Enjoyment from watching others get hurt, and sociopathy

[Cecelia]

Actually it's empathy that makes a lot of those movies popular. I mean if you really think about it... that's what most fiction is. Pain of some kind -- if not physical, then mental. Bruce Wayne's parents die, and everyone enjoys watching him go beat up criminals. That's both emotional and physical pain. Harry Potter's parents are killed before he's even old enough to go to school. Also physical and emotional pain, and yet the stories are easy to fall in love with. Because we empathize with the characters, rather than relish in their pain.

You can avoid all the physical violence, but the emotional pain isn't really any better. (And I honestly have no idea what you're watching if you avoid all physical violence. You're pretty much limited to children's television shows at that point.) I mean at least from the standpoint that people are sociopaths for enjoying watching/reading this sort of stuff.

For sports.. it's more about a test of skill than any real desire to see people get hurt. (Nascar is FAR worse, because people usually actually watch for the car wrecks -- of which people have actually died from.) In football people always cringe at the bad hits, and get excited about the big plays.

I doubt that 40% of porn contains violence against women. I've seen so many stats based on that. As high as 88% and as low as 2%, and it all depends on exactly what you define as violence. I'm sure some people do get off on it though, and they probably are sociopaths. (assuming it's actual violence, and not just BDSM play)

Now, we have become desensitized toward violence. Though I don't think movies, television, or any other media are the culprit. The culprit is society itself. How long they've protected those who abuse their spouses. Either by turning the other way while the husband beats his wife because she needs to know her place, or by shunning the man who speaks about his wife abusing him. How long society as a whole has said "You know what, Mass shootings are a fair cost to pay for the right to bare arms." War has long been considered an acceptable alternative to diplomacy. Even when we raise children -- we teach that it's okay to hit a child to discipline them -- just because we're bigger than they are. "A good spanking will teach them right from wrong!" That's the kind of attitude that desensitized us toward violence, because when you're okay with hitting a small child for breaking the rules--suddenly hitting an adult doesn't seem so bad. After all, if someone murders a kid you'd react stronger than if someone killed an adult. Society has desensitized us toward violence. But that's not why we enjoy those movies. We still enjoy them because at our core we can feel empathy toward other people--even when they aren't real. It's a capacity that humans have that shows our kindness, not that we are psychopaths.