6 ms·

Pornography is bad for its consumers, bad for willing actors, and obviously terrible for people featured without consent. Tolerating it will be one of the great

by blfr 6y ago

Pornography is bad for its consumers, bad for willing actors, and obviously terrible for people featured without consent. Tolerating it will be one of the great shames of our time.

GeoAtreides 6y ago
I'm genuinely curious, how do you feel about erotica or written smut? How about drawn porn?
pxue 6y ago
Blaming porn is like blaming cheeseburger for obesity. While you're not wrong but it's hardly the root cause.
- blfr 6y ago
  You're right, fast food is probably not the primary offender, and there are many causes (HFCS, seed oils, not cooking, abundance in general), and future is overdetermined... but fast food definitely carries some responsibility for the obesity epidemic. Same with porn and Pornhub. But it is the mental tobacco of our time.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    > mental tobacco [of] our time You may want to check how early does porn (or sexualised images) exist. "our time" may turn out to be "since we discovered drawing".
    - blfr 6y ago
      I don't see your point. Tobacco use is prehistoric, barely more recent than drawing.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        What was your intended meaning for "of our time" in that case?
        blfr 6y ago
        It was in relation to widespread use and availability of pornography, like tobacco was in the 20th century. Or like obesity is now. We had obese people since at least the first settled societies. But it was nothing like today, both in how widespread and how extreme is has become. Same with drugs. An opioid epidemic pushed by mega pharma is nothing like a shaman serving ayahuasca. A nude cave painting or a figurine is nothing like thousands of hours of streaming porn. Barely related.
      - vimax 6y ago
        You should check your history. Tobacco was native to South America and introduced to the rest of the world in the 1500s. You could argue it is prehistoric to South America, but that is very different from "barely more recent than drawing." Hemp smoking, on the other hand, has been traced back to many prehistoric sites in asia and africa which would fit your description much better.
WindyLakeReturn 6y ago
If a war on drugs has taught us anything, a war on porn is going to lead to far worse porn being spread further than ever before while innocent lives are ruined, much like how teenagers are already being charged as adults for sexting while not adults. There are likely places the law can be improved but a blanket ban would be a large step backwards even if we ignore freedom of speech implications.
- blfr 6y ago
  In the world where entire sites are pulled over some silly Q conspiracy theory, we can surely do more to combat porn. We've largely dealt with smoking, also addictive, also once prevalent, also while cigarettes are still available at every gas station and grocery store.
  - IIAOPSW 6y ago
    >entire sites are pulled over some silly Q conspiracy theory, we can surely do more to combat porn. Remember that time the pornographers tried to overthrow the US government? Me neither.
    - blfr 6y ago
      Trashing some offices is nowhere near overthrowing a government. And pornographers did much, much worse. They trafficked underage women, misrepresented the contracts, routinely provided drugs to dull their actors' senses, and engaged in all kinds of underhanded or outright criminal conduct. The guy who made (super mild by today's standards) Girls Gone Wild videos has a whole Criminal section in his wiki bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis#Criminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis#Criminal Here's GirlsDoPorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GirlsDoPorn#Legal_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GirlsDoPorn#Legal_action And these are the "legitimate" ones who can be sued.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        > Trashing some offices is nowhere near overthrowing a government. A comically bad attempt at murder is still attempted murder.
kjrose 6y ago
Especially with environments where anyone can upload anything without proof of consent. Essentially you have a system where producing and distributing this regardless of consideration is maximized. However, even if pornhub et al. required proof of consent for every video it would still likely lead to many situations where the actor was "willing" for bad reasons which will play out over time with an increasingly negative effect. As I get older I'm expecting more and more to have a future generation look at our with quite a dark opinion.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  "A future generation" will think poorly of our mass incarceration and meat consumption, but they won't have our body image hangups and literally every second of their lives will be recorded from multiple angles so they won't care about porn.
vbezhenar 6y ago
There are countries where porn is blocked. VPN software is very popular in those countries.
sunsetMurk 6y ago
Can you elaborate a bit more? I’m very curious because I think the existence and availability of porn and the sex industry is very important for the well-being of lots of people. Definitely some problems.. but I’d parallel those to problems with prohibition and suppression. Have you always held this opinion? Are you religious?
weswpg 6y ago
Trying to decide for other people which parts of their sexuality are "tolerable" or not is actually a far bigger mistake, historically and presently
nunez 6y ago
I think pornography has also helped bolster sexual freedom to new heights, which I think has been a good thing for humanity.
pgsimp 6y ago
I am not convinced that is is bad for consumers. Occasionally I see people talking about their porn addiction. But it can also boost people's mood. I don't know why some people seem to get addicted, but it clearly doesn't happen to everybody. Whether it is bad for willing actors also needs citations. I don't know why people do it. I can think of some cases where it seems to have solved a psychological need, and they went on to lead successful lives afterwards (like Sasha Grey, or Sibel Kekilli). Edit: googled article about Sasha Grey, with her quote about women in porn: "the reality is that there are a huge amount of women who are very happy with their careers and where they have gone in their lives" https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/exclusive-sasha-grey-done-with-porn-refuses-to-play-any-sex-related-roles https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/exclusive-sasha-grey-d...

by blfr 6y ago

Pornography is bad for its consumers, bad for willing actors, and obviously terrible for people featured without consent. Tolerating it will be one of the great shames of our time.

GeoAtreides 6y ago

I'm genuinely curious, how do you feel about erotica or written smut? How about drawn porn?

pxue 6y ago

Blaming porn is like blaming cheeseburger for obesity. While you're not wrong but it's hardly the root cause.

blfr 6y ago
You're right, fast food is probably not the primary offender, and there are many causes (HFCS, seed oils, not cooking, abundance in general), and future is overdetermined... but fast food definitely carries some responsibility for the obesity epidemic. Same with porn and Pornhub. But it is the mental tobacco of our time.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > mental tobacco [of] our time You may want to check how early does porn (or sexualised images) exist. "our time" may turn out to be "since we discovered drawing".
  - blfr 6y ago
    I don't see your point. Tobacco use is prehistoric, barely more recent than drawing.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      What was your intended meaning for "of our time" in that case?
      - blfr 6y ago
        It was in relation to widespread use and availability of pornography, like tobacco was in the 20th century. Or like obesity is now. We had obese people since at least the first settled societies. But it was nothing like today, both in how widespread and how extreme is has become. Same with drugs. An opioid epidemic pushed by mega pharma is nothing like a shaman serving ayahuasca. A nude cave painting or a figurine is nothing like thousands of hours of streaming porn. Barely related.
    - vimax 6y ago
      You should check your history. Tobacco was native to South America and introduced to the rest of the world in the 1500s. You could argue it is prehistoric to South America, but that is very different from "barely more recent than drawing." Hemp smoking, on the other hand, has been traced back to many prehistoric sites in asia and africa which would fit your description much better.

WindyLakeReturn 6y ago

If a war on drugs has taught us anything, a war on porn is going to lead to far worse porn being spread further than ever before while innocent lives are ruined, much like how teenagers are already being charged as adults for sexting while not adults. There are likely places the law can be improved but a blanket ban would be a large step backwards even if we ignore freedom of speech implications.

blfr 6y ago
In the world where entire sites are pulled over some silly Q conspiracy theory, we can surely do more to combat porn. We've largely dealt with smoking, also addictive, also once prevalent, also while cigarettes are still available at every gas station and grocery store.
- IIAOPSW 6y ago
  >entire sites are pulled over some silly Q conspiracy theory, we can surely do more to combat porn. Remember that time the pornographers tried to overthrow the US government? Me neither.
  - blfr 6y ago
    Trashing some offices is nowhere near overthrowing a government. And pornographers did much, much worse. They trafficked underage women, misrepresented the contracts, routinely provided drugs to dull their actors' senses, and engaged in all kinds of underhanded or outright criminal conduct. The guy who made (super mild by today's standards) Girls Gone Wild videos has a whole Criminal section in his wiki bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis#Criminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis#Criminal Here's GirlsDoPorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GirlsDoPorn#Legal_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GirlsDoPorn#Legal_action And these are the "legitimate" ones who can be sued.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > Trashing some offices is nowhere near overthrowing a government. A comically bad attempt at murder is still attempted murder.

kjrose 6y ago

Especially with environments where anyone can upload anything without proof of consent. Essentially you have a system where producing and distributing this regardless of consideration is maximized. However, even if pornhub et al. required proof of consent for every video it would still likely lead to many situations where the actor was "willing" for bad reasons which will play out over time with an increasingly negative effect. As I get older I'm expecting more and more to have a future generation look at our with quite a dark opinion.

jessaustin 6y ago
"A future generation" will think poorly of our mass incarceration and meat consumption, but they won't have our body image hangups and literally every second of their lives will be recorded from multiple angles so they won't care about porn.

vbezhenar 6y ago

There are countries where porn is blocked. VPN software is very popular in those countries.

sunsetMurk 6y ago

Can you elaborate a bit more? I’m very curious because I think the existence and availability of porn and the sex industry is very important for the well-being of lots of people. Definitely some problems.. but I’d parallel those to problems with prohibition and suppression. Have you always held this opinion? Are you religious?

weswpg 6y ago

Trying to decide for other people which parts of their sexuality are "tolerable" or not is actually a far bigger mistake, historically and presently

nunez 6y ago

I think pornography has also helped bolster sexual freedom to new heights, which I think has been a good thing for humanity.

pgsimp 6y ago

I am not convinced that is is bad for consumers. Occasionally I see people talking about their porn addiction. But it can also boost people's mood. I don't know why some people seem to get addicted, but it clearly doesn't happen to everybody. Whether it is bad for willing actors also needs citations. I don't know why people do it. I can think of some cases where it seems to have solved a psychological need, and they went on to lead successful lives afterwards (like Sasha Grey, or Sibel Kekilli). Edit: googled article about Sasha Grey, with her quote about women in porn: "the reality is that there are a huge amount of women who are very happy with their careers and where they have gone in their lives" https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/exclusive-sasha-grey-done-with-porn-refuses-to-play-any-sex-related-roles https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/exclusive-sasha-grey-d...