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Unfortunately, there is a lot of porn that is created without using real actors, like drawing or writing, which reframes the commodity as something the author d

Unfortunately, there is a lot of porn that is created without using real actors, like drawing or writing, which reframes the commodity as something the author did because they like drawing or writing, not because they sacrificed their physical body and entered an actual industry. Many of these works have themes of sex positivity and belonging, and so my mind creates an exception for them, because I make the excuse that "it's not pornography at the lowest level, it's art with the occasional pornographic content." Maybe those artists sacrificed something too, but I don't see how it's any different from any average author sacrificing his life to write an all-ages novel. The worst thing about porn addiction is that there are no physical dealers or substances involved. As long as your body is intact, all you need to become addicted is a screen and enough privacy, two things that are almost always available right before you go to sleep. And even without a screen, you can still use your imagination. Getting past that means finding other things in life to do that are more satisfying.

xwkd 5y ago
This is true, and I wouldn't worry about the author or artist sacrificing aspects of their soul in the same way that I would a porn star. Hell, they produced art. Good for them I guess. Even with erotica though, the insidious thing about chronic masturbation is that you just can't see the effect that it has on you. It's happening under the surface. It's happening to your heart. Your inescapable subconscious conscience is going to find a way to give you feedback, and it's going to be hard for you to see it. People have written about sexual sublimation (in its various forms) for thousands of years because eventually some people have enough experience under their belt to look back and make the connection. You can't really expect a 15-year-old with an infinite porn machine to think to themselves, "Hmm, maybe it would be better for my heart not to mash my junk today." They're hungry, man. They're starving. And in 2021 we're doing everything we can to ensure that teenagers don't make the mistakes that they need to make in order to break free from that tap. (Not to mention absent fathers, social changes, etc.)
retrac 5y ago
May I posit that, while they technically meet the definition of "pornography" in most dictionaries (and sometimes common use) that written erotic stories simply are in a different category altogether in many ways? Now, as a fair disclaimer, I personally have no moral objection to people getting erotic pleasure or stimulation from such media, in the abstract. I think it might actually be a net-healthy thing in some limited contexts. But I do worry about how what sex acts are depicted as normal might scramble our interpersonal relationships. I worry about how implausibly beautiful people might damage our self-esteem. And the increasing integration into "endless scrolling" with a social aspect and the clicky-clicky dopamine feedback cycle is the death blow. Most of these concerns are close to nil with an erotic short story, by comparison. To brutally chop this down to a simple idea: Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey think abstractly through imagination, monkey imagine but not see and so not do. After all, don't you think it's telling that, while teen girls are hooked on the image-pornography of fake stardom lives on Instagram, and teen boys are hooked on OnlyFans content and half-clad Twitch streamers, that there is (to my knowledge) no epidemic of compulsive erotic story writing and reading to go with it? Oh, I'm sure some people do spend 12 hours a day at that, but it seems not to tickle our brains in quite the same way. Such things are merely sporadically titillating, not horrifically and compulsively addictive, at least for the typical person.

xwkd 5y ago

This is true, and I wouldn't worry about the author or artist sacrificing aspects of their soul in the same way that I would a porn star. Hell, they produced art. Good for them I guess. Even with erotica though, the insidious thing about chronic masturbation is that you just can't see the effect that it has on you. It's happening under the surface. It's happening to your heart. Your inescapable subconscious conscience is going to find a way to give you feedback, and it's going to be hard for you to see it. People have written about sexual sublimation (in its various forms) for thousands of years because eventually some people have enough experience under their belt to look back and make the connection. You can't really expect a 15-year-old with an infinite porn machine to think to themselves, "Hmm, maybe it would be better for my heart not to mash my junk today." They're hungry, man. They're starving. And in 2021 we're doing everything we can to ensure that teenagers don't make the mistakes that they need to make in order to break free from that tap. (Not to mention absent fathers, social changes, etc.)

retrac 5y ago

May I posit that, while they technically meet the definition of "pornography" in most dictionaries (and sometimes common use) that written erotic stories simply are in a different category altogether in many ways? Now, as a fair disclaimer, I personally have no moral objection to people getting erotic pleasure or stimulation from such media, in the abstract. I think it might actually be a net-healthy thing in some limited contexts. But I do worry about how what sex acts are depicted as normal might scramble our interpersonal relationships. I worry about how implausibly beautiful people might damage our self-esteem. And the increasing integration into "endless scrolling" with a social aspect and the clicky-clicky dopamine feedback cycle is the death blow. Most of these concerns are close to nil with an erotic short story, by comparison. To brutally chop this down to a simple idea: Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey think abstractly through imagination, monkey imagine but not see and so not do. After all, don't you think it's telling that, while teen girls are hooked on the image-pornography of fake stardom lives on Instagram, and teen boys are hooked on OnlyFans content and half-clad Twitch streamers, that there is (to my knowledge) no epidemic of compulsive erotic story writing and reading to go with it? Oh, I'm sure some people do spend 12 hours a day at that, but it seems not to tickle our brains in quite the same way. Such things are merely sporadically titillating, not horrifically and compulsively addictive, at least for the typical person.