Is Porn Bad for You?

[Nordic]

I remember a comedian, may have been Seinfeld. He said the reason men always wanted to control the remote is because, for men, they didn't really care what was on TV, what they wanted to know is what ELSE was on TV.

I'm probably not telling that correctly, but I think the same thing is true of the internet in general and definitely porn on the internet.

It's not what you're looking at, it's feeling that you're missing something that's better.

Next thing you know, you've been on for hours.

Can be true of many things, not just porn. Certainly it's how you can spend a ton of time just channel surfing. There are so many channels now that by the time you're doing surfing in one direction, there might be a whole new set of programs on and you can go the other direction.

I think it's more about boredom than anything else.

[82_28]

I remember a comedian, may have been Seinfeld. He said the reason men always wanted to control the remote is because, for men, they didn't really care what was on TV, what they wanted to know is what ELSE was on TV.

I'm probably not telling that correctly, but I think the same thing is true of the internet in general and definitely porn on the internet.

It's not what you're looking at, it's feeling that you're missing something that's better.

Next thing you know, you've been on for hours.

Can be true of many things, not just porn. Certainly it's how you can spend a ton of time just channel surfing. There are so many channels now that by the time you're doing surfing in one direction, there might be a whole new set of programs on and you can go the other direction.

I think it's more about boredom than anything else.

I remember another comedian way back when who said, look at women when they go to a strip club (chippendales type thing) -- it's like a fun party and everyone has fun and shrieks and laughs. The he said, with a straight face -- You ever been to a male strip club (women and poles and such)? Have you ever seen a pack of hungry wolves? But he had a little act and the facial expressions to go along with it. It was funny.

[smiths]

personally i draw a distinction between naked photos of women and videos of men fucking women

i am a great fan of visual beauty, i love natural scenery that leaves me lost for words, i love mindbending feats of architectural and engineering brilliance,
i love the paintings of Turner, arabic patterns, japanese design ...

probably most of all though, i love the youthful healthy female form,
i consider it to be the most beautiful and entrancing thing i have come across

a slim healthy confident young women of 18 to 25 years old is as physically beautiful , attractive and perfect as she is ever going to be

it is worth considering the ways that looking at photos of a beautiful naked 18 year old girl becomes problematic and 'bad for you'

[Simulist]

simulist wrote:

Quote:
Is Porn Bad for You?



What isn't?

How about love, truth, and uh...raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens?

Sure. Porn can be "bad" for you. News at eleven.

But then, so can almost anything — yes, even noble things.

"Sunlight" might be the "the best disinfectant," but too much of it can cause cancer. Romantic love is wonderful — unless of course that man on bended knee was the office nose-picker, who just offered you the bouquet of freshly-rained-upon roses. Truth can be "bad" when it's told inappropriately or with mean-spirited intent. (On the other hand, lying can sometimes be virtuous and strychnine medicinal.) And what about "whiskers on kittens"? Well those are material poetry! — until the cat uses them to wake you up on a too-early Saturday morning.

It's complicated, and it all depends. (You know, like life and just about everything.)

[compared2what?]

Porn is bad for some people. Others, no problem.

(Substitute alcohol, marijuana, grad school, LSD, God, shopping, eating, gambling, gaming... jump in anytime...)

Sure.

But all porn is sexually arousing to someone, obviously. Because otherwise, it wouldn't exist. Does anyone here really want to make the issue of what sexually arousing material is acceptable and what isn't officially a social and/or political concern, which needs to be defined by experts and authorities for the public good?

Because that's never boded well for anyone in history so far. Not one single time.

I mean, it goes without saying that there's a bright line wrt kiddy porn that you don't cross. But the criminal abuse of children depicted therein wouldn't be any less absolutely criminally abusive if it wasn't recorded. Because it's already absolute.

Similarly, real snuff films aren't problematic because they're pornographic. They're problematic because the people who make them are sociopathic murderers, and the people who pay to see them are accessories after the fact to those murders, and the people who are killed in them are innocent and helpless murder victims.

But once you start drawing lines about the content of someone's fantasies or the form taken by someone's desires within the boundaries of licit sexual activity, you're just on a very dangerously slippery slope. Enormously more dangerous and slippery than the one you're on with porn everywhere.

And I'm not saying that there are no problems, risks, or dangers attached to having porn everywhere, by any means. There are. I'm just saying that those problems, risks and dangers don't originate in porn, and therefore can't be solved, mitigated or guarded against by any porn-centrically focused approach.

I mean, I'm sure there are people out there to whom it's disgusting that 82_28 is turned on by loving sex. Possibly people with nasty ass fetishes, even. That doesn't make 82_28's desires as they naturally occur to him those people's business, or anybody's business, besides 82_28 and the consenting adults he has loving sex with. Any more than their nasty ass fetishes are any business of 82_28's.

It's just never a good idea to start throwing down prohibitions and judgments about private sexual activity when it's at all possible to avoid doing so, imo. Given that that's how we got to where we are in the first place. And also how powerful those forces have typically gotten once the thin end of the wedge has opened a door through which they can come thundering in.

I don't know. I'm not really with the tide of the times on this issue. So maybe I'm just old. Never mind me.

[compared2what?]

I remember a comedian, may have been Seinfeld. He said the reason men always wanted to control the remote is because, for men, they didn't really care what was on TV, what they wanted to know is what ELSE was on TV.

I'm probably not telling that correctly, but I think the same thing is true of the internet in general and definitely porn on the internet.

It's not what you're looking at, it's feeling that you're missing something that's better.

Next thing you know, you've been on for hours.

Can be true of many things, not just porn. Certainly it's how you can spend a ton of time just channel surfing. There are so many channels now that by the time you're doing surfing in one direction, there might be a whole new set of programs on and you can go the other direction.

I think it's more about boredom than anything else.

I remember another comedian way back when who said, look at women when they go to a strip club (chippendales type thing) -- it's like a fun party and everyone has fun and shrieks and laughs. The he said, with a straight face -- You ever been to a male strip club (women and poles and such)? Have you ever seen a pack of hungry wolves? But he had a little act and the facial expressions to go along with it. It was funny.

personally i draw a distinction between naked photos of women and videos of men fucking women

i am a great fan of visual beauty, i love natural scenery that leaves me lost for words, i love mindbending feats of architectural and engineering brilliance,
i love the paintings of Turner, arabic patterns, japanese design ...

probably most of all though, i love the youthful healthy female form,
i consider it to be the most beautiful and entrancing thing i have come across

a slim healthy confident young women of 18 to 25 years old is as physically beautiful , attractive and perfect as she is ever going to be

it is worth considering the ways that looking at photos of a beautiful naked 18 year old girl becomes problematic and 'bad for you'

And, as always, nothing makes me feel more like my sexuality is a part of the natural scheme of things than learning even more about all the nuances involved in the process whereby whatever guys happen to be around when the topic arises experience, sort through and define their feelings about negotiating the abundance of choices they have when it comes to representations of female sexuality as conceived of from the perspective of male sexual fantasy, while somehow managing to avoid both boredom and ethical pitfalls.

Or fondly rehashing the equally abundant memorably humorous comments that male comedians have quite naturally made on that very subject, what with it being universal to the human condition and everything. I should hasten to add. Because that always reminds me of what a full and equal participant in my culture and society I am, too.

Needless to say.
____________

I'm not actually complaining about or criticizing you all, btw. Because you're not doing anything objectionable, you're just occupying the world you live in. And I wouldn't want you to do anything else. I'm just remarking on how few the accommodations for women that world makes really are. Which are very, very few, in some areas. Such as having an autonomous, spontaneous and naturally occurring sexual identity, for example.

Not that it's any big thing, in reality, to be honest. I mean, it's not like I've ever known any other world, either. So your normal is my normal, by virtue of it being the only normal there is.

It does make it a little odd to be a person, sometimes, though. Since it does entail reflexively living in a permanent state of silent not-normalness much of the time.

Anyway. Carry on.

[norton ash]

It's not-normal, it's absolutely other.

And no-one ever went broke by finding and filling the holes in us.

[smiths]

i'm confused now, whats not normal?

[barracuda]

i'm confused now, whats not normal?

Femaleness, of course, with all the gender's various flaws and disabilities vis-a-vis the valiant measure of all things, the male. At least in as much as any of us can think we are functioning rightly and behaving normally when the whole game is being played bent, and your very culture is hellbent on the cheapening and oppression of the significance and validity of your "other", and the silencing of that voice. "You complete me" means something very different in these circumstances. Let's not forget that all men watch porn.

The answers came quickly and from all over the emotional map: "disgusted," "excited," "angry," "anxious," "saddened," "afraid," "horny," "repulsed," "ashamed," "shocked," "amused," "curious," and "ambivalent."

I can't tell if they're talking about pornography or Chuck Berry records.

I'm pretty sure this same article appeared, slightly modified, with the advent of VHS tapes, and the daguerreotype.

[82_28]

I mean, I'm sure there are people out there to whom it's disgusting that 82_28 is turned on by loving sex. Possibly people with nasty ass fetishes, even. That doesn't make 82_28's desires as they naturally occur to him those people's business, or anybody's business, besides 82_28 and the consenting adults he has loving sex with. Any more than their nasty ass fetishes are any business of 82_28's.

Here's the thing with porn as I see it: it's in your face. I've seen dudes I grew up with become total assholes to women and have nothing ever to say about a female that didn't have some sexual connotation and not in the "man do I absolutely love making love to my girlfriend" way etc. It's always "nasty ass" talk about people I always considered to be humans too and they just so happen to be female. And furthermore and the most important aspect to my OPINION, is that I have seen too many women who have been raped or abused. One of my very dear friends awhile back remarked to me "welcome to being a woman" when I said "Jesus has every chick in the world been raped -- it seems like I don't know a woman or girl hasn't been abused at some point in her life". My girlfriend still refuses to tell me something about her past. I don't prod, nor do I pry and I don't even want to know. But I know it happened to her too. My opinion is formed from a long line of past experiences of which come contrary to the way my formative male figure in my life raised me. (My dad was molested as a child -- from what I understand -- again I have never wanted to know any more -- he never brought it up, but my mom mentioned something years ago). My dad taught me love. Am I good at loving someone romantically? I actually fucking suck at it and it is a bane to my existence. But I do think I am with the person I utterly love now. But see, love must come unconditionally. I don't give a shit what you look like (well somewhat), but don't need you to be in shape, you don't need to wear make-up and as I write this my girlfriend is watching the premier of "The Bachelorette". Man, the shit these ass clowns are saying as they meet her. Ugh. I guess porn is much too superficial for me. Blame it on my Morrissey "fetish" I've always been made fun of for.

As the fairer class always tells us guys when shit ain't working out, "it's complicated". Well it is complicated. I don't know what is normal. However, love is essential at least as far as this guy is concerned. Again, I'm no catch and I don't think highly of myself. I do however think the best of others when and where I can. No, "nasty ass fetishes" of others are any of my business as was rightly pointed out. But in a world of widespread porn and exploitation of others, it does seem to be a bit of my business as I do happen to be a member of this milieu we currently seem to be discussing.

[smiths]

I've seen dudes I grew up with become total assholes to women and have nothing ever to say about a female that didn't have some sexual connotation

thats just bad parenting

[Perelandra]

i'm confused now, whats not normal?

Femaleness, of course, with all the gender's various flaws and disabilities vis-a-vis the valiant measure of all things, the male. At least in as much as any of us can think we are functioning rightly and behaving normally when the whole game is being played bent, and your very culture is hellbent on the cheapening and oppression of the significance and validity of your "other", and the silencing of that voice. "You complete me" means something very different in these circumstances. Let's not forget that all men watch porn.

The answers came quickly and from all over the emotional map: "disgusted," "excited," "angry," "anxious," "saddened," "afraid," "horny," "repulsed," "ashamed," "shocked," "amused," "curious," and "ambivalent."

I can't tell if they're talking about pornography or Chuck Berry records.

I'm pretty sure this same article appeared, slightly modified, with the advent of VHS tapes, and the daguerreotype.

[82_28]

I've seen dudes I grew up with become total assholes to women and have nothing ever to say about a female that didn't have some sexual connotation

thats just bad parenting

Indeed. It is too widespread. (No pun intended -- well actually it was intended)

But! While it may be bad parenting, it is also bad "stewardship" of our human capability of empathy and compassion to say there isn't at least something 50% wrong with pornography. Sure, we may get our rocks off on it and that is completely natural. No problem there with me. Perhaps I should define myself better to all of you and myself -- perhaps it is society's preoccupation with it that is at root my problem with it. I dunno, just thinking.

[Nordic]

Jesus christ, fine, let's outlaw all photographed porn, since it involves actual photographs of women doing nasty things that they must NOT like (because they're so pure!)

I'll be over here in the corner with my book of 1940's pinups .... with the "No women were actually photographed in the production of these erotic pictures" label.

Dolphin safe!

(and by the way, I've seen videos and photos of women at bachelorette parties getting pretty fucking nasty with the male strippers. It ain't all rainbows and unicorns)

[82_28]

Jesus christ, fine, let's outlaw all photographed porn, since it involves actual photographs of women doing nasty things that they must NOT like (because they're so pure!)

I'll be over here in the corner with my book of 1940's pinups .... with the "No women were actually photographed in the production of these erotic pictures" label.

Dolphin safe!

(and by the way, I've seen videos and photos of women at bachelorette parties getting pretty fucking nasty with the male strippers. It ain't all rainbows and unicorns)

Dunno if you're responding to me, Nordic. But I am not speaking from the standpoint of a woman. I am speaking from the standpoint of the man that I happen to be. These are my opinions. However, I hate it when people look at others with such a lust that their loving capabilities turn off. Again -- a preoccupation with porn, not porn itself.

I love my girlfriend. But as I tell her, since I love you, I am with you. Once you're in love, you've seen one vagina, you've seen them all. Don't even get me started on nasty throbbing penises. I have one. Except I try to make it less nasty in my eyes, as it were. A friendly appendage that I only use to love the one I love.