Friday, February 27, 2009

Don’t Read This, part 3

Before we get into any debates (assuming anyone is even reading) about how studies show that TV and video games influence behavior vs. studies that show they don’t influence behavior, I thought I’d just look at a couple of bottom line statistics.

United States: land of morals, where we are free to worship as we choose and make sure that everyone around us knows it, country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, where any act of violence can be toned down enough to keep a movie available for teenagers but god forbid we show them breasts, where several courts are trying to convict young teenagers as violent sex offenders for sexting (sending their boyfriend or girlfriend a nude picture via crappy cellphone camera): annual rapes reported per 100,000 are about 33.

Japan: land of bunny, a country which produces more child pornography than any other and refuses to make it completely illegal (or even to fully enforce the laws they have), where rape games have been popular for many years, a place with porn inserts in their mainstream magazines and animated films that feature tentacle rape: per capita rapes = less than 2.

Canada: country filled with hippie peacenik spawn from people who fled the US during the Vietnam War era, where they love to protest the US because they have no issues (or apparently politicians) of their own, where the moose and beaver and maple syrup roam free: per capita rapes are about 78. New motto: “Welcome to the land of SPREAD ‘EM, BITCH!”

Note – rape statistics taken from this 2002 UN report (pdf format). Country with the least rape: Saudi Arabia at 0.27 per capita. Worst: South Africa at 115.61.

I think both countries could do better to find some kind of middle ground. I think it would be ideal if we outlaw child pornography with the understanding that two kids playing doctor does not constitute a felony offense, lose the bestiality but let them make incest videos as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, and let adults play any type of video game they want with the understanding that video games are not intended to teach morals or acceptable behavior (Ultima IV requires you to follow a spiritual path in order to win, but I could still think the primary lesson taught is that it’s okay to slaughter people with medieval weaponry if I deem them evil and think they have it coming, like Scientologists). Despite my initial revulsion at the existence of perverted video games (and my lack of desire to play them), I can’t think them of them as worse than the violent games I like to play. Besides, we must strive to understand, or at least accept, our Japanese brethren / sistren because I firmly believe that their women are totally hot.

Bunny!

8 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

Bunny pic linky stinky!

skywind said...

Saudi rape cases are at least because that country is the Arab countries. He has a strict religious rules. Of course, for those in power may not be useful. Rape cases in Japan are also less likely to pornographic culture in Japan are too developed to such an extent that they do not put the rape of women as rape, but as a normal transaction. May be.

http://eyesinkaleidoscope.blogspot.com/
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Unknown said...

I wonder what a 0.27 rape is....

I think we also have to consider the fact that in some countries esp. in West Asia reporting of rape might actually be very low. The S. Africa case is an example of breakdown of law and order. Things haven't been going well in that part of the world lately.

Kira said...

Well, what does each country define as "rape"? That will alter the statistics right there. Also, depending on culture, it may not be advisable for the person to report a rape for a variety of reasons. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Prata said...

http://www.afterellen.com/blog/gracechu/a-new-horribly-offensive-japanese-video-game-is-being-sold-in-america

_Awesome_ and fits your post perfectly. =-P
I simply must play the game, if everyone will instantly think I'm sick..I _must_ do it. Seriously.

Anonymous said...

The only reason Canada has such a low incarceration rate is because our judges are all pussies. They're especially gentle with sex offenders so I'd be willing to bet that our rape rate is actually much higher too.. A few weeks back, a man in my community molested a 13 year old girl and he got 14 days house arrest to be served on weekends... Go figure.

Grant said...

mq - the link works. Be patient.

skywind - could be.

sj - 0.27 rape is when one partially sodomizes a nostril.

kira - I considered the cultural differences and that some rapes in Japan may go unreported (although every country has that problem to some extent), but it doesn't explain why the difference would be about 17 times worse here.

prata - be sure to post your video game review afterwards.

sam - Japan is very lax on most things, especially sex crimes (although they are surprisingly heavy handed on arsonists), but I haven't seen anything that would indicate that they have significantly more problems than us in reporting or convicting.

NWJR said...

I didn't read the post because the headline said not to, so all I could do was look at the picture.

But I'm sure it was full of amazing insight.