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Did porn warp me forever?

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Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#211

Post by danielharan »

dkarl wrote: post #57
jacoblyles wrote: post #41

There's a part of the paleo subculture that avoids porn as an unnatural superstimulus. See http://yourbrainonporn.com/ or http://www.reddit.com/r/nofap Anecdotally, I find their arguments compelling.

Alain de Botton has written about it, too: "A brain originally designed to cope with nothing more tempting than an occasional glimpse of a tribesperson across the savannah is lost with what’s now on offer on the net at the click of a button: when confronted with offers to participate continuously in scenarios outstripping any that could be dreamt up by the diseased mind of the Marquis de Sade. There is nothing robust…

Outstripping the Marquis? I've only read a few pages of his work, and I dare say a lot of porn doesn't come close.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#212

Post by snogglethorpe »

gavingmiller wrote: post #153
Falling3 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making any judgements on your own addictions - I'd never be that presumptuous. To be honest, I've only begun to look into AA's culture and theories. I feel it's an understatement to say that it's not perfect. Half of the steps specifically mention god - that does not sound like me like a necessary (or even helpful) part of treatment for alcoholism. People have also pointed out similarities between them and cu…

Most of what you're saying about AA is false. 4 of the 12 steps mention God. And if you look deeper into the material, God is in reference to a Higher Power or "Power greater than ourselves." Some examples of a Higher Power can include: a sponsor, the group in general, a (big G or little g) god, a door knob. The principle is about believing in something greater than yourself. edit: AA has its roots in Christianity, h…

I went to AA meetings for a while with someone whose mother was an alcoholic (I don't really remember what this was supposed to accomplish, but...) and the atmosphere was kinda weird... the people there, at least, really did invoke god/jesus/etc a lot, and there was a funny sense they were looking for something to replace the alcohol, and jesus (etc) was a popular candidate... and there was a palpable sense of peer pressure to say similar things.

I suppose all this stuff varies from group to group, and no doubt the "official" stance is more neutral and well-considered. Still, after that experience, I'd feel a bit leery about recommending AA to someone who was vulnerable.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#213

Post by ohwp »

corwinstephen wrote: post #183
jmathai wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read something on Twitter the other day which reminds me of you. "I'm a content creator. My content is criticizing other people's content." https://twitter.com/VectorBelly/status/289489202742181888

On a forum like Hackernews where the purpose of the entire thing is to gain knowledge and expand wisdom, it's perfectly reasonable to expect people not to post things when they have no clue what they're talking about. If the guy had posted an opinion based on fact, it would have been fair game, but this particular opinion was based on nothing more than colloquial beliefs which perpetuate fallacy. In my opinion, he wa…

It's about the tone, not the critique.

What VigUi7vv8G2 is saying about dopamine might be correct but his tone is anti-social.

He could have left "Oh dear god." and "What the fuck? This is the dumbest thing I've read in a while." out of it and it would have been a perfect helpful response.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#214

Post by guard-of-terra »

klibertp wrote: post #69
guard-of-terra wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you can apply moderation to your sex life. You can moderate your intake of cookies; but limiting yourself to one kind of porn and not the other doesn't feel a working solution. You can try to limit your porn consumption to once per a period of time (a week?) but I bet it will make the symptoms worse.

It's perfectly possible to limit yourself to one kind of porn - just find the kind of porn you really enjoy and use it for when you can't do it in a bedroom. There is a very fancy word for being addicted to being intoxicated, no matter with what (I forgot the word for now). Being addicted to all kinds of porn at once seems similar - and, frankly, equally rare.

If it's a rare case, why don't we optimize for the common case and have some special treatment for the outlying?

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#215

Post by SilasX »

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…

Interesting! The same themes have appeared on Lesswrong.com under different names: the "memetic immune system":

http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...

and "super-stimulus":

http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#216

Post by malandrew »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #200
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 muc…

Having porn before sex is probably a lot more instructive and useful to our sexual well being than an alternative world where your only contact with sex before having it is just private conversations about it with the few people you feel comfortable discussing it with. I'm very glad that I live in a post Kinsey Report world.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#217

Post by elisehein »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #200
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 muc…

While I think the talk articulates very well what the issues are with the wide spreading of online porn, the problem is not that this isn't known -- it's how to cope with realising that your own desires are preventing you from enjoying anything other than some of the examples the speaker highlights.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#218

Post by brazzy »

bluedanieru wrote: post #92
shadowfiend wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few arguments that I have more disdain for than the one that somehow because our brains (or bodies) haven't experienced something before, they aren't built to cope with it. It's not like we are, or have ever been, built for a single temperature, type of sex, kind of food, etc. Our bodies and minds are adaptable , and while we can try to logically reason about how our minds and bodies adapt to certain stimul…

I imagine that, aside from porn (and maybe even including it - or most of it), our modern sex lives are a faint shadow of what our prehistoric ancestors got up to. Look at what the bonobos do with each other - and we're more creative.

We're also too damn creative at using sex (or deprivation thereof) to control others. I see no reason to assume that's a recent invention.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#219

Post by tinco »

MartinCron wrote: post #111
_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…

More brave than the author of the article, who hid behind a pseudonym.

He is more reckless than the author of the article. It does not benefit anyone that he revealed his identity, and it might affect him negatively.

Commendations should be made for his acknowledgement of the addiction, and making it public so others might realize too. I don't think identity has anything to do with this.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#220

Post by rahoulb »

troutwine wrote: post #103
_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…

> I am addicted to porn. ... I would look about once per week... I don't understand: this seems incongruous. Watching pornography once a week doesn't come across as an uncontrolled, impulse behaviour. How does one suffer from an addiction and satisfy it but once a week? Do forgive me if I come across as doubting your word. That is not my intention in the least.

Years ago I read the Allen Carr "Easy way to give up smoking" book and managed to change from having 30/day to 3 on a Sunday evening in the pub.

But if I didn't get to the pub on Sunday evening it ate me up inside - I NEEDED those 3 cigarettes and I couldn't cope without them.

It wasn't the quantity, it was how I dealt with being denied that was the issue.

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