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The Internet Is for Porn

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Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#101

Post by _huayra_ »

seibelj wrote: post #16

This is a super good read, if you have 10 minutes I highly recommend. I have absolutely no problems with pornography and if my own daughter decided this was the industry she wanted to enter I would help jumpstart her career anyway I could just as I would any career she chose. My wife and I are very free spirits and the previous HN discussions on Pornhub / NYT article made me feel like I was taking crazy pills and liv…

> We need to change attitudes towards sex work to remove the shame rather than stop entry into a massively popular and universal industry that crosses all cultures.

Legalizing, but heavily regulating vices is definitely the way to go. I think a lot of European countries have good models for this (Switzerland and Amsterdam come to mind). The demand for these things is going to exist, and is usually best if it is legalized and put into red light districts / out of public, etc.

That said, social tolerance should not devolve into some sort of forced social acceptance for the "liberation" of sex work. Just as any woman should be free to engage in sex work, I should be free to judge her for it (just as my girlfriend would be justified in asking about whether I ever purchased sex work). Just as anyone should be able to eat what they want, health consequences be damned, I should be able to call them "fat" instead of whatever PC word people use these days like "rotund" or "plus-sized", etc. Both of those are choices, and adults have to accept the consequences of those choices (unlike inherent things like sexual orientation or skin color). I cannot go and get a bunch of face tattoos and then whine about lack of acceptance when I get turned down for client-facing tech jobs.

You can't have your cake (engage in sex work, on either side of the transaction) and eat it too (complain about how society does not accept your decision with open arms). It's ironic that folks who are all about "freedom" are more than willing to call the Thought Police because society doesn't agree with them.

There's also a difference between certain things that had been considered taboo / forbidden but are now accepted vs. sex work and drugs: the ends do not justify the means. Allowing gay marriage provides an ends (i.e. more people, LGBTQ folks, who can live on equal legal footing as hetero folks) that more than justify the means (accepting that societally and legally). Legalizing drugs that allow folks to alter their conscience more than justifies the legalizing and shift in attitude.

What are the ends / results for sex work? While certain sex workers may make an inordinate amount of cash (which is certainly their right to do in a free market exchange), sex work does not provide a net benefit to society. It ruins relationships (e.g. infidelity with porn or physical sex acts, harming unwitting partners and children of the transgressors) and prevents them from even starting (e.g. stunted personal development due to excessive porn use, as I have seen in a lot of my male colleagues who were the first generation to grow up with high speed internet porn and are now in their early 30s and have no idea how to connect with a partner as a human being and not just a sex object; or in women who sell their bodies one way or another and then end up in no relationship or in an abusive or otherwise substandard relationship because they neglected to build career and interpersonal skills that could benefit them and their pursuit towards self-actualization).

Although these harms cannot and should not be regulated against by the government, it would be reckless to encourage ignorance of the societal harms.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#102

Post by donquichotte »

kodah wrote: post #29

Porn always reminds me of other classical debates that have no end like guns and abortion. The camps of folks in the middle who are cognitively capable of making a difference can't because the outsized voices on either side of them are screaming for either total freedom or total shutdown. They actively fear monger people out of action so no real progress is made. It prevents the best coders and business people from w…

> virtually anything sex related, apart from toys, cannot be purchased with credit or debit cards

So after all those years, we have finally found a use case for cryptocurrencies!

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#103

Post by jejejfjf »

est31 wrote: post #91
fullshark wrote: post #44

This guy seems to be operating on the assumption that MEN are to blame for pornography's status as a social pariah. As if mothers everywhere would be proud of their daughters producing pornography on Onlyfans if only their husbands weren't in their ear shaming them.

Those same mothers would likely be very glad if their daughter got a man with a well paying job, lots of money, and a big house. They think more in terms of their generation, how women's access to status worked back when they were young. Onlyfans opens a different way for attractive women to attain wealth. Much safer, and with way less pain involved than going through a marriage that was done for the money instead of…

Or, you know, they could go get a real job. I heard lots of women are doing that these days and they're being pretty successful. I'm sure those same mothers would be equally glad if they got a proper high-paying job.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#104

Post by fullshark »

est31 wrote: post #91
fullshark wrote: post #44

This guy seems to be operating on the assumption that MEN are to blame for pornography's status as a social pariah. As if mothers everywhere would be proud of their daughters producing pornography on Onlyfans if only their husbands weren't in their ear shaming them.

Those same mothers would likely be very glad if their daughter got a man with a well paying job, lots of money, and a big house. They think more in terms of their generation, how women's access to status worked back when they were young. Onlyfans opens a different way for attractive women to attain wealth. Much safer, and with way less pain involved than going through a marriage that was done for the money instead of…

Well that is a truly cynical perspective on life and marriage.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#105

Post by C19is20 »

lostgame wrote: post #4

As an asexual person, I wish this wasn’t the case, and I find it extremely triggering how hard it is to completely avoid adult content online. It certainly has had a negative affect on my mental health. I also find it ridiculous how services like PornHub and OnlyFans are featuring a lot of videos which clearly fetishizes borderline (okay, obvious) pedophilia, and, since its profitable, only pull it down when they mig…

Hosts file and ad blockers and ublock and noscript and a pi-hole and a cool DNS service combined with Firefox's HoD might be good starting points.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#106

Post by bsanr2 »

There's a typo, I believe it means to say that the industry is $50 billion, as the video game industry does roughly $150 billion in business a year (which is crazy, as it was only $65 billion when I was in school in the 2000s).

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#107

Post by spaceribs »

lumberjack wrote: post #95
spaceribs wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets break down your "pimping" attributes: - Recruiting young girls: Good infantilization here, you mean young women over the age of consent that can decide for themselves what they can do with their bodies? Those women? And how are they being recruited? By demonstrating the value of their service and being an attractive alternative to McDonald's minimum wage burger flipping? Is McDonalds in the burger-work pimping b…

Yes in some ideal environment a sex worker and a pimp could have a mutually beneficial relationship. But that is not why pimping is looked down upon. And you made no honest attempt to address the issues that exist in practice.

I cannot debate against a emotionally charged smear.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#108

Post by bonoboTP »

"Everything in life is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power."

I think the debate is not really about porn, but people's sense of justice, cheating, deserving things or not etc.

Some feel like porn gives unearned satisfaction to young men, a virtual substitute they don't have to work for. The bitter other side will say, no shit, I won't slave away to get screwed over, it's much more straightforward business to consume porn.

A wife may feel cheated and less desired, and therefore feel like they are less necessary, a "resource" they provide is devalued.

Puritans may feel like so much sexuality and hedonism tries to cheat and get the benefits, while not suffering consequences, like pregnancy, adult responsibility of family life etc. That it hollows out the sanctity of this intimate and symbolic act.

Others may feel camgirls are collecting undeserved money, they don't do actual noble valuable work, just cash in based on their genetics and immorality.

It all comes down to a feeling that people get things they don't deserve.

It's about feelings that the young man should work his ass off to obtain status than satisfy himself with porn. The female performer should rather hold on to her sexual value and motivate men to work to get it and then only give it out when also taking on the responsibility of childbirth.

And therefore it's not likely that the debate will get "resolved", because it's not about some objective disagreement but about who deserves what. It's more metaphysical and depends on one's fundamental worldview and framework of justice.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#109

Post by anchpop »

postingpals wrote: post #49
kodah wrote: post #29

Porn always reminds me of other classical debates that have no end like guns and abortion. The camps of folks in the middle who are cognitively capable of making a difference can't because the outsized voices on either side of them are screaming for either total freedom or total shutdown. They actively fear monger people out of action so no real progress is made. It prevents the best coders and business people from w…

SV is not going to disrupt the sex industry because the part that needs disrupting is the unethical nature of it. Profit is not optimised to do that.

OnlyFans seems to have disrupted the porn industry in an ethical way I think. Profit obviously isn't always closely aligned with ethics, but being ethical is usually a good idea all other things being equal. People are more likely to support your company if they think you behave ethically (it helps if they believe in your mission), and if you have a history of acting honestly you can maybe derive gains from the fact that your customers may trust you more.

Re: The Internet Is for Porn

#110

Post by _huayra_ »

burntoutfire wrote: post #43

> [About SV] An observer might note that all of these companies are dominated by men, in an industry dominated by men, tightly interwoven with a venture capital industry that is super-dominated by men. So it’s curious why none of these men have shown any interest in addressing the massive and lucrative sex work industry that overwhelmingly serves, well, men; until you consider who pays the real costs of that industry…

This feminist take was definitely uncalled for in this article. The author's bias about how the women, _who are actually getting monetarily compensated_, are the victims completely misses the costs to the purchasers, who are almost all men, in terms of their money and the neurologic changes that such sex work consumption has. Having the "algorithm" suggesting and enticing these men back to buy more subscriptions / pics or however it works on these things is just as much a negative side effect as the women experience in social stigma.
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