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As an asexual person, I wish this wasn’t the case, and I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. It certainly has

As an asexual person, I wish this wasn’t the case, and I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. It certainly has had a negative affect on my mental health. I also find it ridiculous how services like PornHub and OnlyFans are featuring a lot of videos which clearly fetishizes borderline (okay, obvious) pedophilia, and, since its profitable, only pull it down when they might be in legal trouble for it.

PrefixKitten 6y ago
The fact that there is even a viable market for OnlyFans type content was such a disheartening thing to learn.
- chii 6y ago
  > viable market for OnlyFans type content was such a disheartening thing to learn. why is that? Somebody else enjoying content they paid for has nothing to do with you - it's easy to avoid and easy to not be involved.
  - PrefixKitten 6y ago
    Because it demonstrated just how out of reach an actual relationship with someone is for me. >Somebody else enjoying content they paid for has nothing to do with you - it's easy to avoid and easy to not be involved. I'd argue that platforms such as these have an effect on gender dynamics in society as a whole.
    - mierz00 6y ago
      Sites like OnlyFans have nothing to do with you or relationships in general. The vast majority of people don't go on those types of sites. I assure you, the thing that is stopping you from being in a relationship isn't Only fans. I'd recommend trying to find ways to build up yourself confidence.
      - PrefixKitten 6y ago
        What women expect from men seems to have sharply risen in the last decade. Before getting my degree and getting in shape I was able to find partners. Nowadays people aren't even willing to be friends with me. If women's expectations in fact haven't gone up then I have no idea what the people from my past saw in me that more recent people don't.
        frongpik 6y ago
        When you climb the social ladder, there's a brief moment when yours and women's expectatitions aling, but that moment quickly passes and you enter the territory when the sides flip: women chase you, but you stay clear of any legally binding relationships. You perceive loneliness as a flaw, I perceive it as freedom, and while we're both lonely, we derive the opposite emotions from it.
        PrefixKitten 6y ago
        Well I somehow went from having multiple exes beg me to marry them at one point all the way to not even being able to get to know a single woman in years. The complete lack of women in any aspect of my life has proven to be extremely inconvenient(even outside the context of dating)
        corty 6y ago
        Youth
- what2build 6y ago
  We can sell our bodies to be destroyed in coal mines, sitting at desks, smash them up building homes, abusing them in sports, catch a Covid-19 bug... Puritan economics seem perfectly accepting of destroying ourselves. Willingly sell self for pleasure though? Psh Only if the pleasure comes from that new gadget or next airfare (which is destroying the environment but so it is)
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > Willingly sell self for pleasure though? Psh Having been in a sector of fintech that many sex workers used, I can say with confidence that the majority of the women within were single moms who simply couldn't or didn't have access to the social net to feed their children and aren't doing it because they want to. It was entirely eye-opening to see how sad it is when you're talking with a young women trying to sell their bitcoin at 2am to pay for rent before they get evicted and have enough to buy baby formula and diapers. The US is so backwards, they can show the most depraved forms of violence and cruelty imaginable and call it entertainment with out batting an eye, but showing the Human form in any sexual manner is somehow cause for alarm and deemed perverse and promoting rape culture if you believe some of the most absurd in Society. Whereas in Europe and Asia nudity is completely accepted in many public areas, and sex work is tolerated, legal and is just another, albeit uncommon, thing people do for a living and nothing more. As for this article, its showing how pervasive the Panopticon this form of the Internet is and underscore the idea that 'you are the product' mantra about 'free' services. We really need a different Internet already. Porn is and will always be a big component of the Internet, but much like the antics you had when you were an adolescent you soon realize their is much more value in other things and move on.
    - what2build 6y ago
      People are hardly working for Google because they want to. People are hardly working in slaughter houses and coal mines because they want to. Feminists I know are selling themselves because they like sex, and controlling their bodies time economy is their choice. One would think on this forum that it’s a gradient of statistics and not black and white anecdotes would be more obvious. Exploitation of minors is one thing. Though, I do not see many folks lifting a finger over child political prisoners in rancid cages. So I’m left wondering if exploitation is the real issue or the sex part given cultural norms.
adwn 6y ago
> As an asexual person, I wish this wasn’t the case, and I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. By "extremely triggering", I assume you mean "somewhat annoying"? Why does it annoy you that "adult content" is difficult to avoid completely? Should a homosexual person be annoyed (or "triggered") that depictions of heterosexual behavior can't be avoided completely? Or vice versa? I don't think so.
- ben_w 6y ago
  I’m not @lostgame and I’m not ace, but I can easily imagine that a constant barrage of stuff that you’re not into could be triggering/empathise with someone saying that it troubles them. For example, and I know this is a “me” problem rather than something objective in the world: I find BDSM quite repellent because (a) I cannot at a glance tell if the image presented is roleplay or actual assault, and (b) because I am unable to empathise with the desire to see others in pain. ((b) means I also have a problem with the existence of the Saw franchise, let alone what felt like endless and unavoidable real-world advertising for it). In the case of porn: orgasm-noises in porn are often (I won’t claim percentages, but often) somewhat similar to mild-to-medium pain noises, so I can easily believe that’s upsetting especially for someone who has never heard the real life version.
  - adwn 6y ago
    > I find BDSM quite repellent [...] orgasm-noises in porn [...] upsetting I'm not denying that some people feel that way, but it's extremely easy to avoid coming into contact with depictions of BDSM or pornographic orgasm noises – unless you deliberately browse adult content.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      That style of quotation makes it seem like I personally find orgasm noises upsetting rather than that I believe others can. Was that how you understood my original comment? If so, I need to improve my style, because the latter not the former. As for orgasm noises… they are sometimes used as joke content, even outside porn, (is this similar to the way slapstick violence is used as a joke outside horror films? I’m not sure, but feels like an interesting comparison).
enriquto 6y ago
> As an asexual person, (...) I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. I would have guessed that if I were asexual, then adult content would leave me completely indifferent, wouldn't it? If I am annoyed by adult content it's precisely because it's extremely distracting; sometimes, when I have work to do, I would prefer to be asexual (at least for a few hours).
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  Asexual is a broad spectrum. All it means is you don’t feel sexual attraction. I’m both asexual and hypersexual. (Bipolar is the gift that keeps on giving.). I happily read and write furry porn as a hobby. If you want to see how asexuality and sex can work in a relationship, my story Date Night covers that. Disclaimer: It is furry fiction. There are no explicit sex, just discussion about it. https://www.thevoice.dog/episode/date-night-by-kayode-lycaon https://www.thevoice.dog/episode/date-night-by-kayode-lycaon
- lostgame 6y ago
  I am asexual by choice due to several instances of violent sexual assault.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    I'm really sorry about my ignorance. Never considered that you could turn asexual after a traumatic experience. I was under the impression that it was a natural-born condition; thus my comment.
  - adwn 6y ago
    > I am asexual by choice due to several instances of violent sexual assault. I am sorry for what you had to endure. However, I think you're using the term "asexual" in a non-standard way, and I believe that has led me and others to misinterpret your original post. One cannot "choose" to be asexual, the same way as one cannot choose to be homosexual or heterosexual. One can, however, choose to be sexually abstinent or inactive. Would you agree that this is a better description of your lifestyle?
mam2 6y ago
Wtf How can you know with that much details what's on OnlyFans if you don't like porn and (supposedly) don't go on it ? I like porn and I had not even heard of Onlyfans before 2 months ago.
- lostgame 6y ago
  Because unfortunately it sneaks it way onto shit like HN, and then I get a bunch of pissed off people telling me stop being such a pussy about it or ‘get off the internet’ when it’s because I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENT SEXUAL ASSAULT.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Respectfully, I think you’re being unreasonable. Your first comment made no mention of your sexual assault (and, once you’ve mentioned it, most commenters–myself included–are quite sorry that this happened to you). People aren’t telling you to “get off the internet”, they are responding to your claim that it is impossible to avoid sex on the internet. For which, quite frankly, there are many better ways to go about this than arguing with people in the comments section for an article about “The Internet is for Porn”. If your desire is that people scrub the internet clean of sex, that’s not going to happen, sorry. That being said, there are many tools available to make it so that your experience remains free of such things.
africanboy 6y ago
The outer World is not the place where people will find what comforts them. Imagine forcing asexuality on the vast majority of the people in the World (and in history) that are not asexual. The remarks around pedophilia sound more like a competitor trying to push an agenda against PornHub that a concerned citizen expressing an informed opinion. Pedophilia has been traveling on any medium the humans have invented throughout history, I guess if one wanted to fight it by shutting down the platforms delivering it, internet as a whole (and probably TCP/IP as well) would be the first one that would have to go.
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  Being sex repulsed and asexual are two very different things. I’m both asexual and write pornography. I just don’t feel sexual attraction. My understanding of sexual attraction is limited but I’ve learned to approximate it in my writing by talking with a lot of other porn writers and using my own roughly equivalent experiences to fill the gaps.
  - africanboy 6y ago
    Apparently the person I was replying to is both, but declared themselves as asexual, not as sex repulsed. They might be confused.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- PrefixKitten 6y ago
  Asexuality and even asociality have been effectively forced upon me by my peers. I don't see any viable avenue to express my sexuality the way I had presumed I would get to as an adult.
- lostgame 6y ago
  I am a victim of multiple instances of violent sexual assault. Should I get off the internet now?
C19is20 6y ago
Hosts file and ad blockers and ublock and noscript and a pi-hole and a cool DNS service combined with Firefox's HoD might be good starting points.
lostgame 6y ago
Wow - I am amazed at the number of people commenting who might not realize I am a multiple time even recent victim of violent sexual assault - and no, it’s not just ‘mildly annoying’, it can send me into tears. I’ve never seen such a lack of understanding or felt so personally attacked on HN before, as if you guys think I’m a pussy or something because you couldn’t imagine a case in which maybe, yes; it actually negatively affects my mental health. To be honest - your stupid comments have affected my mental health, too; and I’m sorry for sharing. Ruined my morning for sure. This is the most insensitive bullshit I have ever seen on HN and after ten years I might actually leave if this kind of insensitive hurtful bullshit continues. It’s not the first time I’ve been singled out for my orientation or sexuality here. I have felt like HN was an LGTQBA+ friendly space for the decade I’ve been here but in the last year or two some of you have really chosen to show your true colours. Fuck y’all’s insensitivity. I need a drink.
- frongpik 6y ago
  "Fuck y’all’s insensitivity" - amazing summary, really. I've seen this attitude a lot, but these 4 words is the best summary I've seen. You basically said that unless we tip toe around your sensitivity and morning mood, we all can go to hell. That's like going to a nightclub and demanding to put the volume down and to change music to something less tasteless, maybe Mozart or Bach, because otherwise you'd feel unwelcome in the club.
lostgame 6y ago
Well, this was it. I hope you all enjoyed tearing me to shreds - I’m sorry that my sexual assault isn’t a good enough excuse for my sexuality and I’m sorry my triggers inconvenience you. No; for real - I’ve been here ten years and just sent an email to close my account. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you people, but this is maybe the tenth incident of singling out and shitty behaviour to me this year alone on this forum, whether it’s for being transgender, gay, asexual, or now, for even daring to open up about sexual assault. I’ve had it. There are communities where decency can prevail.

PrefixKitten 6y ago

The fact that there is even a viable market for OnlyFans type content was such a disheartening thing to learn.

chii 6y ago
> viable market for OnlyFans type content was such a disheartening thing to learn. why is that? Somebody else enjoying content they paid for has nothing to do with you - it's easy to avoid and easy to not be involved.
- PrefixKitten 6y ago
  Because it demonstrated just how out of reach an actual relationship with someone is for me. >Somebody else enjoying content they paid for has nothing to do with you - it's easy to avoid and easy to not be involved. I'd argue that platforms such as these have an effect on gender dynamics in society as a whole.
  - mierz00 6y ago
    Sites like OnlyFans have nothing to do with you or relationships in general. The vast majority of people don't go on those types of sites. I assure you, the thing that is stopping you from being in a relationship isn't Only fans. I'd recommend trying to find ways to build up yourself confidence.
    - PrefixKitten 6y ago
      What women expect from men seems to have sharply risen in the last decade. Before getting my degree and getting in shape I was able to find partners. Nowadays people aren't even willing to be friends with me. If women's expectations in fact haven't gone up then I have no idea what the people from my past saw in me that more recent people don't.
      - frongpik 6y ago
        When you climb the social ladder, there's a brief moment when yours and women's expectatitions aling, but that moment quickly passes and you enter the territory when the sides flip: women chase you, but you stay clear of any legally binding relationships. You perceive loneliness as a flaw, I perceive it as freedom, and while we're both lonely, we derive the opposite emotions from it.
        PrefixKitten 6y ago
        Well I somehow went from having multiple exes beg me to marry them at one point all the way to not even being able to get to know a single woman in years. The complete lack of women in any aspect of my life has proven to be extremely inconvenient(even outside the context of dating)
      - corty 6y ago
        Youth
what2build 6y ago
We can sell our bodies to be destroyed in coal mines, sitting at desks, smash them up building homes, abusing them in sports, catch a Covid-19 bug... Puritan economics seem perfectly accepting of destroying ourselves. Willingly sell self for pleasure though? Psh Only if the pleasure comes from that new gadget or next airfare (which is destroying the environment but so it is)
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Willingly sell self for pleasure though? Psh Having been in a sector of fintech that many sex workers used, I can say with confidence that the majority of the women within were single moms who simply couldn't or didn't have access to the social net to feed their children and aren't doing it because they want to. It was entirely eye-opening to see how sad it is when you're talking with a young women trying to sell their bitcoin at 2am to pay for rent before they get evicted and have enough to buy baby formula and diapers. The US is so backwards, they can show the most depraved forms of violence and cruelty imaginable and call it entertainment with out batting an eye, but showing the Human form in any sexual manner is somehow cause for alarm and deemed perverse and promoting rape culture if you believe some of the most absurd in Society. Whereas in Europe and Asia nudity is completely accepted in many public areas, and sex work is tolerated, legal and is just another, albeit uncommon, thing people do for a living and nothing more. As for this article, its showing how pervasive the Panopticon this form of the Internet is and underscore the idea that 'you are the product' mantra about 'free' services. We really need a different Internet already. Porn is and will always be a big component of the Internet, but much like the antics you had when you were an adolescent you soon realize their is much more value in other things and move on.
  - what2build 6y ago
    People are hardly working for Google because they want to. People are hardly working in slaughter houses and coal mines because they want to. Feminists I know are selling themselves because they like sex, and controlling their bodies time economy is their choice. One would think on this forum that it’s a gradient of statistics and not black and white anecdotes would be more obvious. Exploitation of minors is one thing. Though, I do not see many folks lifting a finger over child political prisoners in rancid cages. So I’m left wondering if exploitation is the real issue or the sex part given cultural norms.

adwn 6y ago

> As an asexual person, I wish this wasn’t the case, and I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. By "extremely triggering", I assume you mean "somewhat annoying"? Why does it annoy you that "adult content" is difficult to avoid completely? Should a homosexual person be annoyed (or "triggered") that depictions of heterosexual behavior can't be avoided completely? Or vice versa? I don't think so.

ben_w 6y ago
I’m not @lostgame and I’m not ace, but I can easily imagine that a constant barrage of stuff that you’re not into could be triggering/empathise with someone saying that it troubles them. For example, and I know this is a “me” problem rather than something objective in the world: I find BDSM quite repellent because (a) I cannot at a glance tell if the image presented is roleplay or actual assault, and (b) because I am unable to empathise with the desire to see others in pain. ((b) means I also have a problem with the existence of the Saw franchise, let alone what felt like endless and unavoidable real-world advertising for it). In the case of porn: orgasm-noises in porn are often (I won’t claim percentages, but often) somewhat similar to mild-to-medium pain noises, so I can easily believe that’s upsetting especially for someone who has never heard the real life version.
- adwn 6y ago
  > I find BDSM quite repellent [...] orgasm-noises in porn [...] upsetting I'm not denying that some people feel that way, but it's extremely easy to avoid coming into contact with depictions of BDSM or pornographic orgasm noises – unless you deliberately browse adult content.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    That style of quotation makes it seem like I personally find orgasm noises upsetting rather than that I believe others can. Was that how you understood my original comment? If so, I need to improve my style, because the latter not the former. As for orgasm noises… they are sometimes used as joke content, even outside porn, (is this similar to the way slapstick violence is used as a joke outside horror films? I’m not sure, but feels like an interesting comparison).

enriquto 6y ago

> As an asexual person, (...) I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. I would have guessed that if I were asexual, then adult content would leave me completely indifferent, wouldn't it? If I am annoyed by adult content it's precisely because it's extremely distracting; sometimes, when I have work to do, I would prefer to be asexual (at least for a few hours).

kayodelycaon 6y ago
Asexual is a broad spectrum. All it means is you don’t feel sexual attraction. I’m both asexual and hypersexual. (Bipolar is the gift that keeps on giving.). I happily read and write furry porn as a hobby. If you want to see how asexuality and sex can work in a relationship, my story Date Night covers that. Disclaimer: It is furry fiction. There are no explicit sex, just discussion about it. https://www.thevoice.dog/episode/date-night-by-kayode-lycaon https://www.thevoice.dog/episode/date-night-by-kayode-lycaon
lostgame 6y ago
I am asexual by choice due to several instances of violent sexual assault.
- enriquto 6y ago
  I'm really sorry about my ignorance. Never considered that you could turn asexual after a traumatic experience. I was under the impression that it was a natural-born condition; thus my comment.
- adwn 6y ago
  > I am asexual by choice due to several instances of violent sexual assault. I am sorry for what you had to endure. However, I think you're using the term "asexual" in a non-standard way, and I believe that has led me and others to misinterpret your original post. One cannot "choose" to be asexual, the same way as one cannot choose to be homosexual or heterosexual. One can, however, choose to be sexually abstinent or inactive. Would you agree that this is a better description of your lifestyle?

mam2 6y ago

Wtf How can you know with that much details what's on OnlyFans if you don't like porn and (supposedly) don't go on it ? I like porn and I had not even heard of Onlyfans before 2 months ago.

lostgame 6y ago
Because unfortunately it sneaks it way onto shit like HN, and then I get a bunch of pissed off people telling me stop being such a pussy about it or ‘get off the internet’ when it’s because I AM A VICTIM OF VIOLENT SEXUAL ASSAULT.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Respectfully, I think you’re being unreasonable. Your first comment made no mention of your sexual assault (and, once you’ve mentioned it, most commenters–myself included–are quite sorry that this happened to you). People aren’t telling you to “get off the internet”, they are responding to your claim that it is impossible to avoid sex on the internet. For which, quite frankly, there are many better ways to go about this than arguing with people in the comments section for an article about “The Internet is for Porn”. If your desire is that people scrub the internet clean of sex, that’s not going to happen, sorry. That being said, there are many tools available to make it so that your experience remains free of such things.

africanboy 6y ago

The outer World is not the place where people will find what comforts them. Imagine forcing asexuality on the vast majority of the people in the World (and in history) that are not asexual. The remarks around pedophilia sound more like a competitor trying to push an agenda against PornHub that a concerned citizen expressing an informed opinion. Pedophilia has been traveling on any medium the humans have invented throughout history, I guess if one wanted to fight it by shutting down the platforms delivering it, internet as a whole (and probably TCP/IP as well) would be the first one that would have to go.

kayodelycaon 6y ago
Being sex repulsed and asexual are two very different things. I’m both asexual and write pornography. I just don’t feel sexual attraction. My understanding of sexual attraction is limited but I’ve learned to approximate it in my writing by talking with a lot of other porn writers and using my own roughly equivalent experiences to fill the gaps.
- africanboy 6y ago
  Apparently the person I was replying to is both, but declared themselves as asexual, not as sex repulsed. They might be confused.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
PrefixKitten 6y ago
Asexuality and even asociality have been effectively forced upon me by my peers. I don't see any viable avenue to express my sexuality the way I had presumed I would get to as an adult.
lostgame 6y ago
I am a victim of multiple instances of violent sexual assault. Should I get off the internet now?

C19is20 6y ago

Hosts file and ad blockers and ublock and noscript and a pi-hole and a cool DNS service combined with Firefox's HoD might be good starting points.

lostgame 6y ago

Wow - I am amazed at the number of people commenting who might not realize I am a multiple time even recent victim of violent sexual assault - and no, it’s not just ‘mildly annoying’, it can send me into tears. I’ve never seen such a lack of understanding or felt so personally attacked on HN before, as if you guys think I’m a pussy or something because you couldn’t imagine a case in which maybe, yes; it actually negatively affects my mental health. To be honest - your stupid comments have affected my mental health, too; and I’m sorry for sharing. Ruined my morning for sure. This is the most insensitive bullshit I have ever seen on HN and after ten years I might actually leave if this kind of insensitive hurtful bullshit continues. It’s not the first time I’ve been singled out for my orientation or sexuality here. I have felt like HN was an LGTQBA+ friendly space for the decade I’ve been here but in the last year or two some of you have really chosen to show your true colours. Fuck y’all’s insensitivity. I need a drink.

frongpik 6y ago
"Fuck y’all’s insensitivity" - amazing summary, really. I've seen this attitude a lot, but these 4 words is the best summary I've seen. You basically said that unless we tip toe around your sensitivity and morning mood, we all can go to hell. That's like going to a nightclub and demanding to put the volume down and to change music to something less tasteless, maybe Mozart or Bach, because otherwise you'd feel unwelcome in the club.

lostgame 6y ago

Well, this was it. I hope you all enjoyed tearing me to shreds - I’m sorry that my sexual assault isn’t a good enough excuse for my sexuality and I’m sorry my triggers inconvenience you. No; for real - I’ve been here ten years and just sent an email to close my account. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you people, but this is maybe the tenth incident of singling out and shitty behaviour to me this year alone on this forum, whether it’s for being transgender, gay, asexual, or now, for even daring to open up about sexual assault. I’ve had it. There are communities where decency can prevail.