Age certifications

[celedhring]

Completely by-the-book regarding movies; I didn't see Basic Instinct until I caught it in the telly in my 20s, and I had to lie and tell them I was going to watch some PG stuff the night I went to Terminator 2, as examples.

Videogames they weren't too fussed about, as in the 1980s they weren't too explicit (as the graphics were crap, anyway). They wouldn't buy me anything that had a too explicit cover, however (hello Alfonso Azpiri).

As for music with explicit lyrics, etc... I listened to a crapload of music that glorified drugs, encouraged violence/suicide, talked openly about sex... but it was all in English and neither me or my parents understood a single word of it.

[Syt]

How old did you have to be to go to a brothel?

Could one slip in at 16?

18.

I don't know - I have no experience with prostitutes.

You could buy beer and wine with 16, though. Hard liquor with 18.

[Eddie Teach]

Yi can no longer stand the sight of a Jesuit priest.

Who can blame him?

[The Brain]

Which law is the poll about?

[derspiess]

My parents were generally pretty easy-going by the time I came around.  As long as I wasn't flaunting it in front of them, I could generally watch and listen to what I wanted.  Games weren't an issue then.  Only time they got on me about being home by a certain time was in high school when I was dating a girl a couple years younger, and I think that was more of a concern about her (or how her family perceived me/my family) than anything else.

[MadImmortalMan]

My mother thought Final Fantasy was Satanic, so she threw away my cartridge. So I bought it again. She threw it away again. This continued until I had blown through all my paper route money. And then I took what I could find from around the house. Finally she gave up after I bought it the seventh time.

[Ed Anger]

She was trying to save you from shitty japanese games.

[dps]

Are they laws now? The ratings used to be just voluntarily followed by movie theaters, video game stores, and video rental places.

Except for out-and-out porn, they're just voluntary restrictions in the US, at least in most jurisdictions.

I'm old enough that though there were movie restrictions when I was a kid, none of the theaters were hard-core about it.

Same here, but my parents were fairly asinine about it.  They didn't knowingly let me go see PG rated movies until I was 17, but let my younger brother go see Alien (rated R) when he was 10.  Note that this was like 3 months before they let me see a film that they knew was rated PG.  Fortunately, they usually didn't realize what any given movie was rated, so in practice, I had been seeing PG rated films for years.  Actually, some of the movies I saw before the ratings system was adopted would have probably been rated PG if they had been released later (and in fact some of them were when re-released later on).

[Josquius]

As in most things as a kid I was generally pretty good at self regulatoin at home, e.g. My parents never set me a bed time because I liked to go to bed at a reasonable time anyway.
They largely left me to myself with what games and movies I enjoyed. For most people I knew it was the same. I recall when I was 8 or so I had one friend obsessed with the aliens films, I really liked Terminator 2 several years before I was old enough to have properly watched it. I saw Starship Troopers at my friends house when I was in primary school, with his mother in the next room knowing what we were watching (I was very annoyed when they kept rewinding at the shower scene. Didn't get why). For christmas they bought me the films I wanted, which were usually age-appropriate or Asian (hello double entendre), which doesn't count or something.
Generally I had no interest in horror films and was as interested in violence as a grown up would be so...all was good.
There was one exception I remember however, they really wouldn't let me watch Pulp Fiction. They borrowed it from someone to watch themselves and specifically told me it was forbidden for me to watch it because it was a bad film. Whether they knew anything about the film and if so which part they thought was so bad...I have no idea.
I do wonder whether they'd be the same these days given modern GTA vs the cartoony fun of the original.

Are they laws now? The ratings used to be just voluntarily followed by movie theaters, video game stores, and video rental places.

In the UK yes.

My mother thought Final Fantasy was Satanic, so she threw away my cartridge. So I bought it again. She threw it away again. This continued until I had blown through all my paper route money. And then I took what I could find from around the house. Finally she gave up after I bought it the seventh time.

Wow.
You
1: Loved Final Fantasy to a crazy degree
2: Were very rich

[Monoriu]

My parents' stance on gambling is very odd.  My father gambles on horse races twice every week.  He spent a lot of time glued to the TV and the horse books.  So there is no way they can hide it from me, and they didn't try.  What is interesting is that he also occasionally played a computer game on poker gambling, with no real money involved (there was no internet at that time).  Somehow they felt adament that my father needed to lock himself up behind closed doors every time he played that game with monopoly money, but no problem with me watching him spend an entire afternoon gambling on horses with real money.  Every week. 

Their solution to the problem of porn, computer games and movies is not to give me any money under all circumstances.  That worked, I guess.  They didn't get any arguments from me, even though I was the laughing stock in my class for being the only person in high school without any money.  I didn't say a word during all those years.  It was their money, not mine.  I told myself I would never forget that, though. 

[Caliga]

My mother thought Final Fantasy was Satanic, so she threw away my cartridge. So I bought it again. She threw it away again. This continued until I had blown through all my paper route money. And then I took what I could find from around the house. Finally she gave up after I bought it the seventh time.

I went through some of that shit too.  I had a bunch of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks taken from me for the same reason.  The weird thing is that my mother is not now, and has never really been, religious.  I think she was influenced by the LOL SATANISM!!!!! craze in the US during the 1980s.

[Ed Anger]

My parents were AWESOME.

[Brazen]

I feel sorry for you guys who've been ID'd all your young adult lives. All we had to do to get into X-rated films or buy cider was calculate what year we were supposed to have been born in.

[DontSayBanana]

ID'ed at stores, sure, but parents really didn't give two shits.  My dad was letting me stay up to watch stuff like Cheech & Chong by myself around age 9.  Probably explains a little bit about me, actually.

[PDH]

I'm with B, young people had sucky lives - no wonder you are all stunted.