Sex, Violence and Censorship in the Arts

Does it not seem strange to you that we censor images depicting the creation of life -- our sexuality -- but not the destruction of life? For many children, their weekly diet of images in the media consists of a veritable stream of general, and extremely specific, mayhem? War stories, cops and robbers, ever new forms of physical violence -- where people kill, beat, torture, rape, and physically and emotionally assault each other, often in a barrage of dramatized hate and venom -- this comprises by far the largest portion of our children's media-viewing experience.

Even cartoons and comic movies are filled with subtle to highly exaggerated violence and cruel, sarcastic, bitter wit. Apart from an occasional romantic Disney-type fantasy, none of the media children see provide any instruction in how to lovingly bring a fellow human being any kind of pleasure, let alone transport them into sexual ecstasy.

As children become adults and have access to more sophisticated fare, their experiences do not get any better. More and more young people are becoming very proficient at inflicting pain or death through a variety of techniques that their government or schools of martial arts can teach them about, but nowhere is there a school available that would teach anyone how to be a tender lover who could give their partner exquisite sexual pleasure.

Why is it illegal to purchase or sell sexual pleasure, but not pain? Many people are not aware that inflicting or receiving pain may be purchased quite legally in the major cities of the so-called civilized world. As long as no sexual contact is made, buying pain -- but not pleasure -- is quite legal. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and most European cities, in such establishments as "The Ball and Chain," "The Torture House," etc., you can legally beat or be beaten for fees ranging from $60 for 30 minutes to a $1,000 per hour (membership fees in some clubs are as high as $5000).

Why pain but not pleasure? During a program discussion on censorship on British television some time ago, the British censor, when asked this question by a Swedish censor, was lost for an answer. (They had just shown two movies. The British movie was extremely violent, and the Swedish movie lyrically sensual. Neither could be shown in the other's country.) Later in the program, the British censor acknowledged that showing violence was legal, but explicit sexually was not!

Why do the Scandinavians ban violence in the media and yet permit the most explicit of sexual behavior -- even that which includes minors -- in their family theaters without suffering from mass depravity?

When I toured Scandinavia to research this question, talking to police and social workers and studying the statistics, I found that compared to Britain and America, incidents of rape, sexual assault and child sex abuse there were minuscule. The answer to this puzzle eluded me for years until I came across an article by W. Prescott, a developmental neuro-psychologist who extensively studied the relationships between violence and pleasure.

It was Dr. Prescott's analysis of various cultures and their attitudes and behaviors towards infant pleasure and pain that provided many new clues to answering the puzzle.

When I searched for the underlying common denominator it became clear that those countries, such as Scandinavia and Polynesia, have benign attitudes to nudity, positive sex education for the young, and low rates of sexual violence are sharing and caring cultures. Scandinavia has a socialist democracy which uses a high rate of taxation to provide resources for nurturing it's citizens, while cultures such as those in Polynesia use social conditioning. The person most admired in Polynesian culture is the one who gives most away and shares surplus with others in the community.

By contrast, American and British cultures are highly acquisitive, individualistic and competitive. A Polynesian-type attitude would be highly detrimental to the acquisition of individual wealth and power.

It is my contention that we know at deeper-than-conscious levels that violence and frustration stimulate production and consumption, and that censorship is closely related to economic plenitude or scarcity. When we as a culture are affluent, as in the 60's and mid-to-late 90's, sexual censorship is relaxed. Even live sex shows are now permitted in Britain -- a formerly unheard-of phenomenon. When times are hard, sexual censorship in the arts becomes repressive, unless linked with extreme violence as in movies, television, electronic games, etc. Any form of sexual education that would ensure that our young would grow into sexually contented and fulfilled adults with a high ability to experience sensually pleasing activities would almost certainly conflict with our need to produce and consume.

A quotation from Dr. Prescott puts the issue in a nutshell: "The hypothesis that physical pleasure actually inhibits physical violence can be appreciated from our own sexual experiences. How many of us feel like assaulting someone after we have just experienced orgasm?"