This Bothers Me.

A lot. It has for a long time. And I need help understanding it. Please.

I generally, in my blogs, try to stay away from controversial things and from things about which people might have an opinion (not that it stops some people from giving me theirs anyway), but I think it's time I got some input on this. Mostly because I look around at society in terms of this issue and ask WTF? But also because I have a daughter who is beginning to process input more personally and who is being exposed to more and more pop culture happenings every day, despite my best attempts at keeping her sheltered to a ridiculous degree, and I want to know why my opinion on this subject might come across as retarded.

So here's the thing:

Why is it that violence is okay and sex is not?

Let me explain. In college, I worked in a video store. One evening, a woman approached the counter with three or four movies and asked me about them. Specifically, she wanted to know why they were rated "R". I told her they had adult content in them (Duh). As I remember it, they were all movies along the lines of "Die Hard" and some sort of killer-robot sci-fi things.
"Yeah," she says, "but is it sex stuff, or is it just violence? I don't want my boys to see sex stuff."
Just violence? So, she's telling me she's all right with her "boys" (who were running around the store yelling and hitting each other with various items and knocking over displays) seeing the hero punch someone in the neck or rip their still-beating heart out , but it's not okay if the hero goes ahead and plants one on his damsel-in-distress? Is an over-the-blouse boob-squeeze really going to warp their little minds more than seeing people get shot, impaled, blown up, decapitated, etc?

When talking to several people about the Twilight books, a woman I don't know very well mentioned that she enjoyed the first three books, but didn't like the fourth one "because of all the sex. I liked that they didn't have any sex in the other ones, but the fourth one was just too raunchy and explicit." UmmmmKay. But Edward ripping out James' throat and dismembering him in the first one was just peachy.

Yesterday I took The Girl to the dentist. Yay! An hour in which I'm forced to sit on a comfy sofa in the waiting room and read. The dentist wanders in and asks what I'm reading.
"Hunger Games," I tell him, trying not to be rude, but obviously returning my attention back to the book. (Great book, btw. I cheered, I cried, I flipped it over and started again right after reading "the end".)
"Oh," he says, "that's a great book. I just listened to the audio version." I nod politely and turn the page. "I really like that there was no sex in it." Freeze mid-turn.
What there is in Hunger Games is a group of starving teenagers forced to play a gladiator/Survivor type game in which the last person alive wins. The heroine and main character shoots a guy in the neck with an arrow, watches the big bad competitor break another competitors neck with his hands, has her face slashed by a crazy chick with a coat full of knives, has to help her love interest recover from having his leg almost hacked off with a sword, watches her best friend get impaled by a spear...you get the idea, right?
"Yeah," I say, "but there's a lot of...kissing." I do my best not to roll my eyes and return to my chapter, perturbed.

So. I think you can probably glean which way I lean on this issue. I'm not a fan of violence. I don't like DickFlicks with people dying in horrible bloody painful ways. I don't want my daughter watching (or reading) that kind of thing. I hate HATE watching little boys play. But I would be okay with her seeing someone kiss someone else. Not that I want her to see anything sexually explicit, but if it came right down to me having to choose between her watching a movie rated R for violence and one rated R for sex, I'm going to have to go for the one with nookie in it, as long as it has a story and the people like each other while they're doin' it.

My question for you, oh patient reader, is: Why is violence in media considered more acceptable than sex?

Thanks.