4 ms·

Not sure I buy the whole "pornography is harmful to women." thing - I can imagine there are several angles to try to make a case for it, and I know it won't mat

Not sure I buy the whole "pornography is harmful to women." thing - I can imagine there are several angles to try to make a case for it, and I know it won't matter how much people argue about it, some people will say that baywatch is harmful to women, 50 shades of grey, and perhaps harry potter. It's fine to have concerns, and I am all for teaching the next generation not to treat people how they see them treated in movies and to care for others even if they aren't as awesome as the 'celebrities' we are sold, or what have you. I think when it comes to polls we should all know that people taking polls are very likely (or is it mostly likely or slightly likely?) to not be honest about porn. Surely when speaking to someone who is recording what you say and has your phone number, telling them every truth about your views on porn is well skewed. I also think if you really want to delve into this, it's not right to paint with a broad brush, it would be better to classify dozens of different types of 'porn' and have discussions about the various kinds instead of all porn is X or Y. I also do not think that ohnlyfans / camming is worse than porn from a decade ago - not sure why you are considering that - perhaps because it is more accessible to the average girl/person you feel that it's more dangerous? I believe that it's less 'dangerous' for many reasons, and mainly because that kind of work allows you to control what you want in your performing script - as opposed to having to do what others have written, or (what happens sometimes, but not as a general thing) some group trying to get you to do more things once it's started filming, that weren't in the original plan. I do believe we need more education about not living your real life like you see in the movies, so called 'reality tv', and other media.. how to separate your expectations and not get caught up in binges with pleasurable things that make it so you 'have a problem' - but I don't put it on 'porn' is the mind-control/body-possesion thing if the universe. Also I'd consider that some porn may be helpful in having conversations with people to get to know more about how things may work, and lead to some good - as we have not gotten better about teaching basic human touch or communication much less sexual touch and intimate talks since the days VHS beat betamax, and without porn, you'd have even less.

PaulHoule 5y ago
It splits two ways. There is the effect that pornography has on the people who work in the industry and there is the effect that it has on other people. Working conditions could be good in the industry for some people some of the time but they frequently aren't. The consent behind it might very well be regretted in the future. To me it's just common sense that any harm to women outside the performers is mediated by harm done to men. Even in the stereotypical scenario that pornography viewing led to a rape or other violence, a man who was driven/enticed/... into the action was (by definition) harmed first. Part of the "looking in the rear view mirror" effect is that we're still stuck on this paradigm of women being victims and men being victimizers. I don't like the "wrong/right" dimension in polls, I would much rather see the question phrased as "harmful/not harmful". One reason why traditional moralists have lost their moral authority is that they insist on using the first and not the latter. One odd thing I've experienced whenever I've shown some pornography to my wife is considerable problems in hermeneutics, even with carefully curated images. Seen from the outside the world of pornography is hermetic: for instance if I showed her a typical porn site she'd have a hard time finding the image that is supposedly the subject surrounded by other pornographic images for other photo sets and all of the ads. It is like the image at the top here https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-were-in-idiocracy/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-wer... When she looks at anime porn that's been carefully selected she always wants explanation of the ubiquitous visual codes such as the anatomically incorrect cutout from inside the woman's body, etc. This is not a jumping off point for a discussion of sex but rather a lot of work has to be done just so she can "unsee" the conventions of the genre. As for the dangers of camgirling/onlyfans there is one word to know: "simping", https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/simp-everything-know-2020-strangest-133335730.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/simp-everything-know-2020-st... It is bad enough to witness a woman in real life who is stringing along a number of hapless guys (one lives up the road, she was talking a big game about "polyamory" but boy did she shrink away when my wife and I demonstrated that we were a polyamorous couple.) When it is scaled up to the point of 10,000 men simultaneously simping for one women it's disgusting to see so many boys that are never going to grow up. The harm to women is vastly greater than traditional feminist critiques, stuck in an obsession with "violence", would allow -- there are many things that real women would like to get from men that they will never get because men are stunted in their growth. Some apologists will claim that the performer is a "transitional object" that will help the victims grow up and eventually develop real relationships but I don't believe it. It might help men weather their teens and 20s but when women are interested in settling down they find nothing but overgrown boys. Not only do the new forms suck more money from men (in the sense that video games with loot boxes are considered harmful) but the parasocial relationship satisfies more needs in the short term and is more effective at diverting energy from maturation and real relationships. So far as the loss of reality in the media goes that can be traced back to the 19th century, see Madam Bovary but I would say social media is already dramatically more harmful than the old media. There always was a distance between the star and the audience that gave space for critical distance but in social media people get captivated by images created by people they know or almost know.
- stevenicr 5y ago
  I appreciate you sharing the additional view stances. I agree that working conditions can be good and can be bad in the industry, just like other industries frankly. I do think we need to educate people more about abusive working conditions and how to have proper boundaries and sharing with the world how terrible work is in many places. What you call common sense about porn viewing and the specific examples strikes me as a way of seeing the world in that 'perpetrators of violence are victims that have no control and the mean (insert media X) is to blame.' - This kind of thought process leads to the desire to ban heavy metal music, rap music, most movies, books, tv shows.. we are failing to teach people right from wrong and to not be blindly following whatever random cult of X if people can be convinced to commit heinous violence by watching media - and I do not shift the responsibility of the individual to the indoctrination of X media. The guy that committed the mass shooting of hookers in Atlanta (early 2021?) was made to believe they are evil by his extreme religious views and the extreme Christian teachings he was consuming.. I do not absolve him (or his parents or the institutions of school and church growing up) of responsibility and just cast the blame on media consumption. I suppose an argument could be made if he was under 18 it was more the institutions of American life failing him and less his adult self or whatever. I can appreciate the issues you shared about sharing porn visuals with your wife. I too have run into similar issues when showing some clips - rather than focusing on the X and Y, she was asking questions about the other elements that I normally ignore.. so curation needs to be more detailed (and often the free sites do not have the best curation for many females) for better communication - and look, we are discussing these things and leading to deeper understanding... I appreciate your mention of simping, this is something I feel is a huge challenge for us as a society, and something that I feel technology has made worse - and basic tech even.. it's not camming making it happen - it's camera filters, gamification of dating sites/apps, pop culture like 'the bachelor' and more all adding fuel to the growth in the wrong direction. The one positive I've seen is a show about consent on NPR a few years back - and I've read that there is a sex positive doctor doing AMAs on tik tok - so maybe things can get better. I could not agree with you more about: "social media is already dramatically more harmful than the old media." - It was already bad enough that we had 'reality TV' conditioning young people's minds that life should be glamorous and all louis vuitton and prada - and nothing saying if you are with a man who can not provide such a lifestyle you are not living 'your best life' start trying to find a new one. At least we agree about some of the importance of real pressing problems in our societies, I just put more of the blame on our lack of teaching, not on the cam girls who are taking advantage of it, who I wish had more options for paying bills, which is another problem we really should be working to solve.

PaulHoule 5y ago

It splits two ways. There is the effect that pornography has on the people who work in the industry and there is the effect that it has on other people. Working conditions could be good in the industry for some people some of the time but they frequently aren't. The consent behind it might very well be regretted in the future. To me it's just common sense that any harm to women outside the performers is mediated by harm done to men. Even in the stereotypical scenario that pornography viewing led to a rape or other violence, a man who was driven/enticed/... into the action was (by definition) harmed first. Part of the "looking in the rear view mirror" effect is that we're still stuck on this paradigm of women being victims and men being victimizers. I don't like the "wrong/right" dimension in polls, I would much rather see the question phrased as "harmful/not harmful". One reason why traditional moralists have lost their moral authority is that they insist on using the first and not the latter. One odd thing I've experienced whenever I've shown some pornography to my wife is considerable problems in hermeneutics, even with carefully curated images. Seen from the outside the world of pornography is hermetic: for instance if I showed her a typical porn site she'd have a hard time finding the image that is supposedly the subject surrounded by other pornographic images for other photo sets and all of the ads. It is like the image at the top here https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-were-in-idiocracy/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-wer... When she looks at anime porn that's been carefully selected she always wants explanation of the ubiquitous visual codes such as the anatomically incorrect cutout from inside the woman's body, etc. This is not a jumping off point for a discussion of sex but rather a lot of work has to be done just so she can "unsee" the conventions of the genre. As for the dangers of camgirling/onlyfans there is one word to know: "simping", https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/simp-everything-know-2020-strangest-133335730.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/simp-everything-know-2020-st... It is bad enough to witness a woman in real life who is stringing along a number of hapless guys (one lives up the road, she was talking a big game about "polyamory" but boy did she shrink away when my wife and I demonstrated that we were a polyamorous couple.) When it is scaled up to the point of 10,000 men simultaneously simping for one women it's disgusting to see so many boys that are never going to grow up. The harm to women is vastly greater than traditional feminist critiques, stuck in an obsession with "violence", would allow -- there are many things that real women would like to get from men that they will never get because men are stunted in their growth. Some apologists will claim that the performer is a "transitional object" that will help the victims grow up and eventually develop real relationships but I don't believe it. It might help men weather their teens and 20s but when women are interested in settling down they find nothing but overgrown boys. Not only do the new forms suck more money from men (in the sense that video games with loot boxes are considered harmful) but the parasocial relationship satisfies more needs in the short term and is more effective at diverting energy from maturation and real relationships. So far as the loss of reality in the media goes that can be traced back to the 19th century, see Madam Bovary but I would say social media is already dramatically more harmful than the old media. There always was a distance between the star and the audience that gave space for critical distance but in social media people get captivated by images created by people they know or almost know.

stevenicr 5y ago
I appreciate you sharing the additional view stances. I agree that working conditions can be good and can be bad in the industry, just like other industries frankly. I do think we need to educate people more about abusive working conditions and how to have proper boundaries and sharing with the world how terrible work is in many places. What you call common sense about porn viewing and the specific examples strikes me as a way of seeing the world in that 'perpetrators of violence are victims that have no control and the mean (insert media X) is to blame.' - This kind of thought process leads to the desire to ban heavy metal music, rap music, most movies, books, tv shows.. we are failing to teach people right from wrong and to not be blindly following whatever random cult of X if people can be convinced to commit heinous violence by watching media - and I do not shift the responsibility of the individual to the indoctrination of X media. The guy that committed the mass shooting of hookers in Atlanta (early 2021?) was made to believe they are evil by his extreme religious views and the extreme Christian teachings he was consuming.. I do not absolve him (or his parents or the institutions of school and church growing up) of responsibility and just cast the blame on media consumption. I suppose an argument could be made if he was under 18 it was more the institutions of American life failing him and less his adult self or whatever. I can appreciate the issues you shared about sharing porn visuals with your wife. I too have run into similar issues when showing some clips - rather than focusing on the X and Y, she was asking questions about the other elements that I normally ignore.. so curation needs to be more detailed (and often the free sites do not have the best curation for many females) for better communication - and look, we are discussing these things and leading to deeper understanding... I appreciate your mention of simping, this is something I feel is a huge challenge for us as a society, and something that I feel technology has made worse - and basic tech even.. it's not camming making it happen - it's camera filters, gamification of dating sites/apps, pop culture like 'the bachelor' and more all adding fuel to the growth in the wrong direction. The one positive I've seen is a show about consent on NPR a few years back - and I've read that there is a sex positive doctor doing AMAs on tik tok - so maybe things can get better. I could not agree with you more about: "social media is already dramatically more harmful than the old media." - It was already bad enough that we had 'reality TV' conditioning young people's minds that life should be glamorous and all louis vuitton and prada - and nothing saying if you are with a man who can not provide such a lifestyle you are not living 'your best life' start trying to find a new one. At least we agree about some of the importance of real pressing problems in our societies, I just put more of the blame on our lack of teaching, not on the cam girls who are taking advantage of it, who I wish had more options for paying bills, which is another problem we really should be working to solve.