I was 15 when I watched the film “Hostel.” I was young, impressionable and sitting next to my father ““ not the most common choice in family entertainment, but I was in high school, such as it is.
Braced for the blood, gore and guts promised me by the trailer, I would never have foreseen the awkwardness into which I got myself that night.
For in the first half of those dreadful 94 minutes, there was just sex, and alcohol, and drugs, but mostly sex, and lots of it (at least, a level of sexuality to which my fledgling eyes ought not be privy).
You can imagine, dear reader, how uncomfortable it must have been. Surely you have experienced something similar: flipping through the family’s cable television to an episode of Hotel Erotica 13, or the off chance your parents happened to walk in during the bathroom scene of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
And as I sat there by my father watching those poor, poor American saps lured into decay and decadence by those beautiful Eastern Europeans, a numb discomfort washed over me. Embarrassment, shame. And by the time the film spiraled into senseless violence and nameless acts of inhumanity, it was not disgust that greeted me, but relief.
How strange indeed that the moral depravity of unspeakable violence offered sanctuary from the menial licentiousness of sex. I felt far more at ease watching human bodies torn limb from limb with my father than I did while seeing human beings engaged in the most basic of biological impulses.
Maybe it’s just me. But it is no stretch of the imagination to conceive of a link between this embarrassment and the psycho-sexual conditioning of American norms.
We see this every day in American media. From the dropping of anvils for children to the volley of bullets for adults, network television and the Federal Communications Commission never seem to have much of a bone to pick with violence. But a single, accidental sight of a female nipple sends the whole country in uproar.
The bloated travesty of soapbox cinema “Avatar” can condemn American neo-imperialism and warmongering by having the peace-loving Na’vi degenerate into vicious guerillas, but of the tenderness of intimacy between the two protagonists we see but a snippet. While there is something to say for the artistic subtlety of such a reservation, I wouldn’t bank on James Cameron’s flair for nuance to explain his bias of war over love.
With a McDonald’s endorsement and a generous PG-13 rating, “Avatar” is essentially marketed toward the youth of America. And this is what we teach our children: Violence is always cooler than romance.
Maybe it’s true. It certainly is easier. Nevertheless, it is no wonder that watching heels being split and eyes being torched felt more family-friendly than some sensuality here and there.
And it is no wonder, then, that Americans have such an aversion to sex, and a repugnance to all things sexual beyond the confines of tradition. This is a culture more comfortable with two men holding weapons than holding hands, exchanging bullets than exchanging kisses.
Such is to be expected from a nation with the Puritanical foundation we’ve inherited. In this one nation under God, our norms have been shaped to a large extent by a conservatism that cherishes the Christian sense of shame for our sexuality (the first documented emotion of our sinful ancestors) as a virtue.
The same conservatism that is based on a book (the Bible) about a spiteful God who justifies the brutal, merciless slaying of innocents to acquire land. The same conservatism that labels taxes more of a threat to liberty than censorship.
So long as these norms govern America’s sexual palate, we are bound to live under the remnants of archaic, repressive, (and as I’ve said before) absurd tradition.
And with these fetters in place against our most primal desires, that Americans are so notorious for their teenage pregnancies is none-too-alarming. Contrast our disheartening 86 pregnancies for every 1,000 teenage girls to the mere 12 from the Netherlands (considerably less draconian in their views on sex).
Perhaps we Americans have a penchant for excessive rebellion against our upbringing. Perhaps we are suffering from too little exposure to the birds and the bees. In any case, it is time to shed our juvenile distaste for sexuality. It is time for America to stop trying to make us feel guilty for our private parts.
Though I’ve criticized America’s infatuation with violence over sex, I do not wish to impose some new restriction on violence in media. Government censorship of any kind is among the highest perversions. I only mean to cast into question America’s long history of suppressing the most fundamental and beautiful of human functions.
Remember that the witches of Salem were accused of fornicating with Satan, a sin apparently far more foul than the torture, abuse and execution of unfairly judged defendants.
What this might say about America’s priorities today, I’ll let you decide.
If you’re a rebel from the waist down, e-mail Manalastas at jmanalastas@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.