

Make Love Not Porn (2009) - mmphosis
http://thetyee.ca/Life/2009/12/16/MakeLove/

======
stratomorph
Single page version: <http://thetyee.ca/Life/2009/12/16/MakeLove/print.html>

So, the author starts with an academic study of the sex lives of modern young
people, which drew some conclusions that porn is not the devil: "pretty
conventional, almost identical to their parents," and "pornography has been
demonized and that its effects are negligible." Then, she spends more than a
thousand words trying to refute that entirely by anecdotal evidence, capping
it off with "porn is having a profound impact on our culture."

I know asking everyone to act like good scientists is too much. But I would
like it if people would at least try to act like _bad_ scientists, and
selectively use studies that _support_ their predetermined conclusions. What a
world, where you strengthen your point by citing only studies that refute it.

~~~
tome
I think you've misunderstood. Sure, the author agrees that porn is not the
devil, i.e. it doesn't lead to violent crime and it's not going to lead to the
collapse of civilization, but nonetheless wants us to knows there are serious
negative consequences that we should be aware of.

~~~
stratomorph
You see, that's my point. How do we know there are serious negative
consequences at all? Because of the anecdotes she mentions? She didn't cite
any rigorous study that concludes pornography is harmful, but simply appealed
to our gut feeling that it's got to be hurting us _somehow_. While I may agree
or disagree, my complaint is that her anecdotal evidence is somehow supposed
to sweep away the presumably well-designed study cited at the start. That's
the opposite of science.

Edit: My tone here is a little combative. Sorry, it's not intended as an
attack on you.

~~~
radu_floricica
I was thinking reading the article: the guys who mindlessly copy porn moves
and replies, how do we know it they would have been any better without porn? A
pretty good hypothesis is that they wouldn't, they'd have been either woefully
inexperienced or unimaginative. That's why gut feelings are bad and studies
are good.

~~~
akgerber
But studies don't come into existence out of thin air. You need to put things
into conversation for someone to put the effort in to go out and do a study.

------
necrecious
The quote "I wasn't just having bad sex. I was having bad porn sex." from Mary
Elizabeth Williams pissed me off.

Sex isn't something that is happening to you, it is something you participate
in. So it is your damn fault if it is bad sex. Speak up about what you like,
porn related or not.

~~~
dkarl
Totally. I mean, he's begging for feedback. It's not like "You like that,
baby?" has a subtext of "of course you do, because I'm awesome" or "of course
you do, because my power to treat you like this turns you on." It's an honest
question.

~~~
cgranade
As much as I think that the article is problematic, I can totally imagine
someone saying "you like that, baby?" in a rhetorical sense, rather than
meaning it as an honest question. If that is the case, however, then it is a
real problem that needs to be addressed rather than being blamed on porn.

~~~
tome
I think dkarl was being sarcastic.

~~~
cgranade
Perhaps. On the Internet, it can be hard to tell sometimes. If so, then my
bad.

------
cgranade
I think that a lot of the complaints brought up in the article aren't really
complains about porn so much as they are complaints about how impressionable
we are as individuals. We let so many of our tastes, preferences and behaviors
be dictated by mass media, so why are we then surprised to find that we let
our sexual behaviors be dictated by mass media as well?

On a related note, I think that a lot of the complaints can be attributed to a
kind of pluralistic ignorance
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance>), where individuals are
under mistaken impressions about the preferences and comfort level of their
partners. In a sense, this is the flip side of impressionability, where we
expect that other people are similarly impressionable.

------
rwmj
TL;DR summary: A writer compares a proper peer-reviewed scientific study vs.
asking her friends what they thought.

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azgolfer
Sensitivity to something is invariably decreased by exposure. In my life, I've
gone from a picture of bare breasts being a big deal and a huge turnon, to
seeing graphic movies of any kind of sex imaginable free 24/7 on the internet.
I don't think there is any question that this has made the average male expect
their partners to do things that their partners mothers would never have
considered doing. Whether this is bad or not is a separate question.

------
ellyagg
Everyone I know prefers amateur porn. I probably wouldn't be interested in a
woman who was uncomfortable with what goes in in most amateur porn.

Of course, everyone I know is reasonably intelligent. In my humble opinion,
you'd have to be an incredibly silly person to think commercial porn
represents a model to aspire to. Frankly, if she's sleeping with guys in their
20s who act like commercial porn actors, I bet she has pretty poor taste in
men.

------
cgranade
Because articles about sites should have links to the sites being discussed:
<http://makelovenotporn.com/>

------
ErrantX
I think this is more a product of some aspects of society than just porn.

Sex in porn is reall incredibly different to real life - it takes a level of
naievity and, probably, peer pressure to form that sort of impression.

I think it's disingenuous to suggest it's causing these issues for everyone.

Most of the described relationships just sound tucked up generally. The girl
who dreads her boyfriends birthday seems as much the victim of her own silence
as anything else!

------
jaytee_clone
Look at this from another angle, it is equally valid to say that the sexual
oppression that exists in our society has skewed many women and men in to
thinking that there is such thing has a normal set of sexual behaviors.

That's why this "porn request" thing is blown to such ridiculous proportion.
If the main stream perception of sex was not skewed but rather much more open-
minded, this discussion would have been as casual as a discussion about ice
cream flavors.

------
noonespecial
The focus of these kinds of articles always seems to rest much to heavily on
_there's too much evil porn_ and not on _there's not enough good sex
education_ , which I think is the real issue.

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_delirium
This feels weirdly old, despite being published in 2009. These are almost
verbatim the kinds of criticisms old-school feminists were levying against
porn prior to the advent of sex-positive feminism in the 1980s.

------
yread
I find this article somewhat related:
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/14/techno_toys/>

------
rick_2047
_It was the happiest moment of my young life. There is just something about
blowing a load in a chick's face that makes you feel like a man._

Any boy who thinks like that is a jerk.

 _especially on behalf of younger women who might mistakenly think they have
to put up with the new status quo if they want their guy to put out._

And any girl who thinks like that would be described as an idiot.

Seriously folks anyone who thinks being superior to your own sex partner is
manlike and anyone who thinks they should just accept what ever is coming from
there's is seriously a wimp.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Any boy who has a hormonal response to a certain sexual act is a jerk?

I hate to tell you this, but people have very little control over what turns
them on and what makes them feel good. A boy isn't a jerk for wanting to give
a girl a facial, just as a girl isn't a jerk for enjoying wearing leather and
whipping her boyfriend (or vice versa).

What determines if you are a jerk is not what you want, but how you behave in
the pursuit of it.

~~~
kirse
I'd hate to break this to you also, but being "turned on" is just another
emotional state that is subject to the mind's interpretation and perception.

It's long been known (as the root of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) that the
order of neurological operations is

 _Event --leads-to-- > Perception of Event --which-leads-to--> Emotion_

Some of these neurological responses may have become so ingrained and
automatic that they seem "uncontrollable", but they are the results of many
smaller controllable choices as to how to perceive a specific event.

It's the same reason why I find something enjoyable that you do not, and you
find something attractive while I do not... we've made different choices along
the way. It is a clear sign of emotional immaturity to believe that you are
not in control of how you perceive events (which in turn creates the emotions
you experience)

You are certainly not in control of the events that happen, nor the emotional
release, but you _can_ control how you perceive and choose to interpret
things.

