Porn, Violence, and Video Games

The question as to whether video games cause violence was a hot topic recently. I don't know whether it does or it doesn't, but I think some conservatives like myself may have reason to suspect it does. Conservatives, like myself, say that pornography is part of the cause for sex trafficking and sexual violence. I won't go into detail for that argument, but I do refer you to the book The Social Costs of Pornography. And what is pornography? They are images for the purpose of stimulating our sexual arousal. While we do not engage in the acts of the images, since those times are past and perhaps in far away locations, they engage our fantasies. So, there is some connection between that and sexual violence. Now, consider violent video games. What do they do? They are also images that engage our fantasies. And they engage them into acts of violence. I killed this person. I ran over that person. I decapitated her. I shot their dog. Etc. They engage the fantasy. And so, likewise, it may also encourage real acts of violence like pornography encourages sexual violence and other sexual deviance.

Obviously, video games aren't real. We know they aren't real. And there's a huge gap between reality and fantasy. But this may be too quick of a move. What makes video games entertaining is the suspension of belief, that is, we suspend belief that it is fantasy, and we imagine ourselves as really being the character. The better the game can suspend that belief, the better it is. I also imagine (heh) that this is part of the appeal of better graphics. Further, do watchers of pornography not also realize that they themselves are not engaging in the sexual acts that they witness? They obviously do, but they suspend that belief, and the need to suspend that belief and make it into a reality becomes so great, they act out on it, and so likewise with video game violence.

I think something should be said in an Christian manner as well. Christ did say that even looking at a woman lustfully was to commit adultery. This is a mortal sin. And so even engaging in that kind of mental activity does change you. It makes you into a bad person and sexual pervert. So, likewise, killing someone just in thought is to commit murder and that makes you a bad person and murderous person. And so, we can understand why it might makes sense to some people, without looking at any empirical data, that violent video games causes real violence.

But characters in video games aren't real and don't always correlate to some real person. Often, they don't. Pornography, on the other hand, does involve real people. So that may be a difference, but it is difficult to see why it would be a relevant one. Some forms of pornography involve cartoon characters and drawings of fictional people. On the flip side, some video games do involve real historical persons. But cartoon porn is still porn. So even if video game characters weren't real people, they are still representative of real persons, and so our desire is still aimed at real things. That is why keeping pictures of people has sentimental value for us. That is why we build statues and carry photos of our family around. They do mean something, and they correlate to real things, even if in an indeterminate way.