23/12/02

Torture Rape and Murder 

"Why is Britain set to outlaw cigarette smoking in films, but not torture, rape, murder or alcohol drinking?" Denis Prager

An interesting point!

And it is made even more interesting by the fact that many children's charities and women's groups have often argued that provided that the portrayal of torture, rape, abuse etc. is done in a manner which reveals their truly gruesome nature (as, perhaps, in the 'realistic' rape scene of a TV soap opera, or in a piece depicting bloody domestic violence) then this is acceptable because it will turn people off the ideas contained in them.

But surely, the more 'realistic' are the portrayals of, say, brutal rapes, the more consistent must they be with what was actually inside the minds of those perpetrators who actually enjoyed committing such acts.

After all, they were there! 

They brought about these situations! 

They sought them!

portraying sexual abuse 'realistically' excites the very people who are most likely to want to engage in it, realistically.

And so it is that portraying sexual abuse 'realistically' excites the very people who are most likely to want to engage in it, realistically. 

And it also sexualises the harsh reality of those abuse situations in other folk who might simply be close to fantasising about being in such situations - without them, perhaps, even realising it.

And, even worse, it would also seem quite likely to sexualise abuse situations in the minds of millions of ordinary, normal, people too.

And surely this means that organisations that persistently thrust or induce - visually or verbally - into the minds of people 'realistic' scenes of sexual abuse or rape are, in fact, responsible for a great deal of the very abuse that they would claim they are trying to counter.

Indeed, perhaps it is precisely because the population is continually bombarded with images of abuse - visual or verbal - that there is now so much of it about.

the first brutal rape scene that you see makes you feel sick.

After all, the first brutal rape scene that you see makes you feel sick. But by the time you've reached the 50th one, you're beginning to think, Hmm, it doesn't look so bad. 

Some kind of emotional desensitisation to the suffering of the victim takes place.

And once this has happened, the sexual components to a rape scene (well, those components that you consider to be sexual) might be the only things that are left to impact the emotional system inside your head.

The rest of the rape scene is just desensitised to.

And so the next step toward actually fantasising about a real rape is not that far away.

And, why not? After all, in your fantasy, the real suffering just isn't there any more. 

It's gone!

You have been desensitised.

It makes no impact.

And I am not talking here about spanking bottoms, wearing handcuffs and leather gear, playing I'm the doctor so hand me the speculum kind of stuff, I am talking about real rapes and real assaults - deep bruises, broken bones and real fear - that kind of thing.

And I am not just talking about highly-emotionalised visual displays of such things, because even relatively bland items on the News concerning sexual assaults can inspire fertile minds with thoughts.

For example, watching a brutal rape scene for the first time is probably like eating a hot meat curry for the first time. 

The only thing that you notice is the pain.

You wince and look away. 

But by the time that you get round to eating your 50th Chicken Vindaloo, you can actually taste the chicken - and you begin rather to like it.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky are pretty revolting things to do when you first start out. But if you push yourself along such pathways because, say, you want to 'be a man', or you happen to socialise and bond together with those people who do such things, then, before very long, you actually 'acquire' a taste for such things. 

And then, before you know it, you are desperate for your next smoke or drink.

The taste that you really hated at first, you now enjoy most enthusiastically.

what did you guys really think during the very first time that you heard about oral sex when you were young?

And what did you guys really think during the very first time that you heard about oral sex when you were young?

OMG!

There is just no way that my mouth is going anywhere near that thing. How disgusting!

And then, only a few years later, your tongue starts lolling out of your mouth at the very thought of going down on that sumptuous filly over whom you have recently started to dribble and drool every time you see her.

You see. When certain things are continually pushed into your consciousness, even though, at first, you might find them repugnant and abhorrent, it doesn't take too long before you actually 'acquire' the taste for them. 

It doesn't happen with everything, but it certainly happens with smoking, alcohol, certain foods, and sex.

And even with pain itself.

(Yes. Yes. I know that cigarettes and alcohol are addictive, but that's not the point! The point is that if one persists in taking them - for whatever reason - then the actual taste of them gives rise to a pleasant experience whereas previously it most certainly did not.)

Aha! You are anti-pornography!

Nope. Not at all. But it all depends on what type it is.

I have already talked about my personal attitude toward pornography in my piece A Question About Pornography, and, in summary, my attitude is that "anything that encourages something that is likely to result in more than a week in hospital is definitely out."

One of the major differences between pornography that is 'freely available' and images of abuse that are continually thrust completely uninvited upon everyone by the mainstream media (often in a naive attempt to discourage such things) is that with freely available pornography (barring any stuff that would lead to hospitalisation) people can at least select more wholesome pathways through which their sexuality can develop and be enjoyed. 

They can make a conscious choice as to where they want to go.

But when they are continually bombarded with particular sexual ideas and notions from the very ether, they cannot really escape from them.

there are some societal benefits to be gained from pornography.

Also, there are some societal benefits to be gained from pornography. For example, unpartnered and sexually-frustrated men (and quite a few women) can actually get their rocks off by using it without desperately and frantically having first to find themselves a willing subject.

This 'facility' therefore reduces the amount of sexual frustration and aggression in the real world by a considerable amount. And it also cuts down massively on the quantity of casual sex going on between people - which reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, unwanted children, and the spread of sexual diseases.

And that's quite an important list of benefits!

In the western world, however, the continual and uninvited bombardment of the population - and this clearly includes those who are sexually frustrated - with tales or images of serious abuse, simply leads to more people desensitising to the real suffering of the victims on the receiving end of it, and thereafter to them possibly even acquiring a taste for it.

And this 'desensitisation' which reduces the inhibitions to act in a 'bad' way does not only occur when the drive that motivates the act is sexual. It occurs in a similar manner no matter what the drive.

For example, take the 'drive' of anger. One of the reasons that the European media have been so reticent about reporting the details of why men kill their wives and children, and about massacres like those carried out by Marc Lepine and Thomas Hamilton, is that they do not want to encourage others to do the same thing. Indeed, a few years ago, Belgium was even considering blocking through legal means any publicity over family massacres where, say, rejected men killed their partners and children and sometimes themselves.

And yet, strangely enough, the very same people are usually quite happy to promote the view that men are always beating up women!

Do you see the contradiction?

Talking about men killing their women might encourage men to kill their women.

Talking about men killing their women might encourage men to kill their women. But talking about men beating up their women does not encourage men to beat up their women.

Well, my guess is that it does.

And the evidence seems to suggest that if there is a great deal of publicity concerning matters that people are often 'driven' towards, then, quite simply, more people will go there.

Another example would be the 'drive' to be lazy. And so, for example, if the media keep making the claim that men are lazy because they only do one-tenth of the housework, or whatever, then it doesn't take too long before men say to themselves, "Well, if most men are not doing the housework, then neither am I!"

The general point is that it is often the case that the behaviour that is being castigated is quite likely to increase as a result of the persistent attention that it receives.

Of course, a really bad experience with the behaviour in question can take you the other way. If the whisky makes you violently sick, you can be put off it for life. And the same can be true with very shocking material or ideas. The trouble is that the media cannot really promote effectively very shocking material or ideas - well, not any more, because people can easily turn over to view other channels and read other newspapers and/or they can become desensitised - and so they are not shocked any more.

(Indeed, people will just not watch for very long those things that truly upset them.) 

And the consequence is that, without conscious intent, people gradually end up cosying up to - and being desensitised to - those things that once did upset them.

Putting this more bluntly: When people regularly watch Oprah or Jerry Springer discussing appalling abuse, or when they watch soap operas that are filled with aggression and sex-assault, or when they watch films that purportedly depict 'domestic brutality' in a realistic way, they are not truly shocked or repulsed at all - no matter what they might claim.

They are actually revelling in the stuff.

If they were truly shocked or repulsed, then they would simply turn away from it.

If they were truly shocked or repulsed, then they would simply turn away from it.

And when people stumble across such programs and, thereafter, persist in watching them, they first start desensitising to the pain of others, and then they start enjoying it.

The whisky now tastes great!

Now, I always like to hit my readers hard. And so please imagine just a very simple news report on the radio.

"A 20 year old woman has been found dead in the wood. Her body was naked and her hands were tied behind her back. Detectives said that she had been raped and then killed."

Anyone aroused?

Well, let me tell you that if that simple report was broadcast across the USA on the radio tomorrow - no visuals! - there would be 500 men who would get a hard on at the whole idea. 50,000 would think fondly of the rape without the killing. 5 million would salivate at the 'wood' part of the story. 10 million would connect sexually to the idea of having sex with a naked girl in a wood. 5 million would cock their ears at the tying up bit. And 15 million would say Goodness, I wish I was 20 years old again rather than an old-age pensioner with a bad back.

And the point is that this popular 'uprising', this arousal, will take place in association with elements that, combined together, describe a terrible situation.

And as news reports such as these keep coming out, day after day, so it is that there will be increasing desensitisation throughout the population to the bits considered to be 'bad' (the whisky isn't so bad after all) followed eventually by a positive sexual association with them - Hmm, the whisky now tastes rather good.

And I must add most emphatically that women would also be inclined to latch on sexually to such things - but perhaps less so in this example.

those in the abuse industry cause far more harm than good

And so it is that, yet again, we find that those in the abuse industry cause far more harm than good to the very people that they would claim to be trying to protect when they keep immersing the population in thoughts of serious abuse.

Now I am not suggesting that the media and the abuse industry do not report on these events, because freedom of speech and freedom of access to information are just far too important to trample on.

But it is surely worth recognising that the desensitisation to, and the sexualisation of, very harmful behaviours can have serious repercussions, and that there are probably much better ways in which the mainstream media, the abuse industry and the entertainment industry should aim to deal with such things given that they have so much influence.

And if the above analysis is close to being a fair description of reality then my advice would be for these groups to reduce considerably the bombardment of material describing serious abuse - particularly that which relates to situations in which many people could actually find themselves. 

And, further, those who would really like to reduce the amount of violence and sexual crime that exists in our society and who keep complaining about it would also benefit society far more if they devoted more time to discussing objectively with the public why such things happen and rather far less time highlighting and dwelling upon their gruesome and/or sexual details. 

The latter might well bring in the customers and the donations, but they do so at a price that other people probably have to pay.

If more evidence were needed that Britain was becoming a nastier place, it is provided today in new public library statistics. In only 10 years the nation appears to have ended its love affair with family sagas and books about romance and it is now devouring crime thrillers - and the more ghoulish, the better.

In other words, the whisky now tastes great.