Desensitized

Believe it or not, I used to be pretty sensitive.  Well, sensitive to some things at least.  I remember when I was about 10 years old I was in the car with my parents driving through Dallas.  We passed a big building with no windows.  The neon sign above the door of this building read, "The Crystal Palace".  There were no crystals on the exterior of this building and it in no way resembled what I would consider a palace.  I remember asking my parents what sort of establishment the Crystal Palace was and they informed me that it was a strip club.  I had heard about strip clubs before but this was the first time I had actually seen one.  (Sidenote:  I had driven by the billboard on I-35 for Cabaret Royale several time but always thought it was a clothing store where they only sold leather pants and gold bikini tops)  For some reason, seeing a real live strip club, even just from the outside, was very upsetting to me.  Like I said, I was sensitive. 

Fast forward 7 years...

My parents would not let me watch R rated movies until I was 17.   It was more about the violence than the foul language or lewd behavior.  I think they were trying to protect my innocent little eyes and didn't want me to have nightmares.  I have always had a very guilty conscience and therefore actually obeyed this rule rather than just going to my friends' houses to watch the R rated feature films like everyone else did.  I remember making a declaration around the time of my 16th birthday:  "Fine!  If you won't let me watch R rated movies until I'm 17, I'll just keep a list of all the movies I am going to watch and as soon as I turn 17 I'm going to start watching them all right in a row and never stop!!!"  (storms off to room, considers slamming door then remembers guilty conscience and closes door gently).  I pretty much followed through on that declaration and haven't stopped watching violent movies since I was 17.

Fast forward another 13 years...

I know this makes me sound like a sociopath but I really like violent movies and TV shows.  I don't like the violence per se but I tend to enjoy the story lines of movies and shows that also have violence.  Make sense?  I recently realized that I have been completely desensitized to violence on TV.  A few weeks ago my friends asked me about the show Boardwalk Empire.  (which I really like)  They said they heard it was good but that it was kind of gory.  I thought about it for a minute and nothing was coming to mind about the show that would make me consider it overly gory.  I told them it was fine and not too violent other than the common occurence of throat slashing.  The very next episode had a guy get scalped and another guy get beat to death (in the face) with a wrench.  So, maybe it is a bit gory afterall.  Oops. 

So what is the point?  2 things: if you are wondering if something is violent I am not a good person to ask, also, if my parents had only let me watch R rated movies when I was younger I wouldn't have started my 10 year long parade of R rated movies and TV shows and would therefore not be so unbothered by violence and gore now.  So there.