Parental Guidance Advised

The football season is finally winding down. The pro-stuff is not so compellimg but we've had fun staying tuned into Michigan, Oregon, and the occasional UCLA game-- like when they beat SC the other day. Ev frequently will watch with us a bit and that can be be problematic. It's not the beer ads or discussions of erectile dysfunction. It's the advertising for the X-Box games like Call of Duty and pay-per-view fights that make me uncomfortable.

I don't consider myself much of a prude. I will say, however, that when it comes to violence and  fighting I have no stomach whatsoever. The current infatuation with bloody mixed martial arts fighting and "games" involving graphic depiction of war and killing are so far removed from my understanding I am left speechless. Almost:

As for myself I can sit through an ad or two. More likely, I will get up and go to the kitchen or bathroom during these ads. The problem is, Evan likes to sit there and the action is irresistible to a 5 year-old. I find myself calling out to him, having him go get me something, or fumbling for the remote so I can quickly remove the ad from his view. I make a disapproving editorial comment and pry him away.

For me, an educated, fairly well to do white male, I find the ads offensive to the core. And for all the self-righteous anger about affairs, abortion, prostitution, and same-sex relationships, I would be far more comfortable sitting and explaining an advertisement focusing on the pleasures of sex than I would trying to explain one about the pleasure people find in violence.

When I look around the world today I find nothing entertaining about bombs, guns, shootings, killings, and beatings. I really am not interested in finding a means to desensitize myself; to make that whole ugly part of primitive human nature somehow enjoyable. As much as I hate self-righteous chest-beaters I might just toss a vote in the direction of one who would stand up and declare hatred, violence, and war as the greatest crimes against moral decency. Sex I can deal with, in any consensual form.