Discussion of violence
Honest question:
Why are works of #fiction (books, comic, animation, film) depicting #rape or #pedophilia more offensive to more people and cause more calls to boycott or censorship than fiction depicting extreme #violence or #murder, when killing someone is universally regarded as worse than raping someone (morally worse) and criminal systems everywhere punish murderers more harshly than rapists (legally worse)?
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@tripu Good question.
If i had to speculate I think it has a lot to do with some unspoken subconscious stuff... my thinking goes like this.
While rape and pedophilia is deplorable, it is still sexual in nature. This has the potential to arouse and imagery associated with arousal is likely far more likely to be appealing to a person and perhaps tempt them to do the bad deed than simply watching someone kill, which in and of itself isnt something that, by watching it, is likely to have any element of pleasure and thus likely wont do as good a job at enticing someone to carry it out.
> The most basic example is: strict heterosexuals would rarely find “inspiration” in realistic depictions of gay sex, and vice versa.
While I agree this doesnt actually happen, I do think the fear is there all the same for hte aforementioned reasons.
> Similarly, is a “normal” person enticed to sex with children by watching paedophilia? I can’t speak for others, but my intuition (and my own experience) is: definitely not. Ditto about rape.
I guess it depends on what age we are talking about. Once the child is old enough to have breasts I think even a person who isnt a pedophile who saw such a person in a sex seen, assuming they were otherwise attractive, might feel some arousal... I mean raping a 4 year old... ewww i dont think any normal person would get aroused by that... but a 15 or 16 year old? I think that is a very real possiblity, after all they have "devloped" by that age, so the formula is there at least.
Yeah, there's the issue of the cut-off.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia):
> _“Pedophilia […] is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to **prepubescent children**. Although **girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12**, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for **prepubescence to age 13**.”_
Then there's the [age of consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent):
> _“Age of consent laws vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, though **most jurisdictions set the age of consent in the range 14 to 18** (with the exceptions of Argentina and Niger which set the age of consent for 13, Mexico which sets the age of consent between 12 and 15, and 14 Muslim states and the Vatican City that set the consent by marriage only).”_
It's very tricky, because obviously a psychologically healthy adult can be aroused by someone under the age of consent who looks sexually mature.
@freemo
That's a good explanation.
But something is missing: although it's true the vast majority of us have a sexual drive, arousal happens almost exclusively when there's a match with our own tendencies. The most basic example is: strict heterosexuals would rarely find “inspiration” in realistic depictions of gay sex, and vice versa. Similarly, is a “normal” person enticed to sex with children by watching paedophilia? I can't speak for others, but my intuition (and my own experience) is: [definitely not](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2948747914). Ditto about rape.
There might be a narrow slice of people with latent or ambiguous tendencies who might get something out of it, but I doubt it's more than that.
In contrast, we've been hearing for decades that dramatised violence (eg, games, film) does alter the behaviour of consumers, and yet murder and violence are ubiquitous in our cultural products, and we don't seem to give that a second thought.