How desensitized are you?

[BruceG87]

Thought I'd point out, most of these folks claiming to be desensitized to violence/gore via their time spent browsing the web.. would certainly lose their shit when confronted with the same scene in person.

Without going into detail, military service exposed me to a fair amount of things that left me pretty numb.

If anything gets to me, it's certain.. smells associated with violence and death. Can I stomach it? No choice.. that doesn't mean I'll ever be comfortable with it.

[Faesroll]

Beside child porn, I've seen everything. Like the darkest, most grim stuff you can imagine. And I consider that politician committing suicide during a press conference pretty soft.

There's only one thing I react pretty grossed out by, and that's throats being slit.

[kaamila]

i remember watching the video of the american getting his head cut off on camera with like a small knife. i watched through it all but afterwards i just sat there not knowing what to think about it. this feeling washing over me as i sat there. i wasnt grossed out or anything. idk cant explain it.

[Deleted]

Beside child porn, I've seen everything. Like the darkest, most grim stuff you can imagine. And I consider that politician committing suicide during a press conference pretty soft.

There's only one thing I react pretty grossed out by, and that's throats being slit.

I second this , even during my phase of going onto those websites when I was younger I stayed away from the beheadings.

[Al Gorefiend]

I'm more sensitive to dead animals than dead humans, strangely (Though its pretty common amongst people in regards to dogs and cats)

Sensitive to nudity? What am I, 12?

I am very sensitive when it comes to the death of old people, like a grandma or grandpa. Teens not as much, kids not at all.

[Graeham]

I'm more desensitised than I'd like to be, though there's still things that unsettle and unnerve me. I've had to endure a fair few unfortunate incidents throughout my life so far and as a result I guess it's served to toughen me up. When it comes to the stuff present in games, movies and tv shows I find that nudity doesn't bother me at all but extreme gore and mutilation unnerves me.

[Sunseeker]

Moderately. Some very visceral scenes still really bother me. My wife has a gun phobia so I avoid watching very violent shows (which are usually populated with guns) and I think that's made me more sensitive to the subject.

Honestly I don't understand why you'd want to be desensitized. Human nature is about being able to empathize with others.

[tylenol]

I care more about animals then I do humans that I do not know
I turn the TV channel when those animal commercials come on but watch the ones with the starving kids, without a care

I once saw a guy cut in half by a train when I was about 15 years old, didn't do much

[Deleted]

Lol good one kid.

I meant on the internet of course.

[Deleted]

I'm 100% desensitized to nudity.
Are you serious?!

Anyway, what really affects me is atmospheric horror. Gore horror I really don't give a crap about.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty used to nudity on tv since its always kinda been there, violance I can stomach, I can't watch horror tough (I'm pussy like that) I also don't like torture scenes. I almost cried with the willy-cutting in GoT.

[Yvaelle]

Edit: Sorry for the massive wall of text, I got ranty ^^

100% desensitized to nudity - but I sleep naked, and insist others do the same in my bed - I think that has more to do with it than any amount of porn I've seen over the years.

I think we have to break violence into multiple subjects, because its more complex. When you talk about violence in video games - what you are really talking about is, "how effectively can you differentiate between a virtual world and a real one?" - being okay with hitting a pedestrian while driving around in GTA is very different than the gore of hitting a pedestrian IRL and having their blood and guts wash over your cracked windshield. So long as you accept that the violence makes sense within the GTA world - that that is how those virtual people live - constantly murdering one another and respawning at the nearest hospital - the violence is permissible within the system.

By contrast, villainously running down pedestrians IRL for the cheap thrill of the gore - is not at all similar in any way to doing it in GTA. I think that's where a lot of politicians - and old people more generally - become confused. Gore in Call of Duty is not remotely like gore in an active warzone. In Call of Duty - players collectively recognize that the soldiers they play as exist only on that battlefield, during that match - they have no families or friends, hardly even names (if at all) - when the game ends they despawn either way - so long as the match persists, they respawn when they die.


Understanding that distinction is critical - and should really be stressed more in the talk of violence in video games - because I suspect even the most die-hard CoD players, with 1000's of hours played, would cower and/or puke the first time they saw what a high-calibre round does to flesh - let alone a grenade or a mortar. Violence in real life, amongst people you know - is wholly different than violence in any type of simulacrum: be it movies, games, even warporn.

To really stress this point, let's bring up violence in movies and then warporn. How many old people, who dread for the future due to violence in games, grew up watching cowboy westerns (particularly in the US) or James Bond. How many of them were really affected each time a bad guy was shot down on screen? The context in the media matters so much - because everything about a Western movie or a Spy movie is about creating a shared understanding with the viewer that in the world that the protagonist lives in, sometimes they have to shoot and kill people to survive and succeed.

Kills in movies are more realistic than kills in Call of Duty, let alone World of Warcraft. They are real people, enacting all the motions and effects - as best as humanly possible - to portray real violence. Movies are a simulation of a simulacrum of violence - they are simulated because they are acted - and they are simulacrum because they are filmed. Warporn is a simulacrum - it really is violence - but it is already lessened merely by the act of filming it - we view the visuals at lower-than-eye quality, and we view the sound at less-than-true sound - we do this at a distance, and without context for the people who died and the people who shot: an act, without context - is impossible to truly interpret.

Video games, are a likeness (being that they aren't even real actors - but figurines, drawings of people), of a simulation (simulated combat, like actors simulating being cowboys or spies), of a simulacrum (portrayed only within the context of our computer screens and our computer speakers). Video games are one-step above board games like Chess, which are an allegory (a pawn represents a legion of men, etc) of a likeness (a horse is a crude depiction of a knight's steed, a king a crude depiction of a crowned figure), of a simulation (the conditions of the battle are waged on a board), of a simulacrum (the board in our homes creates a consistency of play, but strikes the context of who those men in the P3 pawn legion were - what village that represented in your kingdom, who their fatherless children now are, etc).



I've never been to war, but I've seen some pretty gruesome violence IRL in my life. I have played some of the goriest video games out there, and seen some of the goriest movies - and graphic though they might be - none of them are remotely like the real thing.

Deep down, everybody knows that - which is why you can hand the console controller to any mom, and within minutes watch her hit innocent bystanders with a pipe in GTA - and none of them become desensitized IRL. But then pointing at the handful of psychopaths who killed people IRL: but also owned some video game that let them express their violence without social consequences is so easy, and yet so inaccurate.


I think the whole idea of being desensitized to something is a myth - likely perpetrated by the anti-video game lobby. We're becoming better at understanding the metaphysical rulesets that bound a simulated universe: whether that's the rules that govern the GTA-verse, or the CoD-verse, or even the Porno-verse: if every delivery or repair-man was getting laid all day by buxom horny housewives, it would be the most desired job on the planet Nobody wants to be a pizza delivery boy, because we all collectively understand that his job is not to think up dick jokes and get laid.

Violence, stricken of context and/or sensory accuracy - is meaningless. Context is what matters - that's why I can sob watching Bambi, but then watch the Extended Edition of The Human Centipede - largely ignore the violence, and mostly respond jokingly to all the classic movie cliches the characters fulfill.


Even in real life, the context of watching a stranger die is likely not as impactful as watching a lover die, or a child die.

[Deleted]

I'd say completely. I don't care about gore and jumpy scares at all.. all I see is tomato juice and fake. However when I character I like suffers or dies, I usually find it difficult to hold back tears. So I don't know.. The emotional stuff mostly gets to me but visual effects, scares etc. make me laugh at best.