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What Porn Did to American Culture?

theatlantic.com

111–114 of 114 posts

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex parties are fun! I’m in the “embrace sex, skip the shame” boat. In the Bay Area there’s a really solid polyamory community. I’ve been reading the books and working on my own communication issues and anxieties for a good 15 years now and at this point things flow so smoothly. I have so many people in my life I’m on a kissing basis with. It’s so lovely! I’m surrounded by genuine connection and affection. Me and my…

There is nothing wrong with your point of view. But does it scale? We got here after thousands of years of societies shaped by religion and its various concepts of family. Can your alternative produce a strong society that can survive external threats? Maybe it can, but intuitively I think it can't. And what would happen, then, is that a society based on polyamory would be destroyed and/or conquered by others who bel…

There are so many inbuilt assumptions in your comment it’s hard to even formulate a reply. Should the way I relate to other people be based on predictions of what makes a “strong society” or does a strong society flow from well adjusted people? Is a society of shame filled serial monogamists stronger than one of sexually liberated polyamorists? Is it healthier to expect one person to provide all of your romantic and sexual needs while suppressing urges to engage emotionally and sexually with others, or is a focus on identifying our individual needs, communicating those to others, and operating with informed consent and mutually agreed upon relationships better?

There’s so many things I think monogamous culture could learn from polyamorous people. Even if you’re only dating one person at a time, learning to deeply understand your own needs, set boundaries, and communicate clearly with others (mandatory skills in functional polyamory) are super useful skills for monogamous people.

Also who is to say that society lives and dies by who were kissing and sleeping over with and fucking? We also have a society that is obsessed with selfish consumption while an increasing number of people are excluded from our economic abundance, suffering at the outskirts. To me that’s way more likely to destroy society than who I’m sleeping with.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#112
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much harder to get into the dehumanization mindset trap in person. What are you talking about? Sex workers are routinely beaten / degraded / killed at higher rates than other people.

That's bad reasoning - Sex work is much more dangerous because it is illegal - Legal sex work could lead to increased trafficking when there is so much unmet demand for legal immigration, but abundant legal immigration would solve that - The people currently seeking out illegal sex work, or seeking it out in countries were there is more violence against women in general, are probably much more prone to violence. Incr…

* High American [economic] inequality

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with your point of view. But does it scale? We got here after thousands of years of societies shaped by religion and its various concepts of family. Can your alternative produce a strong society that can survive external threats? Maybe it can, but intuitively I think it can't. And what would happen, then, is that a society based on polyamory would be destroyed and/or conquered by others who bel…

There are so many inbuilt assumptions in your comment it’s hard to even formulate a reply. Should the way I relate to other people be based on predictions of what makes a “strong society” or does a strong society flow from well adjusted people? Is a society of shame filled serial monogamists stronger than one of sexually liberated polyamorists? Is it healthier to expect one person to provide all of your romantic and…

Our views are so far apart, I think we can't have a productive discussion in an online forum. Suffice to say, I don't have a problem with you living your life as you please.

I just intuitively believe that if enough people think like you, there will no longer be a society that can support the existence of people like you. I can't prove this hypothesis.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many inbuilt assumptions in your comment it’s hard to even formulate a reply. Should the way I relate to other people be based on predictions of what makes a “strong society” or does a strong society flow from well adjusted people? Is a society of shame filled serial monogamists stronger than one of sexually liberated polyamorists? Is it healthier to expect one person to provide all of your romantic and…

Our views are so far apart, I think we can't have a productive discussion in an online forum. Suffice to say, I don't have a problem with you living your life as you please. I just intuitively believe that if enough people think like you, there will no longer be a society that can support the existence of people like you. I can't prove this hypothesis.

I hear that. What I can say is that on the ground, this community I am in is thriving and struggling just like everyone else. We have jobs and worries and families. We buy stuff and pay taxes. We’re a mixed group of techies and poor artists and we help each other out and try to be good citizens and help out our broader community.

From my lived experience in this community, absolutely nothing says to me this is some unstable condition. Everyone who is in this community is in it because they are happier this way, and there’s a lot of happy people in this community. Depending on how you slice it our community isn’t for everyone but that’s okay.

So I hear that you have that hypothesis. I can report from the ground people are happy and productive.

If you think there’s something specific that would lead to some sort of societal problem I would be interested to hear about it.

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