
We Are The Porn Generation - airnomad
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/we-are-the-porn-generation/
======
r0s
The attitude towards pornography here is immediately dismissive and negative.
By far the biggest movement in porn since the internet is 'amateur'.
Unrecognized here as direct reflection of human sexuality, movement away from
fantasy to authenticity.

I think the point of the article is that all media is entertainment, and
journalism has lost it's informant pretense. A legit point, I don't care for
porn bashing though.

~~~
zerostar07
Well, what's the benefit of porn? To be a glass where you can look but cannot
touch? To compensate for some oversexuality that is not freely expressed? To
turn everyone into proud voyeurs? Most animals see amateur porn among their
conspecifics every day and frankly don't give a damn. I bet only masturbating
animals would ever buy porn. I know the internet is generally proud of its
porn, but general opinion equates porn with masturbation and thus all the
negative attitude. What's so positive about porn otherwise?

~~~
Tichy
I remember reading about a study that showed looking at boobs raised men's
self esteem. There is also a study that showed that apes (or monkeys or some
animal like that) likes to pay for porn (ape/monkey porn of course).

Also the sex drive is quite important for the human species. It's a huge
motivator.

~~~
SkyMarshal
> I remember reading about a study that showed looking at boobs raised men's
> self esteem.

Real ones or just pictures and videos? Big difference.

~~~
Tichy
The study showed that pictures are enough. Although I suppose real ones would
be more effective (and have more side effects).

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duexmachina
Is it just me or do I find it ironic that the article is surrounding by the
things the author seems to dislike? The twitter/facebook tie ins on the site
are one thing, but the recommended content made me laugh.

>Why You Should Start Smoking

>6 Rules For Increasing Your Chances Of Getting Laid At Parties For The
Chronically Alienated, Interspersed With Songs I Like Right Now, Vol. 1

> Paid Distribution What Your "Drink" Says About You on a Date

It's a great way to unintentionally strengthening the authors argument.

~~~
icebraining
Agreed; I smiled when I got to the end and reached the big fat "You should
follow on Twitter".

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buntar
Using 'porn' in the title is also kinda porn.

Edit:

Seriously though, I would replace 'the porn generation' with 'the porned
generation'.

"Corporations are not looking out for your best interests; they’re looking to
make as much money as possible."

That's the obvious part. But the interesting part is how all this big
corporations managed it to finally break into our lives. Not only the sell us
all kinds off stuff we don't need. They also very actively comment our consume
behavior. Something is always wrong with our lives. We are too fat, too
boring, our relationships are not thrilling enough, we don't manage to get
what we deserve.

Corporations are not longer selling stuff to us in the traditional way, from
producer to consumer. For them, we are gigantic consumption mass, trained to
buy and to be evaluated from day one.

We are not consumers, we are here to be consumed. We get porned.

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naner
The comparisons he made reminded me of something I read not too long ago:

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/02/hes_just_not_that_int...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/02/hes_just_not_that_into_anyone.html)

 _In other words, online porn isn't a drug, it isn't an addiction, it isn't a
sign of deviancy or a trigger for disease: porn is junk food. It is a bag of
potato chips you eat when you aren't even hungry, and once you start and the
initial "mmmm!" passes you're all in, may as well finish the bag, you've
ruined your diet/night already, start over clean tomorrow._

 _After a while potato chips just figure into your routine, there's a passing
thought that perhaps you shouldn't but since there aren't any obvious and
immediate consequences... And now it's part of who you are._

 _But no one would ever say that "other foods don't measure up", no one says
that potato chips taste better than steak not because they don't but because
no sane person makes those kinds of comparisons. If you did, if you played it
all out in your head and now deliberately avoid eating a steak in order to get
to potato chips-- then you have a problem that is deeper than steak or potato
chips._

 _Junk food is stripped of the essentials of real food, leaving just the
vulgar, the simple, the obvious of taste: sugar, salt, fat, repeat. It is the
pornographization of food. The mistake people make is that they think it is
delicious, but it's really just easy, comforting, reliable, satisfying. And
that's where we are now: online porn is the pornographization of porn._

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icebraining
It's funny; I started thinking about his examples and except for the TED talks
(which for me complement but haven't replaced reading), the only kind of porn
I'm exposed to is actual pornography. I don't really spend a lot of time with
the others (commercial radio and MacDonalds are particularly unpleasant).

I also don't get when he says

    
    
        If you’re a vegetarian… Well, you’re shit out of luck.
    

and then two paragraphs later he inverts that by saying the other stuff is
still out there. And, in my opinion, it's not just "still out there" - there's
actually _more_ of such content available.

~~~
sreyaNotfilc
" If you’re a vegetarian… Well, you’re shit out of luck. "

Ya, I'll just skip this rant of his and wait for the full length film of this
article.

Its funny how the author is using a medium in which he describes as fading to
convey his distaste in another medium which "everyone" is using. But, expects
us to use the fading medium to understand his "vegetarian" ideas.

Yes, this article was THAT confusing.

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seanp2k2
Let me keep in style with this article and TL;DR it for you: instant
gratification is awesome, and it's easier than it's ever been. I embrace this
and look forward to a day when I can just go into dreamland in my mind while
my body is controlled by a computer to do space mining that robots can't. Then
I can spend more time doing exactly what I want.

~~~
Drbble
Spending more time doing what you want is the opposite of instant
gratification. You can't be instantly gratified all day long in a 24hour
orgasm.

~~~
HeyImAlex
Not _yet_

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jcfrei
currently a lot of the market players are focused on grasping a part of your
attention. essentially there is a constant battle raging inside of you trying
to figure out which of all those mental stimuli you should give in to. if you
as an individual don't learn to refrain from such distilled indulgence (social
media, fast food, pornography) you might as well get lost in the 21st century
(and end up void of any free will)... and that's a dangerous outlook (remember
Huxley's brave new world?)

~~~
Drbble
Does not distilled indulgence save time, which is a modern person's most
heavily spent resource?

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joejohnson
Good article. I just skimmed it for the interesting parts, but I think it
looked pretty thought provoking.

~~~
fferen
Personally I think I'll wait for the movie adaptation.

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why-el
Ok, so I have a point to make. I don't quite understand how, whenever porn is
discussed, all the HN community gets very rational about it and we start
discussing it as if it was a normal product. It is absolutely not. It is not
what human beings are and it degrades women (And increasingly, trends in porn
change only in one way: How they degrade women). It is also dull, and
repetitive, despite their sad attempts to innovate; there is a finite number
of sexual positions, and you can only go past that once you establish the fact
that women will choose to degrade themselves and go with it, which the makers
(men, always) happily decide its the case. So yes, as a hacker, there things
to learn from the porn industry (scaling, traffic analysis..),but its effect
on society and its subjugation of half of said society far outweigh those few
technological insights.

~~~
kiba
You said it degrade women, but you don't explain how.

~~~
why-el
You can always go to a porn website and search for words that convey
degradation (rape, rough, bad words men call women,..). Nowadays they are
quite explicit about it, not even bothering with visual metaphors.

~~~
kiba
You are very selective in what you watch, I guess.

~~~
why-el
I actually don't. I am not sure why you would assume I do. I am in a very
healthy relationship. But I did research on it for a paper. I also discuss
this matters with my girlfriend and several other people who have growing
concerns over the escalating violence (or at least the showing of it) in the
porn industry.

~~~
mikeash
Being in a healthy relationship does not exclude the possibility of consuming
pornography. That you seem to think it does is a bit odd, and makes me think
you don't really understand how this stuff works.

~~~
why-el
What stuff? And of course it does not exclude the _possibility_ of consuming
porn (The only situation that does is not having internet or TV). But I don't
watch porn and I don't think I need to given my current life style and
personal principles. As simple as that.

~~~
jaredsohn
>(The only situation that does is not having internet or TV)

There are plenty of other ways to consume porn beyond this (magazines, books,
theaters, consuming internet/TV via other people.)

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airlocksoftware
Isn't this rehashing PG's essay, The Acceleration of Addictiveness?
<http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html>

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waveman
Porn = porn that men like

Erotica = porn that women like

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waterhouse
Oh man, I wrote a giant post, but it was too big to post here. Essentially I
disagree with the author, and I probably have said some interesting things in
my rant. Here it is: <http://pastebin.com/EV64mvm8>

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tmh88j
I agree with this article, however, it overlooks one huge aspect; porn has
been popular long before America became fat and obsessed with the "I want it
now" massive $1 cheeseburgers.

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quinndupont
It's very curious that there is no discussion of affect or feminism in general
in this post, both of which are useful to this discussion.

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horsehead
We were just talking about this in an IRC channel. I think the article is
saying that we've cut everything down to the common denominator. I've also
heard it called the 'fast food' generation. We want the quick hit, the down
and dirty. We live in an incredibly fast paced society. But in that context,
how can you not chop everything down to the kibbles and bits, in order to get
people even interested? (or in other terms: tl;dr)

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rsanchez1
This article made me think of the foodgasm:

[http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2009/12/the-top-10-biggest-
food-...](http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2009/12/the-top-10-biggest-food-network-
foodgasms-of-2009/)

------
SpaceDragon
The way I look at it, anyone who indulges in porn isn't going to be a
competitive threat to me or take my job. Why? Because they're preoccupied,
lack self control and settle for fantasy over reality.

~~~
petercooper
What about people who "indulge" in TV, movies, and books?

~~~
zerostar07
That's a different beast. Not that there isn't TV movies and books that are a
waste of time, but in general people who read and watch the right movies
become quite a bit wiser. Porn is always the same. Frankly, if you 've read De
Sade your knowledge of the genre is complete. In contrast to good culture,
porn is addictive like a drug: it doesn't get you anywhere.

