If this argument has been made for decades, then it is a bad argument that has been made for decades.
> I don't understand why
OK, let me try to explain. I'm not against pornography. I'm also not a prude -- if consenting adults want to have orgies, or wife swap, or insert baseball bats into body cavities, or get slapped and yelled at, go for it!
I'd bet that 90+% or more of people's first exposure to sex is online videos. While there are certainly videos that show realistic sex, the vast majority are highly unrealistic and set incredibly weird expectations about what is normal. A lot of what is shown on video is bad acting, not happiness.
To distinguish itself from from other videos, makers are always trying to find some new or more extreme boundary to push. A lot veers into extreme power dynamics -- boys learning about porn should not have the expectation that women like to be choked or spit on, or have jackhammer anal sex. Girls shouldn't have the expectation that that is what boys expect of them.
As an adult you might say, hey, a lot of those scenarios are just entertainment, eg, those step siblings are obviously in their 20s, or obviously women don't like having 100 men ejaculate on them, but to children where this is their first exposure to sex, they absolutely don't know what is normal and this imprinting causes harm for some.
This is spot on. I am horified at what my kids will learn as normal from watching porn when they later get access to it. There is so much garbage out there that is pushing the notion of normality that they will be utterly confused. Im not a prude either but I find “deepthroat” as utterly disgusting, someone is chocking and gagging and makes me vomit. And yet, Ive seen girls who learned to enjoy it because that makes them normal to their peers while they secretly don’t like choking or gagging. This is just one example, there are way more. Im so happy I grew up and former with less access to porn.
I really dont know what the solution can be for this other than curating what types of videos they could watch. Some of the stuff is dangerous too
You're quite right. Thanks for pointing it out. Upvoted.
OK, here's what he said "but I find “deepthroat” as utterly disgusting".
There's no space for the fact that some women like that, or that even if they don't, adult film workers are doing a paid job. Not all oral sex involves choking or apparently being forced. But that's a blanket condemnation based on him being "disgusted" and ignoring the nonsexual violence in mainstream media.
He goes on "I really dont know what the solution can be for this other than curating what types of videos they could watch"
So back to curating sex videos but ignoring extreme graphic nonsexual violence?
This discussion doesnt exclude violence but we are focusing on the topic at hand.
Second, I dont know if you notice but people copy any type of behaviour that is seen more, the type of thing becomes normalized, and as an example was the deepthroat that women can’t possibly enjoy, but do it anyway because it somehow becomes expected of them to do so, some even start enjoying the act even though it is not pleasant, it’s a coping mechanism...
Violence on TV is obviously affecting our society for sure, and violence suffered from the same capitalistic fault to maximize profit, violence initially sold well so it produced exponentially more until the last dime could be extracted out of it.
If no financial incentive is behind any of these “memes” then maybe the better ones become normalized and the effects on society are less nocive. Speaking broadly ofc.
> people copy any type of behaviour that is seen more, the type of thing becomes normalized
Yeah. Like extraordinary levels of violence on TV that the audience becomes accustomed to it and simply don't see it any more whereas porn...
> as an example was the deepthroat that women can’t possibly enjoy
Wut really? Hint: women are people and some like different things, including that, unforced. You've really never met...? This smacks of the old view that women couldn't possibly enjoy sex and it was forced upon them unwillingly by those horrid beastly men.
In you penultimate sentence you appear to be accepting media violence as a given. So fight back.
You seem to not want to understand on purpose and keep on telling me I take violence on TV for granted. I am not, I told you already, we’re talking about porn.
Women feel lesser if they do not perform certain things that are in fashion, some kind of peer pressure. Who sets that fashion? Who is sick to want a women choke and gag on a man’s penis? You enjoy vomit? I dont think it has a place in healthy sexuality.
And let me explain what I mean in the last paragraph of my previous comment: the extreme commercialization typical of capitalism is responsible for amplifying these memes, normalizing new things that are degrading for some and hence exploitative in nature. What are you fighting back about? Are you just a contrarian?
You’re the deepthroat defender, I don’t know who’s weirder. I continued this out of politeness by the way, I don’t find you very worthy of conversation, I just thought I would open an idiot’s eyes
I almost completely agree with what you say here (so upvoted) but it's what you don't say that I find disturbing.
You've outlined what can be unpleasant about porn (eg. slapping women or choking them, however consensual I won't watch that) but you seem blind to the (albeit simulated) violence, sadism and killing I alluded to in mainstream films which can be far, far worse. I personally know it isn't real but to borrow and slightly amend your own sentence...
"but to children where this is their first exposure to violence, they absolutely don't know what is normal and this imprinting causes harm for some"
You can see the bad parts in porn, but not see the worse in films that children are freely exposed to? How come?
The person I replied to specifically said "I don't understand people who think this way (about porn)," and I addressed that specific point.
The issues of ultraviolence in mainstream movies is its own issue and can be discussed on its own terms. Porn has its own issues and be discussed on its own terms. Yes, both are film media, but that is about all they share in common.
It isn't a competition where issue #1 is more severe in some way than issue #2, therefore we can ignore issue #2.
> It isn't a competition where issue #1 is more severe in some way than issue #2, therefore we can ignore issue #2.
I'm saying it's exactly that it is. Mainstream nonsexual violence is worse than porn (I'd claim), and I'd also claim, as evidenced by the strangely skewed responses here, that some people are blind to one nonsexual violence but oddly sensitive to the other, porn.
If someone has a fundraiser for cancer, do you tut tut them and say malaria kills more people than cancer, and it is disturbing that your pamphlets about your cancer cause don't even mention mosquitoes?
If you think it is a competition, then OK, we simply disagree. If someone has a fundraiser for some cancer cause I may donate even though malaria kills more people every year.
"Mainstream nonsexual violence is worse than porn" is what I said. That is because 'Mainstream nonsexual violence' is bad and pornography has very little harm in it, if any, though there are areas I don't want to see (so what children may see I grant they may find disturbing in their ignorance).
Whereas both cancer and malaria are unquestionably very bad things.
But that you are willing to equate porn with cancer is to me most disturbing of all. Well, maybe you didn't mean it that way. I don't know.
Edit: let me put it a different way; there can be no upside to cancer, unlike porn.
(this point has been made for decades yet somehow never sinks in with some groups and I don't understand why)