
Did porn warp me forever? - ezl
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/13/did_porn_warp_me_forever/
======
Mz
Both his parents were psychologists.* Any psych major knows the old saw that
you probably got bad stuff like this from your parents. Some of the psych
majors I have personally known struck me as folks who had no clue how humans
work and were hoping to get a clue by majoring in it. When I went to GIS
school, this observation was reinforced by a classmate who had a Master's in
Psychology and was looking to change careers because of the lunacy of the
people around her.

Supposedly, Kinsey's wife said something like "I never see my husband since he
took such an interest in sex". In other words, he spent so much time studying
sex in an intellectual, analytical way that he stopped bothering to make time
for actual sex and relating with his wife. People interested in studying human
psychology frequently strike me as seriously hung up. Therapy was useful to me
for a time in trying to get over my own hang ups. More useful was spending
time with men who liked having actual sex with actual women rather than
talking about it in some abstract, analytical fashion.

"Forever" is a really long time. Sexual preferences can change. Pavlovian
response is learned behavior. If you don't like the stimulus that makes you
drool currently, you can retrain yourself. I am glad the author is actually
trying to do that instead of merely blaming his issue on porn/the internet as
I have seen other articles do.

* (Not intending to slam all psychologists or psych majors. My observation is anecdotal and admits to bias.)

~~~
ams6110
Seems maybe his scientist parents didn't teach him about correlation and
causation either. There are many guys who have trouble with "real" sex because
of insecurity or any number of other fears that have nothing to do with/were
not caused by looking at porn.

~~~
Mz
He talks about how taboo porn was at home and that it was exciting chiefly
because it was forbidden. I would guess his parents didn't have a great
marriage and didn't model a healthy intimate relationship for him. Sounds like
sex was a big unspoken issue in the household. Also, what the hell was a kid
in elementary school doing burning XXX CD's to share with some clique in-
crowd? They obviously were an elite group, with access to tech and so on. They
were savvy enough to rename the CD's something they could talk about in
public, which started a trend of unclued acquaintances buying the real music
CD's they used as code names, which became part of the in joke.

Edit: Reminds me I read somewhere once that there is as much drug addiction
and child neglect in upperclass two career families as in the ghetto. It
sounds like he grew up in a two career family where no one was paying much
attention to anything he did.

~~~
acuozzo
> It sounds like he grew up in a two career family where no one was paying
> much attention to anything he did.

What if his parents stopped paying attention because he wanted absolutely
nothing to do with them and made it known?

That's how I started treating my parents (one career household: pop worked;
mom did everything else) at twelve years old and it wore them down after four
years. I still feel quite guilty about it, as they were and are excellent
parents.

~~~
Mz
Well, I would personally still view that as a failure on the parents part. My
youngest is extremely introverted. He would put an axe through my face if I
doted on him like I doted on his older brother. I learned to respect his need
for space at a very early age, when he was a toddler. He shares with me when
he damn well feels like it. But we still have a good relationship, because I
realized he was different from me and from his brother. Giving him his space
was unnatural for me. Doting was easier. But he still loves me because I
didn't dote. I backed off.

But I seem to have crazy good parenting instincts. So my high expectations are
probably a tad unreasonable in some sense.

------
mattm
I know this is outing myself but this is my personal experience. I won't post
anonymously in case anyone wants to contact me. I came to the realization
about 2 years that I am addicted to porn. For anyone out there struggling with
the same thing, it can get better and yes, it is probably having a negative
influence on your life. Previously I would look about once per week but in the
past 6 months, I have probably viewed only 3 or 4 times and am hopeful going
forward that I will never view it again.

The difference between internet porn and porn from the past is just the
abundance of new material that there is. Each time you view something new,
your brain gives a hit of dopamine. In fact, porn addicts are not really
addicted to porn, they're addicted to the chemical sensations that their brain
provides. At the basic level, it really is not much different from any other
addiction. Old, offline porn is different in that it gets stale pretty
quickly. There are only so many times you can look at a magazine or video
without it getting boring.

The problem with this is that your dopamine levels get out of whack. You need
a higher and higher amount to feel satisfied. This is how people get roped in.
This also caused normal, life things that were once enjoyable to become less
so, such as hanging out with friends or programming. Life just becomes more
dull. In fact, now that I have learned about this, whenever I see a post on HN
about how someone has lost their interest in programming or other activities,
the first thing I think of is probably this person has a porn addiction. It's
not a far stretch seeing as how most of HN is young men. Having drastically
reduced the amount I see, I have noticed many benefits in my life including
better health and ability to focus better.

Porn, like other addictions, are also a way of masking stress and a way of
distracting yourself from negative emotions. Dr. Gabor Mate has done great
research linking addictions of any kind to stresses in the body. Porn gives a
way to temporarily release the stress but puts the person in a vicious cycle
of causing more long-term stress.

Personally, I use the recovery information from
<http://www.feedtherightwolf.org>. It has been the only thing I have across
which can really break the cycle.

As someone else pointed out the videos from <http://yourbrainonporn.com/your-
brain-on-porn-series> will really help you understand what is going on in your
brain.

~~~
VigUi7vv8G2
> Each time you view something new, your brain gives a hit of dopamine.

Oh dear god. That is not how dopamine works. Dopamine is a chemical that your
brain secretes when you are trying to get something, not once you get it - so
when you're hungry, for example, you'll have higher dopamine levels. Then when
you eat, they go back down. The actual sensation of higher dopamine levels is
stress and anxiousness - it actually doesn't feel good at all.

Here's an NYT article talking about the common misconception:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/science/27angier.html?_r=0>

> they're addicted to the chemical sensations that their brain provides.

EVERY experience is a "chemical sensation" in the brain. Good. Bad. Whatever.

> In fact, now that I have learned about this, whenever I see a post on HN
> about how someone has lost their interest in programming or other
> activities, the first thing I think of is probably this person has a porn
> addiction.

What the fuck? This is the dumbest thing I've read in a while. There could be
a million things that cause a loss of interest in programming. Maybe they got
girlfriends or started families? Maybe they suck at it, and just realized
that?

It sounds like you used to be obsessed with porn, and now you're obsessed with
"porn addiction"

~~~
mattm
Thanks for the article. I'm still trying to learn more about it. However, I
would appreciate it if you did not judge me and wrote your response in a more
polite manner.

~~~
VigUi7vv8G2
I would appreciate it if people stopped making up or repeating ridiculous
pseudo-scientific explanations for whatever it is they want to believe.

~~~
rdtsc
> I would appreciate it

Oh, you would? How dare everyone on the internet not cater to your
expectations.

Someone from the community shared a story of personal struggle. They didn't
hide behind a pseudonym, and it was probably a hard decision for them. They
also, did in hopes it would help someone else.

They might not have used precise definitions or scientifically correct terms
but they were honest and civil and even after you insulted them.

~~~
jaggederest
They were also clearly _incorrect_.

No matter how hard their struggle is, it's akin to linking vaccines to autism
- no amount of personal pain overrides _factual inaccuracy_.

It's an _extremely_ important part of public discourse that incorrectness be
called out, in a polite way, but clearly and forcefully.

This is akin to 'balancing' a debate about evolution by having an evolutionary
biologist there and a doctor of theology there. Just because there is debate
does not mean that there is not a clearly correct answer.

~~~
rdtsc
They were incorrect on a side detail "shot of dopamine equals pleasure". That
is not the main crux of the comment and latching onto that side detail and
throwing "Fuck this and fuck that" around is is insulting the person and
doesn't add anything to the discussion. Even after the original author
politely answered and noticed the correction the insults continued with "this
is not acceptable" .

> Just because there is debate does not mean that there is not a clearly
> correct answer.

The correct answer in this case doesn't really matter for the main point if we
are talking about the dopamine. Which, from what I see is the clearly
factually incorrect statement. Latching unnecessarily unto inconsequential
details and derailing the conversion is also called trolling and bullying and
will get the message downvoted or flagged.

~~~
apl

      > They were incorrect on a side detail (...)
    

Doesn't cover it at all. OP gives a mechanistic account of how the construct
of "porn addiction" works and how it affects people; there isn't much to his
post other than that. His mechanistic account happens to be incorrect, or at
the very least sufficiently misguided to be worthless, and people call him out
on that.

~~~
grandpa
I think the concern is not that people called him out when he was wrong, but
that one person phrased it very rudely.

~~~
Karunamon
Which is, when it comes right down to it, is a tone argument. Which is only
one step above fallacious reasoning.[1] Calling something BS that's well, BS
in a rude way does not negate that call of BS. The person doing the attacking
has done so using an explicit refutation of a couple of the author's main
points.

[1]:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grahams_Hierarchy_of_Disag...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grahams_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg)

~~~
neumann_alfred
_Calling something BS that's well, BS in a rude way does not negate that call
of BS._

And nobody claimed that it does. They simply pointed out that it's kinda weak
to be an asshole in response; the fact the the asshole had a point doesn't
make them not an asshole "Yeah but he's right". That's great, but not the
point, and was also mentioned by the very people criticizing the asshole for
being one. All further responses to that just went in circles, attacking
strawmen like you just did.

------
tommorris
Well, if we're all just going to trade anecdotes at each other, I may as well
do so too. Unlike the author of the original piece, I'm happy to use my real
name.

I looked at porn on the Internet as a teenager. I'm gay and back then I was
deep in the closet. And I grew up when Section 28 was still in force. It was a
law passed in the 80s that said schools "shall not intentionally promote
homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting
homosexuality... [or] promote the teaching in any maintained school of the
acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

In practice, that meant the sex education we got in schools didn't cover those
of us with a preference for what the law called unacceptable "pretended"
relationships.

Back then, it it was still dialup and early broadband. No high-quality video,
so it was almost all pictures. But porn gave to a lot of gay kids the
reassurance and sexual freedom that society more generally was unwilling to
even see or mention. Porn was a paracetamol for loneliness: it didn't solve
it, but it eased the pain. You opened the newspaper and every time they
mentioned something related to being gay, it was framed as some giant moral
debate, a culture war, a political football. But on the Internet, there wasn't
any of that bullshit, just sex and porn and other people (albeit behind screen
names). If schools don't want to teach the gay kids about their sexuality,
then the Internet and porn will do it for them.

My friends didn't need the Internet: probably every school in the country has
an underground trade in porn, whether it's Internet-based, magazines, hacking
satellite/cable TV, whatever. Heterosexual teenage boys will get their hands
on images of naked ladies and distribute/trade them. That's just how it is.

Access to porn throughout my teenage years made life bearable. And, at risk of
oversharing, the thing I find most attractive in porn isn't the whips and
chains, as the author says, but simple expressions of real, genuine emotional
intimacy.

~~~
exim
Regarding differences in easy accessibility of "materials" for different
orientation persons, one interesting thing worth mentioning - unlike
heterosexuals, homosexuals carry this "material" all the time with them -
their body...

~~~
neumann_alfred
Ever noticed how moving your own tongue about in your own mouth is totally not
like french kissing someone else? Kinda counterintuitive I know, but those
have been my findings.

~~~
bigfudge2
Likely related the fact that you can't tickle yourself:

[http://www.skidmore.edu/~flip/Site/Lab/Entries/2007/1/31_For...](http://www.skidmore.edu/~flip/Site/Lab/Entries/2007/1/31_Forward!_files/BlakemoreWolpertFrith2000Tickle.pdf)

------
PaperclipTaken
I have tried to quit porn before. In high school I tried very hard, for
religious reasons. I never succeeded. In college I got to the point where 2
30-90 minute sessions daily was the norm.

I then tried to quit again. I went 5 days, and then 4 days, and then gave up
on the idea, resigning myself to immense sexual activity. Every month or so,
I'll go on a complete rampage with as many as 10 orgasms a day for 2-3 days,
rarely coming out of my room. Sometimes it even interferes with food.

My sexual tastes have grown increasingly complex, sometimes illegal, sometimes
not outwardly sexual at all (example, the thought of loneliness in a girl). It
has changed how I look at nearly everything, but I'm not ready to conclude
that it has been for the worse.

I had sex for the first time this week. I didn't climax. My parter had no
issues but I was completely uninterested, which is interesting because I had
been looking forward (greatly) to the encounter for more than a week. But when
it finally happened... complete disinterest. I did my best to think of porn
and at least play along, but part of me felt that was more rude than just
failing to climax so I sat back and let my partner enjoy her share. ED was no
issue.

It's worth adding that I had never met the girl before, seen pics and talked
via phone but never met in person. I had little (if any) emotional attraction
to the girl, and for this reason specifically I'm not very worried. It just
caught my attention because I would never have guessed that a 19yo boy would
go through 40 minutes of sex with an attractive girl and not climax.

Since then I've been more motivated to quit, but I'm still not ready to
conclude that porn has been a negative or bad experience. It has consistently
given me a lot to think about, especially watching my interests and needs
shift over the past few years. I've noticed a better control over my need for
porn but it's only been a few days.

~~~
saraid216
Don't try to quit. Look into how programs for quitting smoking work. Quitting
cold turkey is painful. Some people can do it, but most people can't. Instead,
there is a _ton_ of stuff out there to help people step down gradually.

Instead of stopping cold, rate limit yourself. You already have a solid
baseline of your current frequency. Pick something a bit less and don't go
over that for a week. Figure out some strategies for coping; I'd suggest going
for long walks to public places. Note that you've achieved that milestone and
step it down another notch the next week.

You don't have to go all the way to zero unless you want to, either.
Demonstrating to yourself that you've got a measure of control is important.

------
kjackson2012
As long as people realize that porn itself is a caricature of sex, then it's
fine. Usually sex is a lot more clumsy, and a lot shorter than any of the porn
movies you find on the web. Guys with huge penises that take 45 mins to
climax, women with huge breasts that love to get finished on, etc, is not how
most of the world is. It's certainly exciting to see, but it's totally
unrealistic.

It's sort of like martial arts. Real martial arts isn't guys jumping 30 ft at
each other, or fighting 10 opponents at once, doing somersaults, etc. If kids
go to martial arts training expecting this, they will be sorely disappointed.
Most martial arts is practicing moves over and over again. It's tedious and
boring for those that are expecting Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Over the course of
many years, you can get to a certain level of expertise. But the martial arts
movies are essentially a caricature.

Hopefully the kids growing up today realize this.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Hopefully the kids growing up today realize this._

Martial arts - maybe. But if your never had sex and your only education on the
topic is porn, then how could you know how it really looks like? And then you
have your first, and second, and third time, and you feel a bit disappointed
that it didn't feel or look like you expected, and even if you realize that
porn is a caricature, you're still left wondering, how much of the difference
between porn and real life is because of lack of realism in videos, and how
much is because of your deficiencies.

It's a real problem and it's sad that the only sexual education kids usually
get comes from porn.

EDIT

There was a TED talk about this topic once, [0]. While her site doesn't have
much content and I don't recall the book being very insightful (though
definitely an interesting read), she raises some good points so I recommend
the video (it's 4 minutes).

[0] - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8n_E_6Tpc>

~~~
malandrew
Having porn before sex is probably a lot more instructive and useful to our
sexual well being than an alternative world where your only contact with sex
before having it is just private conversations about it with the few people
you feel comfortable discussing it with. I'm very glad that I live in a post
Kinsey Report world.

~~~
mikecaron
I'd disagree here. _Certain_ porn _might_ be instructive, but most porn
includes violence towards women. Not only that, but in 95% of scenes that
included this violence, the women responds either (a) with passive compliance
or (b) enjoyment. This is teaching observers, those especially which have
never been introduced to sex before, that women desire to be hit, beaten,
strangled, raped, etc and if they don't enjoy it or allow you to do it to
them, there's something wrong. If that kind of porn is what is instructing our
youth, then we will have a very dangerous society to live in.

Ref:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCt6qUL_Pk&feature=share](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCt6qUL_Pk&feature=share)

I'm a father of 3 girls. I'm teaching them all how to defend themselves with
and without a gun.

~~~
malandrew
I was making a generalization, obviously imperfect and not applicable to all
porn, and you simply pulled out a strawman argument.

Sexual violence towards women existed well before any porn ever existed. For
example, the vikings raped and pillaged. I'm pretty sure they didn't have porn
available to motivate them. There are many more examples. Rape has been a
constant in history and was not uncommon well before porn became readily
available.

~~~
mikecaron
I'm not saying there'd be no rape without porn. What I am saying is that rape
and violence toward women _increases_ with it.

~~~
malandrew
Citation needed. Your statement is purely speculative otherwise.

In fact, a search for "rape vs porn" suggests that it reduces rape:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/1...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html)

<http://www.toddkendall.net/internetcrime.pdf>

~~~
mikecaron
1\. [http://pornharmsresearch.com/2012/08/pornography-viewing-
amo...](http://pornharmsresearch.com/2012/08/pornography-viewing-among-
fraternity-men-effects-on-bystander-intervention-rape-myth-acceptance-and-
behavioral-intent-to-commit-sexual-assault-research/)

2\. [http://pornharmsresearch.com/2012/08/effects-of-womens-
porno...](http://pornharmsresearch.com/2012/08/effects-of-womens-pornography-
use-on-bystander-intervention-in-a-sexual-assault-situation-and-rape-myth-
acceptance-research/)

~~~
malandrew
My biggest issue with both of those studies, is that they involve self reports
with respect to bystander involvement in an emergency. I can think of few
other issues in social psychology in which self reporting is going to be
wildly out of touch with reality. The only other area in which I can see self
reporting being even further out of turn with reality is the subject of
conformity. The biggest factor influencing bystander involvement in an
emergency is actual experience or training in handling such emergencies and
how to resolve them. If you want bystanders to identify a real rape and have
them intervene, then you need to train them to identify the difference between
consensual sex and non-consensual sex and then train them on the best course
of action to stopping the act in question and reporting it. There are numerous
examples of studies in social psychology where people self report that they
would do X and when put in that exact situation in an experimental setting
actually end up doing Y. Situations where the subject is a bystander are among
the most notorious for their disconnect between reality and self-reports.

Any study that measures the _real_ impact of porn is going to involve
measuring real incidents of rape witnessed or committed by a statistically
significant population or porn viewers. Barring actual incident levels, this
is crappy research. Asking questions like "Have you ever witnessed a rape in
progress? And if so, did you do anything to report it or stop it?" and
comparing those numbers to porn viewing habits would be far more valuable. At
least in that case it ceases to be based on self-reports of behavior in
hypothetical situations and is instead based on correlation of historical fact
with porn habits.

Lastly, and I know this is an ad hominem attack, but judging by John Foubert's
other research interests, I'd consider his rape research to be tainted and
likely to be skewed in favor of demonstrating correlation where there isn't
one or demonstrating correlation which is of no consequence but is
sensational. Judging by several of his other published papers, Christianity
and Spirituality primary areas of research for him. This puts him among a
group of people who are impartial and very likely have an agenda with respect
to the issue of pornography. ref: <http://okstate.academia.edu/JohnFoubert>

Do you have any research that compares actual incidents of rape and porn?

~~~
mikecaron
Unfortunately, I don't. But I'm compelled to do my own research... jack up a
heroku cluster, run a bunch of image processing across all main-stream porn
films... and maybe in 10 years I'll have enough concrete evidence to support
John's claims :)

------
stephengillie
_porn — especially the porn I was watching — just had to be taboo._

The author's fetish is with the anxiety of getting caught. He's making anxiety
porn by watching something so extreme that it's guaranteed to offend anyone
who catches him. The author has connected the anxiety of being caught with
sexual desires in his head. It's actually a very common fetish.

~~~
grimboy
Maybe he should be an exhibitionist.

~~~
VigUi7vv8G2
Why do you think he wrote that article?

------
FrojoS
From my favorite Paul Graham essay, The Acceleration of Addictiveness
<http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html>

" Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. I've seen
that happen with cigarettes. When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the
way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population.
Smoking rapidly became a (statistically) normal thing. [...]

As knowledge spread about the dangers of smoking, customs changed."

So yes, porn has always existed. So has smoking. But, industrial cigarettes
and broadband porn streaming are "more concentrated forms of less addictive
predecessors." and hence they are more dangerous.

PS: Just to clarify, Pg did not mention porn addiction in his essay. He does
mention Internet addiction, though.

~~~
pekk
Characterizing porn as "more concentrated" does not in any way demonstrate
that it is dangerous.

~~~
veidr
I don't think that anybody is saying "it is dangerous", just "the ubiquitous
and instant availability of virtually any kind of high-definition porn is a
relatively new thing, and its effects might be different than the wood block
prints and paper magazines enjoyed by previous generations".

------
ChuckMcM
I find that its hard to communicate with young people about the weird way in
which sexual climax is plugged into your brain. Through out history people
have have exploited that link and human physiology as a tool to control
people.

Growing up in Las Vegas I had a pretty unconventional view of sex, and was
completely caught off guard by the emotions that came with my first actual
sexual experience.

------
jrockway
I'm sure there are people who have never watched porn that don't particularly
enjoy sex either. This sounds like all other articles that generalize one
anecdote to data.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Pretty sure the entire piece was anecdotal. I see no call to action indicating
that he believes we need to take up some sort of communal mantle to protect
our young ones. He just wonders if he blew it for himself.

hehe. Blew it.

~~~
skeletonjelly
For sure. Not everything has to have a "call to action". Seems like it was
more a prompt for discussion. Appears to be working.

------
jacoblyles
There's a part of the paleo subculture that avoids porn as an unnatural
superstimulus. See <http://yourbrainonporn.com/> or
<http://www.reddit.com/r/nofap>

Anecdotally, I find their arguments compelling.

~~~
dkarl
Alain de Botton has written about it, too:

"A brain originally designed to cope with nothing more tempting than an
occasional glimpse of a tribesperson across the savannah is lost with what’s
now on offer on the net at the click of a button: when confronted with offers
to participate continuously in scenarios outstripping any that could be dreamt
up by the diseased mind of the Marquis de Sade. There is nothing robust enough
in our psychological make-up to compensate for developments in our
technological capacities."

[http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/12/26/why-we-should-
limi...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/12/26/why-we-should-limit-
internet-pornography/)

~~~
shadowfiend
There are few arguments that I have more disdain for than the one that somehow
because our brains (or bodies) _haven't_ experienced something before, they
_aren't built to cope_ with it. It's not like we are, or have ever been, built
for a single temperature, type of sex, kind of food, etc. Our bodies and minds
are _adaptable_ , and while we can try to logically reason about _how_ our
minds and bodies adapt to certain stimuli, we are still guessing at best.

To address the particular hogwash in that editorial, glimpse a tribesperson
across the savannah? Human beings were living in groups with topless women
tens of millenia ago. So it doesn't even stand on those grounds.

~~~
nikster
Lets cut this BS argument short: Who is driving a car?

I thought so.

There were no cars, planes, or McDs in the Savannah either yet somehow we cope
with those things. Personally I dont think porn comes close what the Romans
were actually doing...

~~~
ntumlin
And a lot of people die from cars. Clearly it's because we were never meant to
have them.

</sarcasm>

------
notdonspaulding
I can definitely relate to the author. I first found porn at the age of 14.
I'm 29 now, and until recently, porn has always been something I've "struggled
with".

I've seen several comments that have opposed what I would call the Church &
Moral perspective on porn, without really having an example of what that
perspective is. Let me put forth a few claims, so those of you who would
disagree with them have something concrete to which to attach your arguments.

FWIW, I'm a religious person. I've been married for 9 years, and I've only
ever been physically intimate with my wife. I accept that that deeply colors
my perception of the world and this issue specifically.

Here are my claims:

\- Porn is designed to be "used" by an individual to satisfy themselves
sexually.

\- Especially when encountered at a formative age (such as the author's and my
own), porn greatly influences your perception of "good sex".

\- Pornography and sexual intimacy are diametrically opposed.

\- Sexual intimacy is more satisfying, on the whole, than porn.

\- There is no such thing as "harmless porn".

Finally, a standing invitation. If you ever want more information on the
mainstream evangelical Christian viewpoint on pornography, or my viewpoint
specifically, feel free to email me at donspauldingii at googlemail dot com

~~~
lucian1900
Well, your claims are largely silly.

While much porn isn't of particularly good quality, lots of porn is designed
for couples. And it's great! You should try it with your wife.

Again, you've been watching the wrong porn. Plenty depicts beautiful sexual
intimacy.

~~~
notdonspaulding
While I don't see how you've refuted any of my claims specifically, I will
address your assertion that I should try porn with my wife.

Having used porn myself for the majority of my life, and for almost the
entirety of my marriage, I have quite a number of empirical data points of its
affects on me and my sexuality. I will say that my wife and I need much less
of the influence of porn on our sex life, not more.

~~~
illuminate
"While I don't see how you've refuted any of my claims specifically"

Your anecdotes don't require disproving. They are just your anecdotes about
your particular personality and calling them "empirical" does not give them
any more expandability to the whole.

~~~
notdonspaulding
What I offered as claims of the moral/religious position were separate from
what I explained my own anecdotal experiences to be. I'm sorry I didn't draw a
more clear distinction there.

My "empirical" remark was simply to explain that I have enough knowledge about
myself to draw the conclusion that engaging in pornography would _not_ help my
marriage. I wasn't expanding it to the whole in any way there.

~~~
illuminate
Ah, then my statement wouldn't apply. My mistake.

------
msluyter
On the same topic, "The Great Porn Experiment" TED talk, which provides some
empirical grounding for the anecdote in the article:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU>

~~~
therobot24
Makes some valid points, but some of the evidence he uses in the talk reminds
me of evangelical christians tv hosts - 'Just look at this testimonial! While
on the porn he dropped out of college twice, was fired twice, was taking
paxil, ritalin, and tried several anti-anxiety pills. BUT once he gave up porn
he doesn't need those pills, has no depression or anxiety, and frankly...he
feels like a stud!'

~~~
vy8vWJlco
The testimonial was after 2 months, which is about the longest I've ever
restrained myself personally and frankly, by that point, I thought about
nothing else. I felt like a stud alright. Everything was hyper-arousing. It
just wasn't sustainable for me. It was fun, but I probably would have been
arrested for public indecency if I tried for 3 months.

I think it's necessary to learn to live with and love your lusts if you want
to be in control of them. "Know thyself."

------
nicholassmith
It's one of those things that can rapidly spiral, you start needing a bigger
kick to keep it interesting. The problem being it is incredibly difficult to
talk about, it's something parents will start needing to discuss with their
kids straight up.

Porn isn't bad, it's a part of society now and has been for a long while, but
it's the same way drugs aren't necessarily bad unless you start needing a
bigger and bigger kick.

~~~
jacoblyles
>"Porn isn't bad, it's a part of society now and has been for a long while"

Are you sure about that? It seems that widespread, easy access to porn is
something very new. Before the internet, you would have to go through some
embarrassing procedure at a checkout counter to purchase just a few
pornographic items.

The amount of free porn I could access in the next hour would have cost me
thousands of dollars in the 1980s.

We have normalized porn very recently and it is just a piece of modernist
faith that it is harmless.

~~~
psykotic
> We have normalized porn very recently and it is just a piece of modernist
> faith that it is harmless

Do you abstain from television, computers, rock and roll, role playing, comic
books and video games by this same line of FUD?

Mass media has the power to create unrealistic expectations. Someone growing
up in the age of Petrarch and Dante had unrealistic expectations of romantic
love. It's easy to imagine that someone growing up in the age of internet porn
would have unrealistic expectations of sex. Beyond that, I'd have to see hard,
consistent evidence before I'd write off porn as especially harmful.

~~~
jacoblyles
Some of it. For example, the average American watches 5 hours of TV a day.
That will kill you. I watch about 1 hour

Video games are very addictive to me. After playing Starcraft for 16 hours
straight one saturday, I carefully watch and moderate my video game play and
have deleted most games from my system.

In your battle to live a meaningful, purposeful life, the peddlers of
superstimuli are your enemy.

~~~
Evbn
The average American isn't dead, so obviously you didn't say what you meant,
if what you meant made sense.

~~~
learc83
He never specified a time frame--Watching 5 hours of TV will kill you over x
number of years (also it's clear he meant the resulting inactivity will kill
you).

------
counterdatapt
As a counter data point, I immensely enjoy both porn and real sex. I've never
had troubles "getting it up" or ejaculating.

~~~
just2n
I agree and I'm the same. I can relate to many of the stories told by the
author, however I find real sex immensely more exciting, to the extent that
even when viewing porn I will often fantasize about sex I've actually had. I
also think more about women I meet and date than I do about porn I've watched
(and I've watched pretty much everything there is).

I am curious though, was your upbringing liberal regarding sex, or was it
considered a taboo as well? For me, it was very much even taboo to think about
it, even though I later found out this is terribly hypocritical considering
those telling us it was taboo were doing it just as much as we would
eventually. I even got in trouble for uttering the word "condom" once, almost
to the same extent as for saying "fuck", which seems utterly ridiculous to me
now. I'm curious if sex having been taboo for so many years is actually what
makes it more stimulating, or if it's just a difference in sexuality from
person to person.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Looks like the author was accurate in how uncomfortable we are as a society to
talk about the role of porn in our lives.

I think the article speaks more to the issue with recovery and the issues
surrounding "getting back to neutral."

This problem exists. He explains in laymen's terms a simple Pavlovian response
that requires more and more brain stimulation to achieve the same level of
dopamine needed for ejaculation.

I'm not a neuroscientist, but I bet someone out there can explain it better
than I can.

~~~
pekk
Some people don't like how they use porn. But, some people don't like how they
use normal sex. And in both cases, the problem isn't porn or sex but that the
person doesn't like their relationship to porn or sex; that it is interfering
with their lives. This isn't true for everyone and it certainly isn't unique
to porn.

For everyone who doesn't like their relationship to porn, there are other
people who don't like that they got diseases, or got pregnant without a plan.
But we don't pathologize this.

Let's be careful not to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Kellogg, who used the
trappings of science to push predetermined conclusions in a campaign against
harmless sexuality.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Fair point. In my opinion, I don't think this is by any means a "new" problem,
its just another way addiction manifests itself as a byproduct of how
accessible pornography has become.

It can happen a million different ways; for the author, it was (probably)
porn.

------
FrojoS
Does it make sense to teach this to children? Just like "Smoking isn't good
for your health."(which I believe worked for me) you could teach "Porn isn't
good for you, if you want to enjoy sex."

~~~
lmm
I think the problem is our society's denigration of sex. We see it as
consisting inherently of that mix of thrill and shame - when you're a teenager
growing up in America, you're told to feel that way about any nudity, never
mind penetration. So you come to associate arousal with this guilt - you never
experience the one without the other - and then when you're looking for
something to turn you on you're already feeling guilty, and there's a part of
you that wants to. So you step a little deeper into the pool of fetishes, find
something a little stronger (and I'm pleased that the author's actually given
some realistic examples here), something that makes you feel guilty and
ashamed and is all the more erotic for it. But the interest half-life for porn
is tiny; what was dangerous boundary-pushing last week is pedestrian today.
It's a feedback loop, one that can only possibly end somewhere unpleasant.

The author's already found the solution - we need to separate sexuality from
guilt and shame, to be able to feel aroused and wholesome at the same time.
But it's hard to do that after you've already fallen down the spiral. We need
to make our children's first experiences of arousal feel natural and wholesome
- which means more openness, more embracing of sexuality in artforms that are
going to portray it positively. But that's a hard sell to middle America.

~~~
jimzvz
_I think the problem is our society's denigration of sex._

Is this really true anymore? It seems that the majority of the media consumed
by young people carries the message that sex is extremely important and if you
are not doing it with everyone in every way, you are brainwashed by religious
or moral beliefs.

Obviously there is denigration of sex from many sources but which of these
sources actually have an impact on young people?

~~~
lmm
I said society, not media. My own experience is that I felt very guilty and
followed much the same path as the author - but then I was a geeky kid with
few friends and a lot of respect for my (relatively old and catholic) parents.
I wonder how popular/trendy the author was in high school, and whether those
who were had a different experience.

------
konstruktor
The language he uses to talk about his experiences sounds extremely judgmental
and puritan. It seems to me that his problem is not pornography but guilt
tripping himself.

~~~
Udo
Definitely. Apparently, his puritan hangups are also themselves sexualized -
no wonder the real world doesn't do it for him. I find both the article itself
and the discussion of it here on HN surprisingly weird and alien. I hope I'm
not the only one...

------
antihero
There are people who watch a huge amount of porn but have a perfectly healthy
sex life and relationship with women. It's about understanding what it is and
it's context, and realising that there's a difference between that and
reality.

~~~
cheeseandbacon
This is much easier said than done. Schrödinger's addicts I like to call them.

~~~
illuminate
Porn is a symptom of their neuroses, not the cause.

------
calinet6
"Both of my parents were shrinks"

Nope, it wasn't the porn.

------
cm2012
Yes, I'm glad someone is putting the truth out there that pretty much everyone
from the Millennial generation has been watching porn since our pre-teens. The
vast majority, as far a s I know, havn't experienced problems from it. There
is a vocal minority like in r/nofap, but considering that literally 99.9% of
millions of males do it, that can't be a surprise.

------
w1ntermute
I remember reading just a couple of weeks back about how this issue goes away
after abstaining from porn for a month or two. They called it "porn detox" I
think.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
Assuming there is such a state, calling it detox implies it's normal or good.
I'd be curious what, if any, physiological changes result to reduce the
influence of one's sex drive. If so, why not "simply" auto-castration? (If the
goal is to reject one's drives...)

I see a general male catharsis that borders on the neurotic. Society demands
verile/potent men who can, at the same time, subjugate themselves fully to
society and their mates.

~~~
w1ntermute
I don't remember exactly what it was, but there are probably some
neurological/mental conditioning aspects to it.

------
lizzard
The really amazing thing about this article is that I'm supposed to care more
about this guy's boner, and guilt complex, than I care about the systematic
oppression and degradation of my half of the human species.

Really . . . What a wanker!

~~~
notdonspaulding
Technically don't you have a little over half of the human species, due to the
extra chromosome?

Seriously though, where is the discussion happening about the link between
porn and the degradation of women? Is there just no argument against it, or
does HN not even realize it's there?

------
corporalagumbo
If he had paid attention when he read his Foucault, he'd be keeping quiet
rather than wringing his hands and dissecting himself on a major website.

------
lizzard
I wish you would all read this brilliant speech by Andrea Dworkin. Try to keep
an open mind for a seed of truth, even if you come from a very different place
politically.

[http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.htm...](http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.html)

". . . if equality is what you want and what you care about, then you have to
fight for the institutions that will make it socially real. It is not just a
matter of your attitude. You can't think it and make it exist. You can't try
sometimes, when it works to your advantage, and throw it out the rest of the
time. Equality is a discipline. It is a way of life."

~~~
guard-of-terra
How is it relevant to the article being discussed?

~~~
npsimons
Dworkin was a big critic of pornography, claiming it caused rape and
subjugation of women. While there are undoubtedly some women in porn against
their will (or verging on doing it for lack of better options (ie, "for the
money")), this point of view completely ignores women who are aware of their
options, but choose to do porn and see it as an issue of "their body, their
choice".

~~~
guard-of-terra
There is enough porn produced already so if the production ends today there's
enough already for most of people.

Concerning distribution: is there anybody stupid enough to ask for an never-
ending, positional "war on porn"? As if wars on drugs and on pirates wasn't
enough

~~~
npsimons
I never paid much attention to Dworkin's arguments, but I wouldn't be
surprised if there were people interested in a "war on porn". Never
underestimate the human capability to formulate simple "solutions" to complex
"problems".

As for the production aspect, as I said, there _are_ women in porn who view it
as a women's rights issue, ie who is to say what women can and can't do with
their bodies.

------
freshhawk
Betteridge's law of headlines.

~~~
dalke
Nope. You can't knee-jerk exclaim "Betteridge's law" when you see a "?". It's
meant for news articles. This article is an introspective "life story" article
and doesn't meet the preconditions.

For example, the previous life story article ending with a question mark on
Salon was "Can I date a Republican?", and the clear answer from the article is
"yes."

The one before that is "Should the terminally ill control their deaths?" and
the author's statement is "A year after my mother's uncomfortable decline,
it's a question with which I'm still wrestling", but it's clear that the
author supports people learning more about the options for palliative care
over attempts at staying alive for as long as possible. I'll put this as a
"yes."

Then there's the quoted question '“Are you on the cover of a magazine?”',
where the answer is definitely "yes", but this too doesn't fit Betteridge's
law.

And "Was I selfish to have fertility treatments?", where the author states "I
honestly don’t think my choice was any more selfish than anyone’s choice to
have a child." So that's a "no." But there wa s a while when she worried about
the question.

I think you get the idea.

~~~
freshhawk
In the case of Betteridge's Law the point being made is that if someone has
actual evidence then the headline reflects the evidence. It states the fact
that there is new knowledge about something. If it's just speculation or
useless fluff then they add a question mark.

And yes, it was not made for opinion pieces or personal narratives and, like
in the examples you give, doesn't generally work in these situations.

My intention was just to point out that it happens to apply here because the
headline is childish link bait.

The author covers in the piece that it wasn't really porn that lead to this
and it's not going to be "forever" either if he does something about it.

~~~
dalke
I can't tell from your response if you think that Betteridge's Law applies
here or not. Betteridge's Law describes articles where an author wants to
write a specific story but doesn't have the information to back up the point,
and/or doesn't want to do the research to get that information.

That doesn't apply here, because "if he does something about it" is a
different cause than not having enough information.

It looks like you say that it "happens to apply here" because 1) the answer is
no, and 2) it's "childish link bait." Why not then just say "No. This is
childish link bait."?

Suppose the NM governor wrote an op-ed piece "Should I stay the death
penalty?", which outlines her ongoing thoughts both for and against commuting
the sentence for the last two people on NM's death row. Suppose you are
ardently pro-death penalty, support RepealTheRepeal, and believe that only
fools would be against it. You could quite justifiably answer "no" to that
headline and believe the title to be "childish link bait." But you would be
wrong to say that Betteridge's Law applies.

~~~
freshhawk
Betteridges's "Law" doesn't apply to stories like this for all the reasons you
stated. I referenced it because all the critiques of writing that Betteridge's
Law implies apply here.

I think the misunderstanding here is that you are looking Betteridge's Law as
more of a pseudo-law that has specific constraints and I'm looking at is as
shorthand for a specific critique of bad writing, which I think does apply
here even though, as you stated, it was not created to apply to personal
writing.

The difference is that most of the examples you are giving of personal writing
are subjective and/or value judgements that have no factual answer to the
headline question. This one does have an answer, the answer is "no" and the
author knew the answer was "no".

Anyway, clearly a better comment for me to have made would have been "Although
it doesn't apply here this post makes me think of Betteridge's Law!" but it's
much less pithy.

------
billybob123
My wife is a nurse and they have a saying about anyone in the mental health
field.

"You can't tell the players from the fans"

------
Flimm
I couldn't finish the article because I found the examples too disturbing.
Just a warning for those of you who aren't very familiar with online porn.

Could someone give me a summary of the article?

~~~
nikster
If you cant even read an article about porn then you certainly have bigger
problems than the author of said article.

~~~
noonespecial
There are people from every walk of life frequenting HN these days. I'm
guessing the world of online porn can be pretty disturbing for the
uninitiated.

The fact that an average person can't summit Everest while a practiced climber
can is not a disparagement on the former.

------
cindygallop
I took part in a HuffPoLive chat with Isaac, the author of the post on Salon,
Naomi Wolf and John Stoltenberg, 2 days ago - here's our discussion:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/internet-porn-
men-p...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/internet-porn-men-
pornography-male-sexuality_n_2488056.html)

Do check out my venture <https://makelovenotporn.tv/> 'Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-
knowing the difference.'

------
xk_id
"9/10th* of the working of the gonads is to vitalise the whole body – brain
included. If the gonads would secrete a blue fluid, the whole body would be
blue, and the brain very blue – and even the bones would be slightly blue. […]
It is quite often the case that very creative people have very active gonads."

* fundamentally true; not correct, but fundamentally true.

~~~
PaperclipTaken
This sounds compelling but I'm not willing to trust it. Where did you get this
information?

~~~
xk_id
From Alfred Korzybski, who claimed he got it from a physician.

------
gopi
This comment may be down voted here. But i think there is a case to be made
for a new law that mandates the ISP's to password protect all porn websites by
default.

~~~
guard-of-terra
And in a few days we'll figure that every site The Man does not like is
considered a porn site. And is "protected" from you.

Pirate Bay and other trackers, for example.

~~~
illuminate
I'm sure that user is just fine with such abuses.

------
prawn
Seems that there are a few comments getting killed by an automatic process
reacting to keywords or possibly links?

------
kinnth
really well written piece. Bares a lot of resemblance to my life. I think it
takes time to grow up but most of the time most people do eventually do it.

------
dakimov
I suspect that the article is fictional and is written by a 44-year old female
writer.

~~~
cindygallop
No, he's for real. We're meeting for coffee next week. :)

------
guard-of-terra
Do we care? The next thing he will suggest: let's censor, let's break the web,
let's put people in the jail, let's force parents to spy on their children,
let's take parenting rights from ones who don't. Let's create a police state
because he doesn't like porn.

His problems with porn is just his problems. I suggest dealing with it.

~~~
Centigonal
While I agree entirely with you, another point the author of the article is
making is that his problems may be typical in kids growing up with the world
wide web at their fingertips.

That perspective brings us to a different question: What can we do to ensure
safe and positive sexual development in children without censoring the web and
imposing our generation's morals on the next?

~~~
zalew
> While I agree entirely with you, another point the author of the article is
> making is that his problems may be typical in kids growing up with the world
> wide web at their fingertips.

what the web has to do with it? as a teenager I could buy hardcore porn
magazines without any problems.

~~~
freshhawk
Right, and because I could buy reference books as a kid without any problems
that means that the web has not enabled me to learn more subjects in more
depth in less time and meant that I don't spend _more_ time learning than I
did before?

Are you really making this argument on HN of all places? That behaviour
doesn't have the ability to fluctuate wildly with only small differences in
friction (not a pun!)?

------
huhsamovar
This is not news. Why on Earth was this upvoted?

~~~
angersock
To get it up. :)

------
stcredzero
Betteridge's law applies. Better than an even chance the author will one day
die, so won't be warped then. Answer is no.

------
andyzweb
I found this article easy to fap to

------
alan_cx
I only clicked the link to see if there were any boobs. So, in my case.......

