To think that watching sex/rape/violence and reading about it are two very different things?

[DumSpiroSpero]

Sat MNing while DH watches Spartacus - the violence is horrific and there has just been a rape scene which made me feel physically sick (raised the laptop so I didn't actually have to watch it after a couple of seconds but hearing it was bad enough).

DH argues that it's no different from the Bernard Cornwell (Alfred the Great) novels that I'm reading atm which include plenty of mentions of rape and pillage and graphic descriptions of battle scenes.

I think it's totally different - what do you think?

Well, while I breathe I hope.

I think it depends on how your mind works. I am not a "visual" person so have to work quite hard to get any kind of picture from a book. I read the words! Some friends say they read and get a picture in their minds and don't really take in the words.

So I can read anything as if I don't want a picture I don't get it. But I get upset with very tame telly.

So, for me, YANBU!

I do picture things in my head, but I suppose I automatically edit the bits I would not want to see if graphic detail.

Tbh the violence doesn't bother me as much as the rape scene and needless to say whilst it's mentioned in the books that it happens it's not described in detail.

The violence in Spartacus is so OTT it's almost laughable - in the BC book it seems grittier and more 'necessary' I suppose.

Reading is at least a personal thing - so what you're reading doesn't affect anyone else in the room. Unlike TV

But personally, I find violent scenes in books just as bad - I do visualise them just like in a film.

hm. I think it's worse in films for me, but mostly because I think I skim a bit in a book if the scene is particularly bad. Sometimes it doesn't bother me, sometimes it really does, it just depends.

Yes, I'd say they're two different things.

I think you have more control when you are reading something, what you 'see' while you are reading is as much from your own imagination as from the words on a page. If you don't like what you are reading, you can stop or skip ahead or close the book.

Films are more graphic and you don't have to imagine anything, you are seeing it on the screen. I think you have less control because you are being shown everything and you have to actively turn the film off or over to stop seeing what it depicts. And it can show an awful lot in just a few seconds, whereas in books, it would take much longer to read all of what you can see in seconds on the TV.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself very well, but I do agree with you OP.

That said, I stopped reading a certain authors books because it felt like it was obligatory to have at least one rape scene in every single one of his books and they were written very much as 'sexy entertainment' IMO, which I found repellent and I know it wasn't the way I was imagining it that was the problem.

For me it's the other way round, things I read affect me far more and stay with me longer than things I watch. I think it's because I got so engrossed in books in a way I just don't when watching tv

I can see where you're coming from May.

I think for me I feel more in control of what I'm imagining - for the most part, the worst of the violence etc, kind of 'sits on top' of my brain, rather than actually sinking into it.

Like Lobsters says, with film/TV it's on screen so fast it's sunk in before you've had a chance to put your guard up.

Also a little at how DH can judge given that he hasn't actually read any of the books in question!

It depends, in a book it might just say "the woman was raped" (clearly I'm a literary genius) whereas on film/tv this is depicted.

The thing with reading is that, even when there are graphic descriptions, it is within your own imagination so you are in control, your imagination I think fits your own limits and normally uses images you've seen before whereas when the visuals are provided for you it can be very shocking because they can include something you would never have thought of.

That being said I have read some very graphic descriptions which have played on my mind because my imagination ran away with itself, thinking of various horrific thing whilst on television it might be limited to a 30 second scene and I didn't add my own thought so got over it quicker.

I skim bits of BC, they are a bit graphic for my taste. I certainly couldn't watch an accurate adaptation of the one I read.

Screen violence is different, I'm not a very visual person, so if I'm reading I don't tend to add pictures.

BC is quite graphic but not so bad when you read the whole thing and have the violence set in context - relatively speaking there is not that much of it considering the size of the books.

TBH I only got into them because my favourite actor did one (the third in the series) as an audio book, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed the story so have gone back and started reading the books from the beginning.