6 ms·

I'm an atheist and I still think porn may be a valueless, happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works in a way that makes zynga appear to

I'm an atheist and I still think porn may be a valueless, happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works in a way that makes zynga appear to be an angel of virtue. The less of it there is, the better.

barry-cotter 13y ago
Come now, valueless? Everything else in there I can see a defence of but valueless? Most of everything is shit but there must be porn that is artful. I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn, romance novels, eh?
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Come now, valueless? Everything else in there I can see a defence of but valueless? Most of everything is shit but there must be porn that is artful. If the main idea is crap, then there's no "art" that can save it. That's like saying "there can be artful snuff films". >I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn, romance novels, eh? 100%. Also for action movies, and a lot of sub-par crap that people are served.
  - 3825 13y ago
    >If the main idea is crap, then there's no "art" that can save it. That's like saying "there can be artful snuff films". hang on, sir/madam. who the hell are you to judge what is art and what is not? perhaps you would like to be in the censorship and regulation department that will decide whether or not something is art and whether or not something is of "value"? how do you decide whether something has "value"? the amount of smugness is quite astonishing. what "value" do you create? why do you exist?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >hang on, sir/madam. who the hell are you to judge what is art and what is not? I'm a European. We're not very populist in this here parts. We are judgemental, and we have standards. They might be flexible, human created standards, that not everybody agrees with, but they are standards nonetheless. Society never knew any other kind of standards, anyway. E.g we do get to judge that eating Nachos and watching BS TV serials for hours on end is "living like a pig". >perhaps you would like to be in the censorship and regulation department that will decide whether or not something is art and whether or not something is of "value"? No need. That's also what critics and cultures do. You, for example, have adopted wholesale the idea of YOUR culture, that everything is just as good, and it's all a matter of personal taste. Which is as much a value judgement as any other.
- drakeandrews 13y ago
  > I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn... You mean, porn?
jiggy2011 13y ago
Do you think that is true of all porn? If there are companies who are the zyngas and EAs of porn, can there be a Valve of porn? What about small independent amateur producers?
agilebyte 13y ago
How do you view smoking, drugs or alcohol?
tomp 13y ago
Care to explain your reasoning? Some values I see for porn: 1) reduces the number of sexual assaults (because horny people have an easy "out") (what supposedly happened after the fall of Soviet Union, after which porn became legal in the eastern block) 2) enables lonely people or others who don't seek companionship an easier way of sexual release 3) historical value: record yourself when you're young, so you can easier remember your sexual joys when you're older.
- pfisch 13y ago
  Do you have any real data to back up your first claim?
  - mhurron 13y ago
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-s... Correlation and Causation and all but this one is going to be really hard to prove. At least everyone can be happy about sex crime rates going down.
inzax 13y ago
If I could upvote you 100 times I would.
sentenza 13y ago
I think nobody doubts that the porn industry is a very exploitative business. However, an easily overlooked aspect of porn is that it canalizes and binds a lot of "useless" energy. A few years ago I heard this tongue-in-cheek hypothesis about male sexuality: Once they manage to reliably eliminate all porn, it will take two days before mobs with clubs and pitchforks roam the streets making political demands.
- contacternst 13y ago
  Can you provide any evidence at all to this point? I understand that you're just providing a possible potential benefit of porn, but it seems totally unfounded to me.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    In truth, no. I've heard this stated by various people, among them Tim Pritlove, who said it in one of his podcasts (I think it was NSFW, but I'm not sure). Nobody I've heard it say has pointed to evidence. It is one of those things that appears plausible to a lot of people from personal experience. This of course means, that it might be wrong. There seem to be some people trying to collect data about the correlation between availability of pornography and the level of some crimes, but I'm still waiting for something conclusive. Not that it's easy. Quantitative sociology is, due to the interconnectedness of the system in question, a mess.
- throwaway_pron 13y ago
  It does seem to be a wide-spread perception that porn must be exploitative. I suspect (but have done no researched) that the big players are probably exploitative, at least according to the descriptions of ex-pornstars. But then, there are lots of "indie" pornsites (such as Girls out West and their ilk; NSFW). There are some interesting interviews with the "indie" pornstar named "Furry Girl"; tldr is that she is there by choice. This example is not to diminish what sounds like widespread exploitation in many other parts of the porn world. Rather it is to say that porn is not synonymous with exploitation.
- king_jester 13y ago
kristopolous 13y ago
It's a form of art. A bunch of people doing harmless consensual acts digging that deeply into your psyche actually makes it very strong and effective art. Classifying something as porn or obscene is a personal decision that each individual makes.
radio4fan 13y ago
That's a perfectly valid opinion, but if you RTFA you'll find that the headline is poorly written: it's about sex-related content, not porn. Hookup apps and dildonics are not porn.
pvnick 13y ago
I agree wholeheartedly, and, in fact, this idea is becoming mainstream among both psychologists as well as regular people. Neurologically it works almost identically to any other physical addiction with much the same results. More information at [1], [2], and [3]. There's a reason we have these "archaic" views on sex, and it's more than religious dogma; although, every mainstream religion prohibits the hook-up culture these startups are advocating. In addition to the risk of disease, we seem to be happiest when we treat sex as a very intimate act between people that care deeply for one another rather than simply the casual social act described by Huxley's Brave New World. [1] http://yourbrainonporn.com http://yourbrainonporn.com [2] http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?board=1.0 http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?board=1.0 [3] http://reddit.com/r/nofap http://reddit.com/r/nofap
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  That's a lot of subjective anecdotes. That reddit group seems to be people wanting to give up masturbation which is not an activity exclusive to porn viewing. I'm not sure if that's even healthy.. A hookup culture is bad if it results in disease and unwanted pregnancy, but with reliable contraception these bad effects can be greatly mitigated.
- throwaway_pron 13y ago
  I took a look at each of the three links you provided. [2] and [3] are discussion boards aimed at people that for whatever reason want to avoid masturbation and/or porn. [1] is a website by Gary Wilson and Marnia Robinson; Wilson makes a point of stating he worked in an academic environment but I can find no peer reviewed papers of which he is an author or co-author. I am perhaps very cynical but it seems to me that he wants to boost his credibility by association even though he does not really have any expertise in the field of addiction. The site cites a few studies, a few of which do not even support the thesis of the site. Let alone the fact that so few studies provide very little support for any hypothesis; even short review papers often have in excess of 100 citations to support their points. To address your final comment: hook-up culture is not the same thing as pornography. Intimate sexual relations is not mutually exclusive with porn consumption. Speaking for myself (caveat lector: anecdote != data), I consume porn; I have healthy, long-term relationships, I don't expect real-life sex to be anything like porn and I am very satisfied with my sex life. EDIT: updated reference typos. EDIT #2: fixed grammar errors.
Spearchucker 13y ago
The problem is cultural rather than anything else. I always thought the UK was sexually repressed, and then I experienced the US. As a European you learn fast - never discuss religion, politics or sex with an American. It's a cultural constraint that stems from a government influenced by religion, which paints sex as dirty. Indecent exposure? Social construct, rooted in religion. Fix that and porn and prostitution take their legitimate place in a balanced society.
- sixbrx 13y ago
  Sure, if Americans don't want to talk with you about something personal like sex, access to which depends a lot on looks which is a very personal thing, then it must be because they're repressed. And the government corrupted at its inception? In fact I encounter a lot of people discussing sex ad nauseum in the US, especially women. ETA: Gender disparity in willingness to discuss sex in the US at least in the workforce may have to do with sexual harassment laws and company policies, which didn't come from the religious establishment.
  - Spearchucker 13y ago
    Your points are valid. Have you had, or even overhead such conversations in Europe? Compared the amount of nudity you see on prime time TV or in respectable magazines in Europe and the US?
- zupatol 13y ago
  Most of the sex seen in media has the purpose of making you buy things. While striking down moral barriers about sex will probably allow healthier discussions to take place, it will be drowned by mindless attention grabbing material without any balance nor legitimacy.
  - Spearchucker 13y ago
    It is only attention grabbing while it's novel, and not commonplace. And yes, sex does sell, no matter where in the world you find yourself.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
So you get to decide for everyone of us? By keeping innovative sexual content out of the door you let the worse objectifying non-interactive non-adaptive porn to thrive.
olalonde 13y ago
Care to elaborate? How is porn an "happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works"? I have yet to hear someone claim porn is making them unhappy except maybe in some extreme case of "porn addiction" (apparently such thing exists). My gut feeling is that lack of porn would make many more people unhappy.
mkramlich 13y ago
Replace 'porn' with Wall Street, politics, institutionalized religion, professional sports, etc. and the case could be just as strong. There are many fields of human endeavor and modern society which are built around the idea of taking some natural tendency or desire we have, then leveraging it for private profit, even encouraging an unhealthy degree or type of expression of it. It's not limited to porn with regards to sex.
throwaway_pron 13y ago
I am also an atheist. I was brought up in a Calvinist society (Afrikaner). For a long time I thought the same thing about porn. But I think it has much more to do with the strict upbringing that made everything around sex weird. You state that "porn may be a valueless, happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works". What are your reasons for saying this? Is it just your personal aversion? Or do you think it holds in general (in which case you'd at least have to provide some evidence).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jasonlotito 13y ago
Considering you have no issue with the "exploitation of the way the human brain works," and doing it yourself, I find your comment weak and hypocritical.
bashinator 13y ago
So what do you think of Cindy Gallop's Make Love, Not Porn project?

barry-cotter 13y ago

Come now, valueless? Everything else in there I can see a defence of but valueless? Most of everything is shit but there must be porn that is artful. I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn, romance novels, eh?

coldtea 13y ago
>Come now, valueless? Everything else in there I can see a defence of but valueless? Most of everything is shit but there must be porn that is artful. If the main idea is crap, then there's no "art" that can save it. That's like saying "there can be artful snuff films". >I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn, romance novels, eh? 100%. Also for action movies, and a lot of sub-par crap that people are served.
- 3825 13y ago
  >If the main idea is crap, then there's no "art" that can save it. That's like saying "there can be artful snuff films". hang on, sir/madam. who the hell are you to judge what is art and what is not? perhaps you would like to be in the censorship and regulation department that will decide whether or not something is art and whether or not something is of "value"? how do you decide whether something has "value"? the amount of smugness is quite astonishing. what "value" do you create? why do you exist?
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >hang on, sir/madam. who the hell are you to judge what is art and what is not? I'm a European. We're not very populist in this here parts. We are judgemental, and we have standards. They might be flexible, human created standards, that not everybody agrees with, but they are standards nonetheless. Society never knew any other kind of standards, anyway. E.g we do get to judge that eating Nachos and watching BS TV serials for hours on end is "living like a pig". >perhaps you would like to be in the censorship and regulation department that will decide whether or not something is art and whether or not something is of "value"? No need. That's also what critics and cultures do. You, for example, have adopted wholesale the idea of YOUR culture, that everything is just as good, and it's all a matter of personal taste. Which is as much a value judgement as any other.
drakeandrews 13y ago
> I presume you feel the same way about the female equivalent of porn... You mean, porn?

jiggy2011 13y ago

Do you think that is true of all porn? If there are companies who are the zyngas and EAs of porn, can there be a Valve of porn? What about small independent amateur producers?

agilebyte 13y ago

How do you view smoking, drugs or alcohol?

tomp 13y ago

Care to explain your reasoning? Some values I see for porn: 1) reduces the number of sexual assaults (because horny people have an easy "out") (what supposedly happened after the fall of Soviet Union, after which porn became legal in the eastern block) 2) enables lonely people or others who don't seek companionship an easier way of sexual release 3) historical value: record yourself when you're young, so you can easier remember your sexual joys when you're older.

pfisch 13y ago
Do you have any real data to back up your first claim?
- mhurron 13y ago
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-s... Correlation and Causation and all but this one is going to be really hard to prove. At least everyone can be happy about sex crime rates going down.

inzax 13y ago

If I could upvote you 100 times I would.

sentenza 13y ago

I think nobody doubts that the porn industry is a very exploitative business. However, an easily overlooked aspect of porn is that it canalizes and binds a lot of "useless" energy. A few years ago I heard this tongue-in-cheek hypothesis about male sexuality: Once they manage to reliably eliminate all porn, it will take two days before mobs with clubs and pitchforks roam the streets making political demands.

contacternst 13y ago
Can you provide any evidence at all to this point? I understand that you're just providing a possible potential benefit of porn, but it seems totally unfounded to me.
- sentenza 13y ago
  In truth, no. I've heard this stated by various people, among them Tim Pritlove, who said it in one of his podcasts (I think it was NSFW, but I'm not sure). Nobody I've heard it say has pointed to evidence. It is one of those things that appears plausible to a lot of people from personal experience. This of course means, that it might be wrong. There seem to be some people trying to collect data about the correlation between availability of pornography and the level of some crimes, but I'm still waiting for something conclusive. Not that it's easy. Quantitative sociology is, due to the interconnectedness of the system in question, a mess.
throwaway_pron 13y ago
It does seem to be a wide-spread perception that porn must be exploitative. I suspect (but have done no researched) that the big players are probably exploitative, at least according to the descriptions of ex-pornstars. But then, there are lots of "indie" pornsites (such as Girls out West and their ilk; NSFW). There are some interesting interviews with the "indie" pornstar named "Furry Girl"; tldr is that she is there by choice. This example is not to diminish what sounds like widespread exploitation in many other parts of the porn world. Rather it is to say that porn is not synonymous with exploitation.
king_jester 13y ago

kristopolous 13y ago

It's a form of art. A bunch of people doing harmless consensual acts digging that deeply into your psyche actually makes it very strong and effective art. Classifying something as porn or obscene is a personal decision that each individual makes.

radio4fan 13y ago

That's a perfectly valid opinion, but if you RTFA you'll find that the headline is poorly written: it's about sex-related content, not porn. Hookup apps and dildonics are not porn.

pvnick 13y ago

I agree wholeheartedly, and, in fact, this idea is becoming mainstream among both psychologists as well as regular people. Neurologically it works almost identically to any other physical addiction with much the same results. More information at [1], [2], and [3]. There's a reason we have these "archaic" views on sex, and it's more than religious dogma; although, every mainstream religion prohibits the hook-up culture these startups are advocating. In addition to the risk of disease, we seem to be happiest when we treat sex as a very intimate act between people that care deeply for one another rather than simply the casual social act described by Huxley's Brave New World. [1] http://yourbrainonporn.com http://yourbrainonporn.com [2] http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?board=1.0 http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?board=1.0 [3] http://reddit.com/r/nofap http://reddit.com/r/nofap

jiggy2011 13y ago
That's a lot of subjective anecdotes. That reddit group seems to be people wanting to give up masturbation which is not an activity exclusive to porn viewing. I'm not sure if that's even healthy.. A hookup culture is bad if it results in disease and unwanted pregnancy, but with reliable contraception these bad effects can be greatly mitigated.
throwaway_pron 13y ago
I took a look at each of the three links you provided. [2] and [3] are discussion boards aimed at people that for whatever reason want to avoid masturbation and/or porn. [1] is a website by Gary Wilson and Marnia Robinson; Wilson makes a point of stating he worked in an academic environment but I can find no peer reviewed papers of which he is an author or co-author. I am perhaps very cynical but it seems to me that he wants to boost his credibility by association even though he does not really have any expertise in the field of addiction. The site cites a few studies, a few of which do not even support the thesis of the site. Let alone the fact that so few studies provide very little support for any hypothesis; even short review papers often have in excess of 100 citations to support their points. To address your final comment: hook-up culture is not the same thing as pornography. Intimate sexual relations is not mutually exclusive with porn consumption. Speaking for myself (caveat lector: anecdote != data), I consume porn; I have healthy, long-term relationships, I don't expect real-life sex to be anything like porn and I am very satisfied with my sex life. EDIT: updated reference typos. EDIT #2: fixed grammar errors.

Spearchucker 13y ago

The problem is cultural rather than anything else. I always thought the UK was sexually repressed, and then I experienced the US. As a European you learn fast - never discuss religion, politics or sex with an American. It's a cultural constraint that stems from a government influenced by religion, which paints sex as dirty. Indecent exposure? Social construct, rooted in religion. Fix that and porn and prostitution take their legitimate place in a balanced society.

sixbrx 13y ago
Sure, if Americans don't want to talk with you about something personal like sex, access to which depends a lot on looks which is a very personal thing, then it must be because they're repressed. And the government corrupted at its inception? In fact I encounter a lot of people discussing sex ad nauseum in the US, especially women. ETA: Gender disparity in willingness to discuss sex in the US at least in the workforce may have to do with sexual harassment laws and company policies, which didn't come from the religious establishment.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  Your points are valid. Have you had, or even overhead such conversations in Europe? Compared the amount of nudity you see on prime time TV or in respectable magazines in Europe and the US?
zupatol 13y ago
Most of the sex seen in media has the purpose of making you buy things. While striking down moral barriers about sex will probably allow healthier discussions to take place, it will be drowned by mindless attention grabbing material without any balance nor legitimacy.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  It is only attention grabbing while it's novel, and not commonplace. And yes, sex does sell, no matter where in the world you find yourself.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

So you get to decide for everyone of us? By keeping innovative sexual content out of the door you let the worse objectifying non-interactive non-adaptive porn to thrive.

olalonde 13y ago

Care to elaborate? How is porn an "happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works"? I have yet to hear someone claim porn is making them unhappy except maybe in some extreme case of "porn addiction" (apparently such thing exists). My gut feeling is that lack of porn would make many more people unhappy.

mkramlich 13y ago

Replace 'porn' with Wall Street, politics, institutionalized religion, professional sports, etc. and the case could be just as strong. There are many fields of human endeavor and modern society which are built around the idea of taking some natural tendency or desire we have, then leveraging it for private profit, even encouraging an unhealthy degree or type of expression of it. It's not limited to porn with regards to sex.

throwaway_pron 13y ago

I am also an atheist. I was brought up in a Calvinist society (Afrikaner). For a long time I thought the same thing about porn. But I think it has much more to do with the strict upbringing that made everything around sex weird. You state that "porn may be a valueless, happiness destroying exploitation of the way the human brain works". What are your reasons for saying this? Is it just your personal aversion? Or do you think it holds in general (in which case you'd at least have to provide some evidence).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jasonlotito 13y ago

Considering you have no issue with the "exploitation of the way the human brain works," and doing it yourself, I find your comment weak and hypocritical.

bashinator 13y ago

So what do you think of Cindy Gallop's Make Love, Not Porn project?