What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn • Hacker News Board

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#91

Post by sexoffender » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #70

sexoffender wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love is the wanting good for another person even if it costs you personally. Porn teaches you to want pleasure for yourself, even if it costs someone else. That's not love, that's lust. The chemicals released in your body and especially brain during orgasm build a closer connection and bond within you to the concepts and people you focused on during it. Pornography trains you to be selfish. Whereas having sex and bot…

I'm not sure that not having porn avoids wanting pleasure for yourself. Isn't that what leads to rape, cheating and various other destructive behaviors? Conversely, consuming porn, even when it substitutes sex with a romantic partner, doesn't preclude having a loving relationship. As you point out, lust and love are different things. Although they are closely linked for most people, that is not the case e.g. for asex…

It's the inverse actually: the more you fantasize and obsess over a given action, the more you'll end up wanting to do it. Quitting porn and masturbation (which both release chemicals in your brain that bond you to the things you're focusing on) will make you less likely to seek these things in real life.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#92

Post by yorwba » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

nvahalik wrote: post #85

dsr_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what we tell our kids: You watch an action movie because it's exciting, it's thrilling, and things explode. Basically, everything is carefully managed or faked to give you the feeling that everything is amazingly awesome. Porn is just like an action movie, only it's about sex instead of guns and martial arts. It's fun, but it usually has very little to do with real sex.

> Porn is just like an action movie, only it's about sex instead of guns and martial arts. It's fun, but it usually has very little to do with real sex. Except in action movies, people don't take real ideas back to the bedroom and end up wanting to act them out. Porn modifies brain chemistry[0] to alter how we think about sex. Porn is a common thread in serial murderers[1]. In my own life, I've had to reprogram mysel…

People do definitely take real ideas from martial arts movies and try to act them out (although not necessarily in the bedroom). Action movies probably also modify brain chemistry if you watch them excessively, since almost everything does.

And your second link? "Do serial killers or murderers exhibit common behaviors? Based on the hundreds of crime dramas I've watched, I believe they do." Seriously?

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#93

Post by mattbierner » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

I agree with the general sentiment but honestly this is just the worst kind of article. It’s superficial and yet also felt emotionally exploitative

Sorry but I guess I’m annoyed because I spent a lot of time working through this specific topic recently and had to wrestle with very some interesting questions:

What is real and what is fake? Why did we create these fantasies and what draws us to them? How much of our culture is fantasy? What if the fake is more “real” than the real? What does that imply for the future? How does pornography hold up a mirror that reflects us? Why is America so scared of reality?

But instead all the article gives us is: porn kills intimacy and reinforces gender roles, plus some weird obsession with facials.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#94

Post by nvahalik » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #90

nvahalik wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Porn is just like an action movie, only it's about sex instead of guns and martial arts. It's fun, but it usually has very little to do with real sex. Except in action movies, people don't take real ideas back to the bedroom and end up wanting to act them out. Porn modifies brain chemistry[0] to alter how we think about sex. Porn is a common thread in serial murderers[1]. In my own life, I've had to reprogram mysel…

> Porn is a common thread in serial murderers. So's oxygen and water intake. Citing NetNanny on this is pretty silly. Serial killers existed long before pornography was around, and I suspect you're getting correlation and causation mixed up there. Your average porn consumer manages not to cut heads off.

Well, don't take their word for it. Go find the research: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shadow-boxing/201704/er...

You also assume that people lead relatively normal lives with porn, but what about the subtle effects?

Don't you think that the objectification of women as sexual objects or the demeaning of marriage to something that gets in the way of people's sexual pleasure has any sort of effect in a civilized society?

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#95

Post by cortic » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

gr3yh47 wrote: post #81

meowface wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you need to prevent your son from watching porn, especially to the point that you need to completely remove his access to the Internet?

plenty of recent studies show that pornography use is manifestly harmful to our brains, especially developing brains. Cursory searching yielded these articles, but there are many studies to be found. http://yournewswire.com/this-is-how-pornography-addiction-is... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2642712/Does-... https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/porn-debate/ Pornography is a harmful drug and can have…

plenty of recent studies show that pornography use is manifestly good to our brains

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201601/ev...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.h...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-sunny-side-of...

Pornography is a useful tool to manage testosterone and other hormones in the adolescent and reduces sexual crimes across the board.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#96

Post by Digory » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #35

sexoffender wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love is the wanting good for another person even if it costs you personally. Porn teaches you to want pleasure for yourself, even if it costs someone else. That's not love, that's lust. The chemicals released in your body and especially brain during orgasm build a closer connection and bond within you to the concepts and people you focused on during it. Pornography trains you to be selfish. Whereas having sex and bot…

One might argue that the good sense of joy followed by love is evidence that when one loves someone, one is acting selfish [0], even though he/she might think otherwise. [0]: People are rational and they wouldn't do things that don't result in more benefit to them than their cost.

Ah, but people do occasionally do seemingly-altruistic things, and by long experience, some of those are worth encouraging.

"Love" in English wears too many hats. C.S. Lewis' Four Loves does a good job explaining how the highest and best use of eros (which can be selfish) is to encourage agape (selfless love).

"The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love."

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#97

Post by Spellman » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

sexoffender wrote: post #84

Spellman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, how are you sure it's correlation and not causation? Perhaps he's being driven to porn/developing the habit as self-medication? Also, as to your previous point that it will lead to "harder" stuff, a recent study says no. Yes, there will be more opportunity and exploration of the topic, but that's something that will happen eventually to all individuals. It isn't studied very well, but at least this initial one…

There is more to it, and it's hard to pinpoint cause and effect. He did have issues that existed before the pornography habit. But they worsened significantly since the month he started looking at pornography regularly. I do believe that his pornography habit has lowered his mental and emotional intelligence by a noticeable factor. I also look back at when I was his same age, and see my own struggles as very similar…

OK, fair enough. Hope you guys figure out an appropriate intervention plan then. Is going to a therapist on the table? Sounds like there's something deeper going on and just cutting off the porn doesn't usually solve it in my experience.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#98

Post by dsr_ » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #90

nvahalik wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Porn is just like an action movie, only it's about sex instead of guns and martial arts. It's fun, but it usually has very little to do with real sex. Except in action movies, people don't take real ideas back to the bedroom and end up wanting to act them out. Porn modifies brain chemistry[0] to alter how we think about sex. Porn is a common thread in serial murderers[1]. In my own life, I've had to reprogram mysel…

> Porn is a common thread in serial murderers. So's oxygen and water intake. Citing NetNanny on this is pretty silly. Serial killers existed long before pornography was around, and I suspect you're getting correlation and causation mixed up there. Your average porn consumer manages not to cut heads off.

Pornography goes back to at least Greek times, and probably is roughly contemporaneous with the invention of art.

There have been, perhaps, a few hundred serial killers? Even if all of them had seen porn, that's a few billion people who saw porn, enjoyed it, and then didn't kill anyone else.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#99

Post by JCSato » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

sexoffender wrote: post #37

My oldest son recently developed a porn habit in secret, and the things we saw in his search history showed a clear progression from googling "boobs" and "nudity" to "pissing" and "bondage". Pornography isn't even close to what it was 30 years ago when you for the most part only saw it in nudie mags that your dad had (or friend had who stole it from his dad). Today, kids have easy access to a wealth of horrifying and…

If I was a kid who's parents were actively monitoring my search activity, cutting off my access to the internet as a whole because of porn, and were trying to equate me watching porn because I'm going through puberty (presumably) with throwing away meaningful relationships in my future. . .what that teaches me is to never, ever go to my parents for any problems I have remotely related to sex, because their draconian. And that's bad. If I'm not going to my parents with those, who am I going to?

There's merit to what you're saying, yes, there's an unhealthy push for hardcore stuff in the modern porn landscape. Yes, in excess it's bad (as is everything else, by definition, but this more than many other things). But mostly I just feel bad for your kid. I get if he's like 13 or whatever you don't want him immersing himself in violent rape porn, but I feel like there's better ways to solve that than "no internet for you, and internet you do have is Being Watched".

Also unimportant, but does anyone develop a porn habit not in secret?

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#100

Post by meowface » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

gr3yh47 wrote: post #81

meowface wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you need to prevent your son from watching porn, especially to the point that you need to completely remove his access to the Internet?

plenty of recent studies show that pornography use is manifestly harmful to our brains, especially developing brains. Cursory searching yielded these articles, but there are many studies to be found. http://yournewswire.com/this-is-how-pornography-addiction-is... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2642712/Does-... https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/porn-debate/ Pornography is a harmful drug and can have…

The issue is complex, but those 3 sources are not reputable at all.