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Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

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Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#661

Post by gosteinao »

drdeca wrote: post #655
toomanyrichies wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying porn either "gave" you a fetish, or uncovered a latent fetish you didn't know you had (and /or preferred not to know about). If that's an accurate read, can I ask what harm it causes you to have a fetish? Provided it doesn't harm anyone else, what's wrong with liking what you like?

I don’t buy the “revealed a latent fetish” explanation. I don’t think people are born with a fetish baked into their soul. Like, the people with the “blueberry expansion” one, you really think they were born with that? No, of course not, that would be dumb. I think the main reason people put forth the “latent fetish” explanation is in order to argue that pornography is harmless. As for why it harms me? The purpose of…

> The purpose of sexuality is for relations with one’s spouse.

Says who?

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#662

Post by dontlaugh »

ivape wrote: post #456
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty wild that people think that porn is more damaging to society than censorship.

One can make a very strong argument that the manosphere stuff is rooted in poor sexual attitudes of men that only got worse with tons of porn. You only need to type any random sexual thing and find any explicit subreddit you want, that’s how pervasive the porn is on even an allegedly non-porn platform. Every other game has basically stripper-level female characters now days. We’ve literally gone crazy. Holistically,…

I was with you until the last two paragraphs.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with hip hop.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#663

Post by gosteinao »

ivape wrote: post #456
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty wild that people think that porn is more damaging to society than censorship.

One can make a very strong argument that the manosphere stuff is rooted in poor sexual attitudes of men that only got worse with tons of porn. You only need to type any random sexual thing and find any explicit subreddit you want, that’s how pervasive the porn is on even an allegedly non-porn platform. Every other game has basically stripper-level female characters now days. We’ve literally gone crazy. Holistically,…

> One can make a very strong argument that the manosphere stuff is rooted in poor sexual attitudes of men that only got worse with tons of porn.

This has no bearing in reality. The "manosphere" is mostly neo-conservative guys who are sometimes even performatively against porn.

> Every other game has basically stripper-level female characters now days.

This used to be a lot more pervasive 20 years ago than now? Altogether with the "hip hop" thing, just feels like prejudiced, outdated arguments without data to back it up.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#664

Post by blensor »

can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

Would this really help though.

Let's assume there is a payment processor where anything goes, the company utilizing it would still be punished by the other payment processors.

I don't think Visa/Mastercard would care that you only sell the things they don't want through other payment processors, they still would threaten to cut you off entirely for having the content they don't like

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#665

Post by cgio »

I find the overall discussion on this topic interesting, but it feels like we could emphasise a bit more how this is related with the transition of discourse from freedom to righteousness. In this context, arguing the fairness of being free is just an admission that freedom is now a secondary line of argumentation. As an outsider to the US, it also seems a bit ironic to my uninformed eyes that a heavily liberal part of the society effectively and efficiently co opted the fairness, equality, morality vector to drive an agenda of less liberalism in the interest of winning against non liberal movements.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#666

Post by gosteinao »

gspencley wrote: post #207
RankingMember wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

I'm not so sure you can point the finger at the USA for this. I ran an online porn website for almost 20 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. I'm in Canada which, compared to the USA is extremely progressive. In 2022, after a decade of doing business with a certain bank as this business, never having hidden anything about what we did, my wife and I received an urgent, signature required, overnighte…

Two things can be true at the same time, however. The US has a strong stance on freedom, which means that they'll allow most things even if they're against them. Specially when that thing generates income. But that doesn't mean they're not also a puritanical society. They just take more of a "shame you" approach than a "you're forbidden" one to force you not to do stuff.

I bet you that American organizations were involved in the societal pressure that led this Canadian organization to do this. They're just not as effective in their own country in comparison to places where it's not all about money, and values do matter.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#667

Post by ben_w »

fenomas wrote: post #621
phire wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that it's not just a framing, an excuse to push their likes and dislikes on everyone. If anything, it's actually the other way around. Their puritan views of what makes a healthy society is what informs their likes/dislikes. They are legitimately fighting for what they legitimately think will make a healthier society. If you assume otherwise, you will misjudge them.

It's an imagined difference. Picture two people, each working to get a particular book banned. One is a petty moralizer trying to impose his likes and dislikes on everyone, and the other is legitimately fighting for what he believes will make society healthier. How do I tell which is which when their actions are identical?

> petty moralizer

This defines them as identical. Morals are what people think makes society better, and their absence worse.

There's lots of other ways to dislike something besides morals.

For example, I don't like spectator sports. It's not a moral issue, just taste, so me not watching sport is genuinely sufficient.

Conversely, I think analytics tracking is harmful to society even though I also find it interesting to see the results, and should be banned. Me simply not using it isn't enough.

Anti-porn people? I disagree with them. If they are motivated by religious fundamentalism, then I disagree with the foundation of their worldview. But this is how it is not simply enough to respond with "if you don't like it, don't buy it".

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#668

Post by gosteinao »

pyuser583 wrote: post #318

I read from a fairly reputable source that money laundering is a huge problem in online sex industry. Which makes sense - you have buyers and sellers who insist on anonymity, services that leave no trace once rendered, buyers and sellers lying to family and friends about what they're doing, etc. There's often no "normal" amount of consumption, for example, some sellers receive million dollar tips. Money laundering is…

I've worked specifically on payment connected to porn. Money laundering is a fact, but this being the motivation for banks to pull away is not.

There have been several scandals related to payment processing and money laundering, and some of them connected to companies that do a lot of business with porn. Usually, you will see banks breaking away when those scandals break to the public.

However, banks do not break away just because they don't like the transactions they're seeing. What they actually do is to enforce stricter rules by financially penalizing those who make them lose money. Your transactions are getting canceled a lot (by having to be flagged/undone/paid back etc.)? You'll have to pay higher fees, and if it keeps happening, you will lose your license.

You know when they do often break immediately, however? When there are campaigns by special interests groups, usually connected to conservative groups, to paint companies as having illegal content, even when they don't have this problem any more than any social media platform. In those cases, they don't wait for any tribunal.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#669

Post by DSingularity »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #425
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

You know. I used to be all about what you're going for. But I realized that porn to a certain extent is like cocaine. It's possibly one of the drivers for world wide declining population. Tons of dudes satisfying themselves without the urge to go out and do the real thing. There's growing science about this too. I don't like the conservative angle which is to be "proper" or it's against god, but from the scientific s…

Population is declining for some societies but not others.

The older I get the more I start to believe that industrialization and pervasive technological adoption have come with a cost to humanity that maybe we don’t want to bear.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#670

Post by DSingularity »

ardit33 wrote: post #180
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

Next is a Superman videogame being blocked because it goes against the 'policies/interests' of a country that manages to lobby a lot here.

Well you know Superman shouldn’t fight against genocidal maniacs and instead should fight for them. Then we wouldn’t have to ban him and infect we can all celebrate him.
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