- it does some form of sex education when parents/school/society does none
- it lets people realize what sex is about (think about amateur categories and how you can see people not that different from you having sex and realizing that different shapes and sizes, all work)
- it lets you explore your own sexuality (could you have immagine you would have liked that kind of things?)
- it lets you explore sexuality with your own partner (people get bored of the same sex every time, you know?)
And so much more.
Of course as with many other things (alchool, for example) you should not get too much of it.. But I disagree completely with the statement that "porn is bad in any amount".
Yeah that comment at the end raises flags for me too. Many happy couples watch porn together.
The video they link to at the end of the test the top of the description contains the following:-
> NOTE FROM TED: This talk contains several assertions that are not supported by academically respected studies in medicine and psychology. While some viewers might find advice provided in this talk to be helpful, please do not look to this talk for medical advice.
It also contains this:-
> Gary Wilson asks whether our brains evolved to handle the hyperstimulation of today's Internet enticements.
But that could be asked of anything on the internet to a degree. The dopamine hits we get from gaming be it match 3 mobile games or FPS's, the need to make those numbers ever increase on social media (subs, likes, points, etc), the joy of opening parcels from online shopping like opening presents.
Using the "any amount" argument basically means we should only use the net for boring work tasks and not even the work we enjoy (I love coding, I get a hit when people like the work I do for them).
Again as you say "everything in moderation" but I can not stand by an "any amount" argument.
I'm sorry to do this, but I disagree in spirit with just about every point that you've made.
> it does some form of sex education when parents/school/society does none
Education? Porn is "education?" Porn is to sex education as war movies are to combat training.
> it lets people realize what sex is about (think about amateur categories and how you can see people not that different from you having sex and realizing that different shapes and sizes, all work)
If I learn what "sex is about" through porn, then I haven't yet learned that sex can be intimate, or that it can result in babies.
> it lets you explore your own sexuality (could you have immagine you would have liked that kind of things?)
It seems limiting to "explore your sexuality" in the novelty of visual and auditory stimulation. Sort of one dimensional. What about touching, smells, or interaction with another person?
> it lets you explore sexuality with your own partner (people get bored of the same sex every time, you know?)
That seems like a two-way conversation (between you and your partner) becoming a three-way conversation where you include the ideas of the porn industry.
Apply your reasoning to other subjects and you are essentially saying fiction is a useless device to explore the world and yourself with... which I couldn't disagree with enough.
> [...] Porn is to sex education as war movies are to combat training.
> If I learn what "sex is about" through porn [...]
> It seems limiting to "explore your sexuality" in the novelty of visual and auditory stimulation [...]
These arguments are all against the fictional nature of porn as a substitute for sex or sex education... which no one is suggesting, so it's a straw-man. Porn is not a replacement, it is both less and more, just like other fictions. The only time the OP suggested it as a replacement is where there is no alternative, which is perfectly reasonable.
War films are not a substitute for combat training because they are not supposed to be. The remainder of this argument is for the value of fiction, which seems a little unnecessary.
> The only time the OP suggested it as a replacement is where there is no alternative, which is perfectly reasonable.
Thank you, you got my point.
> War films are not a substitute for combat training because they are not supposed to be. The remainder of this argument is for the value of fiction, which seems a little unnecessary.
War movies can depict war as something awesome as well as something awful. Needless to say, there are movies that depict war the former way and movies that depict war in the latter way.
The very same way, there are many kinds ("genres") of porn that illustrate sexuality in many ways.
Of course porn isn't a real substitute for sexual education or exploring with another real human. But you appear to claim that it's practically useless because it doesn't provide everything. That's a false dichotomy: porn can be helpful in some ways, as the GP mentioned.
> Porn is to sex education as war movies are to combat training.
Right, but the options aren't only "war movie" or "real combat training". For some folks the options are porn or a vacuum of information. You can find plenty of regular, non-porn-actor folks having regular sex online. Are you saying this can't be valuable, especially when someone knows next to nothing about sex?
To use your metaphor: as a young and untrained person, would you rather be dropped in the middle of a battlefield with no explanation, or would you rather have watched some videos of real combat first?
Thank you for following the Principle of Charity, (maybe better than I did.)
Of course you can find good-old-fashioned amateur porn out there. It might even be useful! But, as you said, in a vacuum: It's now your mental model.
Bob and Alice uploaded a porn video where Alice is on top, and now Chuck just knows that's how sex works.
It wouldn't be so bad if Chuck went through the next few years of life thinking that. One day, he'll meet a girl and learn that sometimes the man is on top.
But: You know what's out there on the front page of the most popular porn sites. Pornhub. Xhamster. Not exactly wholesome amateur love making.
You're right that solely having porn as your sexual guide can lead to some serious disappointment and confusion. I don't think anyone here was suggesting that, or that ALL porn can be informative.
But this comment only shows one case where someone gets an only partially informed idea and takes it the wrong way (and only watches one video?). It doesn't address any of the other cases where it is helpful.
Also: many of us enjoy more than "wholesome" love making, and porn can be a way of discovering things you never would have realized you enjoyed.
Well, it was definitely a hypothetical. Ultimately, this is a judgment call. I appreciate this discussion though! Thank you.
I am interested though to hear what marines would say about the recruits that come in having played video games or watched movies with gunplay. Is it a good thing? Does it leave them with messed up ideas or expectations?
BOOKS
2011. Secrets to Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation. Minneapolis: Quiver Books.
2010. The Big Book of Sex Toys. Minneapolis: Quiver Books.
2009. The Anal Sex Positions Guide. Minneapolis: Quiver Books.
2008. Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
2006. The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
2003. Down and Dirty Sex Secrets. New York: Regan Books.
2002. True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
2001. Pucker Up: A Hands-on Guide to Ecstatic Sex. New York: ReganBooks.
1997. The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Not exactly what I was looking for. I was interested in ethical arguments. Thank you though.
This should be talked about as much a drugs and alcohol. I once watched a great dev get terminated because he would repeatedly and instinctively pull up porn sites at work, like in the same manner you might get frustrated at an error message and pull up Hacker News as a distraction, this guys would do it with porn. So sad. He did it in front of me once, I was like 'Whoa bro, wtf is going on here, not cool.', he just muttered 'sorry' and something about muscle memory. I did not rat him out but apparently he had done it several times before, other employees noticed and had told HR. HR had started to review his web history, one day they asked me to stay late for an emergency meeting, they explained that it had happened again (probably the 3rd of 4th time) and someone made a written complaint so they had no choice but to terminate him for cause, I elected not to fight for him. He is a good developer, I hope he found some help. He was the kind of dev you don't need to micro-manage, his estimates were always fairly accurate and turned in code that met requirements. I had a side conversation with our IT manager after the termination and asked how much time they thought he was spending on those sites, apparently very little, he would bring up the home pages of his favorite sites then quickly realize what he was doing and close them, we are not talking about porn surfing sessions but they couldn't have a guy known as the 'porn dude' working for them.
Not exactly a balanced, unbiased look at this controversial issue, is it?
> So far, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has agreed that there is insufficient evidence to support diagnoses for sex and porn addiction. In 2010, the APA rejected the inclusion of “sex addiction” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). A new condition called “hypersexual disorder” was proposed for the DSM-5 but, in 2012, the APA rejected it as well for lack of evidence.
> when UCLA researchers studied the response to viewing sexually explicit images in people who self-defined as being unable to regulate their porn viewing, the results showed no similar response [to addiction].... The authors concluded that there was no evidence to say that even problem sexual regulation fit the definition of addiction as defined by brain response and that these people simply had high sex drives.
>people who develop addictions initially show high levels of response in the pleasure centers of the brain... one of the hallmarks of true addiction is that the pleasure received from the object of the addiction wanes over time as the person no longer wants the object but, rather, needs the object. In contrast, even people who report very strong “addiction” to sex continue to show activation of the pleasure centers of the brain when viewing sexually explicit images. This response is similar to the response people have to chocolate, ice cream and other highly desired pleasures.
You might consider backing off the unsupported blanket statements like "100% of people feel better after quitting to watch porn" and "porn is unhealthy in any amount". As it is the site smells more like zealotry than a fair test.
The very first question is "I felt that porn is an important part of my life", and the options are "never", "sometimes", "always", etc. Is it asking for how much of the time I have that feeling (meaning if I say anything but "always" or "never", I'm saying that my opinion changes with regularity), or is it asking how much of the time porn is an important part of my life (which doesn't make sense to me because either something is or is not an important part of the whole of one's life - it can't sometimes be an important piece of your entire life and other times not, unless you've had a gradual change of heart that you want to reflect in your answer). In other words, this immediately feels like a meaningless question.
Did we miss the party? See this website with scientifically-accurate information:
www.realyourbrainonporn.com
Simple, real scientists, and focused on falsification studies (more important to model testing).
Uh, I disagree, like a lot.
Porn does a lot of nice things:
- it does some form of sex education when parents/school/society does none
- it lets people realize what sex is about (think about amateur categories and how you can see people not that different from you having sex and realizing that different shapes and sizes, all work)
- it lets you explore your own sexuality (could you have immagine you would have liked that kind of things?)
- it lets you explore sexuality with your own partner (people get bored of the same sex every time, you know?)
And so much more.
Of course as with many other things (alchool, for example) you should not get too much of it.. But I disagree completely with the statement that "porn is bad in any amount".