With a lack of self-conscience, all other countries seem to tell baby America it needs more time to grow up. American society has pressed upon its citizens a very puritanical view of nudity, sexual in its intent or not, while desensitizing them of violence.  In examining the duplicitous standard, one that suggests protection from the world (thus life), I find hypocrisy that encompasses the democracy; my main insight being that the society is making such censorship happen, not the government.

The most common form of censorship, because of the amount of people reached daily, seems to be the media.  Movies have been a part of American culture since the first zoopraxiscope; but as CARA (better known as the Classification and Rating Administration) mentions, movie ratings on the other hand have been around only since November 1, 1968. 

To look at the movie rating standards, one notices the material glared upon and then the wording of such lacking material.  For example, the definition behind a G rated movie would mean, [There is no] nudity [or] sex scenes[and] violence is minimal (Braverman).  Basically, we teach children at the youngest age that a little bloodshed in an unnecessary manner is acceptable, but a person that happens to be in their natural state is not acceptable. 

Better yet, as these children grow to the age of repetition, be it what they see or hear, they might be allowed to finally see a PG film.  A PG film is noted: Nudity, if present, is seen brieflyhorror and violence do not exceed moderate levels (Braverman).  I wasnt aware that violence had levels of acceptance, while a naked body, no matter what it is doing, is a very terrible thing for anyone to see more than briefly.  As one would guess, the levels of tolerance escalate through the ratings in the obvious pattern.

The most interesting point to be made about movie ratings though concerns the system.  The system is not of law.  The rating system is completely volunteered into existence.

Media also plays off advertisement, using a different kind of system.  When an advertisement gets a complaint it gets pulled.  There is a prewritten list of complaints basically considered guidelines; the list of about ten items that cant be employed has both nudity/sexuality and violence on it.  To be expected, nudity is number two on this list of enforcement and violence is about four down the list from that.

In a study done by the Advertising Standards Bureau regarding the attraction of complaint for nudity and violence were as follows; in the year 2001 the percentage of complaint concerning nudity/sexuality was 27.6 percent, while the complaints against violence were at 10.15 percent.  Then in 2002 the complaints against nudity/sexuality rose to 31.48 percent, while ones against violence rose only .31 percent higher.

The Advertising Standards Bureau doesnt make delineation between the amounts of tried advertisements each year for each faux pas, nor does it express in any way that telling you such information could slant the entire game in either direction.  A lot could be said about society if the percentages went up in those same increments and the amount of tried advertisement was the same If more nudity/sexuality was tried...  Violence was tried more.  Everything changes.

The censorship goes from everyday life in the world to everyday life in a building, be it work or school.  In schools, volunteers are throwing masterpieces out of the system by way of censorship, mostly by way of banning a book.

What does it mean to ban a book?  When one bans a book they have successfully removed it; to challenge a book on the other hand would merely be an objection (Yanosko).  Interestingly enough, one of the most famous banned books, 1984 by Orwell, was banned in 1981 for being pro-communist and sexually explicit.

Very few pieces of literature were banned for violence, and the ones mentioned either have religious overtone in their problem or also consist of sexual idiosyncrasies.  For example, Stephen Kings The Stand was banned for three things: sexual language, casual sex, and violence (Yanosko). 

When anything sexual is being addressed for censorship, it seems that there is a separate sin for each kind of sexual instigation, which would make sense, but violence is just violence and the type isnt of matter.  The list of reasons for ban consists of many kinds of sexual exploit: sexuality, inappropriate sexual reference, sexually explicit, sexual language, casual sex, et cetera. 

My all time favorite ban though has to be the Pennsylvania ban of The Life and Times of Renoir, by Janice Anderson, because [there were] nude paintings.  Im not sure what was to be expected by Pennsylvania in a book about Renoir, but they obviously arent aware that there is a history in paint concerning nudity.

As art flourished there was no doubt that one in five would be a nude painting, it was beautiful, it was the ultimate subject.  Today, art is more color without composition.  A look at classic art shows nakedness as the most natural medium and violence is almost always depicted in terrible light, if depicted at all.

From classic to modern, from commonplace to the shadows, nudity and violence even have their line to cross to discipline too.  A child is playing and lifts their shirt up to their runny nose; because she is an undeveloped child her mother feels the need to quickly as possible pull the shirt down and explain the detrimental effects of such an act.  The same child later hits another on the playground, slower to discipline the mother pulls the childs arm away and only says one word, no. 

For adults there is a similar degree of acceptance.  A man is nude in his own house and is thus called a pervert, a homo, and other names that dont relate to him.  This same man goes out that night and gets in a bar fight; suddenly everyone has to know about his proof of manhood.

American society is stuck in a trend that decades have put into play.  This trend makes of people unnatural behavior; on top of which is a concern for what is natural.  While people have become scared of what they dont understand, they are slowly becoming what are no longer understood.  

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