Is pornography a problem?
The other day I saw Jordan Peterson talking about pornography. The statement he made that seemed factual was that a teenager in 15 minutes can see more naked or pornographic women than the richest or most powerful king in ancient days.
That doesn't seem like a problem; but, there are a myriad effects of pornography on the young mind. Now, I don't know all these effects that are problematic, as I've only heard of a few.
What are your opinions of whether pornography is problematic?
That doesn't seem like a problem; but, there are a myriad effects of pornography on the young mind. Now, I don't know all these effects that are problematic, as I've only heard of a few.
What are your opinions of whether pornography is problematic?
Comments (102)
If that makes sense what else can be mentioned?
Are there any ethical detriments you can think of in regards to the young being exposed to pornography?
Pornography is a kind of supernormal stimulus, since it offers unending sexual novelty, surprise, searching and wanting. This can make real sex seem boring in comparison, as the brain can become accustomed to the exaggerated stimuli of pornography and expect it over real life experiences. Excessive use of pornography can rewire the brain and lead to addiction, as it exposes one to supernormal stimuli which can shape how they view sexual situations. Frequent consumption of pornography can lead to a decrease in sexual desire and arousal, as well as an increased risk of sexual dysfunction. If maintaining the reproductive viability of the species is a moral imperative then it's probably a good idea to reduce the consumption of pornography in society, but that's not happening.
Supernormal stimulus:
Sexual imprinting can also become pathological if young children are exposed especially at key developmental stages, disrupting the natural order of the sexual response system extending into adulthood.
May I observe there are a number of different kinds of pornography. Many people consume interior design material the same way others consume sexually explicit material. There are also sports pornography, military pornography, fashion pornography, ad infinitum.
Ok, ok, so I realize you are raising the issue of sexually explicit pornography
One of the problems of a teenager viewing porn is that he will see a lot of unrepresentative body types. In gay porn, at least, an average-looking male is hard to come by. The subjects have uniformly buffed bodies -- every muscle group is at least fairly well defined. (I'm not speaking of bodybuilder models, here.). This is a distorted image of what a large portion of potential sex partners will look like.
The same probably applies to straight porn, which as a gay man, I've spent very little time viewing. Both representative body types of women and the sexual styles which most women would probably prefer appear to be few and far between.
I'm an objectifier. I do look at other men as sexual objects -- in addition to looking at other men as multilayered complex beings. However, if someone is thinking about fucking, multilayered complexity isn't the approach they are going to take.
The sex drive wasn't designed in a feminist sensitivity and diversity workshop. It's pretty basic by itself. When men and women are guided by the sex drive alone, the results are effective, but not necessarily grace filled. We often (but not always) couple our sex drives to our drives for affection, love, nurturing, comfort, and so on.
Pornography is good at depicting basic sex. That is what it is for. Complex cultural works (film, fiction, drama, poetry, opera, dance, etc.) are capable of capturing the complex human experience above and beyond basic sex.
One thing about basic sex, though: there is no such thing as meaningless sex.
One other thing: Early and thorough sex education coupled with emotion education would help people a great deal.
The reproductive viability of the species appears to be intact on a global level. Are we to suppose that super-stimulating pornography is the cause of less-than-replacement-reproduction-levels? Or is super-normal economic stimulation perhaps the problem?
BTW, probably no sensible person thinks it is a good idea for children to spend much time looking at adult pornography.
I think it is. Like any other dopamine-increasing activity, it becomes addictive and, most importantly, creates unrealistic expectations.
The porn when I was a kid was tame in comparison to today. Playboys, Cinemax, etc. Now theres no mystery its like anatomy class. Its also degrading and gross.
I feel for younger generations exposed to this shit early. Its a much more rampant issue than I thought.
I addressed pornography because it was the topic of the OP, but there is much more that dwarfs the problem of pornography when it comes to the reproductive viability of the species. Here is an earlier post i made that further addresses this issue from a different angle.
"studies have shown that exposure to microplastics can lead to decreased sperm quality and testosterone levels in mice, as well as lower fertility rates in both men and women. Globally fertility rates have decreased significantly over the last 70 years, starting shortly after plastics began to be mass-produced following the Second World War. Microplastics are considered to be ubiquitous and a widespread contaminant, documented in almost all aquatic habitats, several atmospheric and terrestrial environments, and also in human consumables. Microplastics have even been detected in human placenta."
Quoting BC
You're probably right, but the problem is not if we think it's a good idea or not, it's that it's impossible to effectively prevent children from being exposed to pornographic content in a media saturated environment like we have today. Parents are busier than ever and are unable to consistently monitor their children's viewing habits, not to mention a lot of parents don't even want to be parents and don't care.
Culture is also a relevant parameter to consider, Eskimos have sex in front of their children without ill effect, some primitive tribal societies live their entire lives naked and don't even have a concept as to what pornography even is. That's probably a topic for another thread.
Quoting Shawn
Of course it is. In several different ways.
The most obvious one giving children a badly skewed version of sex, love and relationships. It's not the sight of naked people that's a problem - in fact, that would be healthy, if the naked people were depicted engaging in normal, benign activities. But they're not, and what they're doing is not simply coupling like normal people. There is a lot of kink, fetishism, deviance - and no, I don't mean same sex couples who are both alive and willing - sadism, etc. That's not the way to introduce children to understanding sexual desire or sexual fulfillment.
Then, there is the issue of respect for self and others. If the most intimate acts are on display as performance by paid participants, what is the child to think of the dignity and value of persons? How is he supposed to respect anyone's privacy? Or curb his own baser impulses? How is he supposed to think about, talk to, show consideration for potential romantic partners? Pornography won't turn all the little boys into rapists and all the little girls into sluts... but it's not doing much for interpersonal relations.
Then there is the other side of the screen. The making of the videos. The treatment of the "stars". The working conditions, damage to the self-regard and social standing of people who make living in that medium... assuming they do so by choice. But how many are doing it under coercion or manipulation? And is performing for the camera all that they're forced to do? How many are actually slaves? As long as there is a market for something, many will commodify it and many more will make a racket of it. There will be victims.
Quoting Shawn
To what degree do you believe it is a problem when consenting adults choose to objectify themselves for money?
Side note: it's not just women who get objectified in porn.
That statement reveals an interesting perspective, which is that the availability of women for sexual arousal purposes is a commodity and it historically was only affordable by the wealthy. From a capitalistic perspective, it should therefore be no surprise that someone has figured out how to bring this to the regular masses, which then begs the question of whether it's worse now that the vices of yesterday's kings are available to today's pauper.
There is the polar opposite model as well, where access to nudity and sexuality is readily available to all, as in certain underdeveloped tribal societies.
I agree with the statement that there is some effect, yet this hasn't been proven according to science of the magnitude or degree or what kind of effects it has on teenagers and adults.
At the present moment, it's hard to exactly measure what kind of effects does pornography produce in the adolescent brain or psychology or behavior.
Interesting. I believe you are right about that.
Yeah, as I said to Wayfarer, I practically have no idea to what degree is it a negative. It's commonly assumed it's a negative but not many people know by how much...
It's pretty much a commodity. Just that the amount of it produced is astonishing. There's quite a lot of it awash on the Internet.
All part of our multidimensional environmental disaster!
All sorts of normal, common human activities can be presented as "gross", of course. Sometimes the difference between pleasing and disgusting is a matter of minor adjustments in the filming. But some producers do seem to go out of their way to include footage that has to appeal only to a very narrow range of 'taste'.
The Waters film Pink Flamingoes isn't pornography IMO, but at several points, Waters' usual merely 'bad taste' crossed into 'shocking tastelessness'--just a few seconds worth.
There is a silver lining to all this in my view.
How is it a scientific issue? Why are such questions to be arbitrated by scientific methods, and by what criteria?
And more to the point, I'm certain there are a great many peer-reviewed journal articles from sociology, social psychology and more on the harms and effects of exposure to pornography. I do notice the odd soul-searching kind of article in the Australian media I read, but it's usually counter-balanced by the overall libertarian attitude of Western media for whom all such questions are non-negotiably a matter of individual predeliction.
Here on the S.S. Climate Change, porn isn't any more "problematic" than masturbatory video games, online gambling, social media, 24/7/365 consumerism, gun-hoarding or binge drinking. What does not kill you, makes you weirder. :vomit: :strong:
The first encounter I did have was exhilarating. Seeing several pictures of naked men in print was intensely exciting, not because I hadn't seen naked men before, but because this was a 'product for sale' which meant that there was a market of other men who liked this. If, at that time, I could have gone on line and seen 10,000 pictures of naked men and men having sex, I can not imagine how that would have affected my psychosocial development.
It certainly was the case that in the isolation of Podunk Village, USA I was yearning for exactly this information.
One thing though, is that there were plenty of articles about straight sex in popular media which were very available. As a young teenager, the content of these articles wasn't very healthy or helpful because it was out of context. I was trying to draw conclusions from stories about adult sexual relationship problems which had no bearing on my life (at that age). Some of my conclusions were just plain weird.
*instantly leaves thread*
So, in one society, you have children told to dress properly and that they have souls and that they're free, proud, righteous citizens of a great civilization, under the rule of law, where human beings are considered priceless. At the same time, they're shown that people's bodies can be bought or rented for sexual practices, not necessarily of the reproductive kind, and displayed as a consumer item.
in the other
Nudity is commonplace. Sexuality is strictly regulated by taboos. Commodification and objectification are unknown. The young are taught by word and example to obey the laws of their tribe.
Which child will grow up saner?
:lol:
Your attempt to draw a nexus between the rule of law, freedom, and the sanctity of life on the one hand with an adherence to traditional sexual mores on the other skips too many steps to logically follow. That is, it's entirely possibly to place a great value on human life and still treat sex as a commodity. Individual autonomy is more associated with freedom than are sexual prohibitions.
It's also false to suggest sexual behavior is for the purpose of procreation, as the vast majority of sexual behavior is not for that purpose.
Quoting Vera Mont
Your term "saner" has no decipherable meaning here. Are we evaluating each society's children for mental illness?
:up: There's sex and there's Tantric sex. Part of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition is to come to an understanding of our sexuality or so I was told. I've seen plenty of pornography in Buddhist iconography, paintings, sculptures.
One of the reasons I left dharmawheel, where I used to post, was I posted about what I saw as the tension (not to say actual conflict) between sexual and spiritual liberation. Might as well have casually strode into the building and set off a 44 gallon drum full of TNT. Did not end well. I left.
Quoting Agent Smith
I really don't think it's relevant to a discussion of pornography, in particular. Sullies it.
It's sad that our ideals don't include our nature - we have to discard that which makes us us to be any good in some people's eyes. Sex is a case in point. We're sexual creatures, our libido being, as is obvious, liberated from the rhythms of the universe; quite unlike other animals, we're arousable 24×7, 7 days a week, 30 days a month, whole year round. That's biological sexual revolution, anticipates and dwarfs the cultural sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s in me humble opinion. We'll always be unworthy in our own eyes.
Everything that is true about 20th/21st century culture, media, entertainment, advertising, business, regulation, religion, social and private behavior, and more is also true about pornography. Pornography doesn't exist on a separate dimension from the rest of society. It's a piece of the whole. It's been a piece of the whole since before photography, when pornographic scenes were drawn and painted for an elite audience who could afford such erotic luxury.
Art, music, drama, film, etc. have been democratized; it's accessible to anyone with the minimum cost of a ticket or access to streaming services. Porn has also been democratized and production is by the latest technology and distribution systems. Children routinely access sophisticated information sources I would not have thought to access at their age, sources far beyond the local public library's print collection.
Naturally -- and it is natural -- they also access sexual material. What is more alarming than 12 year olds looking at pornography, is 12 year olds looking at pornography without having had any education in sexuality--personal sexuality, and interpersonal sexuality.
Should they have such instruction? Of course they should. Before they reach 12, curious children are investigating sex with their peers. Peer-led sex instruction, though normal, is likely to be somewhat less than ideal.
People get hooked on phonics--a desirable addiction. They also get hooked on Crispy Creme donuts, Coca Cola, coffee, Diet Pepsi, work, McDonalds, the New York Times, shopping at Neiman Marcus, fishing, working out at the gym, watching soap operas, and so on. We will, in due course, become hooked on porn too -- if we happen to like it. Will spending too much time at work negatively affect your relationship? Yes, it will. Can Crispy Creme donuts ruin your life? Yes, if you eat enough of them. How watching football all the time? Heard of 'football widows'?
Investing too much of one's extra time and energy in watching porn will probably affect your relationship, along with all the other things that one can do too much of (work, watching football, becoming obese from eating too many donuts, becoming narrow minded by reading the New York Times exclusively, etc.
I have read numerous times over the last several years that the vast majority of children have been exposed to pornography before age 12, and that it comprises their only detailed information source. I also don't buy the 'moral equivalence' argument that all habits are in some ways the same. Yes, they're all habits, but heroin addiction and gambling addiction are vastly more problematical than, say, watching soap operas.
I've been aware of a recent book by a journalist by the name of Louis Perry, who recently published The Case against the Sexual Revolution.
Sounds instant troll bait, but she handles herself exceedingly well in online interviews and has quite a reputation:
Yes, he's very vocal about it. See: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Jordan+Peterson+and+pornography
I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting that a lot of pornography is not the kind of straightforward coupling between two consenting adults that one associates with normal married sex children are prepared for by their parents. I just didn't go graphic on the costumes, implements, props, substances, domination-submission games, ATM, weird [positions and extra players that might be involved and that children would not understand based on information from any health class they attended in school.
Quoting Hanover
True, but most people are familiar enough with the mainstream mores of their culture to skip a few steps and know the general rules of behaviour they wish their children to learn, and that it doesn't usually include selling one's body to be degraded in public.
That's kind of a bottom line. Do you want your kids to think that buying and selling bodies, including their own, is socially and morally acceptable?
Quoting Hanover
"We" are not in a position to evaluate. But we can compare some significant statistics among the products of those childhoods, such as the prevalence of sexual dysfunction, sexual assault and abuse, domestic violence and substance abuse.
It's not about nudity. It's about an irreconcilable contradiction in the values which are taught and the values which are demonstrated. Mental illness, when not caused by any physical defect, is nearly always a result of cognitive dissonance.
The first time The Philosophy Forum (or Philosophy Forum?) crashed, I was a bit discombobulated because a morning habit of checking in was frustrated. It got better after a few days. Dessert after dinner is a pleasant habit; not getting dessert won't result in mass suicide (one hopes).
Masturbating with on-line pornography can be a habit, but if the Internet goes down, one will survive without a crisis. He might even be forced to use his imagination.
I just wanted to point out that your post took the cake. Well done, Sir.
What may happen to some pornography users is that they become desensitized to sexual images, and have to increase the volume they look at to find stimulating material. I don't know that they have to see more extreme material, but they at least have to see new, unfamiliar material.
That's what keeps the adult film studios busy.
Actually that reminds of a legend about Kerry Packer, once upon a time Australias richest man and a notoriously huge gambler. He said something along the lines that if a loss isnt really going to hurt, then youre not really gambling.
Somehow, theres a connection.
Children should be taught early on, to never get into bed -- alone or with somebody else -- while wearing street shoes. It's just unsanitary. Hard core pornography all too often glorifies sex while wearing shoes or boots--boots, especially, with heavy socks. And not nice fancy books, either--it's dirty working boots, typical of working class men. We'll discuss proletarian porn later.
Boots in bed are one of the mysteries of pornography. Why do naked people have sex with their shoes or boots on? This bizarre practice is really quite perverse, and should be vigorously suppressed. Workboots in bed are far worse than candy-red spike heels. That one can understand, but shit kicking boots?
Look at the document below! Granted, this is weak tea, but he is naked, so it counts. No genitalia revealed, not so much as one pubic hair displayed, moderators please note.
The perplexing question:
Having engaged in an orgy, is he putting his shoes on before he gets dressed, or is he taking his shoes off after having gotten undressed before the orgy? It's intolerable, either way. Children should not be exposed to this sort of perverse imagery, because it will inevitably lead to discomfort and injury during sex. It also leads to illogical dressing habits. Pants on first, then socks and shoes, Socks and shoes off first, then the pants. Shirts can be removed independent of boots and shoes. That's the way God intended it to be.
One can only hope that the orgy was conducted with a better sense of propriety.
All examples of unhealthy power relations or sex as payment and most of it has little eros, or God forbid, actual love. This creates expectations about sex being transactional and no idea about moral issues if there are schewed power relations.
Edit: that's not to say there isn't porn with healthier depictions. It's just very rare.
Isn't this known to be the case scientifically? I'm too tired to pull up references. I'm pretty sure this happens to all porn users, not some. Framing porn use within addiction terms once again, the initial stimulus isn't enough after awhile. The required stimulus needs to be stronger and stronger, which translates to harder and harder core porn. Using addiction language here, it looks like...an addiction.
I don't think the addiction model applies to most porn users. Most users just want some degree of fresh imagery -- not the same videos or photos again and again. Which isn't to say that a particular title can't effectively satisfy a given user many times.
Quoting Noble Dust
It seems like this model would lead the producers of pornography into absurd sexual territory. How far can 'harder and harder core' go? My preferred style of porn has stayed within the same range for 50+ years. The hard core of 2023 is pretty much the same as the hard core of 1973. But then, I haven't been looking for ever more extreme imagery,
It does; you're clearly just not privity to it.
Quoting BC
Exactly. With all due respect, BC, your opinion is essentially meaningless here.
By the way, I may be wrong, but the dopamine rush you experience while watching porn/engaging in sex is identical to the one you get when, for example, you have an Eureka moment. :chin: It's all about sex, Freud was bang on target. So much for Mill's higher and lower pleasures.
Having sex with a real woman is far, far better than doing it with Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. :lol:
You're right but it's worth mentioning that sexual energy (libido) can be sublimated into other areas of activity. Culture can be thought of in one sense as a system for sublimating sexual energy (in humans) and directing it towards other means. Before culture emerged most of human energy (sexual) was spent only on biological imperatives (like animals). Consider a simple example such as how certain religions require abstinence from some or all of their members; this would be a strong form of sublimation. Weaker forms of sublimation take on the appearance of cultural norms, taboos, and such. The more sexually liberated a society is the less sublimated energy is available for the social and cultural apparatus. Pornography thus can be understood to be a desublimating agent. What that might mean i have my speculations.
[quote=:cool:]:cool: is unworthy.[/quote]
Quoting BC
Quoting Noble Dust
Would that desensitization persist when one abstains for a week? Somehow I doubt it.
I think the fact that everyone can get their sexual fix is mostly a good thing, and for that to go away would probably do societies more harm than good.
I always wanted to be a comedian. No luck, perhaps I ain't sad enough! :lol:
In the context of my post about sublimation, and how pornography can be seen as a desublimating agent; it can also be seen as a kind of release valve for this energy in society. Perhaps a way to keep uncontrolled sublimations from being directed in pathological ways (from a socio-cultural perspective). In a modern environment like we have today the sexual dynamic has altered significantly from what we had adapted to evolutionarily, which can cause abnormal psychological pressures. Certain demographics like the "incel community" for instance would probably be more dangerous if it weren't for pornography. Prostitution served the same purpose and still does.
Very few things are completely bad or good.. it's all gray scale.
Sure. So, ethically what do you think about pornography? I mean, for a Kantian it seems like a totally bad thing with the whole means to an end thing, while for a utilitarian it can be a hedonistic boon for the population. I'm pretty sure Plato would abhor it with the whole degrading nature of it. So, what says you? Do you enjoy it from time to time?
Ethically, it's suspect in the eyes of even those who earn their daily bread from it.
While I was in college I talked with a guy who knew a few in the adult industry. He said they all smoke dope or snort cocaine.
I'm sure you can find pornography associated in some way with most vices.
Interesting, huh? :chin:
Indeed, pornography is a gateway activity - the first domino to fall or the first link to disappear with the anchor into the abyss. Kinda like C[sub]2[/sub]H[sub]5[/sub]OH, oui monsieur?
Quoting Shawn
Bonobos (our closest relatives) are highly promiscuous and use sex to defuse tensions avoid fights, and promote social cohesion. For humans, it is much more a matter of status, and therefore it is socially controlled. Specifically, society is patriarchal and patrilineal, and this necessarily leads to the need to control women's sexual activity, because while the mother is easily known by the fact of giving birth, the father must be presumed. Thus we arrive at the notion of women as property, assets for reproduction that need to be guarded. Religion serves the nobility, the propertied class, to protect their bloodline from pollution. This is why female prostitutes are tolerated, but wives must be virginal. See Charles and Diana for example.
This is the background into which pornography is projected. Women are already commodified as assets to be owned or rented.
Pornography is both advertising and product. It functions to create the need that it then satisfies momentarily, and unsatisfactorily. So it induces addiction, and deliberately. And the nature of all addiction and all advertising is that the hunger is stimulated more than it is satisfied.
The primary illusion of advertising is to suggest that there is an inner need that can be satisfied by the product, and the inner need is almost always social status. The suggestion is that if you buy the expensive new car, the road ahead will be magically clear, or that if you don't buy air freshener, your visitors will think you smelly and disgusting.
The illusion of pornography is that women want to be treated as commodities and are aroused by it. The damage done to ordinary men and women is that they both come to believe it. This produces miserable abusive relationships that neither party can understand or improve. One buys the new car, and finds one can never get out of second gear, because of the traffic. One finds one's relationships are ephemeral, and one is addicted to images of sexual violence.
So, since the parallels with pornography and advertising is so strong, do you think this potential habit leads to unhappy or rather unsatisfied people?
The appetite for pornography seems insatiable.
Compare it to the production and advertising of junk food. What results?
To be entirely honest about one's own convictions, it's more useful to imagine the situation from more sides than merely the consumer's well-being. Here is a simple shortcut: Watch a science documentary. Would it be okay if the presenter were your daughter? Watch a musical performance. Would it be okay if the conductor were your son? Watch any number of activities and imagine your children in those roles. Does it change your attitude about the behaviour you want them to learn?
One cannot pretend that male horniness, especially when being a teenager or a young adult, is a very powerful force, so the market for such an audience exists in spades.
An interesting issue that arises is if it is possible to make such content showing a different side of sex which does not always reduce people (specifically women) to objects.
Murky area.
It seems that Japan is quite ahead of this in their own way. They utilize animated women or manga to this end. Just some knowledge I gained as a teenager. :brow:
Certainly, enough is never enough for long. Last week an avocado suite was the height of bathroom excellence. This week it is unbearably gauche and must be ripped out at once. This week we must all have stand-alone baths with a view and waterfall taps; next week ... The question should really be 'what happens to appetite without commodification?' We live in a world where male sexual appetite is natural and good and violent, and female sexual appetite is disgusting, aberrant and unimaginable apart from as a performance in male fantasy.
Imagine a woman of seventy having sex and that being ordinary. It's not in the business of being arousing, or even interesting to anyone but the participants - and that is the magic of advertising, to twist the mundane of human coupling into an endlessly fascinating obsession. Like any sport, it should be of great interest to the participants and of very little interest to the rest of the world. But alas :
[quote=To Ramona, Bob Dylan]I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
With worthless foam from the mouth
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
Back to the South
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand
Yet there's no one to beat you
No one t' defeat you
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad
I've heard you say many times
That you're better than no one
And no one is better than you
If you really believe that
You know you have
Nothing to win and nothing to lose
From fixtures and forces and friends
Your sorrow does stem
That hype you and type you
Making you feel
That you gotta be exactly like them[/quote]
:rofl:
I don't know man, it's kind of like sure, that's fine use cartoons if you want, no problem.
But then you have people complaining that these people need a "real flesh and blood relationship", when often porn is not made as a substitute for a relationship.
Yet if someone watches "real porn", it's exploitation - which it is - though it's not the only job that does this, by any means.
So, getting a real-life partner is the solution. I'm skeptical if this is the solution. Probably some kind of education on the topic is the best bet.
I wonder whether this "problem" is peculiarly American. Or perhaps Christian.
These physical places have their counterparts in both the cultural and individual psyche. Is the individual who gives into such temptations going astray? Or are they just being a human being with regular human needs? Could be either or both, depending on the situation. Its a difficult and potentially dangerous situation in any case. Addiction, arrest, shame, violence, the cost of time, energy, money, etc...
The dominant culture (I use that term intentionally) has little regard to such things as balance, harmony, the sacredness of all, and having enough. (So little regard that such terms seem idealistic at best, wacky at worst). Also little or no respect for animals and nature, both of which are seen as the uncouth ground on which we stand, to be covered up. Or theyre seen as mere raw materials, to do with whatever the hell we want. There is still (amazingly) a large number of people who dont want to believe in the reality of the theory of evolution. Possibly because they cant accept that humans are related to lowly animals, even distantly?
Therefore, a culture of this type will not put human needs at the top of the priority list. Those things that feed into the fantasy of absolute dominance over dumb and crude nature, and dominance over those weird / backwards / wrong people from other lands are the priority. They get the lion share of everything. Every other aspect of human nature has to try to get its fill after the lions have eaten most of the food, so to speak. Those people and things that symbolize weak and unrefined nature will usually be exploited or ignored. Women, children, brown-black-red-yellow people, the eldery, tribal cultures, etc. This is the imbalance and very foundation of our civilization. The insatiable devouring Machine. The Death Star. Mordor. The land of hungry ghosts. The Wasteland. The hatred of the Yin.
Why should we live like lowly and simple furry mammals and primates... when we can conquer and rule the world and build titanium towers to the heavens? (irony intended)
Like anything, its excess that is the problem. I think pornography can be very healthy for people for situations in which they are unable to be in an actual relationship. Even then, if the relationship is healthy porn can be used correctly by both parties to add flair to sex.
If porn becomes a replacement for a real relationship, or real sex in a relationship, then its a problem. Which now we consider young teenagers and run into a problem. Society forbids them sexual exploration with real people, yet they arguably have the strongest sexual urges they'll ever have in their lifetimes. How do you teach teenagers to be responsible with porn to not replace a real relationship while forbidding them from having real relationships? Is it porn that is the problem, or societies terror at teenagers have sexual relationships?
Porn is a tool, and a powerful one. I believe its the fact that we do not teach teenagers how to use it properly, but let them figure it out on their own, that leads to widespread abuse and mismanagement of it.
Make 'em laugh.
I do like to get a laugh, and there are a number of topics, like porn which are serious enough, but not so serious that humor must be avoided. the 7-11 victims murders in California this past weekend (Lunar New Year) are not appropriate topics for humor.
Sex is clearly an impossible topic if one must be 100% serious.
I vaguely recall a story some years ago to the effect that there was a very high concentration of porn searches from internet cafés and kiosks in Pakistan.
You do wonder what the effect must be of digital pornography suddenly appearing in cultures which had previously been characterised by extremely censorious and proscriptive sexual mores, where women are veiled and extramarital sex is punishable by death. It's a long way between that and the kind of sexuality that is routinely depicted in contemporary porn, which nowadays anyone in a remote rural village can access via their new smartphone. I can only imagine that the effects would be truly explosive. You do wonder if it is implicated in the so-called 'rape culture' of the sub-continent.
(I found a very balanced and lucid book on the effects of pornography in Indian culture, Pornistan.)
Took me decades to rid myself of tobacco. The adage that really struck me when trying to quit was 'one is too many, a thousand is not enough'. All addictions are like that. 'Insatiable' means 'incapable of satisfaction'. That should tell us something.
Now, now; let's not be dismissive.
If my personal taste in porn hasn't changed much in in 50 years, that doesn't mean I haven't observed any developments in the products available outside my own interests.
Yes, I am aware of extreme presentations of torture (real or faux), assault and rape; cheating; incest; animated porn; faux-or-not teen age porn--even bestiality. I've observed extreme behaviors in bathhouses and sex clubs, and I've heard reports from participants in various 'scenes'. I've also read a few reports.
There are reasons.
1) Low overhead is one of the hard-core values of marginal businesses. It wouldn't pay to have a store in between Macy's and Neiman Marcus. The rent would be too high.
2) Urban renewal is a factor. Locate your porn shop in an area that is likely to be bought up and bulldozed, and you can probably get a pretty good price on your property by refusing to sell, unless the price exceeds the market rate.
3) The Law, in many cases, requires that porn stores be located a certain distance from desirable or sensitive locations. That forces them into marginal territory.
4) The margin isn't a disadvantage. Customers often prefer to patronize dive bars and porn shops that are in out of the way places, so that they will not be seen coming and going by 'respectable' people.
5). Porn is profitable, and so is tax evasion. Better to run a down at the heels operation that doesn't look like it is successful, then to have a fine store that requires high profit to maintain. At least in the good old days, porn stores operated on a cash basis--no credit cards, no checks. Easier to hide profits that way,
6) Mobility. An operator wants to be able to shut down an unprofitable operation without losing much on the closed up property.
So, into the last 150 years of change and shifting values, pornography developed from a tiny industry, producing images on glass photo plates; to paper photographs; to silent film; to sound film; to video; to the Internet. It began, and remained, in the cultural margins until changes in the law during the 1960s lifted the bans on distribution (in the US). Just a few years later, the industry had thousands of outlets across the country. At some point in the 1990s, the internet widened the channels of distribution. New gadgets--cheaper computers, tablets, and smart phones finally allowed pornography to become ubiquitous.
An assertion: the vast changes that occurred in society during the previous century and a half are far more significant than any one particular development over this time. Television was / is significant, but it is just one of many disruptive influences. Sexually explicit material was / is significant, but it is just one of many disruptive influences.
Society was already quite disrupted (compared to 1923 or 1953, say) by the time it became available across the internet. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." Yeats said. If we look for ultimate causes, we will only find one contributing factor after another. Society may seem to have become one big pile of manure. If that is so, it took many loads from many places to achieve the present state of dysfunction.
Anyway - one thing I have come out of it all with is, at least, awareness that there has been a 'sexual revolution'. A lot of people younger than me don't even know what it means. (Fish: 'what do you mean, "water"?) Sexual self-expression and identity have now become central to the modern idea of the person, almost an equivalent for religious affiliation (not least because 'sexual orientation' is now routinely checkboxed alongside 'religious affiliation' in all manner of application forms.) Sexual acts are now routinely treated not as procreative but recreation. Criticism of it is nearly always associated with fascism - on Dharmawheel forum, I ventured a post along these lines, and the response was a picture of Hitler and Goebels.
But my spiritual side tells me this is all based on a fallacious idea of freedom. The reasons why are deep and difficult to convey, but there it is. I sometimes reflect that this phase of what amounts to complete and total sexual freedom facilitated by advanced techology is an inevitable consequence of history, but I still recall a wise saying by one of my first spiritual teachers. 'It only exists', he said, 'in order to be overcome'.
I have a secular and practical reason for sharing an aspect of that reservation. My problem is not with freedom, sexuality, or the frank expression of it, but with exploitation. My problem is the parallel I drew earlier between junk food and pornography. The production, deliberate lacing with addictive substances and aggressive advertising of "snacks" turns a necessary, healthy and pleasurable activity, eating, into the harmful consumption of junk. So does the commodification and vulgar packaging of sex turn it into trash. It's a degradation and diminution of something we, individually and culturally, ought to understand, value and celebrate.
I'm surprised that Amazon's retail site doesn't attract more visits, and that Yahoo attracted so many.
It's a good observation how the two are similar.
Snacks, junk food and porn are simply cheap substitutes that try to hide things that are important. Especially in porn the emphasis on casual sex is done on purpose: otherwise for those without an intimate, loving relationship, it would be a far too stark reminder of what they are missing if sex would be connected even in porn to long term relationships and attachment to another person. In snacks and junk food they might today desperately try to show that the food is actually healthy, has so and so many calories and so on, even if it is obvious that the food has to be as cheap as possible. And snacks simply ridicule the meal, you don't have time for eating properly.
Apologies BC, I was a bit toasty last night.
Yes. I shouldn't assume that Christians alone would condemn pornography. I prefer the view taken of sex in antiquity. Visit Pompeii if you haven't already, and see how the frequent depiction of the phallus (a good luck symbol) and frescoes displaying various sexual acts make modern visitors nervous.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Agent Smith
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting BC
Quoting punos
:100: :up: :clap:
Lot of insightful comments in this thread! These are just a small sample. Thanks everyone.
:smile: :up:
Gotta say, there was a book in the 60's called The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris, which made all these points in abundant detail. God, it was hot [sup]1[/sup]. It was where I first learned about fellatio. (Parent's bookshelves were a treasure trove of erotica in the 60's - who could forget Burgo Partridge's A History of Orgies? None of it actual porn, although that, and Philip Roth's Couples, was as good as, at that age....)
-------
1. "In February 1976, the book was removed from high school library shelves by the board of education of the Island Trees Union Free School District in New York." -wikipedia.
It became necessary to publicly discuss sex after the STI disaster, the HIV/AIDS pandemic that swept across the globe. I found it rather odd that in a country like USA - at the leading edge of the sexual revolution - still had to tiptoe around the issue of sex education.
Did anyone benefit from the cleanliness lectures? Precautions again self abuse (masturbation)? Did anyone come away any wiser about their burning desires? Most likely not. These books were, after all, written for the comfort of the advice giving past-their-prime elders, not for the needs of the actual subjects of the books.
The advice boiled down to exercise, fresh air, "cleanliness", avoiding any kind of temptation or unwholesome stimulation (like rubbing cloth), and getting married ASAP. What were girls advised to do? Practice chastity protection by gripping thin coins between their knees, I suppose. They developed powerful abductor muscles.
In our efforts to do effective HIV/AIDS prevention work in the gay population, we put together sexually explicit messages and handed them out in the baths, bars, adult bookstores, and so on. Quite reliably, some kid would find one of these messages on the sidewalk (or in whatever back alley they were poking around in) and bring home the prize. Mother then would call the Health Department to complain about the fascinating obscene, perverse, and extremely well-designed objects their children had found so interesting.
They would call us and warn us to be more careful. Well sure, we are careful, we'd plead. The guys in the bars, though, who take this filth from our hands, tend to be reckless, sex-positive militants. What are we to do?
I recall barely anything about 'sex education' at school but I vividly recall my encounters with erotic magazines and literature.
I don't have answers to good questions like yours.
It's a great mercy that this is no longer my problem. My successors in sex education did pretty much the same thing as I did, but then the treatment of HIV/AIDS greatly improved, and AIDS "ceased to be a big problem" so it was said. The air has gone out of strenuous public health work, seems like. Covid 19 received a vigorous response, but a lot of people resisted vaccination, isolation, masks, social distancing, etc.
Sexually transmitted diseases are not getting appropriate attention. especially since the antibiotic resistance of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae is quite advanced. Syphilis remains curable with penicillin, but left untreated it is still a serious disease. Human papilloma virus (HPV) can become a chronic genital wart problem, and type 16 and 18 (if I remember correctly) cause cancer. I had throat cancer which was caused by HPV.
A state of crisis is always helpful in building public health capacity. Never let a good crisis go to waste! Unfortunately, a lot of serious health problems seem to have become routine, part of the scenery. Very fat people, for example. Vaping. Drug use. etc...
Did you know that when Psycho first came out there was great consternation because it presented the sound of a toilet flushing in one scene?
I intelligo.
On the other hand... That's very interesting. I suppose the sound of a toilet flushing reminded people of urination and defecation, Horrors! :scream:
Wikipedia says that Psycho, 1960, was loosely based on the 1957 true story of Ed Gein, a man in central Wisconsin who was found to have a lot of body parts in his house -- never a good sign. He had murdered a couple of women and dug up several bodies. It got a lot of news coverage. I was 11 at the time.
I didn't associate Psycho (when I finally saw it many years after it first came out) with Ed Gein.
There are "shocking pictures" on line taken at the time of Gein's arrest. For instance, here's a picture of his kitchen. It's a mess, for sure. But shocking?
Here's a chair found in the house made with human skin. It really should be shocking, but a lot of shocking water has gone under the bridge since 1957.
Gein died in a Madison, Wisconsin mental hospital in 1984.
Because I figured you'd post a picture of a chair made with human skin. :up: