[ChronoGrl]

heather heather
we belong together
like sex and violence
like death and silence
- The Magnetic Fields

As usual, Doc is eloquent, right on point, and I agree with him. And to add to that, if you think about any of the base carnal emotions - Love, Fear (ok, I'll stop channeling Donnie Darko), Anger, Sexuality, etc., they are all extremities of the same sphere.

Love can be just as violent and self-destructive as hate can be any day, it's just a matter of ensuring that your actions (be they violence, sex, or both) are not destructive to yourself or the person(s) that you are with.

And if you want to play the semantic game, violence is synonymous with ferocity, fervor, frenzy, intensity - What's a healthy sexual relationship without passion? Just as long as this is passion, and not a desire to honestly do harm to someone (on that vein, this is the issue that I have with some exploitation films; it's specifically about hurting and degradation, though that is certainly the point).

And, on a personal note, I can't get it up unless there's at least a little brutality. ;)

...

But back on point... I think that directors are constantly exploring different ways to shock an audience. Sex and violence is so passé by now. A prime example of directors moving forward would be Miike in his movie Visitor Q. The movie isn't necessarily about sexual violence - it's about extremeties of sex AND extremeties of violence, created and juxtaposed specifically to test the audience and make the audience question themselves: Which is more disturbing?