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What Porn Did to American Culture?

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#41

Post by palata »

sepositus wrote: post #18
dingnuts wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand that your anecdote is an example of confirmation bias, right? You claim is tantamount to saying you ran an AA group and only heard bad things about alcohol. No shit!? Next you'll start a sports gambling recovery group and let us know there's nothing good about sports. Porn might not be good but your anecdote is a long way from evidence. What you've seen is a tautology; the people who DON'T have a pr…

> You claim I think this is your problem. I didn't make a claim. I provided a personal story about running these groups and how objectification of women was a common result of a porn addiction (something the individual being interviewed mentioned). I was simply providing some anecdotal evidence that agreed with the interviewee. I wouldn't make an absolute statement about my experiences for the same reasons you're usi…

Genuinely interested: when people say "video games make people violent, just look at this violent person who plays violent video games". Many times I don't particularly see a causation, and I know a ton of people who play video games and aren't violent.

Are we sure that porn "molds" people like that? Or is it a claim similar to the ones against video games?

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#42

Post by [deleted] »

sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

[deleted]

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#43

Post by blueprint »

mystraline wrote: post #22

The article claims porn, and sure, that's a part. The bigger issue here is outmoded predominant protestant christian views of 'morality'. And that percolates all through the rest of USA culture, including into advertisements and commercialism. Their view of sex is as a sin, so its shamed, hidden, and secretly desired. All these things have popped up with all these pretty terrible results. Sexuality is 'tittalting' so…

yeah "possessiveness" has absolutely no basis in anything reasonable, let's villainize it too while we're pretending not to alienate anything about ourselves lol

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#44

Post by sepositus »

dingnuts wrote: post #31
sepositus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You claim I think this is your problem. I didn't make a claim. I provided a personal story about running these groups and how objectification of women was a common result of a porn addiction (something the individual being interviewed mentioned). I was simply providing some anecdotal evidence that agreed with the interviewee. I wouldn't make an absolute statement about my experiences for the same reasons you're usi…

> Never once have I found a single story that ended well. That's the claim you made. Every story ends badly because you've never seen one end well at your recovery program. You've never seen a story end well because by the time you're involved everything has already gone wrong. You're like a fire fighter claiming homes are dangerous because you always see them on fire. The people who don't have a problem aren't comin…

> The people who don't have a problem aren't coming to your program.

Exactly, I think we're just talking past each other. My comment very much implies this; I didn't feel the need to state it explicitly.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

enceladus06 wrote: post #8
sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

Why is porn such a big deal? I've seen it, but the real thing is much better. How is it even possible to get addicted that just seems weird.

[deleted]

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#46

Post by loeg »

Right out of the gate the interview has a pretty extreme claim -- that porn is somehow responsible for societal cruelty, not just towards women, but towards a rainbow coalition of progressive causes. No explanation or justification is given; it's just a sound bite. Is the rest of this worth reading?

Edit: I ended up reading the rest of it, and... there's just nothing there? If you're interested in a short interview with Sophie Gilbert, maybe this is appealing, but if you've never heard of her, I don't see the draw.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#47

Post by maroonblazer »

k__ wrote: post #25
replwoacause wrote: post #13

I recognized its pernicious effects on me and gave it up after getting married and before having a kid. This was after being exposed to it for decades from a young age through unrestricted access to the internet. I think that’s an all too common story. It’s crazy how normalized it becomes once it worms its way into your life, but having been off of it for some time now, I see clearly what a terrible influence it was…

"I recognized its pernicious effects on me" What effects did it have on you? "made me aware of the extreme perversions" Such as?

Not the parent, but for me, porn served as a kind of supernormal stimulus. It became difficult to become aroused with my partner when I had a practically infinite variety of virtual women to choose from, doing an infinite variety of things. Quitting porn was one of the best things I did for my sex life.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#48

Post by replwoacause »

k__ wrote: post #25
replwoacause wrote: post #13

I recognized its pernicious effects on me and gave it up after getting married and before having a kid. This was after being exposed to it for decades from a young age through unrestricted access to the internet. I think that’s an all too common story. It’s crazy how normalized it becomes once it worms its way into your life, but having been off of it for some time now, I see clearly what a terrible influence it was…

"I recognized its pernicious effects on me" What effects did it have on you? "made me aware of the extreme perversions" Such as?

Should be obvious if you read the article, which you clearly have not. But since you’re asking, it hijacks your dopamine system and makes you behave like a lab rat. You use it for a quick boost, to cope, etc. Really the same kind of effect you notice in other addictive behaviors like gambling and overeating.

As for the perversions, you don’t need me to enumerate them. Go visit pornhub if you’re somehow still unclear.

By the way, I’m no prude or religious zealot. I have nothing against sex workers. But the industry fraught with abuse that I can’t be a party to in any way. If you have no problems with it then good for you I guess.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#49

Post by sepositus »

RHSeeger wrote: post #17
sepositus wrote: post #6

I've been helping young men escape the clutches of porn for over a decade now (leading what you might call recovery groups). Never once have I found a single story that ended well (but that's more or less expected given the groups I run). It all starts with an introduction to porn and ends with an addiction that seems to slowly transforms their brains in unpleasant ways, objectification of women being the primary one…

> Never once have I found a single story that ended well. It seems like this is a result of selection bias. If you're already seeing a group of people that have decided that porn is a problem for them, then the porn is going to be a problem for the people you're seeing.

Yes, I've updated the original comment since so many people are getting tripped up over this. As I've said in another thread, this can pretty easily be implied by my comment, so it wasn't stated out loud. But I've added an aside to make it more clear.

Re: What Porn Did to American Culture?

#50

Post by mystraline »

blueprint wrote: post #43
mystraline wrote: post #22

The article claims porn, and sure, that's a part. The bigger issue here is outmoded predominant protestant christian views of 'morality'. And that percolates all through the rest of USA culture, including into advertisements and commercialism. Their view of sex is as a sin, so its shamed, hidden, and secretly desired. All these things have popped up with all these pretty terrible results. Sexuality is 'tittalting' so…

yeah "possessiveness" has absolutely no basis in anything reasonable, let's villainize it too while we're pretending not to alienate anything about ourselves lol

I should have expected that my general attack on protestant Christianity's views on sex would get a sarcastic response.

And no, possessiveness in regards to other humans is honestly really bad. It may every so often feel good for a moment, in a 'they want me' sort of feel. But that has a really bad tendency to go off the rails and turn violent quickly.

There's ways to do sexuality and relationships healthy. Possessiveness, jealousy, shame, and other similar emotions aren't healthy for anyone involved.

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