the vynsane asylum

Ok bear with me as I'm going to have to work to articulate this.

Many things in life I find/have found awesome have a link to the the feeling that I was getting away with something, or that something was likely a little bit more mature/adventurous/dangerous than what I really should have been doing/reading/listening to at the time. Examples would include the following:

- to a limited extent my first real "Marvel U" comic featuring the X-Men, my first comic what really felt like it wasn't for young kids
- reading The Dark Knight at 12 or 13 years of age with its significantly ramped up violence, nudity, dark & threatening content
- seeing Eddie Murphy's "Delirious" in grade 7 with its ridiculously rude & adult content
- reading Stephen King books which feature a lot more detailed sexual content than folks who don't read him would think they would
- reading Mack Bolan the Executioner or related novels featuring Phoenix Force & Able Team with their significant sexual & violent content
- having my friend's older brother show us a porn movie on VHS when I was in grade 8 or 9, finally removing the veil from the mystery of what all that fucking and sucking kids would talk about but not really understand would look like & work like "in real life"

There are likely more - maybe even comparatively silly & innocent stuff like "Porky's" or "Revenge of Nerds" or "Rambo: First Blood Part II" or "Jaws 3D" (all of which I didn't include because we watched them with my dad for crying out loud).

These instances are quite memorable to me because I lived a life of Star Wars & GI Joe figures, James Bond movies & sports on TV. Is that similar in any way to how you guys formed bonds with the media items you recall fondly? I notice, looking at the list, that many of these things likely occurred within a year or two of me entering puberty, which is kinda interesting. Part of my sexual awakening maybe.

In this internet age, do kids even notice when something is too mature anymore or has all the adult content in videogames, movies & TV desensitized them completely before they hit a more formative age? Does that feeling of things being awesome because they're a step above what you think you should be consuming exist for our kids?

Ultimately our parents make us who we are. You can't blame video games and pop stars for corrupting your kids if you gave your kids access to it all. Western culture seems to be about abdicating responsibility for our actions.

I've written two very long responses to this but they turned into rants about all kinds of crap which you don't want to read so I'll leave my comment as stands.

Well if it triggered some thoughts, I'd be interested in hearing them. I think part of the point of my post though is that my folks had no clue what I was consuming - they had a clue as to what, but no real concept of exactly what if that makes any sense. "He's reading Stephen King books", for example, is a far cry from "Oh, he's reading Apt Pupil by Stephen King in which a perverted old Nazi takes a young boy under his wing. Oh, and did I mention, the young boy at one point dreams about fucking a chick using a huge dildo."

To be honest I felt like I was on shaky ground talking about parental control when you guys all have kids and I don't. What I wrote felt like I was pointing a finger at you lot from an ivory tower. I don't want to do that but I can't talk about parenting without pointing a finger somewhere thanks to my fucked up upbringing. So best I keep my mouth shut.

I felt like I got away with things the first time I did something adult after turning 18, like buying/renting porn or buying a Playboy (oh, the days before the internet) or buying beer after 21. Stuff like that.

As a kid, every time I saw a movie that had female nudity when there was an adult in the room would do it. The more graphic, the more I felt I was getting away with. Basic Instinct was a real eye opener.

Reading my first non-code approved comic books, especially when there was swearing or nudity.

Buying music that had the "Explicit Lyrics" sticker.

Diabolical wrote:
Buying music that had the "Explicit Lyrics" sticker.

Yeah, who was that sticker for exactly? It made me want to buy the record even more, the guy at the counter didn't give a fuck (not like they're going to ask for id or anything) and I'm pretty sure my parents never noticed (or if they did, it was never brought up).