why is violence worse than sex?

If you live in North America or at least have access to the mainstays of American culture – television and movies – you will have likely noticed at one point or another that movies with high degrees of violence in them but little sex are much more likely to get a PG-13 rating; movies with more sex and less violence almost always seem to get a rating of R. The hypocrisy screams at me, but there’s little I can do about it.
And don’t even get me started on the hypocrisy of showing full-body nudes of women in sensual or even violent positions (think The General’s Daughter) while never EVER showing the same level of nudity on a man. In a love scene between a gorgeous starlet and her costar, consider yourself lucky if you get to see his naked chest while she’s spread and bouncing and completely on display.
Grump. But I digress.
Read about a company in Utah called CleanFlicks. In order to cater to the very Mormon population in the area, they’re renting and/or selling “cleaned-up” versions of new and popular movies. They edit out “sex, nudity, violence and profanity” before letting the product leave their shelves. This way all the Mormons in the area can watch popular films – for the first time ever, I guess.
What I found hilarious was browsing their list of films. One of the films they offer is The Matrix. Now, close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine this film with the violence edited out. I’m not in any way condoning violence here, nor am I saying that violence is what made that movie great. But, will the movie make much sense if you take out all the scenes with violence? How are they going to explain how Neo and Trinity manage to get Morpheus out of the military building? For that matter, the entire last half-hour of the film is pretty damn violent. It’s going to seem awfully strange to go from the scene where Neo talks to the Oracle and jump to the final scene of the movie where he flies up into the air… (Yes, I am an avowed Matrix devotee. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.)
Funnier still is CleanFlicks’ list of films they will not edit under any circumstances. Pretty Woman, The Story of Us, Eyes Wide Shut, Basic Instinct, Show Girls. There are others but these really tickled me. Obviously because of the overall sexual messages? And yet The Matrix and even Event Horizon are available (and Event Horizon has to be one of the bloodiest and most disturbing films I’ve ever seen – come ON people the entire premise is about Hell – I guess that theme is biblically acceptable).Guess violence is easier to edit out than sex. Or maybe it’s just that themes of violence, even in the strict Mormon communities, are more acceptable than themes of sex. Even when the sex is consensual and loving and natural.
Does anyone else other than me think this is ridiculous?