This is so not true. Not even a little bit. Unless you're buying your porn from a trustworthy source who controlled the production of the porn and where you're paying for the ethical nature of its...
Exemplary
This is also an interesting one because most pornography doesn’t show the negotiation of consent. That’s not to say it’s non-consensual – the only pornography you can find on the internet (as opposed to the dark web) is consensually produced.
This is so not true. Not even a little bit. Unless you're buying your porn from a trustworthy source who controlled the production of the porn and where you're paying for the ethical nature of its production you're really rolling the dice, since there's plenty of places that just scrape each other's content or allow for users to upload without verification of ownership. At that point, any provenance is lost. And even beyond a strict consensual/non-consensual dichotomy, there's varying degrees to which the actors might consent, with various forms of sex-slavery functionally impossible for the end-user to identify. If there's a clip of an amateur couple having sex in an apartment you have no clue about their lives, and no way to be able to determine it under most circumstances.
I've personally almost entirely stopped consuming pornography that involves filmed or photographed people because of my personal skepticism regarding the ethical production of what's out there. There's plenty of interesting stuff out there that doesn't involve wandering through an ethical minefield when I want to get off.
On the flipside, the kink/BDSM community has generally a strong culture of structuring consent, to the point where the formal negotiation aspect can be more time-consuming than an actual scene in...
On the flipside, the kink/BDSM community has generally a strong culture of structuring consent, to the point where the formal negotiation aspect can be more time-consuming than an actual scene in "real life". Which is a good thing, of course.
I would highlight the production company Kink as a good example. They always start with an interview of the actress/actor which includes likes and limits and the safeword system. I figure they're rather educational for those who would otherwise be unaware. It certainly opened my eyes. Unfortunately, they seem to be among the few, though they are the largest.
I'd support a mandate enforcing the explicit and specific conversation about consent in any video (including editing it in at the end).
I agree that generally the kink community is more visibly discussing consent, though there's problem cases in every community. I will say that Kink.com has had concerning issues for more than a...
I agree that generally the kink community is more visibly discussing consent, though there's problem cases in every community. I will say that Kink.com has had concerning issues for more than a decade now with the latest issue happening just this year.
Your second link is actually exactly what you want to see though. There was an incident, Kink.com investigated and then terminated/severed ties with those responsible. I'm glad to see they're...
Your second link is actually exactly what you want to see though. There was an incident, Kink.com investigated and then terminated/severed ties with those responsible. I'm glad to see they're handling things better after how they completely bungled the James Deen situation.
It would be silly to claim any company is without a fault. I'm not putting them on a pedestal. My point was to show a concrete example of how structure can support healthy behaviour.
It would be silly to claim any company is without a fault. I'm not putting them on a pedestal. My point was to show a concrete example of how structure can support healthy behaviour.
Can I ask a potentially stupid question? How do BDSM performers "opt out" or convey they need to stop mid scene if they are bound and gagged? I just can't imagine what form of communication they...
Can I ask a potentially stupid question? How do BDSM performers "opt out" or convey they need to stop mid scene if they are bound and gagged? I just can't imagine what form of communication they could use.
Not stupid at all! Very important actually. There is typically an alternative, non-verbal signals one can make, like uh-uh-uh while shaking the head in a “no” motion (e.g. exactly three times),...
Not stupid at all! Very important actually. There is typically an alternative, non-verbal signals one can make, like uh-uh-uh while shaking the head in a “no” motion (e.g. exactly three times), and making it obvious with a look in the eyes. If one is also blindfolded, there are also hand signals or checking in by the partner (e.g. three sharp hand squeezes).
Of course, what we normally see in porn is a lot of acting, and there is an underlying sanity to the whole thing. Safe words and signals are agreed upon and rehearsed ahead of time (and at the moment of gagging or blindfolding). And, most importantly, it’s not something you do the first time, but rather something after you already have and understanding with someone so you know what to look for as the “top”. Another recommendation is to never try something for the first time with a gag, so both partners know what is within the limits.
On professional sets, there is often a “referee” or safety spotter who is paying attention to queues of the “bottom” that the top may not be aware of.
Also, communication in the grey zone is important. Calling the safe word/signal is generally a full stop, but there are intermediates to communicate to take things down a notch (e.g. if “red” means stop, “yellow” or “mercy”, if you don’t want to break the role play, means slow down or switch it up). Or maybe someone doesn’t normally wince or shout “ow”. Again, communication is important, including knowing where limits are before you play.
Up until very recently there were thousands of videos on Pornhub (the largest porn site in the world) containing footage of underage or non-consenting individuals. It was a huge deal and got them...
Up until very recently there were thousands of videos on Pornhub (the largest porn site in the world) containing footage of underage or non-consenting individuals. It was a huge deal and got them in hot water, which is why they went scorched earth a few years back and deleted tons of videos for anyone who couldn't be verified.
Right, and Pornhub was the one big enough for anyone to actually take the time to go after, and where the name recognition was big enough that the cost of changing their systems and verification...
Right, and Pornhub was the one big enough for anyone to actually take the time to go after, and where the name recognition was big enough that the cost of changing their systems and verification was worthwhile. There's an endless wellspring of small sites that come and go.
Even OF has had more than a few scandals with people using fake/stolen IDs to verify themselves as 18 or older when they were not. Plus a few where people were being coerced into making videos....
Even OF has had more than a few scandals with people using fake/stolen IDs to verify themselves as 18 or older when they were not. Plus a few where people were being coerced into making videos.
Ultimately enforcing this stuff on the internet would require a massive restructuring of how we treat the internet. Right now the default assumption when someone uploads content is that it is legal, and then if it is determined to be illegal action is taken. Because of the massive volume of content and the reasonable wish some people have to upload anonymously, actually policing this stuff is nearly impossible.
Unless all websites were required to verify all content that they hosted before allowing users to see it, then I don't see a way anything will change. And given concerns about privacy and the free and open internet, I don't expect anything to change any time soon.
Even PornHub has run in to that issue with fradulent IDs used for verification -- a fact I really want to bring up because I don't know when else I would be able to. Somehow I stumbled upon the...
Even PornHub has run in to that issue with fradulent IDs used for verification -- a fact I really want to bring up because I don't know when else I would be able to.
Somehow I stumbled upon the "PornHub Awards" on wikipedia one day, and saw this curious line:
Top Female Solo Performer: Elles (rescinded[6][7])[unreliable source?]
What does it take for a porn award to be rescinded, I asked myself.
Turns out "Elles" was a 16 year old girl at the time, using (either herself, or IIRC, her boyfriend at the time) a fraudulent ID.
PornHub itself doesn't do the ID verification AFAICT, they go through a company called "Yoti" that does it for them.
It's a complicated problem, someone in the chain has to sign off on the ID being valid, but there's always a way of tricking people. Even then, if in a perfect world the ID verification prevented underage people from signing up, it doesn't do anything for actual consent or human trafficking in the process after that.
There's really just no solution to it. The kinds of restrictions on the internet that would be necessary for anything useful to be done would be incredibly unpopular and at least in the US would...
There's really just no solution to it. The kinds of restrictions on the internet that would be necessary for anything useful to be done would be incredibly unpopular and at least in the US would be considered a violation of the first amendment. And you point out other issues that even the most comprehensive restrictions would miss. Theoretically you can go another step and just ban all porn outright, but again that's even more unpopular.
Ultimately there's a reason the status quo is the status quo, if there was any step that would improve things without significant drawbacks we would have taken it already.
I've long ago wanted a government-backed identity system so one could identify real people and get verified information about things like age. It would make things so much simpler, including...
I've long ago wanted a government-backed identity system so one could identify real people and get verified information about things like age. It would make things so much simpler, including fighting fraud. At the time there were problems with privacy, but since then I've seen a lot of solutions for those problems solved with third-party login systems (e.g. log in with your Apple ID).
Something like it actually happened with ID.me, but I kind of hate it because of all the problems I had verifying myself with it.
I mean, South Korea has something like that, everyone has to have their real name tied to their social media accounts and the government will prosecute you if you post anything illegal. Including...
I mean, South Korea has something like that, everyone has to have their real name tied to their social media accounts and the government will prosecute you if you post anything illegal. Including any kind of porn.
But most people in western countries just value privacy far too much for that to happen.
We have the technology, right? For CSAM there exists hash codes for known images, which is a way social media companies can scan uploads and immediately this system recognizes the image and takes...
We have the technology, right?
For CSAM there exists hash codes for known images, which is a way social media companies can scan uploads and immediately this system recognizes the image and takes it down, without any human moderator or admin having to ever see it. That's my understanding of the system anyways, but I am not in tech so apologies if my understanding is a little off.
I am assuming a similar system could be used for age verification though. No need to scan your passport and driver's license to give to some potentially shady 3rd party. I am sure it can be converted into such a hash and then a system could be built that sees it, knows the information it needs (country and age) and allow you into the website or tell you to come back when you're 18 lol
Alright, so you take someone else's id and use their details and sign up just fine. Then they implement cross checking of your id with a photo of you, so you can't take anyone's id. Now you take...
Alright, so you take someone else's id and use their details and sign up just fine.
Then they implement cross checking of your id with a photo of you, so you can't take anyone's id.
Now you take your big sister's id, she looks enough like you, and you sign up just fine.
That also assumes that everyone signing up has a passport or driver's license that isn't easily faked, most people in the USA don't have a passport, and Real ID driver's licenses aren't required, and non-Real ID licenses are quite common.
That blocks fake ids from countries that have good id verification options, but does every country buy in to this system? Does an id from Malta or the Philippines give the same assurance that its valid? Even if they do, what if you're from a country with mass corruption and someone on your behalf bribes an official to procure a real, albeit fraudulent, id?
Well, actually, I take back my last response, looks like the British are considering something along the lines of what you're talking about. Alone this bill isn't exactly what you describe, but...
Well, actually, I take back my last response, looks like the British are considering something along the lines of what you're talking about. Alone this bill isn't exactly what you describe, but its a step in that direction that would remove the most obvious hurdles.
That's a funny way to say you watch hentai my guy. I joke, but in all seriousness, I'm genuinely with you on hating traditional pornography. It just feels wrong having heard even one negative...
That's a funny way to say you watch hentai my guy.
I joke, but in all seriousness, I'm genuinely with you on hating traditional pornography. It just feels wrong having heard even one negative thing from pornstars in the past. Drugs, trafficking, duplicitous behavior - it sounds like a car dealership from 1972 and that's not a good thing.
It sucks because I genuinely believe that sex-related work is undervalued in society. It's an important thing for many people to exercise their libidos and the fact that an easy way to do that is genuinely an ethical dilemma (and not for religious reasons) is disgusting.
You got me thinking. I am just thinking about how there's all these people on Reddit who talk about how they don't pay for porn anymore and how much better things are thanks to these tube sites,...
You got me thinking. I am just thinking about how there's all these people on Reddit who talk about how they don't pay for porn anymore and how much better things are thanks to these tube sites, and I'm thinking about the people who might not have wanted to be in that situation or had that event shared publicly.
But pretty much any time there's a new business out there disrupting the way things are done and "improving people's lives", it's based on a business model that screws people over. It's just that in the case of porn, it's literal. Airbnb helps people run illegal hotels that cause rents to skyrocket. Ridesharing companies replaced taxi drivers with armies of lower-payed laymen, and then stuck them with all the liabilities. Scooter rentals like Bird and Lime run businesses that are literally built on top of leaving crap on public walkways. Remember the previous writer's strike? One of the major reasons for that was because they weren't being paid residuals for when their shows went on streaming services.
It's absolutely not the same in Hollywood movies wrt the consent of the actors to be in the production at all. Hell, screen actors have a union. Neither of these is the case for porn. While there...
It's absolutely not the same in Hollywood movies wrt the consent of the actors to be in the production at all. Hell, screen actors have a union. Neither of these is the case for porn. While there have been bad incidents behind the scenes in these other mediums, it doesn't come close to the coin flip on "am I watching someone get raped" that porn has.
So, premium single/small group cam model sites? Even then, it's the internet and you never know the full situation. It technically applies even to your own comment; I don't know if this is your...
Not even a little bit. Unless you're buying your porn from a trustworthy source who controlled the production of the porn and where you're paying for the ethical nature of its production you're really rolling the dice
So, premium single/small group cam model sites? Even then, it's the internet and you never know the full situation. It technically applies even to your own comment; I don't know if this is your account, or if you posted this under duress, or if a kid hacked your account and is commenting for you. But most people don't place high stakes on a random internet comment (most people...).
Reducto ad absurdum, but generally I consume the internet under assumptions of innocent untili proven guilty, if only for my own personal sanity. I can't trace every single person's life on the internet, and it would cause more issues if I could.
Writing this from the point of view of someone that used to use porn almost daily. It's only a handful of times per year nowadays though, as HRT made me more or less asexual ~3 years ago. So I...
Exemplary
Writing this from the point of view of someone that used to use porn almost daily. It's only a handful of times per year nowadays though, as HRT made me more or less asexual ~3 years ago. So I feel like I have a legitimately good "both sides" angle to this conversation.
I'm very happy it's getting talked about like this. I don't know that I have an exact opinion on whether porn is generally problematic or not - it really depends on the person's age, knowledge, self-awareness.
Horseshoe theory really applies here... I entirely disagree with those in the article that want to ban books like this, outlaw porn etc., but I also disagree that porn is great and good and should be a free for all. I think there is absolutely a discussion to be had on age limits. As they say in the article, the barrier to entry has been lowered and I think it has been lowered way too much.
It's unhealthy for young kids like I was when I discovered it (about 12 or so) to consume it. Period.
It completely skews your frame of reference. And it's about more than just unrealistic expectations in relationships. It's unrealistic bodies and unrealistic beauty standards, and a very quick road to becoming sexist through the way people interact in porn. Not to mention how just not real all the photoshopping, camera angles, lighting... that part is true for influencers and TV and movies as well, but the point is the same.
There are levels to it of course. But for some with a high libido that are using porn every day? I really believe you gotta be self-aware about it. Like, maybe one would start thinking that things porn has normalized - take anal sex - is totally reasonable to expect from your partner. But reality is that anal sex can be a rather extreme kink for some people.
Again, I don't know whether I have an exact opinion on the general problematicness of porn. But it's a needed discussion.
I think there's a problem of implementation. As a society, we can ban things for children because they are physical things, with fundamental limitations on distribution. We can check ID before...
Exemplary
Horseshoe theory really applies here... I entirely disagree with those in the article that want to ban books like this, outlaw porn etc., but I also disagree that porn is great and good and should be a free for all. I think there is absolutely a discussion to be had on age limits. As they say in the article, the barrier to entry has been lowered and I think it has been lowered way too much.
I think there's a problem of implementation. As a society, we can ban things for children because they are physical things, with fundamental limitations on distribution. We can check ID before selling alcohol or cigarettes precisely because the sale is somewhat centralized.
For the past 25 years or so, however, pornography is no longer "a physical thing" but rather abstract information, distributed digitally over a channel where people are fundamentally anonymous. It's hard to imagine how to control pornography distribution without radically changing the Internet to attach an identity to every online action. The costs of the latter might not outweigh the benefits of the former.
It's unhealthy for young kids like I was when I discovered it (about 12 or so) to consume it. Period. […] It completely skews your frame of reference.
I think it doesn't help that kids at that age don't have a frame of reference for sex. For Very Good Reasons we shelter kids from in-person sexuality, but that just leaves a vacuum to be filled with rumour, imagination, and (over the last 40 years or so – don't forget the old tropes of boys stealing Playboy mags from adult figures) pornography.
Like, maybe one would start thinking that things porn has normalized - take anal sex
Nevermind that, I suspect that pornography of earlier decades went a long way towards normalizing oral sex, a task accomplished so thoroughly that the idea is no longer controversial (see for example an academic study on prevalence by age, or a 2008 Slate article).
I think the inflection point isn't even the Internet, but rather mass media in general. We're in the middle of a generations-long shift where cultural attitudes are no longer conveyed from the community to its children, but from the media to citizens writ large (including children) without strong intermediation by traditional authorities.
Sociologists a couple of hundred years from now might be able to come to a consensus about this change, but sitting in the middle of it I don't think I have any particularly privileged perspective.
I'm really surprised that oral sex was ever considered kinky in and of itself! I suppose even at 30 I'm too young to have known a time that oral sex was taboo? I guess that just proves the point...
I'm really surprised that oral sex was ever considered kinky in and of itself! I suppose even at 30 I'm too young to have known a time that oral sex was taboo? I guess that just proves the point of how normalized things can become through the right/wrong medium. That is super interesting, and actually also puts the Clinton scandal into a lot more context!
Also really good point about kids not even having a frame of reference to begin with. That's just even more troubling, isn't it? That their first meeting with intimacy is porn - and maybe Hollywood movies too, which of course also are very realistically portray sex. It's a pretty dirty deed with cleanup involved. I remember how big of a deal it was in the early 2010's when House of Cards had a scene in which Robin Wright's character grabs a wet wipe afterwards, for example. But that's a rare exception.
As you say, unrealistic standards are caused by all sorts of media. I had to unlearn unrealistic expectations that were created long before I encountered porn. Movies, TV and print publications...
It completely skews your frame of reference. And it's about more than just unrealistic expectations in relationships. It's unrealistic bodies and unrealistic beauty standards, and a very quick road to becoming sexist through the way people interact in porn. Not to mention how just not real all the photoshopping, camera angles, lighting... that part is true for influencers and TV and movies as well, but the point is the same.
As you say, unrealistic standards are caused by all sorts of media.
I had to unlearn unrealistic expectations that were created long before I encountered porn. Movies, TV and print publications were far more influential.
If we were to somehow erase the existence of porn it would barely scratch the surface of cultural issues related to beauty standards.
Ok, but it's not just about beauty standards. It's about what is standard or usual or desired sexual behavior. I used to spend time in r/askwomenover30 and women would come asking what they should...
Though I generally agree with your points, I'm not sure about the last one. We have graffiti from the Roman era discussing anal sex and homosexual relationships (which back then would obviously...
Though I generally agree with your points, I'm not sure about the last one. We have graffiti from the Roman era discussing anal sex and homosexual relationships (which back then would obviously involve a lot of that, seeing as they didn't really have much in the way of toys). That, and in my experience I haven't really met anyone who thinks it's "reasonable" to expect, but I'll admit that I am a bit out of touch with the modern dating scene.
I'm mixed on this. I agree in principle, but of course I know in reality that pretending we can quash 12yo's watching porn is like pretending we can keep 12yo's off the internet. At some point...
It's unhealthy for young kids like I was when I discovered it (about 12 or so) to consume it. Period.
I'm mixed on this. I agree in principle, but of course I know in reality that pretending we can quash 12yo's watching porn is like pretending we can keep 12yo's off the internet. At some point it's up to the parent to give that proper framing before they fall down the rabbit hole, instead of hoping we can cover up the hole.
There is also the huge issue of nudity being intertwined with pornography in western society. And this is where things really get tricky because nudity is 99.99% inevitable (And I don't think a never-nude approach is the solution). We're so terrified to teach kids about their own bodies and then are shocked when they wander about themselves trying find answers and realize that XVideos is a horrible teacher. It's your body so you should rightfully be curious about how it works, why punish that curiosity and seal into Pandora's Box? You can't really escape 'you'.
I think something that would be an enormous help would be if we could de-stigmatize sex work generally. We are leaps and bounds away from what it was but I think in general too many people look...
I think something that would be an enormous help would be if we could de-stigmatize sex work generally. We are leaps and bounds away from what it was but I think in general too many people look down on sex workers causing them to fear speaking out and/or seeking help about the situation they may find themselves in. Personally I think all sex work should be legal and regulated. I know we're specifically talking about porn but if all sex work was legal there would be more protections in place to help sex workers generally.
I will try to find a source (or maybe someone else will be nice enough to do it) but that is actually not true. Countries like Germany where bordellos are regulated and legal have higher rates of...
I know we're specifically talking about porn but if all sex work was legal there would be more protections in place to help sex workers generally.
I will try to find a source (or maybe someone else will be nice enough to do it) but that is actually not true. Countries like Germany where bordellos are regulated and legal have higher rates of human trafficking than countries where prostitution is not legal.
Here's one well cited academic paper on the subject. It is rather tricky since it is not necessary rates going up but simply because of the expansion of the industry itself (i.e. 5% of 100 is...
Here's one well cited academic paper on the subject. It is rather tricky since it is not necessary rates going up but simply because of the expansion of the industry itself (i.e. 5% of 100 is bigger than 5% of 10)
Cho, Seo-Young, Axel Dreher, and Eric Neumayer. "Does legalized prostitution increase human trafficking?." World development 41 (2013): 67-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.023
According to economic theory, there are two effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market and thus an increase in human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked prostitutes by favoring prostitutes who have legal residence in a country. Our quantitative empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries with legalized prostitution experience a larger degree of reported human trafficking inflows.
[...] The likely negative consequences of legalized prostitution on a country’s inflows of human trafficking might be seen to support those who argue in favor of banning prostitution, thereby reducing the flows of trafficking (e.g., Outshoorn, 2005). However, such a line of argumentation overlooks potential benefits that the legalization of prostitution might have on those employed in the industry. Working conditions could be substantially improved for prostitutes—at least those legally employed—if prostitution is legalized.
You're right. I guess my logic is a little naive, fact is when there is a market there will be bad actors trying to profit off that market by nefarious ways. My thought was that if sex work was...
You're right. I guess my logic is a little naive, fact is when there is a market there will be bad actors trying to profit off that market by nefarious ways. My thought was that if sex work was legalized and de-stigmatized the sex workers would have more rights and more ways to protect themselves, which appears to be somewhat true but as seen in CosmicDefect's reply, the black market and trafficking grows a long with the legal market.
I had the same logic. I remember being a little bit shocked when I heard about it the first time as well. It still doesn't really make sense to me, in many ways - but yeah reality is reality.
I had the same logic. I remember being a little bit shocked when I heard about it the first time as well. It still doesn't really make sense to me, in many ways - but yeah reality is reality.
I think this issue is a good example of being between a rock and a hard place where the direction of less social harm is completely muddied an unclear. The authors in the linked also note that...
I think this issue is a good example of being between a rock and a hard place where the direction of less social harm is completely muddied an unclear. The authors in the linked also note that their empirical study does not show causation, only correlation, and part of the difficulty is the taboo and clandestine nature of the industry makes scientific study rather difficult. Also the correlation, while present, isn't super strong. They have a figure where they plot the trend and it is mildly comical how all over the place various countries are.
This is one of those cases where I really want to know why the person who tagged this exemplary did so. Porn isn't evil in and of itself. Kids are not going to be harmed because they found porn....
Exemplary
This is one of those cases where I really want to know why the person who tagged this exemplary did so.
Porn isn't evil in and of itself. Kids are not going to be harmed because they found porn. And I don't want to insult you, but the things you wrote here come across as a moral panic with some very shaky logic to support it.
The thing that makes porn potentially harmful to kids is not that they'll be scarred for life because of it, but because they run the risk of not getting good sex education and thinking that the often unrealistic standards of pornography reflect real life. The solution is not to safeguard them from it, it's to educate them. Kids are humans. They deserve agency and a way to control their lives at least within safe boundries. It's not realistic to control their lives so much that they don't see porn eventually.
Likewise, masturbation is healthy. If you're doing it in inappropriate times, that's not healthy, sure, but that's usually caused by mental health issues. Do you know what you call a teenage boy who masturbates any chance they get? A teenage boy. It's normal. They're loaded with hormones that are new to them. The refractory period is also completely normal, and temporary. You will not get a boy anywhere who will turn down a chance at sex because they masturbated a few hours ago.
Sex drives change on a per-person basis, and they also change with age and health issues. Most boys and men understand nearly instinctively that if they have a lower sex drive and a chance at having sex later in the day, they shouldn't masturbate. And if they don't or haven't had someone tell them, they'll figure it out soon enough. But once again, this is a case where education really helps.
You asked if one would recommend masterbation to a person who does not do so and is well adapted socially and emotionally. Absolutely. Sex educators are constantly recommending people masturbate. There's many reasons for it, but one of the main ones is that not regulating those sexual urges causes them to deal with embarrasing issues that mean that they aren't well adapted socially and emotionally.
I also had this reaction. Some parts, like come off as extremely outdated and misinformed, which I find odd given that he earlier acknowledged his limited perspective as a man (at least, that's...
This is one of those cases where I really want to know why the person who tagged this exemplary did so.
I also had this reaction. Some parts, like
The male sex drive is part of the magic of why heterosexual relationships happen at all ... it's certainly not the norm in real life for women to try to actively initiate a relationship.
come off as extremely outdated and misinformed, which I find odd given that he earlier acknowledged his limited perspective as a man (at least, that's how I read it).
I'm not saying I agree with OP overall thesis here, but this specific point that you call outdated/misinformed is a pretty normal opinion to have. It's certainly been my experience in the dating...
I'm not saying I agree with OP overall thesis here, but this specific point
it's certainly not the norm in real life for women to try to actively initiate a relationship.
that you call outdated/misinformed is a pretty normal opinion to have. It's certainly been my experience in the dating world (as anemic and prone the failure as that has been) where the expectation of "the first move" was entirely on me. It's so normalized that the opposite approach is an advertised highlight of certain dating apps by disabling first messages by men.
Let me preface this by saying I do not think I'm an attractive male. I'm probably a 6/10 at best. However, quite literally every relationship I've been in has been -- at least at the very early...
Let me preface this by saying I do not think I'm an attractive male. I'm probably a 6/10 at best. However, quite literally every relationship I've been in has been -- at least at the very early stages -- initiated by the woman. Although I guess it depends how you define initiated. I'm defining it this way: sending clear signals of interest like touching or suggesting 1:1 activities (although they've never been described as "dates", per se). Then afterwards I generally "took the lead" in progressing. I'm 40 and have been in 5 long term relationships with women going back to high school in the late 90s that all started this way. So I have lived a very different experience than what's started in OP's thesis and what you agree with.
Hmm, thinking a bit more on it, I can generally categorize my experiences into two bins: Subtle hints or suggestions initiated by the women in question that I was either far too thick to notice or...
Hmm, thinking a bit more on it, I can generally categorize my experiences into two bins:
Subtle hints or suggestions initiated by the women in question that I was either far too thick to notice or far too insecure to act upon. I think these land in style of situation you're bringing up. Perhaps your social radar was just much better than mine.
Direct attempts at dating where I'm initiating, or in an environment explicitly about dating: Speed dating, online apps, etc...
It's the latter experiences I mostly drew my original conclusions from -- but perhaps that's too narrow a perspective.
As the one who marked it exemplary, I am finding it difficult to articulate why. So here's a braindump, and maybe it will answer some of your questions about my perspective. The most formative...
As the one who marked it exemplary, I am finding it difficult to articulate why. So here's a braindump, and maybe it will answer some of your questions about my perspective.
The most formative parts of my childhood involve my curiosity about sex and the reactions from my parents. The priest in confession told me that masturbation was a sin, so I spent years in literal anguish, carrying eternal damnation on my shoulders because I couldn't stop touching myself.
Like a slingshot, that ultimately amplified my interest in human sexuality to the point where I've learned about and explored practically everything you can do by yourself without getting hurt.
You won't masturbate nearly as much without porn as an aid; porn is kind of like junk food in that you're way likely to overdo consumption compared to healthy foods.
Hyperpalatable foods make it possible to eat when you are not hungry. Pornography makes it possible to masturbate and orgasm when you are not horny. I couldn't agree more.
Abstaining from food (fasting) can extend your life, improve your health, and ward off disease, if done properly.
What might abstaining from sexual release do?
Sexual reproduction is the driving force behind multicellular life, after all. It is core to our existence, after breathing, drinking, and eating. It would be unwise to dismiss masturbation as "obviously healthy" in any [arbitrary] amount.
The "sexuality == sin" attitude is the suppression of sexuality. In my experience, this leads to suffering. This is the wedge issue that unfortunately evaporated my faith in God.
But by forcing your body to a sexual release when it's not ready, is that disrespectful of oneself? A better approach may be to respect, cherish, and value your sexual energy, only releasing it with deliberate intention when it is appropriate.
When I think of non-human animals masturbating, the case that come to mind are the monkeys in captivity that are stressed out of their minds. And masturbating is the only way they can self-soothe. That's more a symptom than a disease, though.
Do animals in the wild masturbate to an orgasm daily? I wouldn't think so. From a first-principles perspective, ejaculating once a day without a chance of successful sexual reproduction is a tremendous waste of rare nutrients. Perhaps once a week would make sense in order to "keep the pipes flowing". Likely even rarer unless in mating season, and then they're masturbating due to excessive horniness, not boredom.
There must be psychological/hormonal side-effects to frequent (e.g. daily or more) orgasm and/or ejaculation in men, even without pornography.
Additionally, sexual energy being a potent force is a thing in ancient schools of thought, such as Buddhism.
On a personal level, I'm finding myself depleted of motivation more and more lately. Perhaps my once-daily masturbation habit is to blame, even though I ditched porn a long, long, time ago. I appreciate erotic art and the beauty of raw and unapologetic sexuality, but pornography is something else entirely.
I appreciate that you responded to my curiosity! I understand not being able to articulate a thought; as much as I comment here it still happens to me frequently. But from what I'm getting at...
I appreciate that you responded to my curiosity! I understand not being able to articulate a thought; as much as I comment here it still happens to me frequently. But from what I'm getting at understanding your motivation, it was essentially just you really agreeing with the points being made, am I correct? Or was it more of a matter that they were able to put your words into thoughts when you couldn't?
I don't agree with your ideas, but I don't want to dig into sources on this subject right now since I don't know of anything that distinguishes between weekly and daily. I do want to mention, though that regular orgasms, by yourself or with others, do have positive health benefits. In men it has been shown to prevent prostate cancer.
Much of Rez's post I didn't know I agreed with until I read it, which is why I marked it exemplary. It is a perspective that rings true to my ears, so I thought it should be boosted so it can be...
Much of Rez's post I didn't know I agreed with until I read it, which is why I marked it exemplary. It is a perspective that rings true to my ears, so I thought it should be boosted so it can be helpful to more people, as well as stimulate discussion for/against which can inform and challenge my similar viewpoint.
I see. In that case, I hope you also enjoyed reading my response as well. Thank you for your candid response; I always enjoy understanding other people's thought processes.
I see. In that case, I hope you also enjoyed reading my response as well. Thank you for your candid response; I always enjoy understanding other people's thought processes.
Can you please source this claim beyond anecdotal experiences?
I find it very unfortunate that the promotion of masturbation/pornography abstention in men is virtually monopolized by the political right-wing. It's not that masturbating is inherently bad (it's fine in moderation, especially if you aren't wanting a relationship) it's just that men have hormones that influence them, just like women do, and masturbating does affect those hormones and consequently affects how we socialize.
Can you please source this claim beyond anecdotal experiences?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I know that NoFap is linked to far-right groups, but I moreso meant the latter half of your comment. Yes, I find it irresponsible to claim that testosterone...
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I know that NoFap is linked to far-right groups, but I moreso meant the latter half of your comment.
Yes, I find it irresponsible to claim that testosterone affects "how men socialize". Hormones effects on mood and personality are a very complicated matter. Testosterone being high or low says nothing about the rest of the hormones in the body and does not paint a good picture of someone's psychology.
It is much safer to say that people are varied and their experiences with porn will therefore vary. Rather than try and link it nebulously to testosterone, we should instead promote healthier avenues of porn consumption and social awareness. If you are aware of what you're consuming and how much of it, even at a young age, then you can manage it better.
Your whole post is filled with strange claims that have little in the way of backing behind them, such as comparing porn to junk food. I have not come across a single respected psychologist that proclaims anything of the sort, and I'd be happy to see if you have any to share (as well as something regarding those claims about testosterone affecting behaviour). In the very wiki section you linked, it's stated that the DSM 5 does not recognize pornography addiction as a diagnosis.
So again, if you could provide some form of scientifically backed article or paper regarding these negative effects of porn, please share them. To be blunt, your comment comes across as little more than the same moral panic the Wikipedia article is referencing, with appeals to how you think porn affects people and not how most people researching these topics approach them.
Edit: Reading your comment more closely I find the area where you mention your own experiences to be nothing more than projection. I would have probably been considered a "porn addict" back when I was a teen but I manage my sex drive just fine now, which shows that it isn't porn, it's the person and their relationship with it. Also, the claim that teenage boys have "nowhere to turn but right wingers" is absolutely ridiculous - the right is very vocal about trying to tell you to stop masturbating, and so it feels like they're more likely to help, when in reality a boy can talk to his parents, his counselor, his friends, a therapist, his doctor, etc etc before turning to right wing fanatics who try to tell him a bunch of pseudoscience about testosterone.
I would have much preferred you emphasize that these things are your opinions, because when you make such strong claims with the same sort of assertiveness as your post carries, you can lead...
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I would have much preferred you emphasize that these things are your opinions, because when you make such strong claims with the same sort of assertiveness as your post carries, you can lead people to take your word for something that isn't based on consensus. I suppose it may be a tad hypocritical for me to say this as I am surely guilty of doing the same at times, but I still feel it should be said.
Note, all links SFW
But I find your insistence that it's hard to study to be a little strange. Hard to study does not mean impossible, and plenty of researchers think that there are ways to employ non-classical psychological methods to study these things (see here discussing the usage of critical and applied psychology). Beyond that, plenty of current papers have findings showing that it isn't the quantity of porn, but the quality.
Besides, of course we have a population that hasn't seen porn yet: children. Not everyone is exposed to pornography at a young age like me and others in this thread, and the only reason that studies aren't made in this realm is because of a lack of funding and a lack of interest. In fact, the exact point of articles like the one linked (even if it has some flaws) is to bring attention to this issue and try to get some research going. To try and predict a talking point - no, I don't think that we should introduce eight year olds to pornography, but teens who would otherwise naturally come into contact with it.
For your hormone claim I don't particularly have an interest to keep discussing because so far all you've offered me are rhetorical questions rather than actual data about masturbation/pornography effects on T. The Wikipedia page you linked says a lot in regards to sexual activity, competitiveness, and things of the sort, but has two sections: one discussing testosterone levels during sexual arousal, and one discussing baseline levels. This is the core of my argument; pornography use and masturbation have not been shown to affect baseline testosterone levels and so using it to somehow claim that it affects men socially is ridiculous unless these men are engaging in sexual activities in public, which doesn't tend to be most people.
For an anecdotal experience, I am trans now but I've lived as a man for twenty years with hyperactive testosterone production, and had all the hallmarks of a low confidence nerdy geek. This says nothing about the general population but shows that relying on testosterone to judge someone's behaviour isn't something that we as ordinary people should do, as we have no idea what someone may be going through beyond their hormone levels. I will say that I was hypersexual during my teens, likely due to my imbalance, so I'd like to clarify that I'm not saying T has no effect on anything, just that it isn't as dramatic as you're framing it and not always the whole story. To make my point concise and clear - baseline testosterone is completely different than levels during sexual arousal and a link between the two hasn't to my knowledge been shown.
The last point, I really just have no idea what to say about. We did not classify transgender people as mentally ill because we didn't have the data to support otherwise, we did it because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the condition and it's treatment parameters. To make such a claim about pornography addiction without any credentials is so unbelievably presumptuous that I find your other comment accusing @Akir of bad faith to be terribly ironic. It's also a little curious how the same hardline religious people who were opposed to removing gender dysphoria from the DSM are very keen to include pornography addiction as a psychological condition.
I'll end my post with a concrete explanation of my approach to porn and how I believe it should be promoted,
Quality of consumption - that is: ethical, non-violent (or otherwise with blatant consent), respectful - is more important that quantity. Because of this, we should teach teens how to recognize abusive porn and drill into their minds that these are actors. It is okay to consume a lot of porn if and only if you have the mental awareness to say, "this is not real, and if I was ever in this situation, I would want to be a consenting party". Teach safe sex and more importantly, offer avenues for kids who feel that they cannot relate to straight sex to also learn about alternatives. Parents should be aware of how to communicate these things to their kids, which I think is best done with a book much like the recent Australian one that a parent can reference for language and mature conversation if their child has a question (the same goes for teachers).
This avoids demonizing porn and blaming it for male behaviour, allows children to recognize abusive behaviour both in and out of the screen, and shows kids that sex is just another part of the human experience that - though not inherently dangerous - involves another person and because of that requires communication.
Let me ask you this: why do you consider this to be harmful? Granted an adult showing a child pornography is considered to be grooming them to accept sexual advances, so it's obviously not OK for...
So if a parent intentionally exposes their child to hardcore pornography, you would have no qualms about that whatsoever? If one just leaves a playlist of Pornhub in the background on TV, the way one might with some Netflix sitcom, there's no conceivable way that might do harm to a child?
Let me ask you this: why do you consider this to be harmful?
Granted an adult showing a child pornography is considered to be grooming them to accept sexual advances, so it's obviously not OK for this to happen. But imagine we could guarantee that it wasn't the case. What effect would it have on the child? It might give them unrealistic views of sex, of course, but I've already covered how we need to counter that with good sex education. So baring that, how else might the child be harmed by watching pornography?
The current status quo is that kids are not getting good sex education and do adopt those unrealistic standards. Do you dispute that assertion? I'm talking from a frame of reference of how reality currently is. Porn is de facto most men's first and only teacher on how to have sex prior to having sex.
I don't dispute that assertion. But it makes much more sense to fix that problem than it does to restrict pornography. That's a really extreme and unrealistic solution to a problem that is caused almost entirely by people refusing to properly educate their children, which is bad for many reasons that are beyond the scope of this conversation.
I apologize for misunderstanding your last point. You can feel free to disengage if you want. But I tried to be as respectful as I could when I wrote my response to you, so I would appreciate to see the same from you rather than assuming that I'm acting in bad faith.
So reading this from the outside, I notice that @Rez used the term hard core pornography without explaining what he meant by that. I don't know if that is the source of the misunderstanding. What...
So reading this from the outside, I notice that @Rez used the term hard core pornography without explaining what he meant by that. I don't know if that is the source of the misunderstanding. What I do know is that when I spent time in r/askwomenover30, women would come asking for advice because their male partners thought it was normal to expect them to enjoy choking/breath play, or worse just choked them in the middle of sex without consent. When I was young I had never heard of choking as part of sex. Porn sex can be extremely rough, violent, disrespectful.
Yeah, I think we have to distinguish between "hard core porn" that shows consent clearly and "hard core porn" that does not. E.g. you can do consent-informed chocking in porn (mostly in yearly...
Yeah, I think we have to distinguish between "hard core porn" that shows consent clearly and "hard core porn" that does not. E.g. you can do consent-informed chocking in porn (mostly in yearly bdsm porn), but most chocking porn is just not safe and consenting.
I'm not a man. I thought some of your takes were very different from my experiences. Daily masturbation for women would not lead to a depleted, "neutered" state. If anything it leads to the...
I'm not a man. I thought some of your takes were very different from my experiences. Daily masturbation for women would not lead to a depleted, "neutered" state. If anything it leads to the opposite. Also, the women I know who watch porn are not that angstful about it, maybe because it doesn't seem to have such deleterious affects on their relationships. They also don't seem to be addicted to visual porn, mentioning that they watch every once in a while (maybe they aren't being fully truthful but I don't think so). Could also be because the cliche of women preferring book porn seems to be true (those romance and erotica novels can be very graphic).
You say that like it's the reason they're virgins. Isn't it more likely that they turn to porn because they have sexual needs that aren't being filled any other way? This is a weirdly moralistic...
Virtually all the men I know who are virgins or lost their virginity late in life can be described as being (or having been) pornography addicts who masturbate too much.
You say that like it's the reason they're virgins. Isn't it more likely that they turn to porn because they have sexual needs that aren't being filled any other way?
This is a weirdly moralistic stance with some significant unexamined assumptions baked in.
It's hard for me to think about "healthy" pornography as an abstraction because I lived through the transition from anti-pornography feminism [PDF warning, but tl;dr, Catherine MacKinnon's...
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It's hard for me to think about "healthy" pornography as an abstraction because I lived through the transition from anti-pornography feminism [PDF warning, but tl;dr, Catherine MacKinnon's commentary "... the fact that male power has power means that the interests of male sexuality construct what sexuality as such means in life..."] to sex-positive feminism [Naomi Wolf, "Orgasm is the natural call to feminist politics."].
The sex-positive feminist movement, the impact of HIV on sexuality in general, and the drastic drop in cost of pornography production due to comparatively cheap video combined in a flourishing of what I would think of as healthy pornography. I could walk into the neighborhood video store and take my pick of Nina Hartley or Candida Royale productions, leatherboys, imported BDSM or latex kink, homebrewed amateur tapes with all kinds of bodies. All nicely done, with actors who got cuts of royalties, age verification, including plainly spelled out and often erotically negotiated consent. Everyone genuinely looked like they wanted to be there, safer sex was a given, with lovingly filmed application of condoms and dental dams. [And top-quality tentacle hentai, but that's a completely other set of questions about healthy approaches to fantasy, consent, the male vs. female gaze, etc.]
I'm sure it wasn't quite the Golden Age that my hormonal rose-tinted nostalgia recalls about that porn. For the most part, though, I didn't watch it by myself in cloistered sweaty desperation - I watched porn with friends and lovers in partnered sweaty desperation. Porn is still something that I think about sharing with other people, as a spur to imagination rather than a substitute for partners. These days, I'll avail myself of porn on the road. It's a comfort, a way to share intimacy with my spouse from afar (we'll trade off what we found inspiring), and a means of avoiding distractions until I can return home.
I understand that for a whole generation of people, the firehose of low-quality Internet porn has sometimes replaced the fleshy interpersonal interactions. But I find it difficult to countenance that anecdata and the revival of moral panic mean well-done porn (and masturbating to it) is intrinsically harmful.
Sex education in U.S. schools is, if anything, even shittier than the garble I got as a kid (self-education via medical texts wasn't much help either, but popular and feminist lesbian publications weren't bad). It would help if Google and other search engines prioritized reliable sources.
I think there is a version of pornography that doesn’t involve harm but I think the current systems we have make that almost impossible to find. I know people who’ve done sex work (camming) and...
I think there is a version of pornography that doesn’t involve harm but I think the current systems we have make that almost impossible to find.
I know people who’ve done sex work (camming) and I’ve talked with them about it. In those cases, they had experience working both with studios (hated it, super exploitative) and independently. As an independent model, it was possible to not be sexually exploited. They could set their own lines of consent by refusing to do certain things and they had enough tools to be able to hold to it (and critically, no management forcing them to do things they didn’t want to). Studios were exploitative and dangerous.
They were certainly economically exploited, both by camming being the most economically viable profession they could choose as relatively educated women and by a system, both as studios and independents that frequently fucks over models for cash wherever it can. For soft economic-exploitation, these women were able to support extended families on a single income or support their family working while kids were at school and being full time moms outside of that. Working 2 or 3 non-sex work jobs were needed for the same cash and you’d miss family time. There are systemic patriarchal reasons why that’s the case. They also were just ripped off frequently by any layer they’d operate in due to the legal gray/black market status of sex work. Banks gave them a hard time about opening accounts, payment processors would hold payments up because you couldn’t do much. Anyone who was a middleman like a studio or a hosting site was taking at least 20-30% and usually for doing nothing.
There were ways they could maintain control over both what they were willing to consent to and control over their money but it involved driving everyone to a site you controlled. It was hard for someone who’s not a name-brand to be able to do that with any success.
So, to the original question, I think it’s theoretically possible to find sex workers and directly support them financially. In a world where most people ridicule people for paying for porn on the internet, studios and sites take huge chunks of revenue and anything you put online will always spread out of your control, I think practically, that’s a very hard thing to do right now.
The short term solution to help solve this is to completely decriminalize sex work and treat labor violations like you do in any other industry. That would eliminate a lot of places where workers are ripped off or abused. The long term solution involves eliminating capitalism and patriarchy.
That is complex because even if a person verbally consent to sex for money, you can't be sure it's true consent when the alternative is not being able to afford home and food.
That is complex because even if a person verbally consent to sex for money, you can't be sure it's true consent when the alternative is not being able to afford home and food.
At a certain point, all of us are exploited and trade our bodies for resources we need to survive. Like I said, there are systemic reasons that, due to patriarchy, make sex work a rational choice...
At a certain point, all of us are exploited and trade our bodies for resources we need to survive. Like I said, there are systemic reasons that, due to patriarchy, make sex work a rational choice for some women. It’s impossible to address under current systems.
I think you can choose to not watch pornography or to pay sex workers for content because even though there’s economic exploitation, at least people can eat. I really hate that we’ve normalized porn being free and shared widely without the workers being compensated fairly. It’s the worst of all worlds.
Sex, whether we like it or not, is a personal thing for most people. It takes a lot to detach yourself from that like most porn actresses can do (or sometimes they just genuinely enjoy a lot of...
Sex, whether we like it or not, is a personal thing for most people. It takes a lot to detach yourself from that like most porn actresses can do (or sometimes they just genuinely enjoy a lot of it). Having to go say, to a construction site everyday against your will, isn't on the same level of defilement as having sex against your will every day.
So, this is true, but only if you ignore how much sex means to us personally. For some people you might be right, for most (anecdotally), probably not.
I feel that meaning is given culturally, to be honest. You spend so much time putting sex on a pedastal and being taught that you need to save it for the right (single, monogamous) person, and now...
but only if you ignore how much sex means to us personally
I feel that meaning is given culturally, to be honest. You spend so much time putting sex on a pedastal and being taught that you need to save it for the right (single, monogamous) person, and now it's this grand gesture of ultimate dedication (again, to a single monogamous person). I feel that system is breaking apart with the advent of casual online dating. Similar to how people don't feel wed "locked" these days and it's easier emotionally (but not easy) to ready up a divorce if things get too bad. I'm ambivalent on if this is a good/bad thing, but it's certainly an interesting trend to observe.
There's also a much bigger rabbit hole of sex vs love. I agree is it very had to detach from love. The physical act often in involved with love may be easier to disassociate with.
I should clarify - I am a very big proponent of casual sex. I think the world would be a generally much better place if it was more acceptable to be intimate with others without the inherent...
I should clarify - I am a very big proponent of casual sex. I think the world would be a generally much better place if it was more acceptable to be intimate with others without the inherent expectation of a relationship.
But it's still a way of showing love. I think detaching from that completely isn't a good thing - I feel that through intimacy I can say things that I otherwise don't have the language to, and I would hate for that to disappear.
My theory is that people are realizing that monogomy just isn't all it's brought up to be. At the end of the day the main reason it's so popular is because of mainstream religion, and with that becoming less of a common state of mind more and more men/women are starting to wonder; do I really need to lock myself in a relationship? Do I really need a child? I think it's especially prevalent in my generation (Z) and I can't say I'm not excited to see where it takes us.
Finding some content creators that produce the type of stuff you're into and making sure they're fine with whatever they are producing is a big help, though there's always cases where there's...
Finding some content creators that produce the type of stuff you're into and making sure they're fine with whatever they are producing is a big help, though there's always cases where there's background skeevy stuff.
Nowadays if you want something that can truly be produced without harming anyone ever in any situation you can use AI generated stuff. It doesn't do video.... Yet, but pictures and text are both...
Nowadays if you want something that can truly be produced without harming anyone ever in any situation you can use AI generated stuff.
It doesn't do video.... Yet, but pictures and text are both perfectly serviceable.
You might argue because it has training data that is bad it is also bad, but at the end of the day if you want the pictures and you don't want any humans to be involved in making them - there you go.
For all of real porn’s faults, I find it deeply disconcerting the recent drive to divorce it from real people entirely. Whether that’s through hentai, 3d animated cam girls, or in this case random...
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For all of real porn’s faults, I find it deeply disconcerting the recent drive to divorce it from real people entirely. Whether that’s through hentai, 3d animated cam girls, or in this case random generation.
While classic porn may put out unrealistic expectations around bodies and sex, it is inherently limited in how far afield it can go by the fact that they are still real people having real sex. I don’t think that what’s been wrong with porn before is that it’s not divorced enough from the actual reality of adults having healthy sex.
And the fact that it tends to further remove women from a process that is already largely aimed at catering to men. Reducing the role of women to literal cartoon representations of fantasy to be jerked off to. And creating expectations that are impossible to fulfill in the real world.
It also feels like a further step in the epidemic of loneliness, as we continue to isolate ourselves with cheap dopamine hits and interact with the simulacra of real people.
The 'harms of pornography' seem to fall into two categories: Harm in the production of pornography, running the spectrum from undisputed harms like violent abuse to more controversial harms like...
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For all of real porn’s faults, I find it deeply disconcerting the recent drive to divorce it from real people entirely. Whether that’s through hentai, 3d animated cam girls, or in this case random generation.
The 'harms of pornography' seem to fall into two categories:
Harm in the production of pornography, running the spectrum from undisputed harms like violent abuse to more controversial harms like the 'inherently degrading nature of sex work'.
Harm in the consumption of pornography, again running a spectrum from 'giving children harmful misconceptions about sex and relationships' to 'it promotes lustful thoughts outside heterosexual marriage'.
Porn-without-people – not just AI-generated porn, but also written/drawn/animated works – mostly eliminates the harms of the production side. For people primarily concerned about exploitation in sex work, this is a good thing. However, it doesn't do anything about consumption-based harm, so the relative merits will depend on your analytical framework.
Are people not allowed to enjoy fantasy? Is letting kids read fiction setting them up for horrible disappointment when they reach the real world? Completely broken and unable to function, living...
Are people not allowed to enjoy fantasy? Is letting kids read fiction setting them up for horrible disappointment when they reach the real world? Completely broken and unable to function, living dangerously even?
I don't buy it for that and I don't buy that enjoying "x" porn is making people into monsters either. People have been warning that indulging in fantasy will ruin society since society began.
People enjoy things responsibly and irresponsibly, that's just a given.
The problem isn't porn, it's that some people learn about sex through porn instead of school and or their parents or some other actually decent source of information. It's like expecting people to...
The problem isn't porn, it's that some people learn about sex through porn instead of school and or their parents or some other actually decent source of information.
It's like expecting people to drive after watching the fast and furious and then banning the fast and furious because people are bad drivers.
But the average school or adult is unlikely to know more than the internet when it comes to sex. Abstinence-only sexual education is still very common, and many adults think it's immoral for...
But the average school or adult is unlikely to know more than the internet when it comes to sex. Abstinence-only sexual education is still very common, and many adults think it's immoral for teenagers to have sex. Most teenagers would probably have a more well-rounded education from Wikipedia than the adults in their life.
Still, it's a good idea to educate young adults so that they know porn isn't real. But independent of pornography, there has always been a glamorization of things like first kisses, highschool romance, etc.
I disagree with you on the idea that parents (adults) aren't equipped to inform their kids. In terms of life experience, there probably isn't anyone better. Yes they probably have misconceptions,...
I disagree with you on the idea that parents (adults) aren't equipped to inform their kids. In terms of life experience, there probably isn't anyone better.
Yes they probably have misconceptions, but as long as the dad and the mom are both in the room there is not a ton of room for harmful imbalance there.
As for information on the internet? We just need to get people to read it and not to get their information from entertainment-porn.
Restrictive measures - banning or restrictions on porn - would be far more harmful than constructive ones - getting people to have better institutions through which we learn about sex.
This is assuming that the parents are actually on the same page and there isn't already harmful imbalance present in their relationship. Given the amount of abuse and misogyny that's historically...
Yes they probably have misconceptions, but as long as the dad and the mom are both in the room there is not a ton of room for harmful imbalance there.
This is assuming that the parents are actually on the same page and there isn't already harmful imbalance present in their relationship. Given the amount of abuse and misogyny that's historically entrenched in the heterosexual marriage relationship, I'm not sure that's a valid assumption to make.
(Obviously I'm not saying that heterosexual marriages are bad. Just that the institution has a complicated history.)
Sure, but that's life. You can't fix every home. I think it's a unrealistic take to think that harmful imbalances are the norm rather than the exception.
Sure, but that's life. You can't fix every home.
I think it's a unrealistic take to think that harmful imbalances are the norm rather than the exception.
Sure, and I agreed with most of the rest of what you said. I'm just wary of the idea that parents are always the best guides for their children. I'm not sure that you meant to imply that, but I...
Sure, and I agreed with most of the rest of what you said. I'm just wary of the idea that parents are always the best guides for their children. I'm not sure that you meant to imply that, but I think it could be interpreted that way.
depends on the parent and kid. Easy example: I'm a heterosexual male. I find out my son is gay. All my life experience is forfeit, even moreso than if I had a hetero daughter (at least I can talk...
In terms of life experience, there probably isn't anyone better.
depends on the parent and kid. Easy example: I'm a heterosexual male. I find out my son is gay. All my life experience is forfeit, even moreso than if I had a hetero daughter (at least I can talk about the male POV of a hetero relationship). I know very little about the relationship dynamics of gay men.
Maybe I can research it and frame it in a better way than even a peer, but it's no longer direct life experience. It's my better ability to research such topics and knowing where the pitfalls are. But I will inevitably miss some subteties even with such research.
and that's a tame and healthy example. Meanwhile, my mom was raised in an time and place where interracial relationships were still very scrutinized (to put it kindly). In some families there certainly is a question of IF you should even take their experience to heart.
The principal problem is not the content, but the feedback loops. How are people spending their time? Effortfully engaging with the material? Or mindlessly watching youtube and tiktok, reading...
The principal problem is not the content, but the feedback loops. How are people spending their time? Effortfully engaging with the material? Or mindlessly watching youtube and tiktok, reading harry potter—whatever? Now consider the content—what makes people engage with it one way or another? Popular media are designed to hijack people's attentions and create very tight, shallow feedback loops (how much of this is deliberate design vs natural evolution is not clear, but also not particularly important here).
Media depicting sex taps into people's own desire to have sex, which, due to evolutionary pressure, is near-universally an incredibly strong force (literally existential, if you think about it). And pornography, as popular media, is designed to tap into these desires in order to profit.
As an example of something that was, I think, likely created with artistic intent in mind and designed to be consumed slowly and effortfully (regardless of how it was actually received), consider hysterical literature. It is not particularly realistic—well, I don't know about you, but I am not in the habit of getting somebody to pleasure me with a vibrator while I read a book—but notice how very different it is from what is usually taken to be porn?
Completely broken and unable to function, living dangerously even?
Although I'm sure it has happened to a small number of people, no one has claimed that this is a major problem.
People have been warning that indulging in fantasy will ruin society since society began.
Non sequitur.
People enjoy things responsibly and irresponsibly, that's just a given.
Absolutely true, but it does not mean that we cannot consider whether those things are themselves harmful or not. A classic essay on the subject is 'do artifacts have politics?' It seems pretty reasonable to me, for instance, that the distribution of heroin is illegal, and that the distribution of guns is restricted. (One can argue that the problems these things cause do not come from them in themselves, but rather from other aspects of our society—for example, people have bad lives, and so turn to heroin; but if we simply ensured that they didn't have bad lives, then there would be no problem with allowing unrestricted heroin distribution—but that is neither here nor there; the question we need ask ourselves is: in our society as it is, does some thing or other cause more harm than good, or not?)
To be fair, that's what makes animation appealing to me to begin with. Even in non-pornographic scenarios, it's just fun seeing larger than life clashes of wits and power, or even psychological...
And creating expectations that are impossible to fulfill in the real world.
To be fair, that's what makes animation appealing to me to begin with. Even in non-pornographic scenarios, it's just fun seeing larger than life clashes of wits and power, or even psychological deep dives into the downsides of situations or superpowers that we will never run into IRL (I'm a huge fan of the "body swap" tropes in animation. Literally walking in another person's shoes, such a simple concept with so many approaches). I'm sure many kids on the schoolyard tried to fire a Kamehameha or even tried to superman themselves off of a bed or field, but you quickly learn that fantasy is fantasy. Well, most do.
You can carry that mentality into adult works as well. I don't know if enough don't do it for it to be problematic, but I feel the issue comes more from a framing one than one where content is inherently bad.
Humans have always been excited by fantasy though. Look at Dream of a Fisherman's Wife, painted by Hokusai in 1814. People certainly wanted to see things like that far before that, too.
Humans have always been excited by fantasy though. Look at Dream of a Fisherman's Wife, painted by Hokusai in 1814. People certainly wanted to see things like that far before that, too.
A bit of a meta-comment: I feel like there was a period during which sex-positive feminism found itself in a bit of a bind wrt criticising porn. Things like this seem to me to be an indication...
A bit of a meta-comment:
I feel like there was a period during which sex-positive feminism found itself in a bit of a bind wrt criticising porn. Things like this seem to me to be an indication that the hump has largely been gotten over, meaning that such criticism can come from other than regressive, puritanical places; aside my own opinions of the feminist institution, I see that as a good thing.
(This is probably slightly old news—I have not been paying very close attention.)
As a feminist (no expert although I do have a few feminist books on my shelf) I am pretty sure that porn has historically been looked down on by feminists in general. It's only relatively recently...
As a feminist (no expert although I do have a few feminist books on my shelf) I am pretty sure that porn has historically been looked down on by feminists in general. It's only relatively recently in the 3rd wave that the attitude towards sex-workers started to change - it's all about consent though.
Well, yes—but those historical views seem to me to have commonly come along with a view of sex in general as a tool for subjugation (as it in many cases was); hence my distinction of sex-positive...
Well, yes—but those historical views seem to me to have commonly come along with a view of sex in general as a tool for subjugation (as it in many cases was); hence my distinction of sex-positive feminism. (I also have no doubt that you can find individual people with fairly reasonable viewpoints at most points in time; but I'm talking about a particular slice of popular opinion.)
There is still a certain subset of feminists who are fiercely anti-sex work. Often called "SWERFs" (sex worker exclusive radical feminists), parallel to TERFs (trans exclusionary radical...
There is still a certain subset of feminists who are fiercely anti-sex work. Often called "SWERFs" (sex worker exclusive radical feminists), parallel to TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Handily the two positions usually go together. But imo both those positions are less common among actual feminists these days and more common among conservative reactionaries who use the term "feminist" as a shield from criticism.
My favorite type of porn is amateur porn where it's a exhibitionist couple who are clearly into each other and being on camera. Nothing gets me going like consent and knowing they are into me...
My favorite type of porn is amateur porn where it's a exhibitionist couple who are clearly into each other and being on camera. Nothing gets me going like consent and knowing they are into me watching them makes it so much better for me.
This is so not true. Not even a little bit. Unless you're buying your porn from a trustworthy source who controlled the production of the porn and where you're paying for the ethical nature of its production you're really rolling the dice, since there's plenty of places that just scrape each other's content or allow for users to upload without verification of ownership. At that point, any provenance is lost. And even beyond a strict consensual/non-consensual dichotomy, there's varying degrees to which the actors might consent, with various forms of sex-slavery functionally impossible for the end-user to identify. If there's a clip of an amateur couple having sex in an apartment you have no clue about their lives, and no way to be able to determine it under most circumstances.
I've personally almost entirely stopped consuming pornography that involves filmed or photographed people because of my personal skepticism regarding the ethical production of what's out there. There's plenty of interesting stuff out there that doesn't involve wandering through an ethical minefield when I want to get off.
On the flipside, the kink/BDSM community has generally a strong culture of structuring consent, to the point where the formal negotiation aspect can be more time-consuming than an actual scene in "real life". Which is a good thing, of course.
I would highlight the production company Kink as a good example. They always start with an interview of the actress/actor which includes likes and limits and the safeword system. I figure they're rather educational for those who would otherwise be unaware. It certainly opened my eyes. Unfortunately, they seem to be among the few, though they are the largest.
I'd support a mandate enforcing the explicit and specific conversation about consent in any video (including editing it in at the end).
I agree that generally the kink community is more visibly discussing consent, though there's problem cases in every community. I will say that Kink.com has had concerning issues for more than a decade now with the latest issue happening just this year.
Your second link is actually exactly what you want to see though. There was an incident, Kink.com investigated and then terminated/severed ties with those responsible. I'm glad to see they're handling things better after how they completely bungled the James Deen situation.
It would be silly to claim any company is without a fault. I'm not putting them on a pedestal. My point was to show a concrete example of how structure can support healthy behaviour.
Can I ask a potentially stupid question? How do BDSM performers "opt out" or convey they need to stop mid scene if they are bound and gagged? I just can't imagine what form of communication they could use.
Not stupid at all! Very important actually. There is typically an alternative, non-verbal signals one can make, like uh-uh-uh while shaking the head in a “no” motion (e.g. exactly three times), and making it obvious with a look in the eyes. If one is also blindfolded, there are also hand signals or checking in by the partner (e.g. three sharp hand squeezes).
Of course, what we normally see in porn is a lot of acting, and there is an underlying sanity to the whole thing. Safe words and signals are agreed upon and rehearsed ahead of time (and at the moment of gagging or blindfolding). And, most importantly, it’s not something you do the first time, but rather something after you already have and understanding with someone so you know what to look for as the “top”. Another recommendation is to never try something for the first time with a gag, so both partners know what is within the limits.
On professional sets, there is often a “referee” or safety spotter who is paying attention to queues of the “bottom” that the top may not be aware of.
Also, communication in the grey zone is important. Calling the safe word/signal is generally a full stop, but there are intermediates to communicate to take things down a notch (e.g. if “red” means stop, “yellow” or “mercy”, if you don’t want to break the role play, means slow down or switch it up). Or maybe someone doesn’t normally wince or shout “ow”. Again, communication is important, including knowing where limits are before you play.
Up until very recently there were thousands of videos on Pornhub (the largest porn site in the world) containing footage of underage or non-consenting individuals. It was a huge deal and got them in hot water, which is why they went scorched earth a few years back and deleted tons of videos for anyone who couldn't be verified.
Right, and Pornhub was the one big enough for anyone to actually take the time to go after, and where the name recognition was big enough that the cost of changing their systems and verification was worthwhile. There's an endless wellspring of small sites that come and go.
Even OF has had more than a few scandals with people using fake/stolen IDs to verify themselves as 18 or older when they were not. Plus a few where people were being coerced into making videos.
Ultimately enforcing this stuff on the internet would require a massive restructuring of how we treat the internet. Right now the default assumption when someone uploads content is that it is legal, and then if it is determined to be illegal action is taken. Because of the massive volume of content and the reasonable wish some people have to upload anonymously, actually policing this stuff is nearly impossible.
Unless all websites were required to verify all content that they hosted before allowing users to see it, then I don't see a way anything will change. And given concerns about privacy and the free and open internet, I don't expect anything to change any time soon.
Even PornHub has run in to that issue with fradulent IDs used for verification -- a fact I really want to bring up because I don't know when else I would be able to.
Somehow I stumbled upon the "PornHub Awards" on wikipedia one day, and saw this curious line:
What does it take for a porn award to be rescinded, I asked myself.
Turns out "Elles" was a 16 year old girl at the time, using (either herself, or IIRC, her boyfriend at the time) a fraudulent ID.
PornHub itself doesn't do the ID verification AFAICT, they go through a company called "Yoti" that does it for them.
It's a complicated problem, someone in the chain has to sign off on the ID being valid, but there's always a way of tricking people. Even then, if in a perfect world the ID verification prevented underage people from signing up, it doesn't do anything for actual consent or human trafficking in the process after that.
There's really just no solution to it. The kinds of restrictions on the internet that would be necessary for anything useful to be done would be incredibly unpopular and at least in the US would be considered a violation of the first amendment. And you point out other issues that even the most comprehensive restrictions would miss. Theoretically you can go another step and just ban all porn outright, but again that's even more unpopular.
Ultimately there's a reason the status quo is the status quo, if there was any step that would improve things without significant drawbacks we would have taken it already.
I've long ago wanted a government-backed identity system so one could identify real people and get verified information about things like age. It would make things so much simpler, including fighting fraud. At the time there were problems with privacy, but since then I've seen a lot of solutions for those problems solved with third-party login systems (e.g. log in with your Apple ID).
Something like it actually happened with ID.me, but I kind of hate it because of all the problems I had verifying myself with it.
I mean, South Korea has something like that, everyone has to have their real name tied to their social media accounts and the government will prosecute you if you post anything illegal. Including any kind of porn.
But most people in western countries just value privacy far too much for that to happen.
We have the technology, right?
For CSAM there exists hash codes for known images, which is a way social media companies can scan uploads and immediately this system recognizes the image and takes it down, without any human moderator or admin having to ever see it. That's my understanding of the system anyways, but I am not in tech so apologies if my understanding is a little off.
I am assuming a similar system could be used for age verification though. No need to scan your passport and driver's license to give to some potentially shady 3rd party. I am sure it can be converted into such a hash and then a system could be built that sees it, knows the information it needs (country and age) and allow you into the website or tell you to come back when you're 18 lol
Alright, so you take someone else's id and use their details and sign up just fine.
Then they implement cross checking of your id with a photo of you, so you can't take anyone's id.
Now you take your big sister's id, she looks enough like you, and you sign up just fine.
That also assumes that everyone signing up has a passport or driver's license that isn't easily faked, most people in the USA don't have a passport, and Real ID driver's licenses aren't required, and non-Real ID licenses are quite common.
That blocks fake ids from countries that have good id verification options, but does every country buy in to this system? Does an id from Malta or the Philippines give the same assurance that its valid? Even if they do, what if you're from a country with mass corruption and someone on your behalf bribes an official to procure a real, albeit fraudulent, id?
This exists in Finland although it’s mainly used for online banking, payments, healthcare etc.
Well, actually, I take back my last response, looks like the British are considering something along the lines of what you're talking about. Alone this bill isn't exactly what you describe, but its a step in that direction that would remove the most obvious hurdles.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/uk-government-very-close-eroding-encryption-worldwide
That's a funny way to say you watch hentai my guy.
I joke, but in all seriousness, I'm genuinely with you on hating traditional pornography. It just feels wrong having heard even one negative thing from pornstars in the past. Drugs, trafficking, duplicitous behavior - it sounds like a car dealership from 1972 and that's not a good thing.
It sucks because I genuinely believe that sex-related work is undervalued in society. It's an important thing for many people to exercise their libidos and the fact that an easy way to do that is genuinely an ethical dilemma (and not for religious reasons) is disgusting.
You got me thinking. I am just thinking about how there's all these people on Reddit who talk about how they don't pay for porn anymore and how much better things are thanks to these tube sites, and I'm thinking about the people who might not have wanted to be in that situation or had that event shared publicly.
But pretty much any time there's a new business out there disrupting the way things are done and "improving people's lives", it's based on a business model that screws people over. It's just that in the case of porn, it's literal. Airbnb helps people run illegal hotels that cause rents to skyrocket. Ridesharing companies replaced taxi drivers with armies of lower-payed laymen, and then stuck them with all the liabilities. Scooter rentals like Bird and Lime run businesses that are literally built on top of leaving crap on public walkways. Remember the previous writer's strike? One of the major reasons for that was because they weren't being paid residuals for when their shows went on streaming services.
It's absolutely not the same in Hollywood movies wrt the consent of the actors to be in the production at all. Hell, screen actors have a union. Neither of these is the case for porn. While there have been bad incidents behind the scenes in these other mediums, it doesn't come close to the coin flip on "am I watching someone get raped" that porn has.
So, premium single/small group cam model sites? Even then, it's the internet and you never know the full situation. It technically applies even to your own comment; I don't know if this is your account, or if you posted this under duress, or if a kid hacked your account and is commenting for you. But most people don't place high stakes on a random internet comment (most people...).
Reducto ad absurdum, but generally I consume the internet under assumptions of innocent untili proven guilty, if only for my own personal sanity. I can't trace every single person's life on the internet, and it would cause more issues if I could.
Writing this from the point of view of someone that used to use porn almost daily. It's only a handful of times per year nowadays though, as HRT made me more or less asexual ~3 years ago. So I feel like I have a legitimately good "both sides" angle to this conversation.
I'm very happy it's getting talked about like this. I don't know that I have an exact opinion on whether porn is generally problematic or not - it really depends on the person's age, knowledge, self-awareness.
Horseshoe theory really applies here... I entirely disagree with those in the article that want to ban books like this, outlaw porn etc., but I also disagree that porn is great and good and should be a free for all. I think there is absolutely a discussion to be had on age limits. As they say in the article, the barrier to entry has been lowered and I think it has been lowered way too much.
It's unhealthy for young kids like I was when I discovered it (about 12 or so) to consume it. Period.
It completely skews your frame of reference. And it's about more than just unrealistic expectations in relationships. It's unrealistic bodies and unrealistic beauty standards, and a very quick road to becoming sexist through the way people interact in porn. Not to mention how just not real all the photoshopping, camera angles, lighting... that part is true for influencers and TV and movies as well, but the point is the same.
There are levels to it of course. But for some with a high libido that are using porn every day? I really believe you gotta be self-aware about it. Like, maybe one would start thinking that things porn has normalized - take anal sex - is totally reasonable to expect from your partner. But reality is that anal sex can be a rather extreme kink for some people.
Again, I don't know whether I have an exact opinion on the general problematicness of porn. But it's a needed discussion.
I think there's a problem of implementation. As a society, we can ban things for children because they are physical things, with fundamental limitations on distribution. We can check ID before selling alcohol or cigarettes precisely because the sale is somewhat centralized.
For the past 25 years or so, however, pornography is no longer "a physical thing" but rather abstract information, distributed digitally over a channel where people are fundamentally anonymous. It's hard to imagine how to control pornography distribution without radically changing the Internet to attach an identity to every online action. The costs of the latter might not outweigh the benefits of the former.
I think it doesn't help that kids at that age don't have a frame of reference for sex. For Very Good Reasons we shelter kids from in-person sexuality, but that just leaves a vacuum to be filled with rumour, imagination, and (over the last 40 years or so – don't forget the old tropes of boys stealing Playboy mags from adult figures) pornography.
Nevermind that, I suspect that pornography of earlier decades went a long way towards normalizing oral sex, a task accomplished so thoroughly that the idea is no longer controversial (see for example an academic study on prevalence by age, or a 2008 Slate article).
I think the inflection point isn't even the Internet, but rather mass media in general. We're in the middle of a generations-long shift where cultural attitudes are no longer conveyed from the community to its children, but from the media to citizens writ large (including children) without strong intermediation by traditional authorities.
Sociologists a couple of hundred years from now might be able to come to a consensus about this change, but sitting in the middle of it I don't think I have any particularly privileged perspective.
I'm really surprised that oral sex was ever considered kinky in and of itself! I suppose even at 30 I'm too young to have known a time that oral sex was taboo? I guess that just proves the point of how normalized things can become through the right/wrong medium. That is super interesting, and actually also puts the Clinton scandal into a lot more context!
Also really good point about kids not even having a frame of reference to begin with. That's just even more troubling, isn't it? That their first meeting with intimacy is porn - and maybe Hollywood movies too, which of course also are very realistically portray sex. It's a pretty dirty deed with cleanup involved. I remember how big of a deal it was in the early 2010's when House of Cards had a scene in which Robin Wright's character grabs a wet wipe afterwards, for example. But that's a rare exception.
As you say, unrealistic standards are caused by all sorts of media.
I had to unlearn unrealistic expectations that were created long before I encountered porn. Movies, TV and print publications were far more influential.
If we were to somehow erase the existence of porn it would barely scratch the surface of cultural issues related to beauty standards.
Ok, but it's not just about beauty standards. It's about what is standard or usual or desired sexual behavior. I used to spend time in r/askwomenover30 and women would come asking what they should do about the fact that their partner wants choking/breath play, or worse chokes them without asking. People die doing breath play. But porn just shows it. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/202108/potentially-risky-kink-breath-play-is-becoming-more-popular
Though I generally agree with your points, I'm not sure about the last one. We have graffiti from the Roman era discussing anal sex and homosexual relationships (which back then would obviously involve a lot of that, seeing as they didn't really have much in the way of toys). That, and in my experience I haven't really met anyone who thinks it's "reasonable" to expect, but I'll admit that I am a bit out of touch with the modern dating scene.
I'm mixed on this. I agree in principle, but of course I know in reality that pretending we can quash 12yo's watching porn is like pretending we can keep 12yo's off the internet. At some point it's up to the parent to give that proper framing before they fall down the rabbit hole, instead of hoping we can cover up the hole.
There is also the huge issue of nudity being intertwined with pornography in western society. And this is where things really get tricky because nudity is 99.99% inevitable (And I don't think a never-nude approach is the solution). We're so terrified to teach kids about their own bodies and then are shocked when they wander about themselves trying find answers and realize that XVideos is a horrible teacher. It's your body so you should rightfully be curious about how it works, why punish that curiosity and seal into Pandora's Box? You can't really escape 'you'.
I think something that would be an enormous help would be if we could de-stigmatize sex work generally. We are leaps and bounds away from what it was but I think in general too many people look down on sex workers causing them to fear speaking out and/or seeking help about the situation they may find themselves in. Personally I think all sex work should be legal and regulated. I know we're specifically talking about porn but if all sex work was legal there would be more protections in place to help sex workers generally.
I will try to find a source (or maybe someone else will be nice enough to do it) but that is actually not true. Countries like Germany where bordellos are regulated and legal have higher rates of human trafficking than countries where prostitution is not legal.
Here's one well cited academic paper on the subject. It is rather tricky since it is not necessary rates going up but simply because of the expansion of the industry itself (i.e. 5% of 100 is bigger than 5% of 10)
I was running to get groceries just now, so thank you very much for taking the time instead!
You're right. I guess my logic is a little naive, fact is when there is a market there will be bad actors trying to profit off that market by nefarious ways. My thought was that if sex work was legalized and de-stigmatized the sex workers would have more rights and more ways to protect themselves, which appears to be somewhat true but as seen in CosmicDefect's reply, the black market and trafficking grows a long with the legal market.
I had the same logic. I remember being a little bit shocked when I heard about it the first time as well. It still doesn't really make sense to me, in many ways - but yeah reality is reality.
I think this issue is a good example of being between a rock and a hard place where the direction of less social harm is completely muddied an unclear. The authors in the linked also note that their empirical study does not show causation, only correlation, and part of the difficulty is the taboo and clandestine nature of the industry makes scientific study rather difficult. Also the correlation, while present, isn't super strong. They have a figure where they plot the trend and it is mildly comical how all over the place various countries are.
This is one of those cases where I really want to know why the person who tagged this exemplary did so.
Porn isn't evil in and of itself. Kids are not going to be harmed because they found porn. And I don't want to insult you, but the things you wrote here come across as a moral panic with some very shaky logic to support it.
The thing that makes porn potentially harmful to kids is not that they'll be scarred for life because of it, but because they run the risk of not getting good sex education and thinking that the often unrealistic standards of pornography reflect real life. The solution is not to safeguard them from it, it's to educate them. Kids are humans. They deserve agency and a way to control their lives at least within safe boundries. It's not realistic to control their lives so much that they don't see porn eventually.
Likewise, masturbation is healthy. If you're doing it in inappropriate times, that's not healthy, sure, but that's usually caused by mental health issues. Do you know what you call a teenage boy who masturbates any chance they get? A teenage boy. It's normal. They're loaded with hormones that are new to them. The refractory period is also completely normal, and temporary. You will not get a boy anywhere who will turn down a chance at sex because they masturbated a few hours ago.
Sex drives change on a per-person basis, and they also change with age and health issues. Most boys and men understand nearly instinctively that if they have a lower sex drive and a chance at having sex later in the day, they shouldn't masturbate. And if they don't or haven't had someone tell them, they'll figure it out soon enough. But once again, this is a case where education really helps.
You asked if one would recommend masterbation to a person who does not do so and is well adapted socially and emotionally. Absolutely. Sex educators are constantly recommending people masturbate. There's many reasons for it, but one of the main ones is that not regulating those sexual urges causes them to deal with embarrasing issues that mean that they aren't well adapted socially and emotionally.
I also had this reaction. Some parts, like
come off as extremely outdated and misinformed, which I find odd given that he earlier acknowledged his limited perspective as a man (at least, that's how I read it).
I'm not saying I agree with OP overall thesis here, but this specific point
that you call outdated/misinformed is a pretty normal opinion to have. It's certainly been my experience in the dating world (as anemic and prone the failure as that has been) where the expectation of "the first move" was entirely on me. It's so normalized that the opposite approach is an advertised highlight of certain dating apps by disabling first messages by men.
Let me preface this by saying I do not think I'm an attractive male. I'm probably a 6/10 at best. However, quite literally every relationship I've been in has been -- at least at the very early stages -- initiated by the woman. Although I guess it depends how you define initiated. I'm defining it this way: sending clear signals of interest like touching or suggesting 1:1 activities (although they've never been described as "dates", per se). Then afterwards I generally "took the lead" in progressing. I'm 40 and have been in 5 long term relationships with women going back to high school in the late 90s that all started this way. So I have lived a very different experience than what's started in OP's thesis and what you agree with.
Hmm, thinking a bit more on it, I can generally categorize my experiences into two bins:
Subtle hints or suggestions initiated by the women in question that I was either far too thick to notice or far too insecure to act upon. I think these land in style of situation you're bringing up. Perhaps your social radar was just much better than mine.
Direct attempts at dating where I'm initiating, or in an environment explicitly about dating: Speed dating, online apps, etc...
It's the latter experiences I mostly drew my original conclusions from -- but perhaps that's too narrow a perspective.
As the one who marked it exemplary, I am finding it difficult to articulate why. So here's a braindump, and maybe it will answer some of your questions about my perspective.
The most formative parts of my childhood involve my curiosity about sex and the reactions from my parents. The priest in confession told me that masturbation was a sin, so I spent years in literal anguish, carrying eternal damnation on my shoulders because I couldn't stop touching myself.
Like a slingshot, that ultimately amplified my interest in human sexuality to the point where I've learned about and explored practically everything you can do by yourself without getting hurt.
Hyperpalatable foods make it possible to eat when you are not hungry. Pornography makes it possible to masturbate and orgasm when you are not horny. I couldn't agree more.
Abstaining from food (fasting) can extend your life, improve your health, and ward off disease, if done properly.
What might abstaining from sexual release do?
Sexual reproduction is the driving force behind multicellular life, after all. It is core to our existence, after breathing, drinking, and eating. It would be unwise to dismiss masturbation as "obviously healthy" in any [arbitrary] amount.
The "sexuality == sin" attitude is the suppression of sexuality. In my experience, this leads to suffering. This is the wedge issue that unfortunately evaporated my faith in God.
But by forcing your body to a sexual release when it's not ready, is that disrespectful of oneself? A better approach may be to respect, cherish, and value your sexual energy, only releasing it with deliberate intention when it is appropriate.
When I think of non-human animals masturbating, the case that come to mind are the monkeys in captivity that are stressed out of their minds. And masturbating is the only way they can self-soothe. That's more a symptom than a disease, though.
Do animals in the wild masturbate to an orgasm daily? I wouldn't think so. From a first-principles perspective, ejaculating once a day without a chance of successful sexual reproduction is a tremendous waste of rare nutrients. Perhaps once a week would make sense in order to "keep the pipes flowing". Likely even rarer unless in mating season, and then they're masturbating due to excessive horniness, not boredom.
There must be psychological/hormonal side-effects to frequent (e.g. daily or more) orgasm and/or ejaculation in men, even without pornography.
Additionally, sexual energy being a potent force is a thing in ancient schools of thought, such as Buddhism.
On a personal level, I'm finding myself depleted of motivation more and more lately. Perhaps my once-daily masturbation habit is to blame, even though I ditched porn a long, long, time ago. I appreciate erotic art and the beauty of raw and unapologetic sexuality, but pornography is something else entirely.
Apologies for the word salad.
I appreciate that you responded to my curiosity! I understand not being able to articulate a thought; as much as I comment here it still happens to me frequently. But from what I'm getting at understanding your motivation, it was essentially just you really agreeing with the points being made, am I correct? Or was it more of a matter that they were able to put your words into thoughts when you couldn't?
I don't agree with your ideas, but I don't want to dig into sources on this subject right now since I don't know of anything that distinguishes between weekly and daily. I do want to mention, though that regular orgasms, by yourself or with others, do have positive health benefits. In men it has been shown to prevent prostate cancer.
Much of Rez's post I didn't know I agreed with until I read it, which is why I marked it exemplary. It is a perspective that rings true to my ears, so I thought it should be boosted so it can be helpful to more people, as well as stimulate discussion for/against which can inform and challenge my similar viewpoint.
I see. In that case, I hope you also enjoyed reading my response as well. Thank you for your candid response; I always enjoy understanding other people's thought processes.
Can you please source this claim beyond anecdotal experiences?
Did you mean to ask the parent commenter?
Yes, sorry, the comment box has been doing this weird thing where it displays twice. I must have written in the wrong one.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I know that NoFap is linked to far-right groups, but I moreso meant the latter half of your comment.
Yes, I find it irresponsible to claim that testosterone affects "how men socialize". Hormones effects on mood and personality are a very complicated matter. Testosterone being high or low says nothing about the rest of the hormones in the body and does not paint a good picture of someone's psychology.
It is much safer to say that people are varied and their experiences with porn will therefore vary. Rather than try and link it nebulously to testosterone, we should instead promote healthier avenues of porn consumption and social awareness. If you are aware of what you're consuming and how much of it, even at a young age, then you can manage it better.
Your whole post is filled with strange claims that have little in the way of backing behind them, such as comparing porn to junk food. I have not come across a single respected psychologist that proclaims anything of the sort, and I'd be happy to see if you have any to share (as well as something regarding those claims about testosterone affecting behaviour). In the very wiki section you linked, it's stated that the DSM 5 does not recognize pornography addiction as a diagnosis.
So again, if you could provide some form of scientifically backed article or paper regarding these negative effects of porn, please share them. To be blunt, your comment comes across as little more than the same moral panic the Wikipedia article is referencing, with appeals to how you think porn affects people and not how most people researching these topics approach them.
Edit: Reading your comment more closely I find the area where you mention your own experiences to be nothing more than projection. I would have probably been considered a "porn addict" back when I was a teen but I manage my sex drive just fine now, which shows that it isn't porn, it's the person and their relationship with it. Also, the claim that teenage boys have "nowhere to turn but right wingers" is absolutely ridiculous - the right is very vocal about trying to tell you to stop masturbating, and so it feels like they're more likely to help, when in reality a boy can talk to his parents, his counselor, his friends, a therapist, his doctor, etc etc before turning to right wing fanatics who try to tell him a bunch of pseudoscience about testosterone.
I would have much preferred you emphasize that these things are your opinions, because when you make such strong claims with the same sort of assertiveness as your post carries, you can lead people to take your word for something that isn't based on consensus. I suppose it may be a tad hypocritical for me to say this as I am surely guilty of doing the same at times, but I still feel it should be said.
Note, all links SFW
But I find your insistence that it's hard to study to be a little strange. Hard to study does not mean impossible, and plenty of researchers think that there are ways to employ non-classical psychological methods to study these things (see here discussing the usage of critical and applied psychology). Beyond that, plenty of current papers have findings showing that it isn't the quantity of porn, but the quality.
Besides, of course we have a population that hasn't seen porn yet: children. Not everyone is exposed to pornography at a young age like me and others in this thread, and the only reason that studies aren't made in this realm is because of a lack of funding and a lack of interest. In fact, the exact point of articles like the one linked (even if it has some flaws) is to bring attention to this issue and try to get some research going. To try and predict a talking point - no, I don't think that we should introduce eight year olds to pornography, but teens who would otherwise naturally come into contact with it.
For your hormone claim I don't particularly have an interest to keep discussing because so far all you've offered me are rhetorical questions rather than actual data about masturbation/pornography effects on T. The Wikipedia page you linked says a lot in regards to sexual activity, competitiveness, and things of the sort, but has two sections: one discussing testosterone levels during sexual arousal, and one discussing baseline levels. This is the core of my argument; pornography use and masturbation have not been shown to affect baseline testosterone levels and so using it to somehow claim that it affects men socially is ridiculous unless these men are engaging in sexual activities in public, which doesn't tend to be most people.
For an anecdotal experience, I am trans now but I've lived as a man for twenty years with hyperactive testosterone production, and had all the hallmarks of a low confidence nerdy geek. This says nothing about the general population but shows that relying on testosterone to judge someone's behaviour isn't something that we as ordinary people should do, as we have no idea what someone may be going through beyond their hormone levels. I will say that I was hypersexual during my teens, likely due to my imbalance, so I'd like to clarify that I'm not saying T has no effect on anything, just that it isn't as dramatic as you're framing it and not always the whole story. To make my point concise and clear - baseline testosterone is completely different than levels during sexual arousal and a link between the two hasn't to my knowledge been shown.
The last point, I really just have no idea what to say about. We did not classify transgender people as mentally ill because we didn't have the data to support otherwise, we did it because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the condition and it's treatment parameters. To make such a claim about pornography addiction without any credentials is so unbelievably presumptuous that I find your other comment accusing @Akir of bad faith to be terribly ironic. It's also a little curious how the same hardline religious people who were opposed to removing gender dysphoria from the DSM are very keen to include pornography addiction as a psychological condition.
I'll end my post with a concrete explanation of my approach to porn and how I believe it should be promoted,
Quality of consumption - that is: ethical, non-violent (or otherwise with blatant consent), respectful - is more important that quantity. Because of this, we should teach teens how to recognize abusive porn and drill into their minds that these are actors. It is okay to consume a lot of porn if and only if you have the mental awareness to say, "this is not real, and if I was ever in this situation, I would want to be a consenting party". Teach safe sex and more importantly, offer avenues for kids who feel that they cannot relate to straight sex to also learn about alternatives. Parents should be aware of how to communicate these things to their kids, which I think is best done with a book much like the recent Australian one that a parent can reference for language and mature conversation if their child has a question (the same goes for teachers).
This avoids demonizing porn and blaming it for male behaviour, allows children to recognize abusive behaviour both in and out of the screen, and shows kids that sex is just another part of the human experience that - though not inherently dangerous - involves another person and because of that requires communication.
Let me ask you this: why do you consider this to be harmful?
Granted an adult showing a child pornography is considered to be grooming them to accept sexual advances, so it's obviously not OK for this to happen. But imagine we could guarantee that it wasn't the case. What effect would it have on the child? It might give them unrealistic views of sex, of course, but I've already covered how we need to counter that with good sex education. So baring that, how else might the child be harmed by watching pornography?
I don't dispute that assertion. But it makes much more sense to fix that problem than it does to restrict pornography. That's a really extreme and unrealistic solution to a problem that is caused almost entirely by people refusing to properly educate their children, which is bad for many reasons that are beyond the scope of this conversation.
I apologize for misunderstanding your last point. You can feel free to disengage if you want. But I tried to be as respectful as I could when I wrote my response to you, so I would appreciate to see the same from you rather than assuming that I'm acting in bad faith.
So reading this from the outside, I notice that @Rez used the term hard core pornography without explaining what he meant by that. I don't know if that is the source of the misunderstanding. What I do know is that when I spent time in r/askwomenover30, women would come asking for advice because their male partners thought it was normal to expect them to enjoy choking/breath play, or worse just choked them in the middle of sex without consent. When I was young I had never heard of choking as part of sex. Porn sex can be extremely rough, violent, disrespectful.
Just a thought.
Yeah, I think we have to distinguish between "hard core porn" that shows consent clearly and "hard core porn" that does not. E.g. you can do consent-informed chocking in porn (mostly in yearly bdsm porn), but most chocking porn is just not safe and consenting.
I'm not a man. I thought some of your takes were very different from my experiences. Daily masturbation for women would not lead to a depleted, "neutered" state. If anything it leads to the opposite. Also, the women I know who watch porn are not that angstful about it, maybe because it doesn't seem to have such deleterious affects on their relationships. They also don't seem to be addicted to visual porn, mentioning that they watch every once in a while (maybe they aren't being fully truthful but I don't think so). Could also be because the cliche of women preferring book porn seems to be true (those romance and erotica novels can be very graphic).
You say that like it's the reason they're virgins. Isn't it more likely that they turn to porn because they have sexual needs that aren't being filled any other way?
This is a weirdly moralistic stance with some significant unexamined assumptions baked in.
It's hard for me to think about "healthy" pornography as an abstraction because I lived through the transition from anti-pornography feminism [PDF warning, but tl;dr, Catherine MacKinnon's commentary "... the fact that male power has power means that the interests of male sexuality construct what sexuality as such means in life..."] to sex-positive feminism [Naomi Wolf, "Orgasm is the natural call to feminist politics."].
The sex-positive feminist movement, the impact of HIV on sexuality in general, and the drastic drop in cost of pornography production due to comparatively cheap video combined in a flourishing of what I would think of as healthy pornography. I could walk into the neighborhood video store and take my pick of Nina Hartley or Candida Royale productions, leatherboys, imported BDSM or latex kink, homebrewed amateur tapes with all kinds of bodies. All nicely done, with actors who got cuts of royalties, age verification, including plainly spelled out and often erotically negotiated consent. Everyone genuinely looked like they wanted to be there, safer sex was a given, with lovingly filmed application of condoms and dental dams. [And top-quality tentacle hentai, but that's a completely other set of questions about healthy approaches to fantasy, consent, the male vs. female gaze, etc.]
I'm sure it wasn't quite the Golden Age that my hormonal rose-tinted nostalgia recalls about that porn. For the most part, though, I didn't watch it by myself in cloistered sweaty desperation - I watched porn with friends and lovers in partnered sweaty desperation. Porn is still something that I think about sharing with other people, as a spur to imagination rather than a substitute for partners. These days, I'll avail myself of porn on the road. It's a comfort, a way to share intimacy with my spouse from afar (we'll trade off what we found inspiring), and a means of avoiding distractions until I can return home.
I understand that for a whole generation of people, the firehose of low-quality Internet porn has sometimes replaced the fleshy interpersonal interactions. But I find it difficult to countenance that anecdata and the revival of moral panic mean well-done porn (and masturbating to it) is intrinsically harmful.
Sex education in U.S. schools is, if anything, even shittier than the garble I got as a kid (self-education via medical texts wasn't much help either, but popular and feminist lesbian publications weren't bad). It would help if Google and other search engines prioritized reliable sources.
I think there is a version of pornography that doesn’t involve harm but I think the current systems we have make that almost impossible to find.
I know people who’ve done sex work (camming) and I’ve talked with them about it. In those cases, they had experience working both with studios (hated it, super exploitative) and independently. As an independent model, it was possible to not be sexually exploited. They could set their own lines of consent by refusing to do certain things and they had enough tools to be able to hold to it (and critically, no management forcing them to do things they didn’t want to). Studios were exploitative and dangerous.
They were certainly economically exploited, both by camming being the most economically viable profession they could choose as relatively educated women and by a system, both as studios and independents that frequently fucks over models for cash wherever it can. For soft economic-exploitation, these women were able to support extended families on a single income or support their family working while kids were at school and being full time moms outside of that. Working 2 or 3 non-sex work jobs were needed for the same cash and you’d miss family time. There are systemic patriarchal reasons why that’s the case. They also were just ripped off frequently by any layer they’d operate in due to the legal gray/black market status of sex work. Banks gave them a hard time about opening accounts, payment processors would hold payments up because you couldn’t do much. Anyone who was a middleman like a studio or a hosting site was taking at least 20-30% and usually for doing nothing.
There were ways they could maintain control over both what they were willing to consent to and control over their money but it involved driving everyone to a site you controlled. It was hard for someone who’s not a name-brand to be able to do that with any success.
So, to the original question, I think it’s theoretically possible to find sex workers and directly support them financially. In a world where most people ridicule people for paying for porn on the internet, studios and sites take huge chunks of revenue and anything you put online will always spread out of your control, I think practically, that’s a very hard thing to do right now.
The short term solution to help solve this is to completely decriminalize sex work and treat labor violations like you do in any other industry. That would eliminate a lot of places where workers are ripped off or abused. The long term solution involves eliminating capitalism and patriarchy.
That is complex because even if a person verbally consent to sex for money, you can't be sure it's true consent when the alternative is not being able to afford home and food.
At a certain point, all of us are exploited and trade our bodies for resources we need to survive. Like I said, there are systemic reasons that, due to patriarchy, make sex work a rational choice for some women. It’s impossible to address under current systems.
I think you can choose to not watch pornography or to pay sex workers for content because even though there’s economic exploitation, at least people can eat. I really hate that we’ve normalized porn being free and shared widely without the workers being compensated fairly. It’s the worst of all worlds.
Is this not true of all non-salaried labour?
Why the "non-salaried" caveat? Even on a salary, your alternative to working is not being able to afford home and food too.
It's true for every labour under capitalism.
That's why I said it's complex.
Sex, whether we like it or not, is a personal thing for most people. It takes a lot to detach yourself from that like most porn actresses can do (or sometimes they just genuinely enjoy a lot of it). Having to go say, to a construction site everyday against your will, isn't on the same level of defilement as having sex against your will every day.
So, this is true, but only if you ignore how much sex means to us personally. For some people you might be right, for most (anecdotally), probably not.
I feel that meaning is given culturally, to be honest. You spend so much time putting sex on a pedastal and being taught that you need to save it for the right (single, monogamous) person, and now it's this grand gesture of ultimate dedication (again, to a single monogamous person). I feel that system is breaking apart with the advent of casual online dating. Similar to how people don't feel wed "locked" these days and it's easier emotionally (but not easy) to ready up a divorce if things get too bad. I'm ambivalent on if this is a good/bad thing, but it's certainly an interesting trend to observe.
There's also a much bigger rabbit hole of sex vs love. I agree is it very had to detach from love. The physical act often in involved with love may be easier to disassociate with.
I should clarify - I am a very big proponent of casual sex. I think the world would be a generally much better place if it was more acceptable to be intimate with others without the inherent expectation of a relationship.
But it's still a way of showing love. I think detaching from that completely isn't a good thing - I feel that through intimacy I can say things that I otherwise don't have the language to, and I would hate for that to disappear.
My theory is that people are realizing that monogomy just isn't all it's brought up to be. At the end of the day the main reason it's so popular is because of mainstream religion, and with that becoming less of a common state of mind more and more men/women are starting to wonder; do I really need to lock myself in a relationship? Do I really need a child? I think it's especially prevalent in my generation (Z) and I can't say I'm not excited to see where it takes us.
Finding some content creators that produce the type of stuff you're into and making sure they're fine with whatever they are producing is a big help, though there's always cases where there's background skeevy stuff.
Nowadays if you want something that can truly be produced without harming anyone ever in any situation you can use AI generated stuff.
It doesn't do video.... Yet, but pictures and text are both perfectly serviceable.
You might argue because it has training data that is bad it is also bad, but at the end of the day if you want the pictures and you don't want any humans to be involved in making them - there you go.
For all of real porn’s faults, I find it deeply disconcerting the recent drive to divorce it from real people entirely. Whether that’s through hentai, 3d animated cam girls, or in this case random generation.
While classic porn may put out unrealistic expectations around bodies and sex, it is inherently limited in how far afield it can go by the fact that they are still real people having real sex. I don’t think that what’s been wrong with porn before is that it’s not divorced enough from the actual reality of adults having healthy sex.
And the fact that it tends to further remove women from a process that is already largely aimed at catering to men. Reducing the role of women to literal cartoon representations of fantasy to be jerked off to. And creating expectations that are impossible to fulfill in the real world.
It also feels like a further step in the epidemic of loneliness, as we continue to isolate ourselves with cheap dopamine hits and interact with the simulacra of real people.
The 'harms of pornography' seem to fall into two categories:
Porn-without-people – not just AI-generated porn, but also written/drawn/animated works – mostly eliminates the harms of the production side. For people primarily concerned about exploitation in sex work, this is a good thing. However, it doesn't do anything about consumption-based harm, so the relative merits will depend on your analytical framework.
Are people not allowed to enjoy fantasy? Is letting kids read fiction setting them up for horrible disappointment when they reach the real world? Completely broken and unable to function, living dangerously even?
I don't buy it for that and I don't buy that enjoying "x" porn is making people into monsters either. People have been warning that indulging in fantasy will ruin society since society began.
People enjoy things responsibly and irresponsibly, that's just a given.
The problem isn't porn, it's that some people learn about sex through porn instead of school and or their parents or some other actually decent source of information.
It's like expecting people to drive after watching the fast and furious and then banning the fast and furious because people are bad drivers.
But the average school or adult is unlikely to know more than the internet when it comes to sex. Abstinence-only sexual education is still very common, and many adults think it's immoral for teenagers to have sex. Most teenagers would probably have a more well-rounded education from Wikipedia than the adults in their life.
Still, it's a good idea to educate young adults so that they know porn isn't real. But independent of pornography, there has always been a glamorization of things like first kisses, highschool romance, etc.
I disagree with you on the idea that parents (adults) aren't equipped to inform their kids. In terms of life experience, there probably isn't anyone better.
Yes they probably have misconceptions, but as long as the dad and the mom are both in the room there is not a ton of room for harmful imbalance there.
As for information on the internet? We just need to get people to read it and not to get their information from entertainment-porn.
Restrictive measures - banning or restrictions on porn - would be far more harmful than constructive ones - getting people to have better institutions through which we learn about sex.
This is assuming that the parents are actually on the same page and there isn't already harmful imbalance present in their relationship. Given the amount of abuse and misogyny that's historically entrenched in the heterosexual marriage relationship, I'm not sure that's a valid assumption to make.
(Obviously I'm not saying that heterosexual marriages are bad. Just that the institution has a complicated history.)
Sure, but that's life. You can't fix every home.
I think it's a unrealistic take to think that harmful imbalances are the norm rather than the exception.
Sure, and I agreed with most of the rest of what you said. I'm just wary of the idea that parents are always the best guides for their children. I'm not sure that you meant to imply that, but I think it could be interpreted that way.
depends on the parent and kid. Easy example: I'm a heterosexual male. I find out my son is gay. All my life experience is forfeit, even moreso than if I had a hetero daughter (at least I can talk about the male POV of a hetero relationship). I know very little about the relationship dynamics of gay men.
Maybe I can research it and frame it in a better way than even a peer, but it's no longer direct life experience. It's my better ability to research such topics and knowing where the pitfalls are. But I will inevitably miss some subteties even with such research.
and that's a tame and healthy example. Meanwhile, my mom was raised in an time and place where interracial relationships were still very scrutinized (to put it kindly). In some families there certainly is a question of IF you should even take their experience to heart.
You should probably talk to my parents. They didn't teach or inform me of anything, hence why in my adult years I am a near-total wreck.
The principal problem is not the content, but the feedback loops. How are people spending their time? Effortfully engaging with the material? Or mindlessly watching youtube and tiktok, reading harry potter—whatever? Now consider the content—what makes people engage with it one way or another? Popular media are designed to hijack people's attentions and create very tight, shallow feedback loops (how much of this is deliberate design vs natural evolution is not clear, but also not particularly important here).
Media depicting sex taps into people's own desire to have sex, which, due to evolutionary pressure, is near-universally an incredibly strong force (literally existential, if you think about it). And pornography, as popular media, is designed to tap into these desires in order to profit.
As an example of something that was, I think, likely created with artistic intent in mind and designed to be consumed slowly and effortfully (regardless of how it was actually received), consider hysterical literature. It is not particularly realistic—well, I don't know about you, but I am not in the habit of getting somebody to pleasure me with a vibrator while I read a book—but notice how very different it is from what is usually taken to be porn?
Although I'm sure it has happened to a small number of people, no one has claimed that this is a major problem.
Non sequitur.
Absolutely true, but it does not mean that we cannot consider whether those things are themselves harmful or not. A classic essay on the subject is 'do artifacts have politics?' It seems pretty reasonable to me, for instance, that the distribution of heroin is illegal, and that the distribution of guns is restricted. (One can argue that the problems these things cause do not come from them in themselves, but rather from other aspects of our society—for example, people have bad lives, and so turn to heroin; but if we simply ensured that they didn't have bad lives, then there would be no problem with allowing unrestricted heroin distribution—but that is neither here nor there; the question we need ask ourselves is: in our society as it is, does some thing or other cause more harm than good, or not?)
To be fair, that's what makes animation appealing to me to begin with. Even in non-pornographic scenarios, it's just fun seeing larger than life clashes of wits and power, or even psychological deep dives into the downsides of situations or superpowers that we will never run into IRL (I'm a huge fan of the "body swap" tropes in animation. Literally walking in another person's shoes, such a simple concept with so many approaches). I'm sure many kids on the schoolyard tried to fire a Kamehameha or even tried to superman themselves off of a bed or field, but you quickly learn that fantasy is fantasy. Well, most do.
You can carry that mentality into adult works as well. I don't know if enough don't do it for it to be problematic, but I feel the issue comes more from a framing one than one where content is inherently bad.
Humans have always been excited by fantasy though. Look at Dream of a Fisherman's Wife, painted by Hokusai in 1814. People certainly wanted to see things like that far before that, too.
Man I hope they get it and soon, it's going to be such an awesome future.
A bit of a meta-comment:
I feel like there was a period during which sex-positive feminism found itself in a bit of a bind wrt criticising porn. Things like this seem to me to be an indication that the hump has largely been gotten over, meaning that such criticism can come from other than regressive, puritanical places; aside my own opinions of the feminist institution, I see that as a good thing.
(This is probably slightly old news—I have not been paying very close attention.)
As a feminist (no expert although I do have a few feminist books on my shelf) I am pretty sure that porn has historically been looked down on by feminists in general. It's only relatively recently in the 3rd wave that the attitude towards sex-workers started to change - it's all about consent though.
Well, yes—but those historical views seem to me to have commonly come along with a view of sex in general as a tool for subjugation (as it in many cases was); hence my distinction of sex-positive feminism. (I also have no doubt that you can find individual people with fairly reasonable viewpoints at most points in time; but I'm talking about a particular slice of popular opinion.)
There is still a certain subset of feminists who are fiercely anti-sex work. Often called "SWERFs" (sex worker exclusive radical feminists), parallel to TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Handily the two positions usually go together. But imo both those positions are less common among actual feminists these days and more common among conservative reactionaries who use the term "feminist" as a shield from criticism.
I was agreeing with you, yes! Just tried to expand on the feminist perspective 😊
As long as the parties involved to whatever's going on have all consented to it, it's really not anybody else's business.
My favorite type of porn is amateur porn where it's a exhibitionist couple who are clearly into each other and being on camera. Nothing gets me going like consent and knowing they are into me watching them makes it so much better for me.