blame the evil video game

This baffles me.

A Minnesota organization issued a nationwide parental alert Friday about the video game, “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” claiming that it contains hidden pornography. A modification can be downloaded from the Internet that allows players to see female characters naked, and show a male and female character engaged in various graphic sexual positions.

If you’re going to let your kid play Grand Theft Auto, steal cars, shoot cops, murder for money, pick up a prostitute, have sex with her, steal all her money, and then beat her to death – then do you really care that he sees some naked animated tits?

I don’t understand the concerns of people in this country. Of all the things to worry about. Murder is wrong, violence is wrong, stealing is wrong. However, sex and nudity are not wrong, or certainly not the biggest of concerns when it comes to this game.

This game is rated MA, which means that your kid has to be 17 to buy it. Trust me, your 17 year-old has already had sex, or at least seen a woman naked before. Your 17 year-old is looking at pornography on his computer already anyway. If your kid is younger than 17, he shouldn’t even be playing this game. If your kid is younger than 17, you, as a parent, need to make sure he doesn’t play this game.

Maybe it’s because I’m still young. Or maybe it’s because I don’t have any children of my own. But I have always enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto series. I know right from wrong, and I know reality from gameplay. Seventeen is a good age to understand the difference between reality and gameplay, and MA is a suitable rating for this game. If your child doesn’t know right from wrong by the time he is 17, you have bigger problems to worry about.

If anything were going to raise the rating to AO (Adults Only) – which they worry about because then stores like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart wont stock the game anymore – why shouldn’t it be the violence that matters and not the sex? Again, let me note – violence is wrong, murder is wrong, stealing is wrong – sex, between two consenting adults after a date, is hardly that wrong.

So, why all the panties in a bunch now?

People in Europe have the right idea, when they generally give higher ratings for violence than sex. People in this country need to get their priorities straight.