Sex and Violence

In light of the mass murder shootings of 32 innocent people and the suicide of the shooter at Virginia Tech by automatic handguns, I write this essay in anger, disgust, and sadness. May God rest their poor souls.

Unfortunately, too often, the words sex and violence are linked together. Sex and violence have nothing to do with one another. Sex and violence should never be linked together. Even those who are involved in bondage and discipline can tell you that. Those who disagree that sex has nothing to do with violence are those who think that rape is a sexual crime. Rape is a violent crime against women and those who commit rape are closet homosexuals and are men who are incapable of having a normal and mutually gratifying sexual relationship with a woman.

If you must link a word with sex, link it with love, link it with pleasure, and link it with gratification. I would rather watch sex, not pornographic films, but tasteful and realistic depictions of sex with nudity over violence any day. Yet, our puritanical society is so twisted and sexually repressed that it is much stricter when censoring programs with sexual content than it is when censoring programs that have graphic violence. You do not believe me? Just turn on your television at 9pm any day of the week and you can see CSI, Lost Without a Trace, 24, Prison Break, Sopranos, Law and Order, just to name a few, and that is just television. Movies have even more shoot 'em up, blow 'em up, and blood and gore. Nope, no sexual content television shows here.

Do you want to know what the top movies are? Godfather I and II, Pulp Fiction, Schindler's List, Star Wars, 12 Angry Men, Goodfellas, Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Lawrence of Arabia, Fight Club, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Scarface, American Beauty, Se7en, A Clockwork Orange, just to name a few and just to draw a common thread, which, of course, is violence and more violence begets even more violence. No where on the list is Basic Instinct, Emmanuelle, Barbarella, Body Heat, Secretary, Brokeback Mountain, Out of Sight, and Wild Things, just to name a few and just to draw a common thread that, apparently, we Americans would rather see someone being shot dead than someone getting laid.

I have seen more murders on television than I have blow jobs, which is to write, that I have never seen a blow job on network television. Am I to draw the conclusion that a woman giving a man oral sexual pleasure or a man giving a woman oral sexual pleasure is more distasteful than a man shooting another man to death?

I guess if I want to watch sex on television, I would have to play one of my children's video games. We feel that it is okay for our children to play video games with inappropriate sexual content but it is not okay for adults to watch television shows at night that have sexual content.

It was not that long ago when prime time television was Disney shows with Bambi, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, and cartoons, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Top Cat. Censors could never mold those who lived on the East Coast and the West Coast into the Nelsons, Ozzie and Harriet or the Cleavers, Ward and June, like they did with Middle America. Our televangelists who riddle us with guilt and redemption are rife with sexually scandals. Now, why do you think that is? It is because sex is repressed and violence is okay.

What is wrong in our gun violent culture? Don Imus was fired for a comment that was not only racially charged but also that degraded women. We all know what he said. We heard it all before on any violent rendition of a rap or hip hop artists' CD. Yet, out of the woodwork steps Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ready to play their race card. Do these two have jobs or do they just hang around waiting to step in front of a television camera whenever there is something to point their fingers at that will give them publicity? I swear these reverends are like spoiled children. Never do I hear them offering solutions before the problem but I hear them suggesting plenty of ways how we can correct our errors and it all has to do with money.

Why aren't they out helping black men finding good paying jobs to support their families? Why aren't they outraged in front of Congress demanding that the black man receive the same education and career opportunities afforded to the white man? Why aren't they doing something to stop the gun violence in the black neighborhoods? Why aren't they outraged the way black men perceive black women as whores and sluts? They are only outraged when there is television coverage. You should be ashamed, shame on you Reverend Jesse Jackson and shame on you Reverend Al Sharpton.

Where were all the women's organizations? Why did they not play their feminist card? Did they not think what Imus said was inappropriate?

While President Bush is out searching for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the ones that never existed (I guess car bombs aren't considered weapons of mass destruction), handguns are killing tens of thousands of people every year in this country. How many people must die before a handgun is considered a weapon of mass destruction?

I am tired of not being to stop my car to confront someone in the street to give them a piece of my mind when they have done something offensive or inappropriate for fear that he may have a gun. Why does he have a gun? Only the police and our military should have a gun. If you want to hunt, go buy a rifle. You don't need that automatic handgun that can shoot twenty rounds in a blink of an eye like a machine gun.

I would much rather see some hot woman's nipples staring me in the face than a 9mm Glock. What is wrong with this country? I ask that rhetorically, of course, because I already know the answer. Money is wrong with this country. Those who do not have it, want it, and those who have it, want more. You can never have enough money.

I say put the gun manufacturers out of business, buy back the guns, and melt them down. There are more handguns in this country than there are people. Then, take the money we save from not having to spend it on handgun crimes and make realistic television with nudity, sex scenes, and voyeuristic and exhibitionistic programming. Let's put the violence in the gutter where it belongs and take sex out of the gutter and put it up for public inspection and digestion where it belongs.

"Condoms are on the house! Free condoms for everyone! Condoms instead of bullets! Love instead of murder. Sex instead of violence."