61–69 of 69 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cute anecdata is still anecdata. Congrats, you experienced the internal sensation of parent-child bonding. This is not evidence.
My point is it's not just a question of evidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every kid (ideally) learns the difference between "real" and "not real", and, more subtly, the difference between "valid example" and "don't trust this, it lies" (e.g., most television, which is exaggerated for effect). I've seen plenty of assertions that porn is a special case for which the general lesson doesn't suffice, but never yet run across a supporting argument which didn't reduce to "well, because genitals a…
I'd disagree that most people can successfully differentiate between most TV and the real world. If they could, we wouldn't be in the mess we are where mainstream media gets to define political discourse, as people would take what the TV and newspapers say with a grain of salt. In any case, porn has the issue in that it's "secret", and not discussed with adults with experience in the subject like most things are. It'…
> ...how are we supposed to process something which appears to be a depiction of sex?
I grant the result of such processing isn't likely to be all that accurate to reality. I do not grant that the result of such processing is immutable even in the face of compelling new experience.
Between lack of information and a natural tendency to confabulate, young children often form bizarre ideas about how copulation actually works, to the extent they think about it at all, which they rarely do because their glands aren't yet giving them a reason to take an interest. When, years later, copulation becomes a pressing concern, they seek out whatever information is available, on which basis they revise their understanding of the subject. The result is a gradually increasing congruence between the understanding and the reality, which in most cases culminates in a successful first sexual experience.
Sure, in the intermediate, i.e., pre-experiential, stages of this investigation, porn probably does give a kid some bogus ideas about how things work. On the other hand, so could a kid's best friend who lives next door, who's picked up a farrago of half-understood bogosity from his older brother in college. In either case, once the matter proceeds from the theoretical stage to the practical, everything that's gone before tends to get revised in a hurry. I've yet to see anyone posit a way in which pornography is somehow magically exempt from that process.
my suspicion is that governments don't really care that much about teenagers (maybe a little about children, but parents still care more). porn is just an addictive product like alcohol and tobacco and governments want to tax it (more), and they can't if it's so plentiful and easily accessible on the internet. maybe these are just first small steps towards restricting supply and imposing taxes.
Addiction to alcohol leads to cancers and withdrawals can lead to death. Psychologically, addiction can make folks violent or take unnecessary risks. Cigarettes cause cancers not only in you but in those around you. They smell to high hell too. Porn is not physically addictive and is not physically harmful. It's just as addictive as video games, television, or any other form of entertainment. If your argument against…
The ones who say "it isn't addictive" are most of the times so far down the rabbit hole of porn, they aren't even aware of its impact - it's just "normal" to them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that internet filtering is a broken idea. But there are people who think that porn does change behaviour. They might. Have a point - hairlessness seems to have come from porn. While it's weird that breasts are displayed in a national newspaper (not because they're breasts, but because that paper is so judgemental about s lot of things. See also Daily Mail "all grown up" while shreKing about paedophiles) unclo…
> hairlessness seems to have come from porn I've seen a lot of just-so stories on this subject. Has anyone got any evidence to show?
"Shaved" used to be a niche fetish in porn. Now "hairy" is the niche.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would certainly want peer-reviewed literature to make either decision. Granted, that's not always available, so sometimes you have to make default decisions without good evidence.
Imagine your surprise when it turns out not to be up to you! That sounds flippant, perhaps, but behold: I knew lots of kids growing up whose (usually extreme Southern Baptist) parents tried to prevent them getting hold of porn, but I didn't know even a single one whose parents succeeded at so doing; those who couldn't get it themselves, and who didn't have friends willing to share, at the very least had acquaintances…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does porn cause harm? That it does is indisputable. Isn't the whole point of this thread, and the whole international debate, that it is disputable?
It would appear so: > Does porn cause harm? That it does is indisputable. > So in the end, I don't know if it causes the harms portrayed. But, hey, what's a little internal inconsistency when you're urging everyone forward into the past?
But the point of my downvoted post is that you can't take an element of culture and assume that it is responsible for other elements. These things form tangled webs, not linear chains of cause and effect.
Citing Betteridge's law of headlines, I'm going to say no. Scientists are having a hard time proving that porn even has an impact, let alone that the impact is negative. What are they even looking for? That children will somehow start practicing BDSM after stumbling on porn? That their "precious minds" are tainted by the Real World?
What's wrong with BDSM? You say it like "practicing BDSM" is a bad thing.