Grand Theft Auto V, like all GTA games, is a very controversial game; while normal people see it for what it is, a clever satire on society and a fun little escape from reality, some people have seen it as offensive, insulting, or even dangerous. Jack Thompson argued that games cause violent behaviour in their players, Anita Sarkeesian argued that games cause sexism in their players, GTA V in particular was banned by Target in Australia because it apparently encourages violence against women. All of these arguments are laughable in my opinion, but let's go back a few years, let's say 15 or 20 years ago, when the idea that gamers were all lonely basement dwellers who lived with their parents was still very prevalent, and think about this. Today gaming is an empire, every year billions of dollars swirl around in the gaming industry, which has gone full mainstream and been accepted by society at large, but back in the day, as it were, when it wasn't mainstream, and the stereotype of gamers was still stigmatised, if the government swooped in and said it wanted to ban video games because they're harmful to society, who would stop them? obviously Porn isn't one day going to be a media empire on par with movies or games, but it's still a big business, it still has plenty of companies producing it, and some of it's 'talents' have become very successful. But the stereotype of what a porn consumer is has remained largely the same, they're all fat lonely men, and porn is heavily looked down upon by religious groups and feminists groups, who think it's dangerous to society, just like Jack Thompson and Anita Sarkeesian think GTA is dangerous to society. Now let's go to an extreme; guns and drugs, two things that are contributing factors to a lot of crime in the world, guns, at least in America, are allowed under the 2nd amendment, drugs on the other hand are not allowed. But making drugs illegal does very little to stop it's manufacture and distribution, as the Mexican drug cartels prove, when the product you're trying to ban is something people want, the people who want it will just pay a higher price if they want it bad enough, even if that means getting in trouble with the law or in deep with dangerous people, who not only have to contend with the law, but business rivals who could hurt their profits. This underground industry is impossible to police, since its very existence is a problem for the police under the law, so violence and deaths are inevitable. Guns would be a similar issue, since they're legal in America, their distribution can be better policed and controlled, whereas if they were illegal, only the people who really want them would end up getting them, and they clearly have no trouble breaking the law, which is very bad.
Porn or games don't pose as much of a threat as drugs or guns, obviously, but there are some relevant similarities as well as some significant differences. Porn, like drugs and guns, is an industry, and this industry has suppliers and consumers, building walls between the supplier and the consumer won't stop the business outright, it will simply drive it underground, where people who are less considerate of the law will see an opportunity to make money. An underground, unpoliceable porn industry would, for very obvious reasons, be a very dangerous thing, an industry that actually would be harmful to people who work in it's production, as it stands for example, the legal minimum age in porn is 18, make it illegal and you remove that rule, which would make any age acceptable for the producer if the money for it comes in; there are paedophiles in the world, and there are people who could blackmail and threaten people into participating in something they don't want to do, for example the production of porn. I think a good solution for this would be to not make porn illegal or ban it, keep the legal minimum age, and make sure that it's production isn't breaking any laws, don't make up laws to try and strangle it, and don't just try to kill it, because it will just lead to bigger problems, as drugs and guns have proven, while porn will obviously never be as mainstream as video games, the stereotype of only sad lonely men who watch it needs to be challenged, and its existence is something that society at large has to accept, rather than cower away from, even if it doesn't have to embrace it, which it won't.
Now back to the government and religious and feminist groups. The government's latest push to ban 'non conventional' porn is coming from an ironically intolerant place; think about it, we as a society have been browbeaten into accepting some sexualities. To be honest, I don't think sexuality should matter, what hole you like it in matters about as much, to me anyway, as what colour your skin is, which is to say it doesn't, but while society at large has been browbeaten into accepting homosexuality or bisexuality or transgenderism, other sexualities are still seen as dirty or dangerous, like BDSM, something the conservative government seems to really hate, and that feminists also hate, because violence against women and bla bla bla. To some, porn is a problem with society, as I said in my post about the conservatives and porn, David Cameron described the problem porn as "Poisonous to the young people" while he was trying to restrict it. This is an argument that's not hard to find, porn is bad for the world because it's turning people into addicts and making them reclusive, gaming gets a similar argument thrown at it from time to time; people aren't going out and having fun because of Xbox, people aren't going out and having real relationships because of Redtube. I, personally, don't see these things as problems, I see them as symptoms, I fear that society at large has some much more serious problems, which lead to gaming and porn addicts, and society either doesn't want to or can't see the real problem. Technology has possibly played a huge part; in recent years we've seen the rise of methods of communication humanity has never seen before, where once people had to meet in person or send letters or telegrams, they could now communicate with radio, then with phones, and then with texting, and social media. These changes have been embraced by society, and while it's easy, and convenient, it poses a problem; why bother go out and play football with a friend when you can just play FIFA on Xbox Live for example. These changes to society have come so fast that things haven't had the chance to settle down, the long term effects of these changes have yet to truly be seen, and because we're an impatient species, we'd rather push forward with more change, like Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, they were too preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. Many movements and ideologies have also sprung up, pushing for the acceptance of things society once found off-putting, but whether or not these movements originally had good intentions doesn't matter at this point. The dictionary definition of feminism doesn't excuse some of the vile things feminists have done, pushing the notion that all men are potential rapists, that men are all privileged and they all oppress women, notions that are not only wildly untrue, but create a very dangerous rift between people who believe these ideas and the agents of the evil patriarchy. This rift can be very easily observed, with fish who don't need no bicycles, and movements like MGTOW, and it is cancerous to gender relations, so much so that people aren't seeing benefits in relationships anymore; women are all scared of being beaten and raped by the evil men, and men don't want the hassle of an overly needy, overly emotional woman who thinks he's a rapist, and as a result they just make do with porn.
Trying to fix a deep fault in society by attacking one of its symptoms won't work, the real world is no longer giving people what they truly desire, for whatever reason that may be, if a pseudo solution like gaming or porn is there, people will turn to that, and get the gratification the real world isn't giving them, to take that away will make things worse before it makes them better, especially in this age of sexually liberation and acceptance, where sexual media is still dirty. Guns and drugs being made illegal is ultimately going cause its own problems, making the distribution even harder to control, and the distributers even more aggressive and violent. Porn would be exactly the same, and like drugs, it would be unregulated, posing serious health risks, to the consumer in the case of drugs, and to the actors in the case of porn, and in an environment that can't be policed, where rules can't be enforced, bad things are bound to happen. An informed, nuanced approach is the solution to these symptoms, but not a fix for the core problems. And I won't pretend that I know how to fix it, because I don't, I don't know if anybody does, but to bring it back to the government, and use a metaphor; society has a terminal illness, but trying to ban it from dying it's hair won't make any difference, and it will make you look like vile busybodies with backwards priorities, let society dye it's hair, and get to work doing things that will actually help.
No comments:
Post a Comment