Sex, Drugs, & GTA: The Failure of Parents August 15,2008 - What They Play, the self proclaimed “parents guide to video games,” released the results of a survey yesterday revealing that parents found their children watching pornography and drinking beer as more acceptable than playing certain video games, namely Grand Theft Auto IV.

The ridiculousness of it all breaks down as such: 49% of respondents most feared their children smoking marijuana and 19% were concerned about them playing Grand Theft Auto, while only 16% were worried about exposure to pornography and 14% to their kids drinking alcohol.

Before I systematically dismember this absurdity – surely a byproduct of playing such violent games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt – let’s hear what Cheryl Olson, co-author of Grand Theft Childhood, had to say about the findings.

"To some parents, videogames are full of unknowable dangers. While researching for Grand Theft Childhood, parents we spoke with in focus groups 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."

Problem A: “…felt unequipped to supervise [play]”

Solution to problem A: Put the game console in a public area of the house and/or drop in and watch your kid play for a while. Knowledge of game controls is not necessary.

Problem B: “…felt unequipped to…limit video game play.”

Solution to Problem B: How is this possible? You are the parent therefore control the environment. Walk in and tell your kid to turn the game off within 10 minutes. After all, you do have to let your kid finish the mission and/or save, otherwise you’re promoting either quitting or procrastination and neither are exactly character building traits.

If your child doesn’t comply, then walk in and press the power off button. If you have trouble locating the power button on the piece of apparently alien technology, then unplug it. Problem solved. Not to mention the fact that all of the game consoles have parental controls that can do the job for you.

But all jokes aside, what is most damning about the study are the misplaced fears of parents. What is with the fear of marijuana? Sure, there’s the technicality of it being “illegal,” but if we’re going to put that aside and acknowledge its widespread use, then we might as well fully understand the consequences of such use.

Marijuana doesn’t incite violence outside of the kind started during the trafficking and distribution of the drug itself, and that violence only exists because it’s illegal in the first place. Marijuana doesn’t cause tempers to flare or nerves to rattle like other more toxic drugs including cocaine. Hell, one joint study (no pun intended) in 2003 by the Justice and Education departments showed violence in schools actually went down at the same time that marijuana use went up.

Additionally, comedian Doug Benson mimicked the famous documentary “Super Size Me,” with the stoner equivalent called “Super High Me” where he got baked from sun up to sun down for 30 days. The impact on his health was nearly non-existent, perhaps because what he was smoking is essentially just a plant.

Marijuana would certainly have less effect on your kid’s inclination toward violence than pornography, which has shown time and time again in study after study that its hardcore sexual images distort children’s expectations of sex and intimate relationships while driving aggressive sexual behavior and thoughts that could lead to acts of rape.

A great article in the National Post entitled “Instructing Generation XXX” shows just how early in life kids are not only learning the details of sex, but being exposed to the graphic imagery in pornography.

From the article:

"A lot of the questions, I soon realized, revolved around these young [13-year-old] boys having looked at pornography," said Mr. [Alex] McKay, research director for the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. The boys were preoccupied with how well-endowed the male porn stars were, not to mention their bizarre habit of ejaculating on their partners' faces.

"What a lot of their questions boiled down to was, ‘Is what I'm seeing in the porn that I'm watching what sex is really supposed to be like? Is this how I am supposed to behave?' " Mr. McKay recalled.
One U.S study found that roughly 40% of kids aged 10- to 17-years-old have watched online pornography, while a study by Bringham Young University of students at six different universities found that two-thirds of men and nearly half of all women found watching porn as just a normal expression of sexuality.

In fact, porn isn’t even fully to blame for the spread of sexual freedom among teens in modern days, with the saturation of sexual content in everyday television programming being able to double the sexual activity of heavy TV-viewing teens versus light TV-viewers. But when music videos contain 93 sexual scenes per hour, it’s not all that surprising.

Despite who is to blame, the effect of a lack of real knowledge about sex among teens helps prove my point that parents being more worried about Grand Theft frickin' Auto than whether their kids are drinking beer or watching porn – let alone doing both in the same night – is absolutely ridiculous.

After all, 19% of the nation has genital herpes. Teens – no doubt due to the failure of abstinence-only sex education programs – “believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy.” Oh, and the U.S. teen birth rate is still a problem, leaving a lot of teens with babies to raise well before they’ve reached proper levels of responsibility, both fiscally and in maturity.

And we’re more concerned about Grand Theft Auto? Really?

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