I've never run into anyone who thinks rape is fun, personally. Also, I meant more little LITTLE kids, like 7 year olds. I don't even mean 13 year olds. I mean REALLY young children. At that age you're more impressionable. I don't think that playing GTA3 once automatically makes you want to shoot cops or anything, and I know that most people can tell the difference between video game violence and real violence......

What I'm trying to say is difficult. My vocabulary is somewhat limited from all the years of playing games and not reading I guess. I'm trying to talk about personal responsibility here. Ultimately, anything that you do is a choice you make. Granted, you're not always given a myriad of options (give the mugger your wallet/get shot), but you always have a choice when it comes down to what you do. If you punch a guy in the face, it was your choice to do so. If you eat McDonald's and get fat, it was your choice to do so. The main difference between violence in games and violence in real life is that in games, you're rewarded for violent behavior, while in real life, you have to live with what you've done. In games, even when some poor civilian is being devoured by zombies, it's only there to entertain you. In real life, watching someone get hurt is a very unpleasent thing. What parents are concerned about is kids not really understanding this difference. It's the same thing with sex, drugs, and every other controversial topic you'd like to cover. This is where we come back to responsibility. I personally blame parents for having no clue what their children are playing more than I do the game companies for making violent games, but you have to realize that if you chose to actually hit someone in real life, that was YOUR choice. It's not your parents' fault for bad parenting or the game company for glamourizing violence, it was a choice you made. If you're a very young child, chances are you really don't understand this very well. Parents know this and parents in favor of censorship are trying to protect their children from being influenced by things they don't know about.

However, you're right, Snowman, that a lot of people don't know about these things because they have no real life context in which to place it. That's another discussion entirely but I'll offer my two cents on it. Basically people realize that living in fear of your life is not desireable. A lot of people feel that the best way to not be in fear of your life to to strive for peace, and for a good amount of people, this means non-violence in your dialy life. We equate violence with bad. I can understand that. I would be horrified to see a friend get beaten within an inch of his life. However, because we live lives that are so free of violence we've sort of come to fear it. It's this strange alien thing that we've heard about, and seen pictures of, but haven't really experienced. We buy our meat pre-deadified and packed in nice pretty containers, completely disassociating what's on your dinner plate from an actual (formerly) living breathing animal. Fighting and killing are mostly foreign to people in our (and by our I mean American) culture. Unfortunately for us, we have eyes in the front of our heads, meaning nature designed us to be hunters. Violence is an instinct. I don't know why, but I do know that it does take a lot to really get those tendencies out of your system. We're programmed for it. Basically, we condemn something that nature intended for us to do. A lot of people repress these urges which only makes them manifest in other weird ways. In some this instinct it manifests itself through art, some through vicarious viewing, some through other ways. We're always looking for that loophole to feed that urge, but when we do, we don't get everything that violence gives. Violence ISN'T pleasent. Hurting people ISN'T fun. Realising you can actually kill someone is a pretty sobering thought for most. At least, I hope it is.... I personally feel that we should be exposed to it safely. I'm favorable towards martial arts, especially when as emphasis is placed on reality based training. It gives you a VERY different perspective on things....