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What Porn Did to American Culture?

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#21

Post by RHSeeger »

nerdjon wrote: post #16

I should be very clear here that I am a gay man, so I don't really have exposure to much of what is talked about here even if I have heard about it. What I find interesting is that it seems to equate critiquing porn with critiquing the treatment of the people in porn. Those are 2 very distinct things, you can have issues with treatment within the industry without going down a prudish anti-porn route. Personally I fee…

Your thoughts along this topic run similar to mine. I would extend it a bit to say that a lot of the problems in the industry, and how it treats people, are a direct result of the fact that it's considered shameful by a lot of society.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#22

Post by mystraline »

The article claims porn, and sure, that's a part.

The bigger issue here is outmoded predominant protestant christian views of 'morality'. And that percolates all through the rest of USA culture, including into advertisements and commercialism. Their view of sex is as a sin, so its shamed, hidden, and secretly desired. All these things have popped up with all these pretty terrible results.

Sexuality is 'tittalting' so it helps sell. Those interactions aren't genuine, but transactional. Transactions themselves aren't the problem, but when people crave genuine sexuality and get faced with '$5 for next hour of OF', yeah. Takes advantage of people.

Advertisements also been going on for a while, always pushing harder to see what sells but still legal and norm enough. Like the hot rod magazines - does anybody really think if they buy a red mustang, they'll also get the 44dd blone bimbo?

And really, everybody should at least try a sex party (Bacchanal) once. Have to do some std checks ahead of time, but its just so liberating and freeing for everyone. It gets money, possessiveness, prudishness, and all those distorting things out of the way. And puts sex into perspective. And well, its fun.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#23

Post by sepositus »

enceladus06 wrote: post #8
sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

Why is porn such a big deal? I've seen it, but the real thing is much better. How is it even possible to get addicted that just seems weird.

I've had boys as young as 10 in my groups. How many ten-year-olds are experiencing the real thing? It's very easy to get a pre-adolescent brain hooked on this stuff. However, as someone else pointed out, every brain is unique, and not everyone experiences the same issues.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#25

Post by k__ »

replwoacause wrote: post #13

I recognized its pernicious effects on me and gave it up after getting married and before having a kid. This was after being exposed to it for decades from a young age through unrestricted access to the internet. I think that’s an all too common story. It’s crazy how normalized it becomes once it worms its way into your life, but having been off of it for some time now, I see clearly what a terrible influence it was…

"I recognized its pernicious effects on me"

What effects did it have on you?

"made me aware of the extreme perversions"

Such as?

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#27

Post by tayo42 »

The claims about the 2000s is not really how I remember it. What exactly changed in the 2000s. I was a teen male on the internet then, i feel like I would be clued in a little...

Hasn't American society been hating women since its inception? For a majority of its history they couldn't vote.

My not researched take and intuition is if you feel like the world is regressing on treating women well, its because of religion. Like abortion rights being taken back is a religious thing. Ireland did something similar, is Irish culture overly affected by porn too?

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#28

Post by netsharc »

nerdjon wrote: post #19
sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

> Never once have I found a single story that ended well. That seems like a very strong blanket statement. Are you specifically referring to a porn addiction or just consuming porn at all? If the later... not everyone has negative stories about porn.

He leads porn recovery groups. It'd be like working in a drug rehab clinic, of course the people he'll meet will be wrecks.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#29

Post by palata »

I am not sure I get it. It starts with this:

> One of the specific things I’m noticing now is the mainstreaming of really ugly, regressive treatment in politics and mainstream culture—not just of women but of immigrants, gay people, trans people.

So before porn in the 2000s, women, immigrants, gay and trans people were all respected in the human history? Is that the point the author is trying to make?

I mean, "black lives matter", "me too", and generally the wokisme came after that, right?

I am not defending porn, just trying to find where the causation is. What if I said "the world we live in has been molded by the violent video games from the 2000s ("obviously"), and probably that is the reason why we started having wars after 2000"? Wouldn't someone be quick to tell me that we had wars long before the 2000s?

Like this, I wouldn't immediately think that women's rights have become worse after the 2000s in general. I don't need to go back very far to find the time where women were not even allowed to vote.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#30

Post by zulban »

sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

Selection bias. My mom was a head trauma nurse and told me never to snowboard, skate, drive a motorcycle, rockclimb etc. She now sits on her safe couch all day, retired, watching the news and growing more bitter daily instead of living her life.
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