“M” Worries Parents More Than “XXX”

According to an online poll, parents worry more that their kids will play violent video games than watch porn or drink alcohol. My response: Are you [censored] kidding me? The anti-video game regime has demonized video games this much? GTA is worse than smut? This is XXX-ed up.

What They Play promotes itself as a parents’ guide to video games, which in itself is not a bad thing. And it’s only logical they’d ask parents what concerns them about their kids and video games. Let’s examine the results of this “poll.”

“The results of the initial What They Play online poll, conducted April 4-10, 2008, found that the 1,266 participants were most offended by the following in a video game: a man and woman having sex (37%); two men kissing (27%); a graphically severed head (25%); and multiple use of the F-word (9%).”

Which is funny because, depending on your taste, most of these can be found in some form of pornography. I just hope there aren’t that many people with a severed head fetish.

“The second poll, which ran August 1-6, 2008, queried parents on what they’d be most concerned about their 17-year-old child indulging in while at a sleepover. More than 1,600 respondents revealed they’re more apprehensive about their child smoking marijuana (49%) and playing the video game Grand Theft Auto (19%), than watching pornography (16%) and drinking beer (14%).”

Not to start an annoying “legalize it” banter, but now weed and GTA are worse than porn? I admit anti-video-game regime, you are good.

I guess after WoW vs. Porn this shouldn’t have surprised me. Though I always believed parents preferred their kids keeping their hands busy with video games than watching porn. But video games are an unfamiliar and relatively new concern when it comes to parenting today, especially when games incorporate violence and sexuality. A generational chasm means many parents just don’t understand games, and as such they panic when they hear a game may have boobies and the F-bomb like anything else they guard their innocent children from. It just seems like a case of fear of the unknown to me. But, of course, I don’t have a fancy degree like Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D., co-author of Grand Theft Childhood.

“To some parents, video games are full of unknowable dangers,” she says. “[parents] often bemoaned the fact that they didn’t know how to use game controls - and felt unequipped to supervise or limit video game play. Of course, parents don’t want their children drinking alcohol, but that’s a more familiar risk.”

Trust me, parents, porn can be far more traumatizing than a video game. Ask anyone who has ever watched a movie called Urotsukidoji (seriously, there is something very wrong with whoever made that up).

The law also makes it hard for kids, even seventeen year-olds, to get their hands on M-rated games; finding porn is easier by comparison. And if your kid is dumb enough to imitate what he sees on a video game, he’s not exactly Ivy League material and probably never will be. So until common sense is added to the school curriculum–like sex-ed–teaching this skill, and monitoring what children play, will remain the parents’ responsibility. Whether they like it or not.