This is born of discussions here & here about sex in “His Dark Materials” and violence in Harry Potter. The gist is this: books for children or young teens often skimp on sexuality, whereas they are free to be graphically violent. I’d like to explore this from two directions: first with regard to the unacceptability of sexuality and second with regard to sexuality as violent in itself.

Although I am less interested in the fact that graphic violence is acceptable fare for “children” (see: Harry Potter, Transformers, et al.), it deserves mention. As anyone can see when one rents a movie or checks out a book, violence need only be vaguely justified in the plot. Often “gratuitous” violence need only change the color or amount of blood to pass censors (see: any video game about zombies). Whether or not this is a good thing, it is never something we expect people to imitate. We expect readers/watchers/players to know that one does not take a machete to ones neighbors, one does not torture spiders in class, and one does not intentionally run one’s car into people. Sex, I hope, operates in a different realm.

Sexuality in videogames and movies is skewed in the direction of sexuality for consumption: people are attractive, or scantily clad, and therefore sexy. Sexuality in these media and in books is rarely explicit (remember the hype around Eyes Wide Shut because the people were going to be actually engaging in intercourse, rather than simply simulating it for the screen?) and when it is, it is frowned upon. Harry may get a few kisses with Cho, but any other contact they may have is unsaid; Elizabeth Swann may only have one kiss in the whole movie because she’s played by a minor; beach volleyball players’ breast-bouncing quotient may be edited by the player. And yet, we may rightly assume that sex is something that we do intend to imitate. Hopefully not in the same manner in which it is (poorly) conveyed in media, but in some fashion.

Maybe it’s the unreality of the way that sexuality is discussed that makes it “okay” in fiction to not discuss the reality of sexuality in the same way that it is “okay” not to discuss the reality of violence (how many times have you seen Tom or Jerry checking into the doctor’s office?). Or perhaps it’s the implicit cultural equation of sex with violence. Sexuality in fiction, when not so G-rated as to disappear, is violent. Stalkers are de rigueur in popular music (”every step you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you”), women are rarely clothed in video games, and a fight turns to a kiss in more movies than I care to list (a History of Violence, perhaps appropriately, has a pretty glaring example). I can’t help but draw parallels to the messed up way that this culture thinks of relationships with regard to sex-as-violence (or is it violence-as-sex?). I don’t think sex in fiction is a cause so much as a symptom, but it certainly doesn’t do anything to change the situation.