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What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

nytimes.com

11–20 of 148 posts

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#11
Thank you for posting this. This is a topic that I've long been fascinated by but never knew anything about. I'm way in the older end of the bell curve of age distribution of Hacker News readers, so I've personally experienced how pornography has evolved over the past thirty (or so) years, i.e., ever since I became curious about sex and turned on by naked women. And without a doubt the "hardness" and easy availability of pornography today is in a completely different universe to the sort of pornography I was consuming when I was thirteen years old. There's no escaping the fact that pornography must do _something_ to children's and teenagers' minds, in terms of expectations about sex, their own self-esteem, or whatever, and I've often wondered what these effects are.

Moreover, and moving on, now that I'm a new father with a two-year old daughter, I cannot even _look_ at pornography without feeling queasy. The full nastiness of the activities, production, what obviously goes on behind the scenes, etc, hits you in the guts and is truly sickening.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#13
post #4

The availability and ease for this type of content is scary especially when children are more connected than ever. Pornography kills love (Edit: https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-kills-love/ ). Love is extremely important for human beings and civilizations. It drives art, philosophy, faith, religion, etc. It is love that produced great works throughout history. I read some where there was going to be a TLD for por…

>Pornography kills love.

Can you expound on this further? What exactly does it mean and what evidence is there to support it?

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#14
post #4

The availability and ease for this type of content is scary especially when children are more connected than ever. Pornography kills love (Edit: https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-kills-love/ ). Love is extremely important for human beings and civilizations. It drives art, philosophy, faith, religion, etc. It is love that produced great works throughout history. I read some where there was going to be a TLD for por…

[deleted]

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#15
I am on day 81 of a 90 day porn reset. It’s been hard at times but my real life sexual experiences seem greatly improved and I plan to continue abstinence from porn after the reset period ends. Seeing that I can modify behavior by setting attainable medium term goals has made me excited to tackle some other personal challenges too.

The site https://www.yourbrainonporn.com is what got me interested in trying to quit. Lots of good information there if you are interested.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#16
post #9

> Fewer teenagers have early sex than in the past (in a recent study, 24 percent of American ninth graders had sex; in 1995 about 37 percent had), and arrests of teenagers for sexual assault are also down. But you don’t have to believe that porn leads to sexual assault or that it’s creating a generation of brutal men to wonder how it helps shape how teenagers talk and think about sex and, by extension, their ideas ab…

"I'm not saying that {insert hyperbole here}, but you might wonder how {insert tangentially related topic here}" My favorite kind of reasoning!

[deleted]

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#17
post #10
post #4

The availability and ease for this type of content is scary especially when children are more connected than ever. Pornography kills love (Edit: https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-kills-love/ ). Love is extremely important for human beings and civilizations. It drives art, philosophy, faith, religion, etc. It is love that produced great works throughout history. I read some where there was going to be a TLD for por…

> Pornography kills love. Source, explanation, anything to back this?

The article gives some examples of perception by viewers of what they think is "normal" for sexual relations.

There is an organization called "Fight the new Drug" which is combatting porn addiction.

Here is a article with citations on research and articles on the issue:

https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-kills-love/

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#18

> Fewer teenagers have early sex than in the past (in a recent study, 24 percent of American ninth graders had sex; in 1995 about 37 percent had), and arrests of teenagers for sexual assault are also down. But you don’t have to believe that porn leads to sexual assault or that it’s creating a generation of brutal men to wonder how it helps shape how teenagers talk and think about sex and, by extension, their ideas ab…

[deleted]

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#19
Why is it so common to see people draw parallels from porn to behavior, but then not do the same for other form of video. It was only ~20 years ago that video nasty was a major concern and people thought that TV and film was a major caused for crime and violence, only to be categorized later as mostly pseudo science and moral hysteria.

If porn teaches kids about masculinity and femininity, should we not claim the same thing about romantic drama or comedies? What make porn so special that teenagers can't determine what is real or false, but a romantic drama where every character has exaggerated gender behavior and roles is perfectly clear that it is fake and where naturally no teenager will be effected?

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#20

I am on day 81 of a 90 day porn reset. It’s been hard at times but my real life sexual experiences seem greatly improved and I plan to continue abstinence from porn after the reset period ends. Seeing that I can modify behavior by setting attainable medium term goals has made me excited to tackle some other personal challenges too. The site https://www.yourbrainonporn.com is what got me interested in trying to quit.…

I wonder which one is better:

1) Quit Porn 2) Stop Masturbation

Any ideas?

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