Sex and Violence

In the puritanical culture of the US, sex and violence are both linked to the depraved individual. Just look at popular culture depictions, and you will see that violent people often show an interest in sexual pursuits beyond the monogamous marital variety. In fact, a shorthand for villains in our narratives involves depicting people who engage in various non-straight and non-monogamous acts. They are people who only want pleasure, and such a desire connotes depravity and evil.

On the other hand, who are our heroes? People who are faithful and whose sexual desire is "pure" (i.e. linked to one other person). Also of note, traditional heroes don't get hungry much if at all and dismiss their body as unimportant. And that is the crux of it: indulging in bodily pleasures is seen as debauched; denying the body is admired.

And while our view of sexuality continues to remain mired in this puritanical mindset, depictions of violence often do not capture our attention at all. What emerges is, depraved people (who seek the pleasures of the flesh) will engage in depraved violence while virtuous people (whose sexual attention remains focused on the object of love) will pursue virtuous violence.

In narrative, this is all lovely, and I enjoy a good story as much as the next person. However, humans are usually more complicated than that, and the stigmatization of sexuality is not helpful to society especially if it really only serves to create feelings of shame and guilt in those who are perceived as depraved, while stirring frustration and hostility in those who believe sexuality should be this one thing.

In the real world, people might be loving spouses who never cheat and yet they might commit some act of violence. Likewise, there are lots of people who enjoy various sexual pursuits who are upstanding citizens who would never commit acts of violence.

By the way, I am not against portrayals of violence in books, movies, shows or video games, but I would encourage people to consider the messages such depictions send.

Instead, I'm more interested in morality and to what extent the principles undergirding our system express religious messages. Some may have a personal morality that is inspired by a religious text, but such bases should not serve our societal decisions. What someone's deity finds offensive is for that person to worry about, but I don't think it exists, so I don't see a reason to make laws to appease said god.