The Dramatically Exaggerated Explicitness Of Entertainment

Different works of entertainment in literary, cinematic, or gaming format can have varying stories, themes, and even, on the part of the creator, intentions behind the work.  Along with such differences comes darker and lighter entertainment, some of which is far darker or lighter than others.  One of the many things that Christian legalists object to despite Biblical ethics not prohibiting it whatsoever is entertainment that either portrays certain sins (which they almost invariably are selective about objecting to, as if seeing some sins onscreen is evil but not others) or that just portrays certain categories of human behaviors, sinful or not, such as sexual actions.  The Bible itself would far outdo anything I have ever seen or played in terms of violence or sexual content--and I am talking about it having actual violence, not just the quick, painless murders so many people refer to when they use the word.  As they believe the opposite of what Deuteronomy 4:2 requires and somehow forget that the Bible would be very graphic if it was faithfully depicted in a visual format, evangelical legalists, some of them parents pretending like concern for children makes errors and subjectivism valid, leap into the irrationality of hypocrisy.

Films, television shows, and video games will usually receive more backlash than literature on such legalistic grounds because you can see events unfold.  However, they have one general trait in common besides all being visual artistic mediums: the vast, vast majority of all works in these mediums familiar to the public are so very tame compared to what legalistic Christians, conscience-driven secularists, and emotionalistic parents like to assert.  Very few works of entertainment in any genre or medium are truly very intense in their portrayals of these things in the sense of making them graphic--and that is not positive nor negative, nor is it artistically/philosophically excellent or not, in itself.  It is simply that onscreen violence almost always falls far short of what it would actually be like in person even in something like Game of Thrones or Saw.  Sexual content even onscreen is almost always not even shown directly, and sexual or nonsexual nudity is almost never fully, directly portrayed either.

Not even something like Game of Thrones is truly very explicit with many of its depictions of sexuality and violence compared to what it could have been like, as it just looks so much more explicit by comparison to other art without actually even having an unflinching camera or being as graphic in any regard as it truly could.  Other art is just so relatively tame that Game of Thrones is overwhelming for some people when it comes to this kind of content.  Yes, the show is genuinely dark, but there are many ways it could have been far more graphic.  The same is true of Saw's violence.  This series is objectively violent, but still very mild by comparison to what it could have been, though it is far more graphic than many other films by default because the others tend to not be graphic at all.

Video games make violence more immersive in one sense because of player input while also making it less realistic when bodies and blood instantly or almost instantly vanish from the digital realm.  Because of the latter aspect of most games or the fact that many times the blood and gore is still fairly mild, not even the only artistic medium that has viewers actively control events is truly home to content as graphically violent as many seem to think.  The likes of God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and Call of Duty are thus limited in the scope of their violence or the aftermath of it by this one gaming norm alone.  What, then, of something like nudity that could be sexual or nonsexual and yet is shunned by legalists in almost any context (though the Bible is both not opposed to it and actively supportive of nudity)?

Nudity is an objectively nonsexual thing that sometimes is perceived or acted upon in a sexual way, so games, films, or shows that regularly portray nudity would not actually qualify as sexually explicit even if they went so far as to show full nudity for consecutive hours.  However, there is far more implied nudity in entertainment than nudity portrayed onscreen.  It is more often the case that genitalia or, in the case of women, breasts are strategically blurred or concealed using everything from environmental objects to camera angles.  Even when nudity is directly shown, it is not always as frequent in sexual or nonsexual contexts as some people pretend.  Not even Game of Thrones actually has as much nudity as is usually claimed, as it just has more than most other art, though not all of it is sexual in context anyway.  Hell, even the erotic horror games Lust for Darkness and Agony, the first of which has a version rated Adults Only and the second of which has an unrated version (and both of which I reviewed the Switch versions of back in 2020), have less nudity in the case of the former and less sexual content in the case of the latter (despite an abundance of naked bodies that fit perfectly with the atmosphere of the game) than their reputations might suggest.

No one needs to watch, read, or play art of these kinds if they do not want to.  Nor does Christian morality as the Bible itself teaches condemn people for being drawn to darker, more sexually explicit, or more violent entertainment, with these three things not always overlapping whatsoever.  In addition to this, not all art needs to be fiercely graphic or not intense at all when it comes to things like violence or sexuality--nudity is the most mild of the categories discussed here and is not even a subcategory of sexuality, though it can be sexually appreciated and acted upon.  The points elaborated upon merely connect with the fact that beyond the utter stupidity of thinking Biblical morality condemns violence or sexuality in art, most of the things people object to in art are not even as intense or graphic as they believe.  Perhaps they are not used to such content or are personally sensitive to it, but there are very few works of entertainment in any medium that are more than minimally explicit by comparison to the true spectrum of such things.  Indeed, the spectrum does go on forever from the fixed starting point of having no explicit content, for its presence on art could always be slightly more graphic or prolonged, or than it is, yet so many Christians mistakenly think that almost anything regarding violence or sexuality is "explicit."  This is logically impossible.