The strangest things happen at the four-way intersection of Sex, Violence, Profit and Amorality. And as if our society hasn't had enough injury and death at that location already, then ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to present "Night Trap."
"Night Trap" is a video game sold by the Sega company. This is what the game entails:Three men in black masks burst into the bedroom of a woman in a flimsy negligee. Unless the player quickly makes the right video moves, the masked men drag her off and hold her down while a fourth attacker plunges an electric drill into her neck.
Sounds like fun if your name is Charles Manson, right? Except that this game is being sold to kids. So is that other huge seller, "Mortal Kombat," in which the winner can triumphantly pluck out the spinal column of a victim.
Kids, it seems, can't get enough of these games. Then again, kids can't get enough of a lot of things that are bad for them. That's why we have laws about selling tobacco, alcohol and guns to minors.
So should there be some laws governing the sale of games like "Night Trap" as well?
Heavens, no! cried the video industry, in the hot seat last week during Senate hearings on a bill to impose federal restrictions on the sale of violent games.
"The market does not need and the public does not want another government entity to be created for this purpose," said Ilene Rosenthal, general counsel for the Software Publishers Association. "It is our job to do, and we are here this morning to announce that it is a job we will do."
I was struck by this quote from Marilyn Droz, vice president of the National Coalition on Television Violence, after the stunned senators got an eyeful of "Night Trap": "How would you like to have a teenage daughter go out on a date with someone who just played that game for three hours?"
Well, Droz's statement has led me to the solution. We don't need companies to put warning labels on video games, as they have now offered to do at the pointof a senatorial shotgun. Nor do we need another government entity policing the industry. All we need is one teensy regulation:
All video game inventors must use the faces of their own children on their characters. If they don't have children, then they must use the faces of their boss's children, or their boss's boss's children, all the way up the food chain to the company president.
Or better yet, let's start at the top and work down. President's children first. I mean, the biggest honor should go to the ones who reap the biggest profits.
So let's get personal, guys. Let's put your kids out there in that four-way intersection and see how fast you swerve.