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Did porn warp me forever?

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Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#191

Post by true_religion »

_ddkb wrote: post #118
pekk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are relating isn't scientific information, though it may help you in some way, it isn't necessarily accurate or helpful to others. You have oversimplified the function of dopamine to the point that you have said something misleading. It isn't a drug. You also get a "hit" of dopamine when there is a loud, surprising noise, and any number of similar situations. Including good, natural situations. Including nor…

I didn't mean to say dopamine is a drug. Yes dopamine is normal and it increases from many things. The problem is constantly altering it through activities that would not be occuring in nature. The videos I linked to on yourbrainonporn.com really explained it well for me. Maybe you could watch them and let me know what you disagree with. I maybe getting some things mixed up as I don't have a great understanding of th…

I've heard this theory before, but I feel as if were it true we would already have a long series of old wives tales of how the 'studs' are always morose, and its better for newly weds to abstain on occasion rather than follow their flush desires.

The orgasms gotten through pornography aren't any stronger than those found 'in nature'---this isn't heroine.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#192

Post by a_bonobo »

learc83 wrote: post #160
a_bonobo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Porn is indeed almost a staple of Western society I present to you, old Japanese porn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s... And here's a documentary about ancient Egyptian porn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HttHvJ8Gc And here's a book about Mesopotamian porn: http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_erotic_reliefs_of... What I want to say is that porn is not only a staple of Western…

Just because porn existed doesn't mean it was a "staple" of society. It would have been too expensive for the average person to afford. Even 20 years ago porn was too expensive for the average person to afford very much of it.

What I meant is that porn is not a "thing" of Western societies alone, but something of all societies, I think it doesn't matter how much there is.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#193

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

I find that its hard to communicate with young people about the weird way in which sexual climax is plugged into your brain. Through out history people have have exploited that link and human physiology as a tool to control people. Growing up in Las Vegas I had a pretty unconventional view of sex, and was completely caught off guard by the emotions that came with my first actual sexual experience.

[deleted]

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#194

Post by TeMPOraL »

jaggederest wrote: post #186
rdtsc wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would appreciate it Oh, you would? How dare everyone on the internet not cater to your expectations. Someone from the community shared a story of personal struggle. They didn't hide behind a pseudonym, and it was probably a hard decision for them. They also, did in hopes it would help someone else. They might not have used precise definitions or scientifically correct terms but they were honest and civil and even…

They were also clearly incorrect . No matter how hard their struggle is, it's akin to linking vaccines to autism - no amount of personal pain overrides factual inaccuracy . It's an extremely important part of public discourse that incorrectness be called out, in a polite way, but clearly and forcefully. This is akin to 'balancing' a debate about evolution by having an evolutionary biologist there and a doctor of theo…

True, but as many others wrote here, you can correct another person and still be polite about it.

One of the things I love about HN is that incorrect opinions are quickly corrected by people in the know, often with providing proper citations. However, what is quite often missing, is civility. Moreover, in this case one should be exceptionally polite, given the very personal nature of the OP's post and the courage to attach his name to his writing.

I recommend everyone (myself included) to re-read "How to Win Friends and Influence People", even if they don't think they have a problem with being polite. I keep re-reading this book and everytime I do I see something more to correct (it has already heavily influenced the way I write e-mails to people).

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#195

Post by kjackson2012 »

As long as people realize that porn itself is a caricature of sex, then it's fine. Usually sex is a lot more clumsy, and a lot shorter than any of the porn movies you find on the web. Guys with huge penises that take 45 mins to climax, women with huge breasts that love to get finished on, etc, is not how most of the world is. It's certainly exciting to see, but it's totally unrealistic.

It's sort of like martial arts. Real martial arts isn't guys jumping 30 ft at each other, or fighting 10 opponents at once, doing somersaults, etc. If kids go to martial arts training expecting this, they will be sorely disappointed. Most martial arts is practicing moves over and over again. It's tedious and boring for those that are expecting Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Over the course of many years, you can get to a certain level of expertise. But the martial arts movies are essentially a caricature.

Hopefully the kids growing up today realize this.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#196

Post by philwelch »

jacoblyles wrote: post #170
philwelch wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what statistics are you referring to?

Children raised in single-parent homes, children born out of marriage, and rates of divorce all started skyrocketing in the 60s. The upper class has been less effected, as Charles Murray's book "Coming Apart" shows. Divorce, single-parenthood, and other symptoms of sexual liberation went up slightly for the upper class in the 60s and then leveled off. But in the lower classes the standard family has become the except…

I think you're conflating two very different things. One is a growing bifurcation between rich and poor. The other is what you might call "sexual liberation", though it's much wider than that.

For instance, a higher divorce rate is not necessarily bad. Decades ago, women had fewer rights in marriage and there was a cultural expectation for marriages to stay together, no matter how unhealthy, unhappy, or sometimes even abusive the marriage happened to be. As recently as the 1970's, the law had no concept of spousal rape--in other words, it was perfectly legal for a husband to rape his wife. Today, not only can women escape from marriages that are bad for them, but married couples can mutually agree that the marriage is no longer serving their or their childrens' needs.

I also find little to complain about in a lower birthrate. The bifurcation by class is troubling, but the net trend is towards zero or negative population growth. This doesn't necessarily indicate the disappearance of family, but rather a slight adjustment from more of an r-selection strategy to more of a K-selection strategy.

Conflating these issues as a "syndrome" is a little too simplistic and tendentious towards an ill-founded social conservatism.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#197

Post by TeMPOraL »

_ddkb wrote: post #85

I know this is outing myself but this is my personal experience. I won't post anonymously in case anyone wants to contact me. I came to the realization about 2 years that I am addicted to porn. For anyone out there struggling with the same thing, it can get better and yes, it is probably having a negative influence on your life. Previously I would look about once per week but in the past 6 months, I have probably vie…

Matt, I salute you for the courage to write this under your real name, and thank you for sharing your experience.

> The difference between internet porn and porn from the past is just the abundance of new material that there is. (...) At the basic level, it really is not much different from any other addiction. Old, offline porn is different in that it gets stale pretty quickly. There are only so many times you can look at a magazine or video without it getting boring.

I think this is the key point (and dopamine-related discussions only distract from it). I also came to the realization that the big part of the problem is the same thing that keeps many addicted to Hacker News or Reddit - it's that whenever you look, there's always fresh new content, so it never gets boring.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#198

Post by atesti »

_ddkb wrote: post #116
CKKim wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am addicted to porn"..."I would look about once per week" It seems odd to me that being addicted to porn would go with only looking "about once per week". I think I understand how this could still be technically an addiction, but compared to other addictions and - I imagine - especially porn addictions, it seems rather bizarre. Certainly if pornography was only being consumed once a week then the rate of let's cal…

The definition of addiction I heard that I agree with was something like "An activity that causes an overall negative effect on your life that you do not have control over." This definitely fit with my experience. It was definitely a cycle for me. Alcoholics do not have to have a drink every day to be an alcoholic. In fact, one of the points of the AA program that people need to learn is they are always an alcoholic.…

I'd guess that other people watch porn exactly as long as they get "excited" enough to do something I don't describe here. After this is "done", there is no need to watch more of it for at least the length of the refractory period, but better for longer.

Why would one continue to watch it afterwards? One can't be addicted to porn under my definition, but just to doing "that". This can of course be addictive and negatively affect one's life. Also the stimulus surely can get weaker and weaker thus leading to "harder" porn each time which looks like a bad cycle

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#199

Post by philwelch »

pekk wrote: post #112
FrojoS wrote: post #108

From my favorite Paul Graham essay, The Acceleration of Addictiveness http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html " Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. I've seen that happen with cigarettes. When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population. Smoking rapidly became a (statistically) normal thing. [...] As knowledge sprea…

Characterizing porn as "more concentrated" does not in any way demonstrate that it is dangerous.

It certainly increases the risk of addiction, which is a danger of sorts.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#200

Post by TeMPOraL »

kjackson2012 wrote: post #195

As long as people realize that porn itself is a caricature of sex, then it's fine. Usually sex is a lot more clumsy, and a lot shorter than any of the porn movies you find on the web. Guys with huge penises that take 45 mins to climax, women with huge breasts that love to get finished on, etc, is not how most of the world is. It's certainly exciting to see, but it's totally unrealistic. It's sort of like martial arts…

> Hopefully the kids growing up today realize this.

Martial arts - maybe. But if your never had sex and your only education on the topic is porn, then how could you know how it really looks like? And then you have your first, and second, and third time, and you feel a bit disappointed that it didn't feel or look like you expected, and even if you realize that porn is a caricature, you're still left wondering, how much of the difference between porn and real life is because of lack of realism in videos, and how much is because of your deficiencies.

It's a real problem and it's sad that the only sexual education kids usually get comes from porn.

EDIT

There was a TED talk about this topic once, [0]. While her site doesn't have much content and I don't recall the book being very insightful (though definitely an interesting read), she raises some good points so I recommend the video (it's 4 minutes).

[0] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8n_E_6Tpc

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