"There's no Sex in your Violence...
There's no Sex in your Violence...
There's no Sex in your Violence!
There's no Sex in your Violence!
-"Everything Zen", by Bush.
Back in college, I remember standing in the Darmouth Book Store, reading a description of the 1928 experimental film, "Un chien andalou" by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. It described a series of quick scenes from which contained two scenes, perhaps a second each in length, intended to bring the audience to a true state of shock and horror: In one, a man's hands are seen groping at a woman's breasts through her full dress; in the other, an eyeball on the screen is subjected to being sliced open with a razor blade. Even if my recollections from that book are imperfect, the fact remains that the eyeball scene (as a web search confirms) was not considered to be in such poor taste that it should not be included, while the explicitly sexual of course was and is.
Now, inverted and insane as our cultural framings are today for sex and violence, I think it is safe to say that with that extraordinarily extreme example, it should be evident what pervertedly repressed, inverted, even psychotic, social and cultural attitudes about sexuality that juxtaposition reflects.
Here it is not a video image of a tongue on someone's genitals or intercourse, or even tongue on a nipple, or even frontal nudity, or any nudity, but an explicitly erotic touch through clothes, which is implicitly equated not just with violence (which would be bad enough, and which we get plenty of today), but with a most viscerally brutal and horrifying violent image.
Fortunately we can recognize the madness in that example even in today's cultural climate which has continued the tradition, yet we so easily pass by countless examples of this tradition every day.
Not only is violence often glorified, but even when it is portrayed as 'bad' (or, lip service is made to that effect), it is still portrayed as only the SECOND WORST evil, the second most "unspeakable" -- the lowest of the low being sex of course, which is the only truly "unspeakable" subject.
It helps, to fully appreciate out cultural madness, to substitute the term "love" for sex. "I'm not sure that movie is suitable for children; it has a lot of violence. But, that other movie of course is even worse; it contains scenes of love!!", so it's totally out of the question."
I've commented before that the very term "sex and violence" is crazy, sort of like, "Love and mutilation". (I am reminded also of a rather harsh comment by a comedian about the title of Dr. Ruth's book, "Good Sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer", which was compared to "Good French Wine, with Cottage Cheese!").
The Bunuel/Dali example is also an example of "violence as a fig leaf" -- one of a countless number of instances where "sex and violence" are together because are repressed and ashamed feelings about the former are so bad, that we can't deal with it alone, without putting Violence, next to it, almost as if to comfort us.
And is the substitution of "love" for sex, suggested above, a radical notion? Hardly. Let's start with nudity. A movie with several instances of one person punching another in the face, easily earns a PG-13 rating, at worst. A movie in which a person appears without clothing for more than a fleeting, very limited number of moments, is rated R. Too many such scenes, especially if it contains the dreaded 'frontal nudity' , (Gosh Aunt Sally, you mean it ain't the Stock that brings the babies??") and the rating is X.
So our culture is saying that for a child or young adolescent adult: viewing naked people is one or two notches "worse" than viewing people violently assaulting other people's faces with slapping, punches, kicking, and shooting.
The message to the young and old continues: Long scenes of nudity, let alone sex (the message goes), is much worse (X, not R) than seeing Arnold machine-gun five, ten, twenty, more people to death, or Freddie slash and hack them to pieces. It cannot be stated often enough the the objection is not only that it shoudl not be "worse", but that sex and nudity should not even be on the "badness" scale at all, never mind at a worse level, and that's despite the fact that the particular forms of sexuality put out by the profits-driven movie "industry" we have, are of the kind that progressive minded people, myself included, find objectionable.
In a sane world, the viewing of naked people would be not only tolerated, but seen as a positive. For what are the possible contexts? It seems to me that there are two primary responses to the unclothed human body. First, we can appreciate its beauty, just as in any other form of art. This includes combating the self-loathing attitudes most of us bear in at least some dose, about ourselves. The second possible response is the dreaded possible erotic response.
And yet, looking back at our Fundamental Principles, we are reminded however that no matter how much shame our culture puts into our head on this matter, erotic responses are a Good Thing, and being sexually aroused is as Good and Beautiful a human response as having one's breath taken away by a sunset, or delighting in the song or birds, or enjoying a good meal, going on a jog or stroll, and so on. So in either case, what is the problem? The problem, of course, is the sexual repression and deeply rooted feelings of guilt and shame surrounding sexuality.
And it's not just children who are subjected to this inversion; the adult may be able to go to the "R" and even "X" rated movie, but the stigma of going to a "raunchy" movie rated "R", let alone to an "X" rated movie, is quite heavy. And the feelings of guilt that are almost invariably there to some extent, the movie-goer has to deal with whether or not anyone else finds out.
This allows for the continued use of (mostly) female sexuality to manipulate men and women into buying products they don't need, including products (e.g. tobacco) which will kill them. The taboo/titilation is very functional. Playboy, and this is not a paradox, would be perhaps the group most against a nudist society, and the mass-marketers exploiting sexuality dead-set against a truly sex-positive culture, for that would be for us men and women to enjoy, freely, but not particularly condusive to selling products or otherwise manipulating us. It's far easier to manipulate people (including children) when the whole area is shrowded is secrecy, ignorance, and feelings of shame. There are also other connections, to body image and health/diet, which are worth exploring.
In any event, in a sane society, not only nude images, but explicit images of (and literature about) sexuality would not be repressed, and Heavens to Betsy, would even be similarly seen in favorable light, and celebrated.
You may be turned off or even strongly dislike that picture or that video, but that's no different than other arts; you might dislike or even hate a piece of music someone produces, or even most music, but we don't go around thinking of music as an evil, dirty, shameful practice we need to hide and can't discuss in public like other topics. We celebrate is a positive, one of the beauties and joys human beings are able to appreciate.
Sexuality is another gift Nature has given to humanity, along with music, eating, and exercise and other physical activity, intellectual discourse and stimulation, the emotional and romantic bonds and feelings between human beings, and a few others, all of which should be appreciated, and celebrated.
Last modified, Oct 26 1996 liberation.nosexinviolence.html