with another actor, in the other role, his/her character dies. Which role are you more comfortable with?

If we compare items that equally represent sex and violence, like a sex tape of some random starlet and some of the videos Daesh has released, particularly of the Jordanian pilot being burnt alive, I think we see that real violence is indeed met with a far greater abhorrence than sex....just the stuff we see in movies and games isn't close enough to the real act when it comes to violence to generate the same buzz.

This isn't western logic it is soccermom logic! just like vaccines cause authism.

I never understood this either. You can have a game or tv show with tons of graphic violence and it gets by the ratings. But throw in some nice nudity and every one freaks out. If i had kids i much rather have them see nudity and sex over graphic violence any day.

It depends on the types of violence also, you can get away with killing zombies and terrorists in games, but if you have a game where you can kill any random person you want, like GTA, people think thats as bad as boobs

I think most of society has been conditioned to react this way, usually from the time you are growing up; even into your teenage years, sex has always been introduced as being hush hush, and an act that is to be done in private and to never be spoken outside of an intimate setting. It is exactly because of that type of mental conditioning that most people are against having it in video games; even as it relates to movies or television shows, some people would prefer little to no sex scenes at all. My personal opinion is that violence is worse than sex in the media or gaming. Logically, I can't grasp how the physical harm of any living being could be more acceptable than sex.

I think we can all agree the people who complain the most don't even play games!

I think a lot of it has to do with the roles sex and violence play in peoples' everyday lives. People are more familiar with sex as mostly everyone engages in it. Violence on the other hand is a foreign concept to most as many haven't and won't have to deal with it. So people tend to be more phobic to sex in media because it's a reality to them (and possibly their kids) that hits a little too close to home. Violence is restricted to the ghettos or the mideast, therefor getting close to it is no issue.

Just my theory, anyway.

@MirkoS77: man thats a little bit of discrimination...

Violence is restricted to the ghettos or the mideast.

I never understood the issue with sex in general. It's a pleasurable thing for both parties involved and a normal part of adult life.

Same can't really be said for violence.

I find it fascinating how people can be more ok with certain things that are legitimately worse than others.

@Celldrax: Actually both is inbedded in nature and humankind it is Love and War will one fade away and it will be out of ballance...

Well of course, I don't deny that. Violence is a normal part of pretty much any living organism with the ability to reproduce.

When it comes to sex and violence in normal human societies though, I do think one is objectively better than the other.

Violence in gaming rarely makes someone more violent. When it comes to sex however , it tends to arouse people especially young teens. They start watching pornography, and releasing their frustrations via masturbation. Problem is, this activity is addictive and they just end up doing more. It just keeps getting more and more extreme from there. Don't get me wrong though, I think both are bad regardless.

I take it you were raised in a religious household.

@toast_burner: i also don't see the logic in his statement...

@JustPlainLucas: it's an american thing tbh. Because nudity is not something to be ashamed of in europe. If games are violent, they get rated higher. If i am not mistaken

@The_Last_Ride: Since it is an act of affection there schould be no reason to make it into a problem and i get that the violence can give the weak-minded weird ideas but come on! both aren't a problem at all just soccermom jabberish...

If kids want to see sex on their computers, there's a massive amount of free porn plastered all over the internet. But we mustn't have bare boobs and innuendos in rated M video games. That would be just horrible. /sarcasm off

@ranbla: <sarcasm> I completely agree man no boobies in gaming ever lets just make them all gray poligons! </sarcasm>

violence is a problem for kids, but if you're a teenager and you don't have mental problems differing between reality and games then it's fine. There is a reason why kids shouldn't play games like God of War. But it doesn't harm them in the way that people say they are. First games made people mass killers and now it makes gamers women haters. It's all bs

@The_Last_Ride: There is an rating on the games and a child will not be able to buy adult content (atleast not in my country) and if the kid gets it because of bad parenting, so be it but don't say that the game devs are the problem!

Oh no, if i somehow implied that the developers are the problem it was not my intent. The problem does lie with the parents. The developers should be able to make a game and not worry that it's going to be censored because of nudity, while violent games have a pass

@The_Last_Ride: sorry if i made you think i directed it completely at you (it was about till the part about bad parenting) and i completely agree!

kinda hard to get the context over the internet :3

The whole sexuality is just stupid when Steam outright bans it...

@The_Last_Ride: Steam has the: "If you have a trauma from playing one of our games it's your fücking problem we warned you" policy and i agree if a kid can't sleep because he played fair or deadspace it's not really the devs problem x)

Does Steam outright ban sex? I know they ban pornographic games but they still allow games that have sex in them (e.g. Mass Effect and Witcher 1/2)

The same applies for violence. Steam refuses to sell games that are too violent. Part of the problem is that sex in games is always taken to an extreme, it's either fully pornographic, or the characters don't even have genitals. However the reason that may be done because no dev will want to risk being in the middle ground as they may get lumped together with the porn games. It's a bit of a paradox.

@toast_burner: never said they did that i just said that Steam made sure they aren't sueable.

I was responding to LastRide.

I doubt Steam could be sued for selling pornographic games. They just feel that they aren't suitable for the corporate image they're trying to create.

Steam hasn't ever been a store for niche games and pornographic games are definitely a niche.

@Ish_basic:

Its pretty much the same thing, they are having fake sex and with the use of lights and camera angles it can look real just like fake killing.

@JustPlainLucas: Because Framerates

yeah, fair enough :P

But i think that also has to do with a porno license if i am not mistaken. If they're suppose to have lewd games on it, they have to get a license for it.

They still do Manhunt though an Postal and don't forget GTA V.

There's no such thing as a porno licence. There are restrictions on selling 18R/AO games, but that isn't strictly related to porn. Manhunt 2 was rated AO due to violence and therefore is not sold on steam. To be honest I don't know what the law says about selling AO stuff online.

Neither GTA, Manhunt or Postal are that violent which is why they are all rated M rather than AO. Pornographic games pretty much always get rated AO (or go unrated). So seeing how we have varying degrees of violence in games, I don't see why we can't have different degrees of sex in games.

Both subjects are usually handled with little tact.

Yeah I find this kind of baffling as well. Personally I have no problem with nudity and sex being in games as long as it's not rape, pedophlia, or things of that nature.

culture has a role, but it's not an american thing. Take the recent 50 Shades of Grey movie. It got a more restrictive rating in the UK than it did in the states and France was on the fence about it being restricted at all. Eventually they decided you just have to be over 12. Expectantly, it got the harshest restrictions as you near the middle eastern nations.

Americans are a lot more liberal about sex than the rest of the world gives them credit for...it's just that there's this super religious minority with a **** ton of money to influence the course of popular debate...give it 30 or so years for those people to move on and america will have France blushing and Japan going "wtf?!"

Books don't have age restrictions in the UK. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Why, it's a subconscious thing, of course. We are slowly exhausting our planet. Violence will kill people, effectively lowering the population and decreasing the strain put on our precious earth. Sex, however, will create people, effectively increasing the population and stimulating the gradual destruction of our home world. We all realize, deep inside, that in the long run violence is better for the survival of this planet than sex.

*straight face

Usually, when one reads a post, one reads the entire post.

I think because games are still geared towards young teens, parents have issues with sex because they feel the kids aren't ready for that yet.

We grow up playing cops and robbers, and watching superheroes beat up bad guys. Violence, in some way or form, is part of our lives from an early age. Sex, however, is something that adults (generally) try to hide from kids for as long as possible. That's just the way things are right now in society.

I stood two feet away from a mom at Gamestop who was asking about Call of Duty's "M" rating because her 13 year old wanted it. The clerk told her it was fairly realistic violence. She then asked "but, there's no sex or nudity, right?", to which he answered "no, but it can be pretty graphic". The mom said "oh, ok, that's fine, I'll take it".

Sex is harmless and natural. Violence is also natural, but harmful and graphic.

Pretentious dumbasses will say "Sex is sacred between two lovers and should never be exploited." NO. Sex is a natural impulse that everyone feels an urge for, and the belief that sex is a sacred thing never to be exploited is an idea that was created by people, not nature.

I hope society eventually comes to accept sex for what it is.

I forgot the film existed so when I read 50 Shades I assumed book. My apologies.

He clearly was referring to the movie not the book.

But one of the reasons why developers stay clear of sex is because it takes almost nothing to get an AO rating compared to violence, where unless its a political it needs to be way up there before it gets slammed with a AO rating. Not to mention that in most games sex has zero meaning and serves no purpose.

Aren't we being desensitized to both?

The age restriction here is 15, but there are movies that have nudity in them that are PG here if i am not mistaken

I don't know, because there are a lot of lewd games out there that don't get any attention tbh

Hatred is AO...

and Hatred isn't on steam

There's a difference between nudity and sexuality. Some of you Americans seem to think that everyone here in Europe just waltzes around butt naked and has sex with everyone. Europe is probably more open about sexuality, especially in media, but it's no where near as drastic as some of you make it out to be. And again, depends on the region, eastern Europe isn't much better than the US probably for example. You guys seem to think that Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany is all of Europe lol.

In any case, it seems to be a pretty wide cultural phenomenon, most developed countries have prettty lax laws when it comes to portraying violence in media, but much stricter laws for sexuality. I mean just look at Japan, you have pretty violent pornography that portrays some messed up stuff, but they always have genitals blurred out. Same with India, their Bollywood movies are brimming with violence, but sexuality is usually just reserved to a shot of the hero getting "the girl". Even historically, violence like public executions and torture are almost universal to human culture, while sexuality was often supressed.