Sexuality and Violence

One of the biggest points raised by critics of the MPAA rating system is the MPAA's somewhat uneven treatment of materials that depict violence and materials that depict sexuality. In general, the MPAA has been known to rate violent films much more lightly than films that feature sexuality.

For example:
Lets take a movie that's pretty well known for being violent/gory.

Perfect. Now, in case anyone doesn't know much about this film franchise, I'll give you the set-up for the first film (the only one I have seen in its entirety):
Two men find themselves captured by the "Jigsaw Killer" and placed in a situation in which in order to survive, they must mutilate themselves (cut off their feet in order to escape).
A nasty situation to say the least.
Now, self-amputation is not the central theme, but gore and torture do play a huge role in the film. I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying there's a lot of blood (Feel free to go look up clips of you haven't seen it and don't believe me for whatever reason).
When Saw was originally submitted to the MPAA it received an NC-17 rating, but with some cuts it was eventually released with an R rating for "strong grisly violence and language" (FilmRatings.com). The film remained pretty grisly throughout.

Compare to the film "But I'm a Cheerleader"

Drastic change in tone, but hear me out on this one. 

Setup: Megan is a cheerleader. Her parents suspect she is a lesbian and ship her off to "TrueDirections", a "homosexual rehabilitation camp" where she realizes that she may in fact be gay and falls in love.
It's a comedy about teenagers figuring themselves out in a less than welcoming environment. I'm going to be re-visiting this one in a later post about the MPAA's anti-queer bias, but for now it'll be an example of a film that got an NC-17 for some pretty brief sexuality. Like Saw, But I'm a Cheerleader originally got an NC-17 rating. This is what they had to cut to get an R: Two seconds of a girl touching another girl's (clothed) body, a brief shot of Megan masturbating (over her clothes), and a reference to cunnilingus (The Village Voice). 

It seems a little silly that we can watch a foot being sawed off and a mangled body hanging in razor wire, but two whole seconds of fully clothed caressing is just too much for the average American audience.