Benjmin+G's+OpEd+Article

media type="file" key="beng-muckraker-2011.mp3" align="center"

="Spare the Sex, Venerate the Violence"= =A Rant on Mass Media by Ben Gill=

 Censorship is selective. Leave this here, pull that there, bleep that word, blur that object, black bar you know where, you get the idea. America’s social values, and what we consider obscene and/or offensive, is, simply put, backwards. Mass media in the United States seems to reflect the following ethos: sexual content, of any sort, is something to be closely watched and carefully censored, while violent material, even at its most disturbing and sadistic, is something to be regarded with almost total indifference (or even outright acceptance).

While sex is a completely natural function of the human species, one which owe our very existence to, violence is directly related to murder, rape, genocide, and a whole host of other acts that I won’t mention in this particular forum. Sex, one of the most revered rituals of our race, an act that can incorporate limitless beauty, is often relegated to the burning trash-heap of scorn and sin. Hell, it’s even called “original sin” in the Bible itself. However, I pose this question, why is something that we owe literally **everything**  to so heavily frowned-upon by American culture? The Greeks and the Romans idolized the human form in all its beauty, the ancient Hindus (not the native variety) embraced human sexuality in all its forms, and the likes of Shakespeare himself wrote endlessly about the sacred act.

The history of violence, unlike that of sex, is one mired in every form of filth, depravity, and cold-blooded numbness imaginable. Violence is what killed six million Jews during World War II, violence is what murdered some [|__ten million Chinese and other Asians__]  at the hands of the Empire of Japan during their occupation of China and the Philippines, and staggeringly violence is what killed approximately 61,911,000 citizens of the Soviet Union during its almost century long existence. Violence is what causes children to be assaulted, abused, and molested. Violence and oppression are what drove the people of Libya, and those of many other Middle Eastern nations, to take up arms, both literal and metaphorical, against their tyrannical leaders. This list could go on forever, but how often has sex, under its normal and totally consensual definition, created or resulted in violence of any sort? The answer, more than likely, is almost never.

So, despite what numerous religious texts might say on the subject, the course of history seems to write a very different book. My exposure to breasts hasn’t numbed me to the plight of man, my viewing of sex hasn’t spurred me to “pull a Columbine”, and my somewhat twisted view of the subject hasn’t destroyed every thread of human decency I posses. And, in all fairness, neither has violence. Even with my exposure to everything from a real-life, honest to god, snuff film to a notoriously cheesy and very laughable 70’s porno, otherwise known as //Deep Throat// ; I’m still here and I’m still sane (well that may be debatable).

The fact of the matter is that no level of violence, sex, foul language, or any other form of controversial media has been able to take away my humanity, with all its empathy, sympathy, and even laughability rolled into one. This isn’t to say that certain, specific, pieces of material haven’t presented roadblocks to me, or even created a few setbacks in my development, but they haven’t prevented me from becoming who I am today. And, in an end to this wild tangent, my argument still holds true that violence ought to be weighed more heavily than sex.

Sex may have perplexed, confused, or even rattled me, but violence, unlike anything sexual I’ve yet come across, has ever had such an impact on me. Sex can bother me, but only violence can disturb me. Neither has destroyed me, but only violence has shaken me on the deepest level. Some things in this world ought not be viewed by anyone at any age, and these things have convinced me that violence should be viewed as worse than sex. Both warrant moderation at any age, but in terms of cultural standards, sex warrants the acceptance.