Registered: Aug 2000
Location: I don't fukn' know!
Posts: 5137

I was thinking about the media and how it relates to the youth.

I remeber, not so long ago (perhaps longer than I think it was) when I was a teenager, around... 16 I think. I was in this person's basement, and we were watching 9 1/2 weeks... OH THAT WAS ABOUT AS PORNOGRAPHIC AS YOU CAN GET, aside from real porn. I also remeber that night some movie we were watching flashed a flacid peni when some guy got up from the bed. One of my friends asked me sardonically asked me if that was the 1st time I had ever seen a Penis before. :P I had been researching anatomy books for some time by that point. I probally knew the techical aspects of the penis better than she did.

anyway, I recognise that I grew up a bit more 'innocent' than most of my cohorts, but it seems to me that what is considered to be 'naugty' then would be total cake compared to now. 9 1/2 weeks would be a lame skinimax movie if that story was written today.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, but I do find it interesting.

as a result of accessability to porn via the internet, and the openess of tv when it comes to language, sex, and violence, how do you think it has affected you personally?

Does it affect how you grew up?

does it affect how you raise your kids?
if you have kids, do you let them watch tv/surf the internet?
do you really think you have prevented them from seeing images that are 'bad'?

that and other issues, discuss discuss!

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35781

I've womdered about that.

There are kids here too, in the asylum.

I guess that piccies of sex don't do too much harm. Not to me *drools* anyway.

My dad told me about sex when I was like 5 or 6. I went straight home and fucked goatboy.

Note: I didn't really fuck goatboy. Not that he didn't want me too, all little boys do, everyone knows that, your criminalising of the natural love between man and boy is just wrong damn you!!

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: California
Posts: 4252

I am more permissive about movies than my parents were. My boys look away (When I am in the room) when the love scenes are on. That's fine with me. I don't try to hide things from them but try to instill the notion that sexual things are for older people. Knowledge with restraint is in my opinion the best mix. Tech your kids self control instead of trying to control them.

I bust their little butts when they get out of line but that only becomes necessary once or twice a year. Most of the time we just talk things out.

Do my kids know what sex is? Yes. Do they have a pretty good idea what it looks like? I think so. Do I trust my kids to act responsibly? Very definitely.

I don't think it is what they see, I think how it is presented and handled is more important.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

It seems to be the nature of the media that entertainment gets more shocking over time in order to seem "edgy". Bear in mind that Sinatra was considered, in his youth, to be "shocking" and overtly sexual. Then, later, so were Elvis...the Beatles...various punk bands...gangster rap...the bar for shock, in movies and music and all other forms of entertainment, is gradually set higher and higher.

I don't have much of a problem with this. The question I ask myself, though, is what happens when things like gangster rap become passe and tame? What has to be done to take crudity to the NEXT level? How much further can you go than overt advocacy of murder?

Will rock concerts twenty years from now consist of the lead singer walking on stage and firing a gun randomly into the audience? Was GG Allin ahead of his time? Will Gwar one day be performing before octagenerians in a Las Vegas lounge?

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: California
Posts: 4252

It's not a rocket going forever in a straight line. It is a pendulum. It swings both ways. Our society will tire of all the edgyness and will opt for more conservative entertainment.
The pendulum swings very slowly. This forward swing started in the twenties. The previous swing was in the early 1800's. The conservative swings in were in the early 1700 and the early 1900's

This swing will most likely start back toward conservatism in the next twenty years or when nuclear terrorism forces us to re-evaluate our existence.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Location Location
Posts: 26502

The most basic question here is, to me at least:

Is any information bad?

Well, the basic question should be worded better, but that's how I see it.

(that's in reference to children and the media, not GG Allen.)

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Little Rock.
Posts: 2624

I'd let my kids look at whatever they want, even pictures of bunkum and her farm animals. I'd just explain to them that people like bunkum are strange and should not be emulated in any way. Just let them know they can come to you with any questions they have about anything, if they feel guilty about something they aren't going to ask you about it, so don't make them think it's a horrible thing.

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location: Conn.
Posts: 326

i honestly think iam a porn addict.

ive been looking at porn on TV, magazines, ESPECIALLY the internet since i was 13 i believe...

i look at it every day, no matter what, i see a naked chick, everyday..

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: 54.60°N 5.70°W
Posts: 1950

Non-parents who pump their offspring full of McDonald's garbage, take nothing to do with their education, let them watch endless hours of MTV, never talking to them about *anything* have always been among us. And their kids, of course, have a much harder time growing up into happy, soulful humans.

The internet/media explosion hasn't changed any of this. There's just more mindless oblivion out there into which our children will be sucked if we let them.

Take Mr Faceplant, for example. 13-year-olds addicted to porn? If there's a better way to desensitize yourself to the beauty of the human form than internet pornography -- especially at such a young age -- then I can't think of it.

Sleepovers at Goatboy's house are merely a close second.

First viewings of porn should always come *after* we've lost our innocence. After we've felt someone else's tongue in our mouth for the first time. After we've first stood naked with another and done all of the exciting and passionate touching and groping and tentative penetrating that are wonderfully and completely unaffected by any preconceptions or expectations whatsoever, and especially the kind in which the porn geeks would soak us.

I digress.

There's nothing in the mass media that we can't expose our children to. Nothing out there is going to ruin them. Just as long as they have a decent guide. "Bad" language, drugs, violence, sex, the SUV culture... none of it.

When they eventually see the next piece of Schwarzenegger-esque piece of ultra-violence, will they feel their souls being sucked from them by the bloated Hollywood moguls? Will they look at the mindless carnage and arbitrary deaths, and make the connection to seeing thousands of people die, live on television, last September?

Will you?

Or will they still think that it's okay, because it's only a movie and that's different. "Entertainment." Or it's Arnie, and he's a good guy. So it's fine that we have a culture obsessed with destruction and bad writing.

Their young minds have to begin to work out what's important and what's not. What's going to make them feel happy and connected and grateful for life, and what's going to make it all seem vaguely pointless and drive them to seek solace in undesirable quarters.

Somehow I don't think that many more children are adversely affected these days than were before. It's just that there are a million different ways now, and all of them extremely efficient.

Bad parenting is still bad parenting.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Denver
Posts: 19780

Wow pangloss, you are worthy to bear my children.

-m

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 5526

quote:

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Originally posted by Mordecai
Wow pangloss, you are worthy to bear my children.

-m

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Get in line, buddy...

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
Posts: 3692

But really, goddamn. He's working on a level way above us. Seriously. It's cool to watch, but in a way that fills me with regret for skipping school to go snowboarding, like i could've maybe learned something. Bastard always manages to say exactly the right thing.

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