Why is it that a brutally severed human torso is acceptable for public broadcast so long as any female nipples are covered? What kind of sense does that make?
Crime shows vie to show new and more graphic violence in each episide. You can witness body parts being stabbed with random implements and watch the person die then re-live the scene with moving models showing exactly which organs are pierced along with squelching sounds and catchy music.
It no longer suffices to kill a single victim or mundane cause of death. It has to be exceptionally horrifying. We have to have serial killers who off people creatively, like drilling out their spleens with a rusty paddle bit after weeks of feeding them rotten eggs and spiders.
We can watch people tortured, bloody battles fought, and whole planets annhilated for our amusement and we hardly think anything of it. But less than two seconds of a real live female human nipple appears on the screen and people lose their collective minds.
What is so particularly offensive about genitals? Surely we have by now seen far uglier and perverse things many times over. Any episode of Criminal Minds will provide examples. Half of us have a penis and most of us like them, but you show one on TV and suddenly it’s a national emergency. Broadcasting affectionate lovemaking on national television would cause a firestorm of epic proportions.
We claim that such censorship is intended to protect children. Protect them from what exactly? The body parts in the mirror? “You can do that when you are older, kid. It can be a beautiful thing. For now you can only watch other humans be dismembered.”
How is it okay to show a child the darkest imaginings of human nature we can contrive while hiding the most delightful and natural aspects of what it means to be human? Why do we shrink from displays of affection between lovers and seek to show the worst and most hurtful human behaviors?
Is it more harmful to see people have consentual sex than a rape? Can you guess which one gets depicted more?
Is it worse to show a person being burned or licked from head to toe?
This is wrong. It would be far better to show real human love in all its varied imperfect beauty than the violence and horror we are encouraged to consume.
Demonizing body parts has clearly failed to make us better people. Perhaps we should try shaming ignorance and dishonesty instead.
Heresies.org 