5 ms·

It's funny how we treat all dopaminergic reward system highjackers as dangerous (e.g. drugs, food addictions, any addictions) but any critique towards pornograp

It's funny how we treat all dopaminergic reward system highjackers as dangerous (e.g. drugs, food addictions, any addictions) but any critique towards pornography and you're treated like you're Amish. Pornography should be strictly regulated, for the benefit of both the users and the "actors"

haunter 4y ago
>we Who are these we? HN is very anti regulation of drugs see the countless posts about micro dosing, LSD, marijuana etc.
- ethagknight 4y ago
  Anti-regulation, or anti-criminalization? This response is exactly what the above post was talking about
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  we would mean the average member of the Anglosphere, since we are on hackernews, to which the average HN user has not so much in common.
  - seszett 4y ago
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    According to the last poll [1] only about 3/5 HN users are in the Anglosphere, so equating "we" on this website with "Anglosphere" seems a bit of a stretch. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378
brookst 4y ago
Isn’t it the same authoritarians who want to jail people for drugs and pornography? And while I wouldn’t want to disparage the Amish, aren’t those authoritarian urges largely rooted in Christian theocratic doctrine?
- yamrzou 4y ago
  Does that negate the fact that pornography negatively hijacks the dopaminergic reward system?
  - XorNot 4y ago
    The article is literally about how the evidence for this hypothesis is incredibly weak and cherry-picked.
    - yamrzou 4y ago
      The article is about erectile dysfunction and doesn't mention the dopaminergic reward system at all. That aspect is much better researched, see for example: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/brain-studies-on-porn-users-sex-addicts/ https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articl...
  - dijit 4y ago
    GP's comment is about inconsistency of the discussion regarding similar things. The child comment states that; actually, the people complaining tend to be the same people. So they're consistent. Which actually jives with my understanding. People that are fine with Porn are usually fine with other little rushes', in so far as they aren't harmful outside of themselves. Gambling without the poverty is: fine. Enjoying food without the health complications: also fine.
    - merman 4y ago
      This is a good strategy. There's a trend to frame a comment as a question, as a tactic to disarm the people you disagree with. But the deeper the comments nest, the more likely the discussion will become confused
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  regulated does not mean criminalised. imagine if cocaine was as freely available as pornography. Is that the type of world you'd like to live in, to raise your kids in? and for the record, I think cocaine can be wonderful.
sva_ 4y ago
> Pornography should be strictly regulated The government should fuck off and not get the idea that it has any authority over the sexuality of consenting adults.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Does the government have a role in trying to ensure the actors are capable of legally consenting? I.E. they were not under the influence, posessed their own passport vs it being held, there was no implicit threat used, they were of age, etc.?
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    ...yes? What you list here is all covered by "consenting adults", is it not? These things are already crimes.
- leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
  But are there any real blocks to stopping underaged people from having access to adult content? Unless parents are tech savvy enough to get content controls, which even then suck. Like the parental controls for TMobile has no granularity, Comcast only allows basic filtering on the router level, and very little in logging and alerting. I feel like this is in keeping with regulation in the real world. A kid needs an id to buy adult magazines, a person needs to be involved selling that item. With the internet, where are those societal safety's? It doesn't stop all, but it would handle most.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    How do you verify age from a porn site's point of view, and how do you do it without opening a huge privacy pandora's box?
  - IX-103 4y ago
    But is there any real evidence that adult content is harmful to underaged people? Unless scientists have put together a rigorous study, which even then there are confounding factors. Like all existing studies are small and don't control for desire to access such material. I feel like this regulation is outdated in today's world. We have an opportunity to review existing practices to see if they make sense. With the internet, will children have issues? We don't know so we shouldn't jump the gun.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stirfish 4y ago
Posting this comment probably felt good, so your account should be strictly regulated for your benefit.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ensorceled 4y ago
> any critique towards pornography and you're treated like you're Amish. > Pornography should be strictly regulated, for the benefit of both the users and the "actors" Can we at least admit that calling for something to be "strictly regulated" is a stronger, more extreme position than "any critique"?
perlgeek 4y ago
Laughing with somebody in a social setting also triggers a dopamine reward. Should we strictly regulate laughing in social settings, by that same argument?
- jkcorrea 4y ago
  Laughing with people is bonding and generally seen as a good long term strategy for life (creates friendships, gives meaning, etc) Replace all instances of laughing with friends with masturbating alone in your room and tell me that’s a good, meaningful life you want to live
  - sdze 4y ago
  - prirun 4y ago
    No one has to justify to you their choices in life. It's their life, not yours. Forcing others to adopt what you or any other group consider to be a good long term strategy for life is not your place.
dontbenebby 4y ago
How will you define pornography? People are aroused by what’s forbidden- ban or strictly regulate say, nudity, they’ll eventually seek out crap like the Sears catalog with the same… energy.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Or erotic fiction.
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    Heh, I’m all for art but most “romance novels” aren’t exactly Nabokov :-)
AlexandrB 4y ago
One problem is that the same argument applies to sex as well. Pornography is just the "junk food" version. But I don't think anyone would be ok with the government regulating what goes on in their bedroom (with consent, obviously) - nor should they be.
vjk800 4y ago
To be fair, the reaction is similar towards most of the other potentially addictive things also. People talk a lot about sugar addiction, video game addiction, porn addiction, etc. but few are willing to do anything about it other than tell the addicted people to get themselves straightened out. To me it seems clear that we need some sort of regulation and/or cultural defence mechanisms against this stuff like we have for alcohol and drugs. What exactly it would look like, I don't know. Otherwise we are just going to entertain and eat ourselves to death.
- stirfish 4y ago
  >Otherwise we are just going to entertain and eat ourselves to death How did you want to die?
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > other potentially addictive things ...and then you go on to list a bunch of things that share the property that they are enjoyable. There really are addictive substances; but honestly, sugar isn't one of them. These are behaviours that people become habituated to. It's not fair on real addicts to claim that your serial adultery is the consequence of "sex addiction".
wwweston 4y ago
> any critique towards pornography and you're treated like you're Amish. If you're finding that people react poorly towards your criticisms of pornography, you might want to do a little introspection about the bad faith engagement on display in this sentence. There are plenty of people who identify themselves in ways that would certainly distinguish them from a devout/peculiar religious community... and still have their own critiques of pornography or concerns about access, and will engage thoughtful discussion about how it should be treated. But if you come at it from a conservative religious position ("it's bad because it violates my purity culture norms but I'm gonna dress it up using terms I don't understand like 'dopaminergic reward system' because I know that bestows a hint of modern legitimacy"), you might get treated like a conservative religionist.
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  > using terms I don't understand like 'dopaminergic reward system' because I know that bestows a hint of modern legitimacy") Sure buddy, I don't understand. I'm just a stranger online after all. But what about the literature ? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767 https://fincham.info/papers/2016-j-of-sex-research-delay%20dis.pdf https://fincham.info/papers/2016-j-of-sex-research-delay%20d... Also, I'm not religious. So everything you assumed seems to be wrong so far. Feel free to give it another go
feffra 4y ago
The kneejerk responses you're getting from other commenters appalled at the thought of anyone taking away their precious wank sites and jazz mags rather illustrates your point.
neutronicus 4y ago
FWIW the normalization of gambling has hit a similarly aggressive pitch, at least in sports-fan circles
scythe 4y ago
As far as I am aware, the idea that pornography "hijacks" the "dopaminergic reward" response is largely based on pseudoscience spread by the Your Brain On Porn website and their affiliates. For example: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/55540853/TJP_32_66-70-libre.pdf?1516013979=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DNeurobiology_of_Pornography_Addiction_A.pdf https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/55540853/TJP_32_66-70-... >There have been multiple neurotransmitters that have been implicated in addictions that range from dopamine to serotonin and now a role for glutamate and dynorphin has been elucidated.(37-38) The same has not yet been elucidated in research of pornography addiction. Further studies in this direction are warranted. Evidence regarding neurotransmitter activity in pornography addictions and substance use disorders (39) has tended to be complementary. Since the article I linked mentions structural MRI findings, I feel the need to point out that this does not establish any causality; furthermore, evidence of heritability of compulsive pornography use could of course suggest the causal arrow goes the other way. See also: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115160/ You will also find studies showing that dopamine agonists increased hypersexual behavior, which is rather the opposite of the suggestion that pornography use is a dopamine releasing activity (usually, the brain wants to suppress the effects of a drug!). Other studies show that naloxone (opioid antagonist) decreases pornography use. Dopamine is a stimulating neurotransmitter, and most people would not report feeling more energetic after engaging in sexual activity.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Regulated how, and to what end exactly? Porn, especially the industry, is already regulated in many ways.
tennisflyi 4y ago
> Pornography should be strictly regulated It is besides the age verification part on the viewership's part.
red71 4y ago
nunez 4y ago
can you clarify on the kind of regulations you think pornography needs?

haunter 4y ago

>we Who are these we? HN is very anti regulation of drugs see the countless posts about micro dosing, LSD, marijuana etc.

ethagknight 4y ago
Anti-regulation, or anti-criminalization? This response is exactly what the above post was talking about
4gotunameagain 4y ago
we would mean the average member of the Anglosphere, since we are on hackernews, to which the average HN user has not so much in common.
- seszett 4y ago
- wongarsu 4y ago
  According to the last poll [1] only about 3/5 HN users are in the Anglosphere, so equating "we" on this website with "Anglosphere" seems a bit of a stretch. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378

brookst 4y ago

Isn’t it the same authoritarians who want to jail people for drugs and pornography? And while I wouldn’t want to disparage the Amish, aren’t those authoritarian urges largely rooted in Christian theocratic doctrine?

yamrzou 4y ago
Does that negate the fact that pornography negatively hijacks the dopaminergic reward system?
- XorNot 4y ago
  The article is literally about how the evidence for this hypothesis is incredibly weak and cherry-picked.
  - yamrzou 4y ago
    The article is about erectile dysfunction and doesn't mention the dopaminergic reward system at all. That aspect is much better researched, see for example: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articles-about-the-studies/brain-studies-on-porn-users-sex-addicts/ https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articl...
- dijit 4y ago
  GP's comment is about inconsistency of the discussion regarding similar things. The child comment states that; actually, the people complaining tend to be the same people. So they're consistent. Which actually jives with my understanding. People that are fine with Porn are usually fine with other little rushes', in so far as they aren't harmful outside of themselves. Gambling without the poverty is: fine. Enjoying food without the health complications: also fine.
  - merman 4y ago
    This is a good strategy. There's a trend to frame a comment as a question, as a tactic to disarm the people you disagree with. But the deeper the comments nest, the more likely the discussion will become confused
4gotunameagain 4y ago
regulated does not mean criminalised. imagine if cocaine was as freely available as pornography. Is that the type of world you'd like to live in, to raise your kids in? and for the record, I think cocaine can be wonderful.

sva_ 4y ago

> Pornography should be strictly regulated The government should fuck off and not get the idea that it has any authority over the sexuality of consenting adults.

galangalalgol 4y ago
Does the government have a role in trying to ensure the actors are capable of legally consenting? I.E. they were not under the influence, posessed their own passport vs it being held, there was no implicit threat used, they were of age, etc.?
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  ...yes? What you list here is all covered by "consenting adults", is it not? These things are already crimes.
leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
But are there any real blocks to stopping underaged people from having access to adult content? Unless parents are tech savvy enough to get content controls, which even then suck. Like the parental controls for TMobile has no granularity, Comcast only allows basic filtering on the router level, and very little in logging and alerting. I feel like this is in keeping with regulation in the real world. A kid needs an id to buy adult magazines, a person needs to be involved selling that item. With the internet, where are those societal safety's? It doesn't stop all, but it would handle most.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  How do you verify age from a porn site's point of view, and how do you do it without opening a huge privacy pandora's box?
- IX-103 4y ago
  But is there any real evidence that adult content is harmful to underaged people? Unless scientists have put together a rigorous study, which even then there are confounding factors. Like all existing studies are small and don't control for desire to access such material. I feel like this regulation is outdated in today's world. We have an opportunity to review existing practices to see if they make sense. With the internet, will children have issues? We don't know so we shouldn't jump the gun.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stirfish 4y ago

Posting this comment probably felt good, so your account should be strictly regulated for your benefit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Ensorceled 4y ago

> any critique towards pornography and you're treated like you're Amish. > Pornography should be strictly regulated, for the benefit of both the users and the "actors" Can we at least admit that calling for something to be "strictly regulated" is a stronger, more extreme position than "any critique"?

perlgeek 4y ago

Laughing with somebody in a social setting also triggers a dopamine reward. Should we strictly regulate laughing in social settings, by that same argument?

jkcorrea 4y ago
Laughing with people is bonding and generally seen as a good long term strategy for life (creates friendships, gives meaning, etc) Replace all instances of laughing with friends with masturbating alone in your room and tell me that’s a good, meaningful life you want to live
- sdze 4y ago
- prirun 4y ago
  No one has to justify to you their choices in life. It's their life, not yours. Forcing others to adopt what you or any other group consider to be a good long term strategy for life is not your place.

dontbenebby 4y ago

How will you define pornography? People are aroused by what’s forbidden- ban or strictly regulate say, nudity, they’ll eventually seek out crap like the Sears catalog with the same… energy.

AlexandrB 4y ago
Or erotic fiction.
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Heh, I’m all for art but most “romance novels” aren’t exactly Nabokov :-)

AlexandrB 4y ago

One problem is that the same argument applies to sex as well. Pornography is just the "junk food" version. But I don't think anyone would be ok with the government regulating what goes on in their bedroom (with consent, obviously) - nor should they be.

vjk800 4y ago

To be fair, the reaction is similar towards most of the other potentially addictive things also. People talk a lot about sugar addiction, video game addiction, porn addiction, etc. but few are willing to do anything about it other than tell the addicted people to get themselves straightened out. To me it seems clear that we need some sort of regulation and/or cultural defence mechanisms against this stuff like we have for alcohol and drugs. What exactly it would look like, I don't know. Otherwise we are just going to entertain and eat ourselves to death.

stirfish 4y ago
>Otherwise we are just going to entertain and eat ourselves to death How did you want to die?
denton-scratch 4y ago
> other potentially addictive things ...and then you go on to list a bunch of things that share the property that they are enjoyable. There really are addictive substances; but honestly, sugar isn't one of them. These are behaviours that people become habituated to. It's not fair on real addicts to claim that your serial adultery is the consequence of "sex addiction".

wwweston 4y ago

> any critique towards pornography and you're treated like you're Amish. If you're finding that people react poorly towards your criticisms of pornography, you might want to do a little introspection about the bad faith engagement on display in this sentence. There are plenty of people who identify themselves in ways that would certainly distinguish them from a devout/peculiar religious community... and still have their own critiques of pornography or concerns about access, and will engage thoughtful discussion about how it should be treated. But if you come at it from a conservative religious position ("it's bad because it violates my purity culture norms but I'm gonna dress it up using terms I don't understand like 'dopaminergic reward system' because I know that bestows a hint of modern legitimacy"), you might get treated like a conservative religionist.

4gotunameagain 4y ago
> using terms I don't understand like 'dopaminergic reward system' because I know that bestows a hint of modern legitimacy") Sure buddy, I don't understand. I'm just a stranger online after all. But what about the literature ? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767 https://fincham.info/papers/2016-j-of-sex-research-delay%20dis.pdf https://fincham.info/papers/2016-j-of-sex-research-delay%20d... Also, I'm not religious. So everything you assumed seems to be wrong so far. Feel free to give it another go

feffra 4y ago

The kneejerk responses you're getting from other commenters appalled at the thought of anyone taking away their precious wank sites and jazz mags rather illustrates your point.

neutronicus 4y ago

FWIW the normalization of gambling has hit a similarly aggressive pitch, at least in sports-fan circles

scythe 4y ago

As far as I am aware, the idea that pornography "hijacks" the "dopaminergic reward" response is largely based on pseudoscience spread by the Your Brain On Porn website and their affiliates. For example: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/55540853/TJP_32_66-70-libre.pdf?1516013979=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DNeurobiology_of_Pornography_Addiction_A.pdf https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/55540853/TJP_32_66-70-... >There have been multiple neurotransmitters that have been implicated in addictions that range from dopamine to serotonin and now a role for glutamate and dynorphin has been elucidated.(37-38) The same has not yet been elucidated in research of pornography addiction. Further studies in this direction are warranted. Evidence regarding neurotransmitter activity in pornography addictions and substance use disorders (39) has tended to be complementary. Since the article I linked mentions structural MRI findings, I feel the need to point out that this does not establish any causality; furthermore, evidence of heritability of compulsive pornography use could of course suggest the causal arrow goes the other way. See also: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115160/ You will also find studies showing that dopamine agonists increased hypersexual behavior, which is rather the opposite of the suggestion that pornography use is a dopamine releasing activity (usually, the brain wants to suppress the effects of a drug!). Other studies show that naloxone (opioid antagonist) decreases pornography use. Dopamine is a stimulating neurotransmitter, and most people would not report feeling more energetic after engaging in sexual activity.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

Regulated how, and to what end exactly? Porn, especially the industry, is already regulated in many ways.

tennisflyi 4y ago

> Pornography should be strictly regulated It is besides the age verification part on the viewership's part.

red71 4y ago

nunez 4y ago

can you clarify on the kind of regulations you think pornography needs?