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Did porn warp me forever?

salon.com

331–340 of 347 posts

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

I don't see how anybody could look at the social changes of the last 50 years and see all good or all bad. I don't. Certainly at some point the human population needs to stop growing or we will have to begin colonizing other planets. So a lower birthrate is in some ways good, even if it causes other problems. On the other hand, when couples decide that their marriage "is no longer serving ... their childrens' needs",…

"I don't think cheap sex and disposable relationships represent an advance."

Neither are new. The only difference is that the woman isn't shamed into poverty if she gets out of them without a shotgun marriage.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#332

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.

I find it as compelling as the rest of the paleo pseudoscience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

I don't see how anybody could look at the social changes of the last 50 years and see all good or all bad. I don't. Certainly at some point the human population needs to stop growing or we will have to begin colonizing other planets. So a lower birthrate is in some ways good, even if it causes other problems. On the other hand, when couples decide that their marriage "is no longer serving ... their childrens' needs",…

It need not be outright abuse for it to be an unhealthy relationship. If your marriage is characterized by constant bickering, or by a partner who stays long hours at work followed by long hours at the bar every day just to avoid a spouse they have grown to detest, there may not be any actual abuse but it's hard to see that as a healthy environment to raise a child in. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of things that are difficult to capture in statistics, particularly the very broad statistics you're discussing.

It's also hard to see why decreased birthrates, delayed marriage, and delayed childbirth are bad moves. High birthrates and family formation early in life are more of an r-strategy. Moving to a K-strategy is better for the children you do have, which is the entire point. As a side effect, maybe young people have to find outlets other than marrying at age 16 and having babies to satisfy their sexual urges, but what's the harm in that?

You could plausibly say that most of the harm, in terms of single mothers, comes from the war on drugs, which affects minorities and the lower classes the most. It's two-faced for conservatives to point at certain communities for having so many children out of wedlock while locking up alarming proportions of their men for victimless crimes and turning them into hardened criminals.

Fundamentally, I think people more qualified to make decisions about their own families and relationships than the Pope, the government, or you and I.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#334
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sexually abused as a girl and raped as a child. When my sons were little, I was pretty sure I would kill someone if they were molested. I thought quite a lot about it and I do not believe escalating the battle of the sexes towards more violence and protection with guns helps the root problem. I think learning to promote a high standard of consent and mutual respect is a better antidote to our current ills. I sp…

I am only saying that my girls are growing up in an increasingly violent society and I want them to be ready to handle people that creep out of the shadows to attack them. I want my girls to be ready if someone deceives them and they find that they are in a very dangerous and unsafe situation. I also want to educate them as to how to avoid dangerous environments, to be street-wise, to avoid frat parties, how to spot…

Unfortunately, you are teaching them violence as an antidote to violence. I have not found that more violence makes for a safer, more peaceful atmosphere. However, I will note that I think it is extremely likely that your remarks are not really giving adequate context for your personal choices and that your attempts to defend your choice are likely to only reinforce a particular framing. I have zero desire to go down that road with you.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how anybody could look at the social changes of the last 50 years and see all good or all bad. I don't. Certainly at some point the human population needs to stop growing or we will have to begin colonizing other planets. So a lower birthrate is in some ways good, even if it causes other problems. On the other hand, when couples decide that their marriage "is no longer serving ... their childrens' needs",…

"I don't think cheap sex and disposable relationships represent an advance." Neither are new. The only difference is that the woman isn't shamed into poverty if she gets out of them without a shotgun marriage.

The magnitude of it is new. The normalization of it is new. A marriage means a lot less than it used to. It's a status symbol, or a source of entertainment that can be disregarded when it no longer entertains.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#336
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sexually abused as a girl and raped as a child. When my sons were little, I was pretty sure I would kill someone if they were molested. I thought quite a lot about it and I do not believe escalating the battle of the sexes towards more violence and protection with guns helps the root problem. I think learning to promote a high standard of consent and mutual respect is a better antidote to our current ills. I sp…

Thank you for sharing that. Your blog post definitely shed much more light onto the context of your comments, so I also appreciate your giving me the chance to keep my foot out of my mouth. ;-) First, your perspective raises the question for me, "Am I too focused on protecting my (future) teenage daughters, at the expense of not diligently analyzing their current environment?" Your approach here (of emphasizing mutua…

Re the logical progression: I imagine I could say a lot more about it. I spent time in therapy. I spent a lot of time reading, journaling, contemplating sexual morality and the like. So there is certainly a rich background that informed my thought process. But I laid out my logic as best I could concerning what I actually thought in concluding that emphasizing consent was the single strongest and most civilized measure I could take. Without going back to reread it, I will add that I may not have touched on this: I also did not leave my children with sitters they did not like. Even as babies, if they disliked someone, I made other arrangements.

As for adult women: Violent assault out of nowhere with no warning is incredibly rare. The vast majority of rapes (and child molestation) start with disrespecting social boundaries and escalate. It is almost always someone you know who has opportunity to worm their way inside your defenses and has spent some time doing so. Women are generally raped by "friends", relatives, coworkers, dates and other members of their social circle. Being randomly assaulted by a stranger is the exception. As an adult, I have never faced imminent violent assault of that sort, though I have routinely faced social situations wherein some man was pretty clearly up to no good. I have a track record of not allowing them to escalate. If you don't allow the escalation, it gets pretty darn hard to take advantage of someone.

Please remember that the definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. Most rapes do not involve significant violence. A lot of rapes boil down to tragic misunderstanding. I am pretty darn confident that most men who would be okay with manipulating and maneuvering me and cavalier about whether or not I really wanted sex would absolutely not resort to violent assault if I simply refuse to engage them in their sick little game. I am confident of it in part because I have a long history of doing exactly that. I have been met with anger, frustration, shame, and other strong negative emotions. But I have not been violently assaulted and brutally raped for refusing to go along with their plans to have me, like it or not.

As for physical defense, it is possible I am somewhat biased about not needing any particular preparation due in part to my "cultural" background, for lack of a better word. I had a knife collection as a child. My father was a career soldier who grew up on a farm. There were guns on the wall and I knew how to use them. My ex was a career soldier. He took martial arts, had a knife collection, and owned a couple of swords (a real katana and a wooden practice katana). I am 5'8" tall and athletically inclined. My oldest son tells me he has watched me face down a threatening group of three or four men and my subconscious response was to position myself to be able to grab the nearest impromptu weapon should it escalate. Having been slapped around by a drug addicted relative, I have some firsthand familiarity with violence. I am aware I will fight back when faced with such.

Still, I was not taught to shoot on the idea that I might need to kill a rapist. I find that a somewhat horrifying message to give a young woman. Yes, other people can be dangerous. But that is true of both men and women and it is not particular to sexual situations. Suggesting that it is sounds pretty emotionally poisonous to me. (Which may not be at all what the OP is doing. I am trying to answer your question, not slander him.) Having good boundaries is a generally more useful and better solution than being prepared for the worst. Preparing for the worst can be self fulfilling prophecy.

My experience is that victimizers are not just bad people. They are also victims of a social paradigm which gives them no other viable choice. Having been trained to be a professional victim and then retrained myself, I am clear that part of the problem is that we teach women to be prey. If you run from a bear or wolf, it will chase you. Your flight incites its predatory chase instinct. Backing away slowly is a much better plan. You are much less likely to get mauled. That same general principal applies when dealing with another potentially predatory animal: Humankind.

I do not believe that overemphasizing a need to be prepared to physically assault another person is a means to teach women to not behave as prey in relation to men. I think it mostly reinforces the mental model that women are, in fact, prey. It strikes me as counterproductive to frame it that way. Again: I learned to shoot as a child. I was a damn good shot at one time. I was aware that my father viewed the guns on the wall as a potential means of defense if someone invaded our home. But they were also tools by which food was put on the table. He hunted. I grew up eating squirrel and deer. So my exposure to guns was not a strong message that the point was to shoot other people. For one thing, I was taught to shoot in part as a gun safety issue. It was part of teaching me guns are not toys and you do not play with them.

So I don't have any problem whatsoever with teaching children to shoot or enrolling them in martial arts. But I am very leery of doing so with some implicit or explicit message that it is something a girl needs to know "to deal with rapists". The main thing a girl needs to know is how to insist a man treat her with respect. That will protect her far better and in far more situations than being a good shot. Violence is not the best antidote to violence. Respect is overall a better antidote. It is more likely to actually prevent violence rather than merely invert who got hurt.

Since you mentioned it, I will suggest you are putting your children at grave risk to view protecting their sexuality as an issue for their teen years. I was molested as a toddler and again from age 11 to 13.5. I did not get my period until I was nearly 17. My lack of sexual maturity did not prevent me from being raped at age 12. If you are worried about predators, your daughters' sexual maturation is not that relevant to the problem. Teach them now that they have a right to say "no" to unwanted affection -- to anyone, you included, with zero need to justify it. Be prepared to back their decision if someone else will not take "no" for an answer from them. Tell them that is the policy -- that it is their choice and they can call on you to back them if necessary.

Thank you very much for asking.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how anybody could look at the social changes of the last 50 years and see all good or all bad. I don't. Certainly at some point the human population needs to stop growing or we will have to begin colonizing other planets. So a lower birthrate is in some ways good, even if it causes other problems. On the other hand, when couples decide that their marriage "is no longer serving ... their childrens' needs",…

It need not be outright abuse for it to be an unhealthy relationship. If your marriage is characterized by constant bickering, or by a partner who stays long hours at work followed by long hours at the bar every day just to avoid a spouse they have grown to detest, there may not be any actual abuse but it's hard to see that as a healthy environment to raise a child in. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of th…

Either those "unhealthy relationships" are incredibly uncommon as a proportion of marriages, or it is better for children to live in a marriage with an "unhealthy relationship" than a straight-up broken home.

Decreased birthrates pose problems for current economic systems which are premised on taxing the young to pay for the old. Later children are more likely to have birth defects. But like I said, ultimately it is necessary, so it is a mixed bag.

I totally agree with you on the War on Drugs. A legal system that sends 28% of black males to at least one year of prison undoubtably has something to do with why 80% of black children in the US grow up without fathers, and that undoubtably has something to do with why 28% of black males in the US spend at least a year in prison.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It need not be outright abuse for it to be an unhealthy relationship. If your marriage is characterized by constant bickering, or by a partner who stays long hours at work followed by long hours at the bar every day just to avoid a spouse they have grown to detest, there may not be any actual abuse but it's hard to see that as a healthy environment to raise a child in. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of th…

Either those "unhealthy relationships" are incredibly uncommon as a proportion of marriages, or it is better for children to live in a marriage with an "unhealthy relationship" than a straight-up broken home. Decreased birthrates pose problems for current economic systems which are premised on taxing the young to pay for the old. Later children are more likely to have birth defects. But like I said, ultimately it is…

I think it's hard to discuss these statistics in any detail without even looking at them, but this isn't a controlled experiment. If the worst marriages selectively end in divorce, you're comparing single parenthood to the marriages that are healthy enough to continue, not to the marriages the children would have actually been raised in.

Feel free to email me if you want to continue this discussion. It's interesting and I'm enjoying it, but it's grown into a bit of a tangent.

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#339
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sexually abused as a girl and raped as a child. When my sons were little, I was pretty sure I would kill someone if they were molested. I thought quite a lot about it and I do not believe escalating the battle of the sexes towards more violence and protection with guns helps the root problem. I think learning to promote a high standard of consent and mutual respect is a better antidote to our current ills. I sp…

I am only saying that my girls are growing up in an increasingly violent society and I want them to be ready to handle people that creep out of the shadows to attack them. I want my girls to be ready if someone deceives them and they find that they are in a very dangerous and unsafe situation. I also want to educate them as to how to avoid dangerous environments, to be street-wise, to avoid frat parties, how to spot…

Society isn't getting more violent, despite the fact that the 10 o'clock news might lead you to think that. The incidences of violent crime have dropped steadily year after year since 1990, including forcible rape[1]. The internet was introduced in 1989, so the introduction of the internet coincides directly with the introduction of the medium which provides porn to most porn consumers.

This is only a correlation. No causation can be should. You could argue that the drop in rape incidents is attributable to better crime fighting technology that has put more serial rape offenders behind bars. It's anybody's guess as to the cause of lower incidents of forcible rape, but what you can't do is attribute greater incidents of forcible rape with the rise in porn because the actual historical figures simply don't support that conclusion, in fact they contradict it despite any self reports of hypothetical behavior might suggest.

I don't know the figures, but I imagine that most incidents of rape involve someone the victim knows and involves ambiguous circumstances such as both the victim and the accused being under the influence of alcohol or some other voluntarily consumed mind altering substance. For rape under those conditions, both the victim and accused are equally at fault, just like a drunk driver is responsible for a car accident. Driving your body into another under the influence is not really not that dissimilar from driving a car into another under the influence. Your approach of educating your daughters into making the right decisions and avoiding risky situations is the best weapon you have to combat the risk of rape.

[1] http://www.lowtechcombat.com/2010/12/50-year-trends-in-viole...

Re: Did porn warp me forever?

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think cheap sex and disposable relationships represent an advance." Neither are new. The only difference is that the woman isn't shamed into poverty if she gets out of them without a shotgun marriage.

The magnitude of it is new. The normalization of it is new. A marriage means a lot less than it used to. It's a status symbol, or a source of entertainment that can be disregarded when it no longer entertains.

"The normalization of it is new. A marriage means a lot less than it used to. It's a status symbol, or a source of entertainment that can be disregarded when it no longer entertains."

And thank goodness for that. You have an overinflated opinion of what marriage "used to mean". People having an out from abuse and misery is worth it all. Your efforts to shame the divorced are moralizing, not "for the children". Marriages are not happy because they're forced through law and social stigma. The option to leave is freedom.

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