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What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

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Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#111

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

sexoffender wrote: post #63

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, I see the puritanical christians going the route of "sex is evil". It's the unsaid thing as well, but they are also the ones pushing for "abstinence-only training". This is literally dumbing down discourse to students at an age who sorely needs it. I'd also be willing to bet that this family has no compunctions about letting the son watch extreme violent TV shows and movies. People being tortured, m…

The puritanical attitude is wrong. Sex is an amazing and great part of life, just like roller coasters or having 3 beers. Life is meant to be enjoyed. But over-doing it, or using something in a way it wasn't meant to be used, can ruin that joy. Nothing is wrong with sex within a healthy relationship. But nobody who goes to a hooker really believes afterwards that they found true happiness there. We also avoid movies…

> But nobody who goes to a hooker really believes afterwards that they found true happiness there.

There are a lot of assumptions rolled up in that sentence.

Rather than try and unpack them all here myself, I'd encourage you to talk to actual sex workers. Not people who engage the services of sex workers, but the people actually doing the sex work themselves. Ask them about the work they do, why they do it, what their customers are looking for, and what role they think they're playing in their customers' lives.

I think you'd be surprised by some of what you hear.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#112

Post by wfo » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #69

wfo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am tired of seeing issues framed this way: "Despite all objective evidence, my ideology drives the view that it must be making men brutal and compromising women's power" The paragraph you quoted is literally saying "although evidence suggests porn does not increase assault, no matter what you believe about it it helps shape the views of people who watch it on sex and gender" which is the most obvious, tepid, nonco…

In general intuition is a tool that can be used to help uncover things, but should not be used as a basis for a view by itself. You might be inclined to call the following the most "obvious, tepid, noncontroversial statement" "It's self evident that you shouldn't expose people with bacterial infections to something that comes from the blue green mold that emerges on rot." Of course as you might know, I actually just…

Oh I certainly agree. And in general, beware anyone who uses the phrase 'common sense' - it turns out it is often not so common, not so sensical, or both.

But the notion that media influences culture (for which there is overwhelming evidence not only scientific but in the form of every for-profit organization that has a marketing division, and which is even a truism - media IS culture) being stated in the New York Times in 2018 is like taking a paragraph in a Nature article to explain yes, the moon exists.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#113

Post by dpkonofa » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #98

ceejayoz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Porn is a common thread in serial murderers. So's oxygen and water intake. Citing NetNanny on this is pretty silly. Serial killers existed long before pornography was around, and I suspect you're getting correlation and causation mixed up there. Your average porn consumer manages not to cut heads off.

Pornography goes back to at least Greek times, and probably is roughly contemporaneous with the invention of art. There have been, perhaps, a few hundred serial killers? Even if all of them had seen porn, that's a few billion people who saw porn, enjoyed it, and then didn't kill anyone else.

Pornography always leads people down this path where they ignore all the things that don't support demonizing it. I can't think of many things besides drugs and music that get a similar armchair evaluation from people who are always insistent they have the moral high ground. My family was never the type to stray from talking about sex (very European sensibility about it) so it was always "You're going to see porn. If any of it confuses you, ask me about it." Why can't most people be like that? It's always gotta be "Porn, movies, and video games create serial killers" while completely ignoring that there are literally millions of people that enjoy all those things and continue to be just fine, productive and mentally healthy members of society.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#114

Post by JCSato » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

reader5000 wrote: post #105

JCSato wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a kid who's parents were actively monitoring my search activity, cutting off my access to the internet as a whole because of porn, and were trying to equate me watching porn because I'm going through puberty (presumably) with throwing away meaningful relationships in my future. . .what that teaches me is to never, ever go to my parents for any problems I have remotely related to sex, because their draconian.…

Yes, not wanting your children to develop sexual relationships with computer screens is draconian.

Not quite what I was saying. Not wanting anyone you care about to "develop sexual relationships with computer screens" is normal, I'd think.

Mandating all levels of access to computer screens because of that desire is what's draconian, not the intent behind the mandate.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#115

Post by ovao » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

pornthrow2018 wrote: post #26

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder which one is better: 1) Quit Porn 2) Stop Masturbation Any ideas?

I've tried quitting either for years, very much addicted. Or at least a very strong coping mechanism. If you're anything like me, it's more or less impossible to quit one and have the other. Watching porn will eventually lead to masturbation and vice versa. I've recently tried taking the half-measure of exclusively audio pornography (/r/gonewildaudio) - in an effort to see if I notice any changes in my perception of…

My approach to quitting porn is (relatively) simple: mentally decouple porn from masturbation.

Excessive consumption of the former leads, usually, to excessive acts of the latter, and to a link between the two, but after some time without it, porn simply becomes unnecessary for masturbation. I can watch porn now without feeling compelled to masturbate to it, but after a while it loses an incredible amount of its appeal.

You can re-align your thinking in a way that sexual fantasy becomes just as effective as porn, and, eventually, you may find that you’re able to masturbate without fantasy either.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#116

Post by JCSato » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

ovao wrote: post #106

JCSato wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a kid who's parents were actively monitoring my search activity, cutting off my access to the internet as a whole because of porn, and were trying to equate me watching porn because I'm going through puberty (presumably) with throwing away meaningful relationships in my future. . .what that teaches me is to never, ever go to my parents for any problems I have remotely related to sex, because their draconian.…

> I feel like there's better ways to solve that than "no internet for you, and internet you do have is Being Watched". What are those ways?

That's a good question, and I'm not sure. I think the. . .popular mentality is that you model proper behavior/approaches, but I don't think that really works here as well. The idea is that you have someone wiser than you who you can compare experiences with, and they can help guide you away from damaging choices - e.g. violent rape porn is probably a bad choice because X, Y, and Z. But I don't know what to generically recommend for reaching that place.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#117

Post by ryanwaggoner » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

sexoffender wrote: post #110

JCSato wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a kid who's parents were actively monitoring my search activity, cutting off my access to the internet as a whole because of porn, and were trying to equate me watching porn because I'm going through puberty (presumably) with throwing away meaningful relationships in my future. . .what that teaches me is to never, ever go to my parents for any problems I have remotely related to sex, because their draconian.…

We've never let them have free reign to screens, whether computer or TV or phone, because there's a whole host of other problems that come from that. So it's not like we're taking internet away from them and that they're used to it. We've been teaching each one, the other they get, how to use computers and the internet responsibly, and we've always supervised to make sure they're not accidentally running into somethi…

No one knows how to better parent your kids than childless millenial software developers :)

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#118

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #36

Santosh83 wrote: post #8

Honestly, like all addictions, it starts having an impact when you start depending upon it for pleasure and substitute parts of your life with it. That tends to happen when your life in general is not working well, or you're caught in situations of chronic stress and unhappiness. So the real long term strategy here would be to elevate the general quality of our lives and our interrelationships with each other, which…

The article is not about addiction

In fact, the article explicitly points out there's no scientific evidence for "porn addiction" existing in the first place.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#119

Post by crankylinuxuser » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

Digory wrote: post #107

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The puritanical attitude is wrong. Sex is an amazing and great part of life, just like roller coasters or having 3 beers. Life is meant to be enjoyed. But over-doing it, or using something in a way it wasn't meant to be used, can ruin that joy. Nothing is wrong with sex within a healthy relationship. But nobody who goes to a hooker really believes afterwards that they found true happiness there. But that's what I'm…

>Nothing is wrong with consensual sex, period. Is that entirely true? If I say "nothing is wrong with eating Big Macs, period" that's right in one sense. But you and I can see with our own eyes what an unrestrained diet of Big Macs might do, and it's bad, if not legally wrong. You might say the problem with unrestrained eating is the desire or relationship with food, not the object (the Big Mac), but in that case tra…

>>Nothing is wrong with consensual sex, period.

>Is that entirely true? If I say "nothing is wrong with eating Big Macs, period" that's right in one sense. But you and I can see with our own eyes what an unrestrained diet of Big Macs might do, and it's bad, if not legally wrong.

That's a completely invalid comparison. One is an act of eating, and other is an act of sex. Unless you'd like to argue that sex=eating... I'll give the benefit of the doubt, and make the assumption you aren't.

I make the point of stating "consensual sex". The only things traded between them are potentially bodily fluids. If a condom/spermicide fails, then a possible pregnancy occurs. And STI's can be transmitted. These are the negatives of consensual sex, but are easily mitigated in states or countries that don't force moralization laws like the Missouri Rape wand, or 3 day waits on access, or keep emergency contraceptive away.

A condom breakage can be triaged with RU486 and other emergency contraception drugs. A further in pregnancy can be solved with abortion. If birth is desired, many jurisdictions have abandonment laws that legally allow instant adoption away.

STI's can be treated in many cases. In some of the viral cases, the virus can be inhibited to prevent transmission unless a flare-up occurs. Even in HIV, anti-retrovirals make people who catch it early enough have a 0 viral load. A 0 load means you effectively cannot infect others.

> You might say the problem with unrestrained eating is the desire or relationship with food, not the object (the Big Mac), but in that case traditional morality is also saying something about the focus of 'healthy' desire, not the sex act.

And there, it comes out. "traditional morality". In my experience, this is just coded words for "Christian Morality" which comes alongside the precept 'I will legally enshrine the morals I follow and force you to follow them as well'.

Simply put: I have no issue for you to choose to refrain from sex until marriage, and not eat Big Macs. I don't even care if you choose to masturbate while eating Whoppers. But do not confuse your ethics for mine. Nor should you try to enshrine your ethics as a form of law.

> Even if you strip away the "wrong," the way people incorporate sex into their relationships and ethics will make lives better or worse.

Better or worse, according to your ethics. Unless you're a party in that sexual encounter, you should stay out "ethically" as well in forced moralizations.

Re: What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn

#120

Post by JCSato » Wed, Feb 07, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

sexoffender wrote: post #110

JCSato wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a kid who's parents were actively monitoring my search activity, cutting off my access to the internet as a whole because of porn, and were trying to equate me watching porn because I'm going through puberty (presumably) with throwing away meaningful relationships in my future. . .what that teaches me is to never, ever go to my parents for any problems I have remotely related to sex, because their draconian.…

We've never let them have free reign to screens, whether computer or TV or phone, because there's a whole host of other problems that come from that. So it's not like we're taking internet away from them and that they're used to it. We've been teaching each one, the other they get, how to use computers and the internet responsibly, and we've always supervised to make sure they're not accidentally running into somethi…

Thank you for explaining further, that helps narrow down the situation.

"we had to take stronger measures against this disease in his mind that led him to put his younger siblings in danger of seeing something far more confusing and graphic than they're ready to at their ages."

This is what leaves me unconvinced (and I don't have expectation of changing your mind either - you operate with the most information here so that's probably a good thing). Certainly, what he did was inappropriate, but. . .a boy in puberty looking for porn on the internet is not a "disease". Even offensive porn. There's not something wrong with your boy. He did a bad thing (or a few bad things). He's a teen. Doesn't mean he should be let off the hook, but. . .diseased? Nah.

It does sound like you're having some conversations about this (and importantly, providing the idea that there's something better out there), though, so that's good.

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