Born Free, Window Seat or Modern Warfare 2 : The Electric Boogaloo

(my character about to get a 7.62mm frontal lobotomy)

Thanks to a friend of mine's 14 year old son, I am now an addict of FPS (first person shooter) games - Halo CE was my first taste of the drug which now I cannot seem to get enough of.

My mother in law gave me a $15.00 Gamestop card for Father's Day and another for my birthday (which occurred a week or so apart). I found a few coupons online so it went like this:

Gamestop.com

• Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2 - $39.99 (pre-owned of course)
• Giftcards - $30.00 total.
• Coupon - 20% off any used game and free shipping:
• I had $30.00 in cards, and the 20% off/free shipping coupon:
• $38.00 credit

Total cost to Glen - $1.99 mailed to my front door. Now that I have bragged about what a tightwad I am, I will get to my point.

So, I get the game, open it up and see the 'Tipper Sticker' on it - Rated M - Blood, Gore, Language, Violence - shit! No sex? I guess Rangers or SAS are not interested in cornholing or pulling a 69er on each other.

So, I played all the way through the game and got to the end. Learned the reasons for this and that. Seeing as it was a sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, it pulled a few loose ends together. All in all, I really like it. Now, I play the online skirmishes or do the special OPs. Keeps me off of the porn web sites.

Speaking of porn, I have a point to all of this. I will get to it soon, but let me state and build my case first.

After doing a little Googling, I discovered the demography for this game:

http://www.quantcast.com/modernwarfare2.com . If I read the graphs correctly, it looks like males, Caucasian and 13-17 years old. Makes sense - boys like to play with guns. I know when I was a kid, I did. We played 'war games' all of the time. Loved it - learned strategy, stealth, all kinds of cool shit. (A buddy of mine, his dad was in the now defunct Canadian Airborne Regiment, so his dad was a good local expert on jungle/urban warfare.) So, for $59.99 when this game was released, probably Mummy and/or Daddy paying for little 13-17 year old Jimmy, Johnny or Timmy to get it at WalMart or Gamestop (seeing as it is rated M, they cannot sell it to you unless you are 18). So, on with my dit.

Now, if you jump around the web enough you will find these two things.

1. MIA Born Free http://vimeo.com/11219730 - not a problem at all to find an uncensored version of it. I will warn you that it is very violent and very graphic. It even disturbed me and I am not easily shocked. So, if you are faint-of-heart, don't watch it.
2. Another video that caught my attention was this: http://www.examiner.com/x-9259-Celebrity-Headlines-Examiner~y2010m3d31-Erykah-Badu-window-seat-video-unedited-version-is-too-risque-or-just-bad-taste . It is a musical re-enactment of the JFK assassination. All of her naughty parts are censored.

Okay, now it is time to get to my point. Question time: what is more damaging to a young person's psyche? Seeing a naked body part or seeing a human body blown to bits? I know the first time I ever saw a naked person, I stared in awe. Wow, that is what we look like. The first time I ever saw a sex scene in a movie, I think I was about 11. Made me feel all 'fuzzy' inside. (I guess 'horny' and 'fuzzy' are similar when you are a pre-teen). I know that my first sexual encounter I will remember for life (in a good way - you know who you are, oh yes you do!)

I know the first violent thing I ever saw was disturbing. I think it was an old B&W war flick, called 'Hell Is For Heroes' - a young Steve McQueen and a younger James Coburn. It was 1962 version of violence but when someone is laying there burned, and you are about 10 years old, it kind of sticks to you. I remember seeing 'Videodrome' as a young man and it actually made me wince and grimace. Oh, let us not forget 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and the Jason Voorhies 'Friday The 13th' sequel after tasteless and violent sequel. How many different ways can you kill someone? Or, perhaps a Tarantino flick - his nonchalant ways of decapitating, castrating, stabbing, shooting, gutting or disemboweling someone while sipping a cup of tea or telling a story about a hamburger that he ate.

So, I ask this: when was the last time you saw someone in therapy for jerking off, getting a hand job from their partner, squeezing their partner's bum, or having an Earth-shattering orgasm with someone you really liked or were in love with - or not - just a romp in the sack? Has there ever been someone in the history of mankind that has become a spouse-abuser from looking at Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler or Juggs? Did Jeffery Dahmer start killing and devouring boys because he saw his mom naked or had casual sex in a night-club bathroom? Did Richard Kuklinski become a professional assassin because he liked blow-jobs?

So, what is more damaging to one's psyche? Making a sticky mess in your pants (or in girl's case, getting wet and sticky between the legs) or making a mess with someone's grey matter all over the sidewalk? Personally, I take the sticky mess in the pants - worst case scenario - take a shower and change your undies.

Sex is a natural, wonderful part of two people that are in love. It is also sometimes used as stress-relief, sometimes a sleep aid. It is something that you do for someone whom you care about. Something kind for someone you like or love. However, there are a few side-effects. Making a mess, or in the case of guy-girl sex, the girl can get pregnant. (I won't talk about rape, as that is not a sexual act, it is an act of violent empowerment over someone who is powerless) .

So, really - sex is Mother Nature's way of keeping the population going. Something few of us can resist, so a primal urge which can have the side-effect of creating new lives. Wow - Mother Nature is one smart girl.

So, my question is this? What is so bad about sex, nudity and any other erotica? I am not a psychology weenie but I don't believe that looking at naked people or looking at pornography is damaging to your mental well-being. I think it may cause damage to a 13 year old boy's penis if he does too much pud-polishing - his ding-dong may get sore. So, if it starts to get painful, stop for a day or two. As for the girls, if you want to 'frig the marble' or 'dial the rotary phone', just stop for a while if you get sore. I am willing to wager that the prison population is not full of people that had too much sex- unless they are a pedophile - which isn't sex, it's abuse.

So, if you walk in on mom and dad playing 'ride 'em cowgirl' , red faced, dad screams "..hey!! Ever hear of knocking...get outtaeah!!!" You quickly shut the door and either walk away confused or giggle. Later on mom and dad sit you down and explain to you what they were doing was private and something that people do when they care for one another (hopefully).

However, if you walked in on your mom lying in a pool of blood with her entrails hanging out and your dad standing there with a carving knife, his clothes soaked in blood, with a crazed look on his face, panting forcefully, what do you think your reaction would be?

So, my final question to all of you: why are we so hung up on censoring nudity and sexuality, but we tend to allow violence to be so 'mainstream'?