Do you think watching horror films infront of children is the as bad as watching explicit films? [edited by MNHQ]

[HowlingTrap]

Sorry the title is very emotive, I ran out of room to explain it properly.

its something that has always bothered, especially that its something that since i was a young child I know has gone one within society, people seeing nothing wrong in watching horror films in front of young children.
i have been around people who have almost done this infront of my children, switching on a horror film with children in the room and looked at me like I was mad when I went crazy at the thought. It's scary how prevalent it is and has been for many generations.
I actually said once "would you watch porn infront of a child' and they all replied with a chorus of 'of course not !"
Aibu to think theres not a huge amount of difference? its both 18 rated material for a reason?

People are being obtuse because you really aren't putting your argument across clearly enough. You're being jumped on for that.

I've have explained literally more than 5 times,

What is it that people don't get?

Howling - it would very much depend on the horror film. One man's horror is another's very tame thriller. I have no idea what you call horror. It is only illegal for a chid to rent or buy a video with a 15 or 18 certificate - it is not illegal for parents to make decisions on what their child sees wrt rated videos.

Gremlins for example - some would consider that horror, some would not and if I were to let one of my children watch it, it would depend very much on my assessment of who my child is and how they relate to the world.

She was obviously comparing showing children porn to showing them violent films. Not actualy assaulting them.

It's interesting isn't it op. I hadn't thought about it before but we do allow lots more violence than sex to be shown to children and quite frightening stuff too. I wonder how we decided his was ok.

Also, could you tell me where you are getting your information from wrt "all notorious child murderers without exception were all shown graphic violence as children"?

Depends on the kid. I and my husband have both adored horror from a tender age. Our daughter was terrified of a giant fish in Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom (to be fair to her, she was only two). We'll leave off showing her our considerable collection of horror films until she's ready and wants to be terrified. One of my earliest and happiest memories is of watching Silence of the Lambs through my mother's fingers- so, yes, we're all different.

Showing Jaws to a child who was already scared of swimming could be considered a bit of a headfuck, I suppose. Or anything with David Dickinson in it, to anyone of any age...

I'm going to ignore the paedophilia element to your post which was, at best, an ill-advised comparision.

Oh, and what happytalk13 said. King Herod was taken to see some slice-and-dice flicks in his youth?

hmm yeah I mean 18+ i said that in an earlier post,

like I said above i am genuinely sorry if someone read my post and genuinely thought I was comparing the 2 then i am sorry, but I will not suffer abuse and fools for it either, you could have asked for further explanation or reported my post?

I think i will leave it here, there is no discussion to be had here is there? because it's been ruined even after several explanations people are still rolling in accusing me of doing something i have stated and other people could see I was not doing, its sad its an interesting topic, but people feel so entitled and so desperate for attention and there moment to be outraged and have a bunfight, has halted something that is very prevalent but not dealt with in society.

I'm quite angry with myself that i have spent what must be going on 10 posts pandering to these 'offended posters' who made clear soon they were just spoiling for a fight, i will waste no further breath. you should be absolutely disgusted with yourself.you won't be though cuz' its fashionable on here to a hysterical, abusive, obtuse , self serving rabid keyboard warrior than take it down a few notches to get the right end of the stick.

thanks to the people who did not jump on the bandwagon and posted thoughtful replies, actually a lot of people did, I minority spoiled it.

" thats why violent horror films are called torture porn"

No, some horror films are called "torture porn", not all.

"People who watch graphic horror fils infront of children ARE childabusers most definitely and enjoy how frightened the kids get"

I'm not entirely sure you can make that assertion, I'm sure some will find it amusing to frighten kids, but I wouldn't have thought it applied in all cases.

"Also notorious child murderers without exception were all shown graphic violence (islington boys snuff films:O) as children."

Two issues here, firstly there have been plenty of child murderers who haven't watched horror as children, and plenty of people who've been shown horror at a young age and never gone on to murder anyway, never seen a definite correlation proved. Secondly snuff is a little different to horror.

I saw Jaws when I was 8. It's a PG I believe. It affected me so badly that I haven't been in the sea for 35 years.

My little brother watched the Child's Play and Nighmare on Elm Street films from when he was around 5 (curse of sharing a bedroom with a brother 12 years older) and he wasn't scared at all. He thought they were hilarious. He'd dress up as Chucky and try and scare us older siblings (which usually worked with me as I was the big scaredy cat.)

OP your title is offensive and idiotic. It is not surprising that people are reacting from that alone.

It reminds me of some of the sensationalist titles that papers such as The Sun and The Daily Fail use.

It doesn't matter how much you quantify that title or how much you protest about people being obtuse, the damage is already done with your title and I do not believe for one minute that you didn't realise what you were doing by using such emotive language and drawing such an offensive comparison that itself minimises the reality of child sexual abuse.

The anger that followed isn't helpful in any way but I'm sure that even you can see that it is understandable.

Such a shame as if framed and presented correctly this could have been a worthwhile discussion, but your eagerness to draw a lot of traffic to your thread has derailed the whole thing. Sorry OP but this is your doing, no one else's.

What's 'horror'? As PPs have said this covers a spectrum from Gremlins/Dr Who/Scooby Doo all the way through to 'torture porn' like Saw. And horror appears in literature and theatre too: Stephen King/The Woman In Black,
etc. I am also doubtful about the claim that those who commit violent offences do so because they've been exposed to 'graphic' media imagery - IMO this is a huge oversimplification of a hugely complex issue. I completely agree that it can be inappropriate, neglectful or emotionally abusive to expose children to 'horror' but am not sure that parents do it to get a kick out of frightening children or that it desensitises them. It's equally as likely that a parent hasn't thought about it at all, or is bowing to 'pester power' - I know I used to ask all the time to see 15/18 cert films.

I wouldn't show DD a horror film as she would dwell upon it endlessly. I do wonder why violence is seen as less of an issue than consensual sex onscreen. I personally think that 24hr cable film channels have blurred a lot of people's boundaries wrt the watershed - in the past you knew a film wasn't suitable for children if it didn't start til 9pm, but nowadays if you have Sky it's all too easy to switch on at 2pm of a weekend and find a 12/15 film like The Dark Knight on.

However,OP, your OP was confusing and your 'obvious' spelling mistake wasn't, bearing in mind the confusion your first post engendered. Calling for people to be 'punished' is astonishingly pompous and makes me wonder if you took a wrong turn on the way to Netmums...

I'm afraid I can't possibly be disgusted with myself over pondering what is a very complicated subject and calling a poster on likening children watching horror movies to children being sexually abused and hugely over-simplifying the subject.

not really I explained enough and being abusive is never okay, its the fault of the abusive posters who failed to apologize afterwards fault and no-ones elses.

Noi its not Lovecat, I would expect someone throwing around calling someone racist, homophobe, rape apologist lightly to be punished, not something to throw around cuz' you got the wrong end of the stick.

jesus christ go and have a lie down happy talk, i didn't even mention sexual assault/abuse.

I believe showing children porn is sexual abuse isn't it? And I still fail to see pointing out that someone is making a flawed argument (or not explaining themselves) is abusive. Now if someone has called you something rather unpleasant and attacked you personally, that is an attack - but I'm seeing people disagreeing with your reasoning/argument not you as a person.

Howling it's your thread which you started.

Any resulting posts you consider abusive are down to them responding to your inflammatory title. You then came back kicking off blaming everybody else if they pissed on your chips.

Your post was poorly thought out , no point crying 'poor me' when thinfs are going against you.

You had a good point too initially.

No however it is abuse

exposing a child to inaproprate images is abuse not every one who exposes there child to porn is a pedo some people are just wholey inaproprate and have no boundaries

I was a foster carer for over 7 years and a large number of children I catered for had been exposed to either highly sexual images or violent ones either through parental neglect eg leaving the children to do whatever or parents just not havering any boundaries sadly this is becoming more mainstream

i went to an ann summers last year and the lady who had the party had her daughter there she was 8 and I was the only one in the room who thought I was wrong I left but I was the only one

Also I have noticed more and more threads asking if it's ok for there 7 year old to play some ghastly 18 rated game or watch some 18 rated film

they don't think its ok but because some parents have no boundires they get confused

Oh and in case any one thinks it's not abuse exposing children to inaproprate media is usually one of the first things that gose on the board on the silks to fostering course

Lovecat most people know what's suitable they just don't care

For instance I asked my friend if she wanted to take the kids to see frozen I have a toddler she has a 6 year old apparently she can't stand children's films so they went to see HUNGER games

She also doesn't have much of a filter at home so my mate her son will be watching inbetweeners and if her daughter is up oh well.

And a lot of people are becoming like this anytime my sons stays at somones house I now have to make it clear I don't want him watching 15, 18 rated films or games years ago I would not have needed to do this

PP 0f 18.45.03 (I'm sorry, but I can't call you by your screen name) wrt inappropriate media and fostering - where is the line drawn at what is appropriate and what is inappropriate? I'm not asking for my own guidance I'm quite happy with my assessments about my children and their welfare, but I'm curious.

OP your latest posts are increasingly OTT. How the actual fuck do you think someone (online) should be 'punished' for finding something daft that you wrote, extremely offensive

Badly phrased thread title, but both are forms of child abuse.

Children should not watch 18C films, - if they are subjected to such films it is child neglect/abuse.

You pretty much follow the guidelines as they are and use common sense so I would take a 7 year old to see frozen and NOT hunger games even if they begged also using common sense for TV

So a five year old would not be watching goridie shore or Spartacus which is very sexually graphic and trust me we have had children of that age have full knowledge of these types of shows.

I didn't foster teens so I can't say what happens there