Is Porn Bad for You?

[Joe Hillshoist]

When empires rot due to criminal overreach and economic decay, one meme that usually appears - and ends up in subsequent histories - is that it's all going south because of "decadence," specifically too much unbridled pleasure, especially sexual. So it's the "whore" of Babylon, and the Roman orgies and vomitoria, and the sodomy in Sodom, and now the porn in the United States - or to the fundamentalists among Christians and Muslims alike, the skimpy fashions and gay sex - that is bringing ruin on the once disciplined power that had been so noble, martial and good.

Sexual desire is a naturally occurring fact of human biology that isn't equivalent in any way to religious faith or practice. Acting on sexual desire by stimulating it to the point of orgasm is therefore not a form of worship. That's a basic distinction that's not affected by whether doing so involves one person, two people, or forty people.

To put it another way. Most prophets/seekers have a open, spontaneous experience with nature at some point. They communicate it, write it down. Other seekers want that experience so they create rituals to comes close to the original experience of the prophet. In time they settle for a substitute water down ritualized version which minimizes their desire but doesn't fulfill it. Not too long they prefer the substitute, may even come to fear despise the real, because it is safer and more manageable then pursuing the real.

I dunno c2w. I tend to agree with brekin that acting on sexual desire should be a form of worship. If life is a gift then sex is too and ... well recognising that is important imo. (FWIW too, some sexual magic practitioners reckon every sexual act and orgasm results in something being conceived and coming into the world - thinking kind of along the same lines I reckon.)

If what brekin says: Not too long they prefer the substitute, may even come to fear despise the real, because it is safer and more manageable then pursuing the real.
is accurate, and I think it is, then there is the heart of lots of problems. Not just why porn could be bad for someone seeing it either - what Jack and Reich said for example - how sexual energy is channeled into an empires pool of available power.

[Username]

~
Psychosynthesis
by Roberto Assagioli
Chapter VIII
1965.

Transmutation and Sublimation of Sexual Energies

by Roberto Assagioli

The problem of sex, the problem of how to deal in a sane and constructive way with the sexual drive, has confronted humanity ever since the beginning of civilization. But, for various reasons, this problem has now become more compelling, and public awareness of it is more acute to use a current phrase, humanity has become definitely sex-conscious.

The crisis in the relations between the sexes is not isolated but forms part and perhaps can be said to be the outstanding aspect of the general crisis which is deeply affecting the very foundations of existing civilization.

The authority of the religious and moral principles on which our civilization was based, the rules and customs which were formerly taken for granted and accepted (even if not always consistently applied) have lost or are rapidly losing their prestige, their binding and regulating power; even more, the younger generation is actively, and at times violently, revolting against them. The main cause of this crisis has been the fact that, while the religious fervor and the unquestioned acceptance of the theological and moral conceptions of the past have been rapidly losing their grip, the older and rigidly orthodox groups have attempted by sheer authority to enforce the strict rules, condemnations and prohibitions based on those theological and moralistic foundations.

Thus, in the past, in the sexual domain an attitude prevailed which led public opinion to regard the biological instincts and the human passions as bad and impure. Therefore, the method enjoined for dealing with them was that of suppression, except when the sex urge could find a justified satisfaction in lawful marriage. The whole subject of sex was considered improper, and adults tried to keep young people ignorant about it as long as possible.

The weakening of the religious influence on which that attitude was based, and the realization of the injurious effects of that suppression on health and character evoked various movements of revolt. First we had the "return to nature" advocated by Rousseau and his followers; then the glorification of feeling by the romantic movement; later, revival of the hedonistic and aesthetic ideas of ancient Greece and the Renaissance, followed- by the wave of philosophical and practical materialism, and the individualistic revolt against society and its norms as portrayed by Ibsen. Perhaps more important in modern society has been the influence of Freud and his followers of the psychoanalytic movement, which emphasized the psychopathological effects of sexual repression. All these concurred to foster and justify the uncontrolled gratification of all drives and impulses, the letting loose of every passion, the following of every whim.

But the result of this "liberation" did not produce the expected satisfaction and happiness. While it eliminated some of the drawbacks of the earlier rigid attitude and the consequent suffering, it produced other complications, conflicts and misery. The followers of uncontrolled sexual expression found, and are still finding, that excesses are necessarily followed by exhaustion or disgust; that the sexual drive and passion, even when not checked by moral considerations, cannot always find gratification owing to lack of suitable partners. Moreover, various drives often come into conflict with each other, so that indulgence in one requires the inhibition of another. For instance, a reckless yielding to sexual urge is apt to clash with self-preservation, creating a conflict between, for instance, lust and fear of disease. Further, an exaggerated sense of self-assertion may be in conflict with social mores and the consequent fear of the risks involved.

The lack of any stable guiding principle, of any clear scale of values, makes the individual insecure, robs him of self-reliance, and subjects him to the influence of other people and external circumstances. Moreover, ethical and spiritual principles or aspirations cannot be eliminated as easily as many seem to believe; they persist in the unconscious owing to hereditary and environmental influences, and also exist latent in the true spiritual nature of man. When violated, they arouse conscious or unconscious protest and consequently intense inner conflicts.

For clarity's sake, the picture of the situation has been oversimplified. In reality we are at present in a period of transition, of confusion and of cross-currents. In some places and groups the old conditions persist; old concepts and methods are still being enforced. In many cases a state of violent reaction and of conflict between the generations prevails. In the more advanced and enlightened circles the exaggerated nature of the reaction has been recognized and attempts are being made to find and adopt balanced views and sound methods.

It is apparent that neither of the two extreme attitudes can give satisfactory results. One might think that some compromise between the two could be the way out of the impasse, but while such a common-sense procedure might avert the worst results of those extremes, experience indicates that it cannot be considered a satisfactory solution.

However, there is another alternative, a more dynamic and constructive way of handling the problem. This is based on, and takes advantage of, a fundamental property of biological and psychological energies, namely, the possibility of their transmutation -a possibility existing in all energies.

The real nature of the process is not well known, but such is the case with all "ultimates." For instance, it cannot be claimed that we have grasped the essential nature of electricity, but we know enough about its manifestations and the laws regulating them to enable us to utilize electricity in many diverse and often complicated ways, as in electronics. It is the same in the psychological field; we need not ascertain the ultimate nature of the psychological energies and their transmutations in order to utilize them increasingly through a growing knowledge of the laws that govern them and by means of appropriate and efficient methods based on those laws. We can therefore proceed confidently in our examination of the methods to be followed in the utilization for constructive ends of surplus or excessive sexual drives. This is particularly valuable, for instance, in balancing the sexual appetites of man and wife in marriage, or adjusting to situations where normal sexual relations are not available.

The first rule is to adopt an objective attitude towards sex, free from the traditional reactions of fear, prudishness and condemnation, as well as from the lure and glamour - often artificially fostered - by which it is generally surrounded at present.

The sexual drive, like any other, is in itself neither "bad" nor "good." It is a biological function and, as such, it is not "immoral" but pre-moral. It has a great importance because it ensures the continuity of the animal species and of the human race. In animals it is subject to natural cyclic self-regulation. In civilized humanity it has become complicated through its close association with psychological functions, such as emotion and imagination, and with social and ethical factors, which have partly over-stimulated, partly inhibited it. Therefore, the objective scientific attitude towards the sexual drive should be twofold: we should, on the one hand, eliminate the fears and condemnations, which have the effect of repressing it into the unconscious, as psychoanalysis has demonstrated; and, on the other hand we should exercise a calm but firm control, followed by an active process of transmutation whenever its natural expression is unwarranted.

The processes of psychological transmutation and sublimation are symbolically indicated-although in obscure and abstruse ways-in the writings of alchemists (Tung} 9b). Other hints can be found in the works of writers on asceticism and mysticism such as Evelyn Underhill. In the modern approach to the subject we find the following significant statement by Freud: "The elements of the sexual instinct are characterized by a capacity for sublimation; for changing their sexual aim into another of a different kind and socially more worthy. To the sum of energies thus gained for our psychological productions we probably owe the highest results of our culture." (Freud: Ueber Psychoanalyse, Leipzigund Wien, Deutike 910, pp. 61-62) *.

This statement is important, for in it Freud himself shows the fallacy of considering the physical and instinctive aspects of sexuality separately and independently from its emotional and other psychological aspects. Yet this fallacy is committed by some investigators having a materialistic bias. Such a purely zoological consideration is altogether one-sided, and while those investigators have piled up a huge mass of facts the neglect of their vital connection with the psychological aspect of sex which is the truly human one vitiates the conclusions drawn from them. James Hinton wittily remarked over half a century ago that to deal with the great fact of sexual love merely from the physical side would be like thinking, during a concert by Sarasate, of the cat's bowels and the horses tail used in making the violin strings and bow (Ellis, 6).

In seeking to define the nature of sexuality we find in it three principal aspects:

1. A sensual aspect: physical pleasure;

2. An emotional aspect: union with another person;

3. A creative aspect: the birth of a new creature.

This classification does not claim to be scientifically accurate but constitutes a practical aid in the process of transmutation. Each of the aspects mentioned can be transmuted or sublimated in accordance with its own specific nature.

Moreover, transmutations can take place in two directions.

The first is the "vertical" or inward direction. Many instances of this kind of sublimation are offered by the lives and writings of the mystics of all times, places and religions. Their autobiographies furnish most interesting evidence of the nature of this process, its crises and vicissitudes, the suffering it entails as well as the joys which reward its stress and strain. All of them speak of the "bliss" they experience - which, however, they regard as a possible hindrance if one becomes attached to it. One can also observe the different steps leading from human love to love for a higher Being, such as the Christ, or for God Himself; this is the sublimation of the emotional aspect. They aspire to union with the Christ within, and some of them speak of it as the "mystical marriage." In psychological terms, one would say that the goal of spiritual synthesis is the union of the personality with the spiritual Self, the first representing the negative feminine pole, the other the positive masculine pole. This polarity is a reality and not just a simple symbolical transposition of a biological fact. It is one of the fundamental aspects of the spirit-matter polarity and is, so to speak, its reflection on the psycho-spiritual level, as sexual polarity is its expression on the physical level.

Let us pause here for a moment in order to dissipate certain confusions and misunderstandings that might arise. While the process of transmutation and sublimation can frequently be observed, one must not infer there from that all spiritual love is "merely" the outcome of sublimated sex, that it is possible to "explain away" a higher psychological or spiritual manifestation by attributing its origin to biological sources or drives. The true nature of mysticism cannot be considered, as some investigators have maintained, to be merely a product or by-product of sex. On the one hand, one finds many people whose normal sexual life is inhibited yet who show no trace of mysticism; on the other hand, there are instances of people leading a normal sexual life, raising a family, etc., and having at the same time genuine mystical experiences.

The spiritual life and consciousness belongs to a definite psychological level and has a quality which is specific and not derived. The transmuted energies reach up to it from below, as it were, and give it added vitality and "heat," but they neither create nor explain that higher life. The creative aspect can be sublimated in this "vertical" direction in the formation of a new regenerated personality. The growth of the "inner man" calls for these creative energies, and in accordance with the degree to which the individual employs them, new spheres of action of increasing vastness will open up before him.

The second direction of the transmutation process is "horizontal" or external. Here also we find three kinds of transmutation, corresponding to the three aspects. The first, rather than being actual transmutation, consists of the substitution of other pleasures of the senses for sexual pleasure, from simple enjoyment of food to the enjoyment of contact with nature and to aesthetic pleasures by the cultivation of the appreciation of beauty through sight and hearing. The second consists of an enlargement or extension of love so as to include a growing number of individuals; the third produces or fosters artistic and intellectual activities.

When the physical sexual expression of human love is blocked for some reason, its emotional or feeling manifestations can be enhanced and reach a high level of ideal, "platonic" love. Further, independently of any obstacle to the free and complete expression of love, a gradual process of transmutation takes place normally and spontaneously in harmoniously married couples. At the beginning, the sexual and intensely emotional manifestations of love generally predominate, but in the course of years and decades this passionate aspect cools off and is transmuted into tender feeling, increasing mutual understanding, appreciation and inner communion.

The love-energy derived from sexual sublimation can and does expand beyond love of one individual. It extends in concentric circles or spheres, encompassing ever larger groups of human beings. In the form of compassion it is poured upon those who suffer; then it undergoes a further transmutation and becomes a motive power for social and philanthropic action. Sublimated love-energy can also be expressed as comradeship and friendship for those with whom we have a common basis of understanding, aims and activity. Finally, it can reach out further until it radiates as brotherly love upon all human beings and upon all living creatures.

The third kind of transmutation of the sexual energies is into creative activities of an artistic or intellectual nature. The following statement by a great philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer,

strongly bears out this point:

"In the days and in the hours in which the tendency to voluptuousness is stronger .. just then also the higher spiritual energies .. are apt to be aroused most strongly. They are inactive when mans consciousness has yielded to lust, but through effective effort their direction can be changed and then man's consciousness is occupied, instead of with those lower and tormenting desires, by the highest activities of the mind."

There appears to be a deep similarity between sexual energy and the creative energies operating at other levels of the human being. Artistic creation offers a particularly suitable channel for sublimation, and many instances can be found in the lives of great artists, writers and composers. One of them, which has a special significance, is that of Richard Wagner. As is well known, he was at one time passionately in love with a married woman, Mathilde Wesendonck, to whom he gave music lessons and in whom he found an understanding of and a devotion to his genius which he missed in his first wife, Minna. After a short time they resolved to renounce the consummation of their love, and Wagner left Zurich and went, or rather fled, to Venice. At first his desperate mood induced ideas of suicide, but soon he set himself to write both the libretto and music of Tristan and Isolde, and in a kind of creative frenzy, completed the opera within a few months. During this period he wrote many letters to Mathilde and kept a diary intended for her. These were published after his death and in them one can clearly trace the gradual cooling off of his passion as he gave expression to it in the poetry and music of his opera. The completion of the work found him so detached that he wrote to Mathilde in a rather tepid and much lighter vein, and even paid her a short visit on purely friendly terms. That Wagner was aware of this process of sublimation and consciously fostered it is evident from a letter to Liszt: “As in my life I have never enjoyed the true happiness of love, I want to raise a monument to this most beautiful of all dreams, in which this love shall be fully satisfied, from beginning to end. I am planning a 'Tristan and Isolde'.”

Transmutation and sublimation is a process that can be either spontaneous or consciously and deliberately fostered and brought about. In the latter case, there is ample scope for the effective application of the facts and laws ascertained or rediscovered by modern dynamic psychology, and for the use of active techniques based on them. Here are some practical methods for such applications:

1. A firm conscious control of the drive to be transmuted, in which, however, care should be taken to avoid any condemnation or fear of it, as this could result in its repression in the unconscious. Non-condemnation of the drive, as such, does not imply a lack of realization of one's serious responsibility for the consequences, both individual and social, of its unregulated expression. Control can be helped by simple physical means, such as brisk muscular activity and rhythmic breathing, but the most effective, and at the same time the higher, way of controlling both the sexual and the power drives is the acceptance and recognition of every human being as a "Thou" to be respected, and not as an "object" for the gratification of our pleasure, an "it" to be dominated and exploited. The reality of such a basic "right relation" to our fellowmen and our duty to recognize it have been convincingly expounded and emphasized by Martin Buber (2).

2. The active release, development and expression of the various aspects of personal and spiritual love - love for one's mate; love for others, beginning with those close to one and expanding to include increasing numbers of human beings in ever-widening circles and "upwards" towards God or the Supreme. The emphasis should be put on the expression of love - in understanding and cooperation in altruistic and humanitarian activities.

3. The deliberate projection of one's interest, aspiration and enthusiasm towards some creative work into which all one's energies can be poured. Various techniques for creative expression can be used for this purpose, such as drawing, writing, movement (Assagioli, 1).

4. The use of symbols. These exercise a strong attractive power on all our energies, conscious and unconscious, and specifically foster the process of transmutation. Jung in his Contributions to Analytical Psychology (9) went so far as to state: "The psychological machinery which transmutes energy is the symbol." There is a great variety of symbols having an anagogic (uplifting) influence that can be made to serve this process, of which ideal human figures or "models" constitute an important class. Two types of these ideal figures, different and in a sense opposite, are respectively suited to men and women. A man may visualize some hero or a human-divine Being, such as the Christ, or he can use the image of an ideal woman like Dante's Beatrice or the Madonna. Inversely a woman can take as a model the highest type of womanhood her imagination can conceive or an image of the ideal Man. The influence of such "images" is beautifully expressed in the Indian saying: "Ganga (the sacred river) purifies when seen and touched, but the Holy Ones purify when merely remembered."

A simple and effective symbol is the lotus plant which transmutes the mud and water of the pond into the delicate substance and beautiful form and hue of its flower. This it does through its own inherent vitality and through the life-giving energy of the sun's rays. Desoille in his therapeutic method of the guided day-dream (4a) has made use of symbolic movement upward for the purpose of sublimation and transformation. Kretschmer (10) has summarized various techniques of imagery which can be used to foster this process of sublimation. Other anagogic symbols may be produced spontaneously in dreams and in free drawing; Jung and his followers (E. Harding (8), F. Wickes (13) and others) have made an extensive study and application of them.

5. Close psychological communion with individuals or groups who have realized, or are striving to realize, the same aim. As there are chemical catalysts, so there are "human catalysts," whose influence, radiation, and the "atmosphere" they create, greatly facilitate psychological transformations.

The importance and value of transmutation and sublimation-not only of the sexual energies but of all other drives - should be more widely known and appreciated, and the methods for putting them in operation should be more extensively applied in psychotherapy, education, and self-actualization. The process of transmutation and sublimation may be compared to the regulation of the waters of a great river, which prevents recurring disastrous inundations or the formation of unhealthy marshes along its banks. While a portion of the water is permitted to flow freely to its natural destination, the remainder is diverted through proper channelling to appropriate mechanisms that transform its energy into electricity to be employed as motive power for industrial and other purposes. In a parallel way, the conscious or unconscious drives, which produce so much individual suffering and social disturbance, can become, if rightly controlled and channelled, the springs of activities having great human and spiritual value.

References

1. Assagioli, R.: "Creative Expression in Education," American Journal of Education, 1963, No.1.

2. Buber, M.: I and Thou, New York, Scribners, 1958.

3. Davies, J. Trevor: Sublimation, London, Allen & Unwin, 1947. New York, Macmillan, 1948.

4. Desoille, R.: Exploration de l'affectivité subconsciente par 1’a méthode du révé éveillé. Sublimation et acquisitions psycho10giques, Paris, D'Artrey, 1938.

4a. Desoille, R.: Le Réve éveillé en psychothérapie, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1945.

5. Ellis, H.: Little Essays of Love and Virtue, New York, Doubleday, 1962.

6. Ellis, Mrs. H.: Three Modern Seers: Hinton, Nietizche and Carpenter, London, Stanley, 1910.

7. Hadfield, J. A.: Psychology and Morals, London, Methuen, 1923. New York, McBride, 1925.

8. Harding, M. E.: Psychic Energy: Its Source and its Goal, New York, Pantheon Books, 1947.

9. Jung, CG.: Contributions to Analytical Psychology, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1928.

9a. Jung, CG.: The Integration of the Personality, London, Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner, 1940. New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.

9b. Jung, CG.: Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works, Vol. 12, London, Kegan Paul, 1953. New York, Pantheon, 1953.

10. Kretschmer, Jr., W.: Meditative Techniques in Psychotherapy (translated by Wm. Swartley), New York, Psychosynthesis Res. Found., 1959.

11. McDougall, W.: The Energies of Men, London, Methuen, 1932. New York, Scribner, 1933.

12. Sorokin, P. A.: The Ways and Power of Love (Types, Factors and Techniques of Moral Transformation), Boston, Beacon Press, 1954.

13. Wickes, F. G.: The Inner World of Man, London, Methuen, 1950. New York, H. Holt, 1948.

* Many other psychologists have recognized the process of sublimation and dealt with it more or less extensively. Among them are Havelock Ellis (5), McDougall (11), and Hadfield 17). An accurate survey of the subject with many quotations and bibliographical references, has been made by J. Trevor Davies in his book Sublimation (1947) (3). The theoretical problems and the differences of opinion aroused by the subject do not prevent - in this as in other cases - effective use of the process of psychological transmutation.
~

[compared2what?]

When empires rot due to criminal overreach and economic decay, one meme that usually appears - and ends up in subsequent histories - is that it's all going south because of "decadence," specifically too much unbridled pleasure, especially sexual. So it's the "whore" of Babylon, and the Roman orgies and vomitoria, and the sodomy in Sodom, and now the porn in the United States - or to the fundamentalists among Christians and Muslims alike, the skimpy fashions and gay sex - that is bringing ruin on the once disciplined power that had been so noble, martial and good.

Sexual desire is a naturally occurring fact of human biology that isn't equivalent in any way to religious faith or practice. Acting on sexual desire by stimulating it to the point of orgasm is therefore not a form of worship. That's a basic distinction that's not affected by whether doing so involves one person, two people, or forty people.

To put it another way. Most prophets/seekers have a open, spontaneous experience with nature at some point. They communicate it, write it down. Other seekers want that experience so they create rituals to comes close to the original experience of the prophet. In time they settle for a substitute water down ritualized version which minimizes their desire but doesn't fulfill it. Not too long they prefer the substitute, may even come to fear despise the real, because it is safer and more manageable then pursuing the real.

I dunno c2w. I tend to agree with brekin that acting on sexual desire should be a form of worship. If life is a gift then sex is too and ... well recognising that is important imo. (FWIW too, some sexual magic practitioners reckon every sexual act and orgasm results in something being conceived and coming into the world - thinking kind of along the same lines I reckon.)

Well....If he (a) had said that it should be a form of worship; and (b) said it in a context that suggested that by "worship" he meant -- as you do -- revering and respecting the transcendent properties inherent in sexual energy on the grounds that it's central (and in fact essential) to the realization and appreciation of life -- both your own life and capital "L" Life, along with all the mysteries/Mysteries and complexities/Complexities with which they're variously replete -- I too would not only tend to agree with him, I'd agree with him.

IOW -- I totally agree with you on that point.

I was objecting to the use of the word "altar" to describe a computer-screen depicting online porn in the context of strongly suggesting -- if not flatly asserting -- that the proliferation of on-line pornography was responsible for the fifteen years of deterioration and degradation being posited as a force affecting virtually every aspect of life and society.

Because in much the same way that I recognized the OP as a call for censorship, whether witting or not, I recognize that line of talk as a fairly forthright evocation of the fairly easily summoned latent cultural conviction that sex profanes and defiles the literal altar at which we ought to be worshiping Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Because whether wittingly or unwittingly done, that's what it does.

Basically, you can't un-teach an old dog old dog-whistles, Praise be Unto Someone/Something. Mostly because it's due to to it that I'm in a position to be very grateful to all the posters here from whom I've learned both facts and perspectives that were as totally new to me as they were totally old hat to them, due to their willingness patiently to make the case for them on its merits as best they could instead of going the sneer-at-the-innocent-newbie route.

But also because once in a blue moon, a subject arises that allows me to try to return the favor. And for whatever reason, at almost every stage of my life, pure random chance has placed me on a path that included going around and around the block in neighborhoods that were famous for how clearly they showcased contemporary and historical cultural default modalities wrt the good-copping and bad-copping of sex.

As a matter of very strong conviction, I reject the possibility of anyone attaining expertise in that particular subject. So I'm emphatically not claiming any. I'm just very familiar with the territory, as are millions and millions of other people. But not all people.

Which is a distinction without a difference anyway, since afaic, a very widely divergent spectrum of sexual attitudes, beliefs, preferences, experiences, and practices is not only an acceptable but a natural (and I guess in that sense, also a desirable) thing.

If what brekin says: Not too long they prefer the substitute, may even come to fear despise the real, because it is safer and more manageable then pursuing the real.
is accurate, and I think it is, then there is the heart of lots of problems. Not just why porn could be bad for someone seeing it either - what Jack and Reich said for example - how sexual energy is channeled into an empires pool of available power.

There's no question that one of the things pornography often does is to reiterate -- and therefore to a greater or lesser degree, reinforce -- perceptions of (among other things) sex, sexuality and self, the broad and reflexive acceptance of which is generally advantageous to imperial or neo-imperial power. Arguably, it's in some way a representation of that power, even.

But if you know that, you're as well-innoculated against the reinforcement as it's possible to be.

So I'd say that the most appropriate and effective political response to it (if not the only appropriate and effective political response to it) is to raise awareness of it on as widespread and popular a level as you possibly can, as eloquently as you possibly can, and with as little hostility as you have any reason to feel toward those who have, through no fault of their own, fallen for one of imperial power's most reliable and most culturally pervasive con-jobs.

Because you really don't gain all that much by vanquishing the representation of your enemy. And you certainly won't gain anything at all if you're confused about the nature and meaning of the distinction between it and him/her/them.

I personally would also argue that the second you start laying down the law about which sexual fantasies are good and which are bad on an a priori and abstract basis, you're actively aiding imperial forces, insofar as the demonization of sex is favorable to imperial power.

It should go without saying that the concrete and non-abstract damage that pornography does directly to sex workers and sex addicts -- as well as the concrete and non-abstract material aid and cover it provides for human sex traffickers -- deserve and urgently need to be directly addressed in concrete and non-abstract terms that clearly reveal that damage for what it is.

Which is the very real exploitation, abuse and subjugation -- sometimes criminal, sometimes not -- of real and vulnerable people by an assortment of formal and informal operatives, collaborators and running buddies of the organized and institutionalized forces that have an investment in intentionally perpetuating the infliction of that damage, both for profit and as an indirect way of perpetuating their own power by using various means to weaken those who are subject to it.

And seriously, Joe, if there's a single tangential issue associated with any part of that enterprise that's less consequential than the content of the private sexual fantasies someone has while masturbating,*** I can't think what it might be. With the usual bright-line exception for pedophilia.

That leaves the persistent belief that people will opt (or do opt) for the substitute over the real, which is a complicated question that I'll try to address separately. But I doubt I can address it very successfully.

I do know for a fact that I can't address it comprehensively, though.

If that's any comfort.



^^Sorry about that, btw.
_________________________

*** Or for that matter while having sex, as long as the fantasies stay private. Although granted, it might not reflect all that well on the sexual relationship in question if one or both parties routinely depended on fantasizing about other partners or scenarios in order to get off. But that wouldn't make it anything to go around getting all judgmental about, it would just be kind of a shame for them.

However, perhaps they derive such great satisfaction from the reciprocal domestic, economic, social and emotional supports the relationship provides them with, they're perfectly content with the choices they made. I certainly prefer to think so, given that since they're not real, who knows?

[compared2what?]

Username, as good as that sounds in theory, I absolutely guarantee you that every and any essay about "the crisis between the sexes" that can come across as being as forward-looking, thoughtful and seductive as that one does without ever mentioning one single time that on the ground -- why, what do you know? -- it turns out that very crisis occurs between men and women will never lead to any kind of synthesis or any kind of progress or any kind of freedom.

With the possible exception of the synthesis of what used to be the sexually autonomous will of however many women end up trusting however many cults preach an adaptation of its words with whatever the cult-leader has authoritatively declared to be righteous male sexual desires. But that only counts if you don't mind referring to slavery as "synthesis," anyway. Which I'm sure we all do.

Anyhow and for reals: Anyone to whom the "hetero" part of heterosexual sex appears so trivial that it's not even worth mentioning is just spinning his or her wheels. And could be doing that for any number of reasons, including plenty of innocent ones. Irrespective of which, no liberation can come from a sexual philosophy that pretends that there are no gender differences. Because there are, and they're not entirely culturally imposed. So you can't ignore them out of the picture.

Also: Gay men and lesbians. They have sex too.

[compared2what?]

compared2what wrote:

Quote:
I just think they are starting to prefer the altar with obvious repercussions for the real.


I was going to get around to saying that I didn't think "altar" was a loaded word that even came close to accurately or appropriately describing a computer screen with sexually graphic imagery on it to which a lot of men have easy access when they feel like jerking off anyway. So I might as well do it here:

Sexual desire is a naturally occurring fact of human biology that isn't equivalent in any way to religious faith or practice. Acting on sexual desire by stimulating it to the point of orgasm is therefore not a form of worship. That's a basic distinction that's not affected by whether doing so involves one person, two people, or forty people.

Or by whether it's imbued with intensely felt positive and/or negative and/or combo-platter emotions.

Or by whether it's an emotionally empty, casual and unmemorable response to a stray thought or randomly encountered stimulus.

Because non-violent and non-coercive sexual acts are not inherently ideologically value-laden. Their strictly ideological value is whatever the culture says it is. And while they are often inherently emotionally value-laden, experientially speaking and on an individual basis, (a) that's nobody's business apart from the individual's, assuming that all parties are free and consenting adults; and (b) for most people, sex involves a very wide range of not necessarily logically compatible emotions that aren't necessarily fixed and invariably the same in all circumstances, or even necessarily formally and consistently correlated with specific sexual acts.

In short, both sex and sexuality are dynamic not static in nature. Because they're both vital and not artificial in nature. You're just ascribing an externally imposed meaning on the act of masturbation to pornography on an absolutely random basis when you metaphorically classify it as a form of worship by describing a computer screen depicting pornographic aides to masturbation as an altar. That clearly and unambiguously dehumanizes sexual experience at least as much as pornography does. If not more. Which is the absolute opposite of what you intend and want to do, as I understand it.

So I very much hope that you'll reconsider the wisdom of continuing to do it.

I think altar is the word I'm looking for. I disagree with when you say:

"Sexual desire is a naturally occurring fact of human biology that isn't equivalent in any way to religious faith or practice. Acting on sexual desire by stimulating it to the point of orgasm is therefore not a form of worship. That's a basic distinction that's not affected by whether doing so involves one person, two people, or forty people."

You could have just as easily have said "Spiritual desire is a naturally occurring fact of human biology that isn't equivalent in any way to religious faith or practice." Sexual desire is a basic drive that can be culturally modified and directed. Isn't there a natural element of worship, desire, mystery and ecstasy in lovemaking? Can't that direct experience be redirected (perverted) to the repetitive worship of false idols? Altars are basically totems to an authentic experience someone once had and the adherent engages in ritual to try in some degree to recreate the original authentic experience that person once had. Porn basically is feeding off the authentic act of sexual intercourse (rarely lovemaking) of another party. Is that worshiping act dehumanizing? I think most things one does repetitively that reduces feeling and spontaneity limits your humanity. With worship their is an element of great desire mixed with distance. The worshiper desires ecstasy without risk, thereby almost guaranteeing there will be no true ecstasy.

To put it another way. Most prophets/seekers have a open, spontaneous experience with nature at some point. They communicate it, write it down. Other seekers want that experience so they create rituals to comes close to the original experience of the prophet. In time they settle for a substitute water down ritualized version which minimizes their desire but doesn't fulfill it. Not too long they prefer the substitute, may even come to fear despise the real, because it is safer and more manageable then pursuing the real.

There desire, hunger is natural and real. But there substitute activity shouldn't be confused with the basic drive.

You have some other good stuff I'll try to reply to later. At work now and having a thread up with the tag line "Is Porn Bad for You?" for too long isn't the wisest thing for me to do.

Oh my god, please forgive me, brekin.

I don't know how I managed it, but I somehow totally missed the above post. Which greatly clarifies your position and also greatly diminishes my reasons for objecting to your repeated use of the word "altar."

Which were essentially that it's a very loaded word with a common and very powerful default connotation in this context, absent elaboration or explanation, along the lines I mentioned in the reply to Joe that appears to be a total kick in the teeth to you, owing to my apparently having willfully chosen to ignore the elaboration and explanation provided above. Rather than, as in truth, my not having read it or known it was there.

I totally think you're identifying a real void that exists because of real social alienation. And you write about it so beautifully and with such great feeling that I can feel and respect its truth in spirit -- where you and I are on common ground -- even though I continue to amiably and non-disagreeably disagree that pornography is the cause and alienation is the effect. For which I continue to see no evidence offered beyond the prevalence of both in contemporary culture and the elegant simplicity of the rhetorical conjunction with which you're binding one to the other.

IOW, for which I continue to see no evidence offered.

Because although I do hear a human or maybe an emotional truth ringing through that rhetorical conjunction, the rhetoric still doesn't describe any sexual reality that I've ever encountered, or can recognize, or can identify with.

Apart from sex addiction, in relation to which excessive porn consumption is a symptom not a cause. And, fwiw, in my experience and observation, what's colloquially called sex addiction is a lot more like the several extant forms of obsessive-compulsive disorder that superficially present as an out-of-control pursuit of something commonly held to be a normal desire by the culture-at-large, although within much more moderate and much less obsessive parameters -- eg, anorexia. Which is not just a diet that doesn't know when to stop. And not even fundamentally and singularly about body image, no matter what Oprah tells you about it.

[PHONE-BOOK LENGTH DIGRESSION DELETED HERE.]

Anyway. Long story short. All the true sex addicts I know personally are very tortured crazy romantic idealists who backslide constantly, making their lives and those of their wives or girlfriends a living hell. They're like anorexics and not like alcoholics or drug addicts in a lot of ways that I just deleted, but the ones that belong in this paragraph are: (1) They're in agony and don't enjoy their obsessive pursuit; and (2) alcoholics and drug addicts with equivalent levels of insight who are comparably desperate to kick and have something of comparable value to gain by doing so can almost always stop using Anorexics and sex addicts can't, in my experience and observation. Their behavior isn't really something they choose to do, any more than pulling all their hair out is something people with trichotillomania choose to do.

All of which is somewhat incidental anyhow. Because pornography doesn't cause or trigger sex addiction in adulthood out of the blue. Whether you think of it as an addiction or as a compulsion. I'm pretty sure that no credible sexologist who acknowledges the syndrome seriously argues that it does.

And as I said, apart from sex addiction, there's no ugly sexual reality I've ever known, seen or heard about in which porn played a part roughly akin to the one you ascribe to it that wasn't very clearly attributable to deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding either women or sex or both.

Originating in childhood and arising from family and cultural conditioning. With or without pornography in the home. Although a hypersexualized home environment does often damage children in ways that affect their sexual attitudes and practices in adulthood, potentially including the compulsive over-use of pornography.

But that's any kind of hypersexualized home environment, pornography isn't the key ingredient.

Plus there are plenty of sexually compulsive people who weren't raised in hypersexualized homes.

And it's got nothing at all to do with having deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding women or sex or both, one way or the other.

In which case, again, for men who have those feelings, pornography is a manifestation of the problem. And maybe even a part of the problem on a transactional level, I guess.

But. It's. Not. The. Problem. Per all evidence, observation and experience within my grasp, you could get rid of pornography entirely without freeing anyone who didn't work in the porno industry from anything.

So.

I ask again for any smidgin of evidence that pornography is the root cause of any personal or social evil. Because as far as I'm aware, there isn't any. In which case, you're wasting your passionate opposition to a true evil by directing it at a paper target.

Seriously. Other than that you think this tendency exists and is caused by the widespread availability of online pornography, why do you think this tendency exists and is caused by the widespread availability of online pornography?

And truly seriously. Because this is a subject that I take seriously. As I do your opinion, your feelings, and the response including an answer to that last question to which I'm looking forward. Because if there is one, I sincerely want to amplify my perspective by learning from you what it is.

[brekin]

compared2what wrote:

Anyway. Long story short. All the true sex addicts I know personally are very tortured crazy romantic idealists who backslide constantly, making their lives and those of their wives or girlfriends a living hell. They're like anorexics and not like alcoholics or drug addicts in a lot of ways that I just deleted, but the ones that belong in this paragraph are: (1) They're in agony and don't enjoy their obsessive pursuit; and (2) alcoholics and drug addicts with equivalent levels of insight who are comparably desperate to kick and have something of comparable value to gain by doing so can almost always stop using Anorexics and sex addicts can't, in my experience and observation. Their behavior isn't really something they choose to do, any more than pulling all their hair out is something people with trichotillomania choose to do.

All of which is somewhat incidental anyhow. Because pornography doesn't cause or trigger sex addiction in adulthood out of the blue. Whether you think of it as an addiction or as a compulsion. I'm pretty sure that no credible sexologist who acknowledges the syndrome seriously argues that it does.

I think we may be coming from two different directions. I think you may be saying porn doesn't create certain sexual expressions or appetites tabula rasa? There is usually are other mitigating circumstances that are more important? Where I'm saying porn can shape the targets and forms of expression of that expression. Like I think we agree we could take a porn addict fifty years ago and he could have the same predisposition to over wank as he does now. But what I'm saying is recognizing that the content and availability of porn has changed so seismically that the average person (which I'll consider myself) will come across things that were so marginal and depraved one would maybe hear about it in a bad joke occasionally, today is becoming as mundane as a banner ad for car insurance on your browser.

This constant exposure to carnality can't help but influence tastes and appetites.I can't remember who said, "No one becomes depraved instantly." But I think that's true and further, one may not be aware one is becoming depraved because we identify with our sexuality so closely. Many people on this thread can recall (and usually fondly) their first exposure to porn. It is liberating to discover initially something that is usually hidden in plain sight. But before there were limits to this knowledge, now there are none.

I would do a little experiment. Imagine you are right back to that moment when you have your first exposure to porn. Instead of finding your Dad's girly mags or VHS tapes, say you stumble upon a few of the more hardcore webpages on his computer. And you returned to those as frequently as you did the girly mags or tapes. Don't you think that early imprinting would influence you differently?

And as I said, apart from sex addiction, there's no ugly sexual reality I've ever known, seen or heard about in which porn played a part roughly akin to the one you ascribe to it that wasn't very clearly attributable to deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding either women or sex or both.

Originating in childhood and arising from family and cultural conditioning. With or without pornography in the home. Although a hypersexualized home environment does often damage children in ways that affect their sexual attitudes and practices in adulthood, potentially including the compulsive over-use of pornography.

I would tend to agree with you initially on that because at first glance there are plenty of fundamentalist homes (of whatever religious or political stripe) that don't have any seeming overt pornography apparent and sexual abuse and perversion can be rampant. But one could say both homes adhere to the pornography that men are the ultimate authority over women and the Man's wants (word) are the law. I think "pornos" comes from the female slaves that were kept in antiquity for men's pleasure? A house without commercial pornography may be a house that doesn't need that commercial propaganda to subjugate the women because they already have been.

But that's any kind of hypersexualized home environment, pornography isn't the key ingredient.

Again I think we would have to look at the roots and uses of pornography. I've heard some twisted stories of the sexual mores of the Amish. They obviously don't have T1 connections of porn convincing themselves women are there for their domination, but it is in their good book which is drummed daily into everyone's head and so it is a given. (I know I'm totally generalizing about the Amish but I'm just picking on them as representative of a fundamentalist patriarchal family structure and besides they all pretty much voted for Bush twice.)

Plus there are plenty of sexually compulsive people who weren't raised in hypersexualized homes.

Yes, I'm sure there are. But I'm sure many had access to hypersexualized material or experiences outside the home. I'm not discounting though some may pop up from time to time. We are born with the equipment after all.

And it's got nothing at all to do with having deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding women or sex or both, one way or the other.

In which case, again, for men who have those feelings, pornography is a manifestation of the problem. And maybe even a part of the problem on a transactional level, I guess.

But. It's. Not. The. Problem. Per all evidence, observation and experience within my grasp, you could get rid of pornography entirely without freeing anyone who didn't work in the porno industry from anything.

I don't see how you can neatly separate the problem from the propaganda. Beliefs are rules for actions. Where do beliefs come from? The deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive, sadistic feelings toward women can no doubt arise without any commercial propaganda, say from a very abusive mother or a father who hates women and who then influences their children through their own private propaganda. But again except in some very rare "Bad Seed" type cases their has to be some exposure.

Again, I really think you should read E. Michael Jones Libido Dominandi. He has a case history of a homicidal rapist who was exposed to violent misogynistic porn at a very early age. It made quite the impression on him. His earliest sexual memory was one that had a person inflicting pain on another in a sexual act which he believed the the person enjoyed. This was in may ways his "primal scene" which created an appetite for such images.

So.

I ask again for any smidgin of evidence that pornography is the root cause of any personal or social evil. Because as far as I'm aware, there isn't any. In which case, you're wasting your passionate opposition to a true evil by directing it at a paper target.

Seriously. Other than that you think this tendency exists and is caused by the widespread availability of online pornography, why do you think this tendency exists and is caused by the widespread availability of online pornography?

And truly seriously. Because this is a subject that I take seriously. As I do your opinion, your feelings, and the response including an answer to that last question to which I'm looking forward. Because if there is one, I sincerely want to amplify my perspective by learning from you what it is.

Well I can't provide any evidence that advertising is the root cause of any personal or social evils, or tabloid talk shows, or hollywood movies. All I can speak from his my little circle of experience. I think your desire for proof is noble. But we are living the experiment right now. I've seen individuals and families destroyed by just online gambling. Could they have fallen apart just as easily by something else? Perhaps. I just think we should be wary of how convenient evil is becoming.By the time they do any serious studies like that have been done with smoking or drinking it will be so entrenched it will be more of a commentary then anything. I encourage you to read The Brain that Makes Itself for the science side of things and Libido Dominandi for the cultural side of things because I think you would find much of value in both, although I think you may be looking for information when what is required is experience. Your argument has validity but I think it is the much the same can be said of all early forms of all mediums. "Novels, radio, movies just reflect dreams and passions, they don't determine them." (I understand this may not be exactly what your saying.) But I think much like what Churchill said about buildings "We shape buildings, thereafter they shape us." is true of all forms of media. Perhaps we will adjust to this new saturation, but I think it is requiring more from our society then what we are ready for.

All this existed before the internet. All of us have evil in our hearts. And in many ways the internet is just a mirror. But it is a million sided mirror that distorts and magnifies and is always open and seems to best show evil in high definition. Spending time in that funhouse will have its repercussions. I guess in the end all I'm saying is something wicked this way comes...

[Joe Hillshoist]

Just a quick note brekin.

Athough porn is sposed to be "worse" and more easily available today, there was this "legendary" porn movie doing the rounds when I was in high school (in the mid 80s.) It was called "Animal Farm" and you can guess what it was about. I never saw it actually, which I'm kind of thankful for, but apparently it had among other stuff blokes fucking chooks to death.

My wife, who grew up in another state, 1000 miles away saw it in high school along with most of her friends, or she saw another movie that was pretty much the same. She finished high school in the early 90s. That was the "worst" of what was doing the rounds, tho one of the porn films that used to go round turned out to have underage girls in it, but it wasn't like we knew (we were in our teens, said girl - Traci Lords, who went on to star in some great B/Z grade horror movies was actually older than us anyway.)

The only thing we didn't get exposed to was kiddie porn, tho I'm sure if anyone wanted it they could have found it. Whats around today ... well apart from some that treats women like shit and is behind alot of the calls for the net filter in Aus, from of all people free speech loving feminist types (I think they may have a point too.) ... its not that much worse.

[Joe Hillshoist]

c2w - honestly I don't mind porn, and don't care what people do as long as it doesn't involve any sort of rape.

Thats about it for me. Some of its a bit tasteless, and all those people in it are someone's children.

But my main problem with it is on a personal level. Looking at porn is the opposite of sex - in that when you look at porn what defines it and makes it real - especially if its people fucking, not just naked ... Marge - is the boundaries. Porn defines itself by defining the boundaries between the people fucking, that is the thing about it. Even close up penetration shots are defined by the differences between the partners (and they miss all the actual fun and action - cos you can't see inside.)

Good sex is the opposite. Its about dissolving the boundaries between you and your partner, and if you do it right, everything else in the entire universe.

If porn looked like what good sex feels like it would be a mass of flesh with no definition between individual people.

But that hardly serves the empire either does it.

And ultimately thats something for individuals to work out for themselves - or not.

... since afaic, a very widely divergent spectrum of sexual attitudes, beliefs, preferences, experiences, and practices is not only an acceptable but a natural (and I guess in that sense, also a desirable) thing.

Thats why I can only really talk about this from my POV, cos what other people do in private (or public if thats their trip) is no business of mine.

I was objecting to the use of the word "altar" to describe a computer-screen depicting online porn in the context of strongly suggesting -- if not flatly asserting -- that the proliferation of on-line pornography was responsible for the fifteen years of deterioration and degradation being posited as a force affecting virtually every aspect of life and society.

Because in much the same way that I recognized the OP as a call for censorship, whether witting or not, I recognize that line of talk as a fairly forthright evocation of the fairly easily summoned latent cultural conviction that sex profanes and defiles the literal altar at which we ought to be worshiping Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Because whether wittingly or unwittingly done, that's what it does.

Yeah fair enough. I'd agree, but I don't thin that was brekin's point. I dunno what you said a post or two ago probably sorted that out anyway.

Altars are basically totems to an authentic experience someone once had and the adherent engages in ritual to try in some degree to recreate the original authentic experience that person once had.

Or attempts to build doorways through reality back to that experience. Thats the same thing with different words i think.


But all that stuff about the literal alter of Christ ... good observations imo, and something that needs to be challenged. IMO The way Christians use Christ profanes and defiles the literal altar at which we ought to be worshiping - which is sex. And life in general. Seriously tho, I completely agree its a bad piece of cultural metaprogramming that needs to be deleted.

Not supported however wittingly or unwittingly.



BTW c2G - have I ever told you who you, well your writing style, reminds me of?

Gurdjieff.

No shit.

I used to have a few of his books. Meetings with Remarkable Men, and Beezlebub's Tales... and not for years, but its one of those things where ... I dunno, for some reason I always think of those books when reading your stuff.

They are hard going actually, cos he is specific and careful with how he terms things, and dense with ideas and info. Its hard work reading what he writes but well worth the effort.

Of course you both write about different stuff.

But you are just as comprehensive & exhaustive and I appreciate it.

[barracuda]

But what I'm saying is recognizing that the content and availability of porn has changed so seismically that the average person (which I'll consider myself) will come across things that were so marginal and depraved one would maybe hear about it in a bad joke occasionally, today is becoming as mundane as a banner ad for car insurance on your browser.

Have you, then, through confrontation with the availability of the bizarre cornucopia of sexual possibilities in the course of your own travels through the wonders of the world-wide web of depravity, become, in any way, more likely to be interested in, say, for example, scat, bestiality or bukkake? Or have you, like most people, come across (no pun intended) these images and recoiled in disgust and revulsion at the perversion of human sexual dignity evidenced by the kalidescope of smutty human capacities in this regard?

This constant exposure to carnality can't help but influence tastes and appetites.I can't remember who said, "No one becomes depraved instantly." But I think that's true and further, one may not be aware one is becoming depraved because we identify with our sexuality so closely. Many people on this thread can recall (and usually fondly) their first exposure to porn. It is liberating to discover initially something that is usually hidden in plain sight. But before there were limits to this knowledge, now there are none.

So then, does constant exposure to homosexual activity in society, gay culture and sexual tastes, gradually bring one closer to a curiosity in this regard as well? Or does it simply engender a mundane acceptance of the preference or persuasion? (This hypothetical takes as given that homosexual sex is not entirely and only a predisposition, but rather a choice anyone is free to make to some degree or another.)

I would do a little experiment. Imagine you are right back to that moment when you have your first exposure to porn. Instead of finding your Dad's girly mags or VHS tapes, say you stumble upon a few of the more hardcore webpages on his computer. And you returned to those as frequently as you did the girly mags or tapes. Don't you think that early imprinting would influence you differently?

People only return to images they find appealing and erotic. No one voluntarily subjects themselves to imagery which they find distasteful. The internet is not some modified version of the Ludovico technique for home-schoolers or dilettantes of playful light bondage. It is a vast series of possibile choices which you make as an individual with all the agency your autonomous individuality implies. I can be exposed to endless hours of videos of golden showers, but I doubt strenuously that that will make the images of the activity any more appealling to me than they are already. Rather, the opposite tendency is bound to prevail. The excesses of sexual particulars in porn drive your average person eventually to boredom, not pandemonium.

Yes, "depravity" is a gradual affair, I guess, operating under the presumptive notion that you consider there to be a certain amount or type of porn or masturbation which can be labeled as depraved which falls below the obvious contingencies and obsessions of overt addiction or misanthropic violence.

[JackRiddler]

Right, brekin, barracuda has asked some great questions. In a nutshell, if you discover something distatesteful to you is available, why would you return to it? If the distasteful thing is then displayed to you repeatedly (which anyway isn't what happens on the Internet - you have to choose that), do you start liking it? Your thesis of a lowering threshold seems predicated on the idea that we're all secretly longing to get into the hardcore porn you find distasteful, and its mere availability pushes us down the slippery slope. Far more logical is that people go search for what they want in the first place. What's different with Internet is abundant coverage for every potential niche taste, but that's hardly limited to porn, inherent in a free Internet, and not the original master plan of some Overcontrollers.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Ditto Riddler's response above.

lots of verbal/mental masturbation in this thread, ay? Quite fitting, perhaps, given the thread title...

I would add my own long-winded response, but it would ultimately sound quite similar as and/or be redundant to [though probably not as erudite] 'cuda's last response, partially quoted below:

People only return to images they find appealing and erotic. No one voluntarily subjects themselves to imagery which they find distasteful.... I can be exposed to endless hours of videos of golden showers, but I doubt strenuously that that will make the images of the activity any more appealling to me than they are already. Rather, the opposite tendency is bound to prevail. The excesses of sexual particulars in porn drive your average person eventually to boredom, not pandemonium.

Though this raises some interesting questions about the desensitization of repeated exposure to images -- perhaps not so much porn images [as it would more likely lead to boredom as barracuda suggests above], but images/depictions of violence, [the other form of 'entertainment' shoved down our throats ad nauseum].

This may have been touched on by someone in this thread already [I didn't read every post], but I'm sure it's been discussed here at length at one point or another..

I could spend various paragraphs discussing the collective effect of mainstream flicks like SAW/HOSTEL/etc on the masses and how it may impact/influence the American collective mindsets with regards to War, etc... but i need to hit the sack as it's way past my bedtime [and it would divert somewhat from the initial thrust [ha] of this thread [or does it? Aren't violent images a form of porn as well? Surely that was touched on somewhere in here [indeed, sometimes sex and violence make quite the bedfellows -- another knee-slapper]

ok, enough with the meandering half-thoughts... nothin' to see here, folks..

[compared2what?]

Sorry, it's an epic multi-parter.

Here's the first installment:

I think we may be coming from two different directions. I think you may be saying porn doesn't create certain sexual expressions or appetites tabula rasa? There is usually are other mitigating circumstances that are more important? Where I'm saying porn can shape the targets and forms of expression of that expression.

Encountered in adulthood, or even in mid-adolescence, when personhood and sexuality are pretty well formed, for someone who's otherwise normally socialized within very broad parameters, actually: No, it can't. Or not so as anyone's been able to notice so far. And it's sure not that people haven't tried really, really hard to notice.

I mean, brekin, have you never wondered why none of the numerous deep-pocketed and highly motivated crusaders against pornography, from Edwin Meese to Catherine McKinnon to the author of the OP, ever cite any statistics, studies, or other data, apart from anecdotal data? Because there is a reason and it's this: All such research that's ever been done says that pornography doesn't cause paraphilias or greatly affect the psycho-social aspects of human sexual development.

I mean, obviously, it might transiently freak someone out, or give someone a wrong impression about what he or she was going to be getting into when he or she became sexually active. Or later in life, someone might see a video that made him (or her) realize for the first time that X, Y, or Z kind of consensual role play would be hella fun or that he'd really like to see his wife wearing split-crotch PVC panties or whatever. But there's nothing deviant or harmful about that. At worst, it might lead to a heated argument about who in the relationship owed whom what in bed and why. But people fight about that shit anyway. Or so movies and television have led me to believe, anyway.

Try thinking about it this way: Most guys (and gals) have some "type" -- either physical or personality -- they find especially attractive, in some cases exclusively, although most people aren't that narrowly choosy.

But either way, they don't discover whom they're attracted to by perusing a manual, nor do they form strong and exclusive desires solely for the one type featured in the manuals to which they happen to have access. They just are attracted to the people they find attractive, and aren't attracted to the people they don't find attractive. For a whole complex of known and unknown reasons. Same for people who have a special hot feeling but not a fetish for some body part -- as they say, a leg man, or whatever -- or who have a special preference for some sexual act, position, or situation but aren't so hung up on it that it's the only thing that turns them on. Those aren't always -- or even often -- simply explicable acquired tastes and preferences that have a one-to-one correspondence with a neatly matched feeling they harbor about themselves or others or the world at large. And -- as I said -- they're not always fixed and static irrespective of partner, mood, circumstance and all other factors, a change in any of which might bring a different taste or preference into play.

Except that in reality it's gazillion times more nuanced and complicated than that (and also hotter, it is much to be hoped), that's reality. Porn used for masturbatory fantasy purposes belongs to the realm of fantasy. And people who aren't already, for whatever reason, already so crazy or damaged that they can't distinguish between reality and fantasy do -- astonishingly -- generally grasp that not-at-all complicated concept. Just as well wrt sex as they do wrt videogames. If you give the subject a few moment's thought, it almost immediately becomes apparent that not only are people highly unlikely to slip over that boundary so easily that they didn't know they'd done so, t would actually be very difficult -- if not impossible -- for most guys and gals who were correctly oriented to person, place and time even to get mildly confused about it. Unless they found having a psychotic break as effortless as breathing.

What part of that, if any, doesn't make sense to you, or doesn't ring true, or is contradicted by your own experience or observation? I implore you to tell me. Because among other things, if you really don't know that's the way people are, I'd be kind of worried about you.

Like I think we agree we could take a porn addict fifty years ago and he could have the same predisposition to over wank as he does now. But what I'm saying is recognizing that the content and availability of porn has changed so seismically that the average person (which I'll consider myself) will come across things that were so marginal and depraved one would maybe hear about it in a bad joke occasionally, today is becoming as mundane as a banner ad for car insurance on your browser.

This constant exposure to carnality can't help but influence tastes and appetites.

I'm sorry, honey. But not only can it help but influence tastes and appetites, it can't help but not have much influence on tastes and appetites at all. That's not how human sexuality happens, nor is it how paraphilias happen. Please see above.

I can't remember who said, "No one becomes depraved instantly." But I think that's true and further, one may not be aware one is becoming depraved because we identify with our sexuality so closely. Many people on this thread can recall (and usually fondly) their first exposure to porn. It is liberating to discover initially something that is usually hidden in plain sight. But before there were limits to this knowledge, now there are none.

I would do a little experiment. Imagine you are right back to that moment when you have your first exposure to porn. Instead of finding your Dad's girly mags or VHS tapes, say you stumble upon a few of the more hardcore webpages on his computer. And you returned to those as frequently as you did the girly mags or tapes. Don't you think that early imprinting would influence you differently?

I was hell-bent on destroying and degrading myself sexually and in every other conceivable way as a teenager and young adult. It had nothing to do with the imagery I'd been exposed to. I just hated myself for reasons entirely unrelated to either gender or sex.

And while that is kinda atypical in its way, obviously, in a larger sense it's not. Because our sexual desires arise from how we feel about ourselves and others, and are not learned from directly representative educational materials.

And as I said, apart from sex addiction, there's no ugly sexual reality I've ever known, seen or heard about in which porn played a part roughly akin to the one you ascribe to it that wasn't very clearly attributable to deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding either women or sex or both.

Originating in childhood and arising from family and cultural conditioning. With or without pornography in the home. Although a hypersexualized home environment does often damage children in ways that affect their sexual attitudes and practices in adulthood, potentially including the compulsive over-use of pornography.

I would tend to agree with you initially on that because at first glance there are plenty of fundamentalist homes (of whatever religious or political stripe) that don't have any seeming overt pornography apparent and sexual abuse and perversion can be rampant. But one could say both homes adhere to the pornography that men are the ultimate authority over women and the Man's wants (word) are the law. I think "pornos" comes from the female slaves that were kept in antiquity for men's pleasure? A house without commercial pornography may be a house that doesn't need that commercial propaganda to subjugate the women because they already have been.

But that's any kind of hypersexualized home environment, pornography isn't the key ingredient.

Again I think we would have to look at the roots and uses of pornography. I've heard some twisted stories of the sexual mores of the Amish. They obviously don't have T1 connections of porn convincing themselves women are there for their domination, but it is in their good book which is drummed daily into everyone's head and so it is a given. (I know I'm totally generalizing about the Amish but I'm just picking on them as representative of a fundamentalist patriarchal family structure and besides they all pretty much voted for Bush twice.)

The Amish, the Hare Krishnas, the break-away LDS sects, Lubavitchers, Fundie-Christian survivalist communities, and -- basically -- just about any closed patriarchal society that regards non-members and outsiders as non-people you care to name -- is all but guaranteed to sanction physically violence and sexually abuse by men against women and children of both genders. They also often have high rates of father-daughter incest.

That's kind of off-topic, but it's useful information nonetheless.

Plus there are plenty of sexually compulsive people who weren't raised in hypersexualized homes.

Yes, I'm sure there are. But I'm sure many had access to hypersexualized material or experiences outside the home. I'm not discounting though some may pop up from time to time. We are born with the equipment after all.

And it's got nothing at all to do with having deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive or sadistic feelings of hatred and fear regarding women or sex or both, one way or the other.

In which case, again, for men who have those feelings, pornography is a manifestation of the problem. And maybe even a part of the problem on a transactional level, I guess.

But. It's. Not. The. Problem. Per all evidence, observation and experience within my grasp, you could get rid of pornography entirely without freeing anyone who didn't work in the porno industry from anything.

I don't see how you can neatly separate the problem from the propaganda. Beliefs are rules for actions. Where do beliefs come from? The deeply rooted and longstanding passive-aggressive, sadistic feelings toward women can no doubt arise without any commercial propaganda, say from a very abusive mother or a father who hates women and who then influences their children through their own private propaganda. But again except in some very rare "Bad Seed" type cases their has to be some exposure.

Nope. There doesn't.

More on this and other issues to follow shortly.

[compared2what?]

Again, I really think you should read E. Michael Jones Libido Dominandi. He has a case history of a homicidal rapist who was exposed to violent misogynistic porn at a very early age. It made quite the impression on him. His earliest sexual memory was one that had a person inflicting pain on another in a sexual act which he believed the the person enjoyed. This was in may ways his "primal scene" which created an appetite for such images.

I have two shelves full of books on psychopathy and sexually sadistic killers. Because at some point in the early '90s, I became frustrated that there were so few answers available to the questions, originally arising from moderately intellectually serious but basically plain old idle curiosity, about how such people are formed in which I'd taken an interest. So I kind of went overboard and ended up reading myself up to a semi-M.A. level (Necessarily and permanently semi-, though. Because I couldn't understand the hard science parts of what I was reading, and only barely managed to learn enough about stuff like object-relations theory to follow along when they were using forensic psych argot of some kind.) Then I never thought about it all that much again. Which is so typical of me. But really, who cares about me? My point is that I remember the gist of it very well, since it's not all that complicated, and basically no one knows anyway.

Most but not all sexually sadistic killers were traumatized and/or isolated children, although in many cases not any more so than all the millions of similarly traumatized and/or isolated children. The rest had apparently normal-ish childhoods as far as the eye can see, anyway. And while they're definitely in the minority, they're not, like, freakishly exceptional. For a while, people liked to cite the absent-father/domineering-mother model, which has a lot of uses, one of them being that you can almost always see it if you really want to, no matter what the family dynamic was or wasn't. IIRC, that also used to be why gay men were gay. And probably still is, from the perspective of however many classical Freudian analysts are still kicking around.

But I digress. The childhood trauma and/or neglect isn't necessarily either sexual or sexualized, and there might not be any. Almost invariably, they have very intense violent fantasy lives from childhood onward. And really, almost invariably. Like, unless an anvil falls from the sky and hits the exact part of their frontal lobes that had been, until then, doing its part wrt socialization, sexualization, and impulse control or something, almost. (Plus they do, in fact, frequently have a history of head injuries. They also may or may not have neurophysiological/neurochemical/neural or some other kind of biological predisposition, but that's more of a hypothesis than an established fact. Or at least afaik, the state of such research having advanced quite a bit since the early '90s.)

More than a few of them also had the antisocial triad in childhood (bed-wetting, fire-setting and cruelty to animals). All three together are highly predictive of sociopathy. But not necessarily violent or sexual sociopathy. I mean, some of those kids do have to grow up to work for Goldman Sachs, after all.

And (blah blah blah blah blah). When push comes to shove, violent sexual sadists have low self-esteem and have been living in a very active and emotionally rewarding private violent fantasy world since childhood that becomes a violent sexual fantasy world focused on killing early on, without the aid of pornography. They usually start acting out their fantasies in their mid-twenties to early thirties. Or so it is said by, I believe, John Douglas and Robert Ressler. Who worked together at the FBI, but apparently had a falling out about something at a later date, since they both now claim to have invented that whole (imo, highly overrated) Behavioral Sciences Unit serial-killer profiling thing and each makes snarky little remarks about the other in the one million books each has written. They both have unique and valuable data, because they interviewed 36 imprisoned serial killers at great length. But they either learned very little from it that couldn't have been fairly readily surmised; or they're keeping the real goods to themselves and blowing smoke; or they're just blowing smoke. For the most part. IMO.

In any event. A fair number of homicidal rapists of that kind develop a pre-killing routine that involves alcohol and pornography. But they have the idea long, long before they have the pornography. And they often start acting out some part of it long, long before they see any pornography or get around to killing or raping someone. Via classical backyard peeping-tom-ism or fetish-item burglaries or even just your basic rage-filled but vanilla petty crime and vandalism.

Well I can't provide any evidence that advertising is the root cause of any personal or social evils, or tabloid talk shows, or hollywood movies. All I can speak from his my little circle of experience. I think your desire for proof is noble. But we are living the experiment right now. I've seen individuals and families destroyed by just online gambling. Could they have fallen apart just as easily by something else? Perhaps. The odds are that they not only could have but would have been.

Fixed.

Because absent intervention, a propensity for gambling that's strong enough to destroy a family will out eventually. And when it does something major -- possibly a family, possibly the gambler, possibly a hypothetical by-stander, but something of comparable worth to what was destroyed -- will be destroyed by it. People have that susceptibility at a majorly destructive level or they haven't. It can't be acquired.

It's possible that by the grace of god, with exceptional luck, the undetected fracture in the foundation of that home that led to its collapse might never have been touched by a tremor of stress and thus never manifested itself. And I very much wish that had been the way things went. But even if it had, the threat to that home's integrity would still have been an integral part of the home itself, and not some alien force introduced to it by the internet.

You're not talking about people who got into an accident or were struck by lightning, you're talking about people who were the sum of their strengths and weaknesses, the former of which weren't great enough to compensate for the latter. That's a terrible, terrible shame, and even a tragedy. I personally would not fault, blame or judge anyone who suffered as a result of it. And if there were anything I could do that would help anyone who suffered as a result of it, I'd do it. Which there wouldn't be if I lied or prevaricated or rationalized my way out of having to admit to myself, to any or all of them, to you, or to the world wide web about who and what was responsible for causing it.

That's a very painful fact of life. But it is one. All the damn time. It's very understandable therefore that before long, people start hating and fearing the hardship and pain that both taking and assigning personal responsibility entail and start to prefer effigies and substitutes to the real.

And I mean that lovingly, not snottily. Because it is very understandable. And everyone does it. But it doesn't help anyone or anything when they do, least of all themselves.

[compared2what?]

I just think we should be wary of how convenient evil is becoming.

brekin, Almost all people are vulnerable and weak and foolish and obstinate and irrational in one or more ways. Those are very rarely their only qualities, obviously. It's just part of what comes with the territory of being a person. Which is actually very inconvenient. But nonetheless a very common cause of every kind of hell, crime against humanity, and suffering beyond the power of words (or at least my words) to describe that you could possibly imagine. Plus, no doubt, some unimaginable ones, too.

I mean, real evil is also very inconvenient, to put it mildly. Of course. But at least it's rare.

By the time they do any serious studies like that have been done with smoking or drinking it will be so entrenched it will be more of a commentary then anything.

If I didn't know exactly why serious studies hadn't already been done, given that there have been fifteen years in which to do them, during all of which there were organized, well-funded active -- and indeed, activist -- forces to whom serious studies that reached the conclusion you're assuming they'd reach would have been enormously, incalculably beneficial, I've got to say I'd be astonished that they hadn't.

I encourage you to read The Brain that Makes Itself for the science side of things and Libido Dominandi for the cultural side of things because I think you would find much of value in both, although I think you may be looking for information when what is required is experience. Your argument has validity but I think it is the much the same can be said of all early forms of all mediums. "Novels, radio, movies just reflect dreams and passions, they don't determine them." (I understand this may not be exactly what your saying.) But I think much like what Churchill said about buildings "We shape buildings, thereafter they shape us." is true of all forms of media. Perhaps we will adjust to this new saturation, but I think it is requiring more from our society then what we are ready for.

I'm pretty widely read on both the science and the cultural side of things already. WRT neuroplasticity and things neuro- in general, widely enough that I'm probably already familiar (or at least acquainted) with the work described in the former, assuming that you mean The Brain That Changes Itself. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy reading it, or that I have nothing to learn from doing so. Plus, it got good reviews. So your encouragement just might be the bridge I need to move from benign apathy to productive action wrt reading it. Thank you.

Sadly, it would almost be a crime against nature for me to read E. Michael Smith. Because I wouldn't enjoy it at all, and I'd worry that my thoughts might end up hurting him in some obscure and indirect way. So no thank you.

You're correct in understanding that the thing about novels, radio, and movies isn't exactly what I'm saying. Or what I'm saying at all, except incidentally and without meaning anything so aphoristic or unqualified by it. However, fwiw, I was just thinking last week about the several stretches of western history during which novels were the Chuck Berry/Lady Gaga/Eminem/internet porn of their place and time.

As I think I've posted once before, if Dante had had enough of Fox News mentality really to have meant that the courtly romance Paolo and Francesca were reading when the sinful passions that earned them their place in hell first overcame them was "a pander" in the sense that Fox News means such things when it say them, that would be the earliest example of pearl-clutching on the subject I could think of. But he didn't. I mention it mostly because I'd kind of like to know who did it first. So consider this a call for submissions.

WRT media -- and apart from my continuing to have no idea what you think online porn requires from society than we're ready for:

It's like this:

A well-executed media campaign (which is not a casual qualifier, btw, they're not easy to execute well) can fairly reliably significantly change people's perceptions of and feelings about a single person or subject if (a) there's a way to present the subject that's simplistic, concise, catchy and very emphatically framed to play on either their hopes or their fears or both; and (b) the campaign has a single, clearly defined and finite goal. But only fairly reliably. And certainly not inevitably, even when perfectly executed.

Also, in general -- and this isn't a truth that applies only to media hijinks by any means -- it's pretty easy to make people feel free-floating anxiety and fear, or free-floating enthusiasm and hope, thereby changing the cultural environment in which they live to some extent. Which is playing with fire to some extent, and therefore a bad idea as well as a morally repugnant one. However, fwiw, it can be done.

But in all cases, you'd need to have an organized pattern of repetition, reiteration and reinforcement every part of which was specifically designed to work in complement with every other toward a specific end, with no (none, zero) extraneous or unplanned intra-media-manipulation-plan conflicts. If you don't have that, you don't have media represntations of something acting to destroy society. You have a society in which people are using media representations of something for -- in the case of online pornography -- well....masturbation, which I'll grant does have a pretty straightforward purpose, but which is, nevertheless, an act that means different things to different people or to the same person at different times, most of which meanings are not evil. Or even harmful.

Be that as it may. Because it's not my main point, anyway. This is:

There is nothing the media's got now or ever has had-- or as far as I'm aware any force, agency, or power on earth short of very extreme emotional and/or physical coercion -- that can make people do something they plain old, flat-out just don't want to do.

And there are many, many things that all or some people simply don't want to do. Either because they don't care to do it and don't like it. Or because they do care for and like doing something with which it can't be reconciled. Or for any number of other reasons.

When that's the case, the absolute most that the media -- or some other non-coercive force, agency or power on earth -- might be able to do would be to flatter or intimidate some (possibly many) people to the point that they believed they did want to do something that they didn't want to do for long enough to do it for a little while. After which, the media -- or other etcetera -- would just be shit out of luck.

In short, while they don't always succeed, it's at least true that the media can change people's perceptions, people's moods, people's ambient cultural environment, people's opinions on abstract or ideological questions, people's taste in consumer goods, and people's attitudes within certain parameters,

What they can't change is people. Neither damaged people nor whole people are so insubstantial in themselves that casual, random exposure to media imagery does a whole lot more to them than distract them for a while. At most. Any impact greater than that is a matter of pure random chance, which might be for better or for worse, but couldn't possibly be foreseeable by anyone either way.

All this existed before the internet. All of us have evil in our hearts. And in many ways the internet is just a mirror. But it is a million sided mirror that distorts and magnifies and is always open and seems to best show evil in high definition. Spending time in that funhouse will have its repercussions. I guess in the end all I'm saying is something wicked this way comes...

Except for the parts about assigning agency to the internet and the use of the word "evil" and the implications usually associated with dichotomies that adhere to the basic Time-in-Funhouse/Repercussions" formula, I agree. At least in spirit.

[JackRiddler]

If I may at this late stage riff on the OP:

IMO, what they called the Sexual Revolution, back in the day, was actually a severe reaction to the suppression of natural impulses through fear and intimidation, and threats of eternal damnation, brought about by ignorant and/or conniving oppressors of societies. So, as with all polarities, you go too far one way and you're bound to experience the extreme at the other end of the scale.

No?

Pornography wasn't liberating. It was/is every bit as confining and twisted as it's puritanical counterpart.

No. That is, insofar as this appears to conflate the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s (which I believe was at least the third one in the 20th century after the 1920s and 1940s, with at least one counter-revolution in the late 40s/early 50s) with the concommitant growth in the porn market.

Also, on the whole and acknowledging the contradictions and eddies and currents, I view that "revolution," especially women's liberation and the gay movement, as something a lot greater and a lot more positive than a "severe reaction." I don't think these went far enough, and they were diverted into false directions, such as the fallacy of regarding sexualization of the media as "liberation." That however was very much a function of cooptation, rather than of the original movements "going too far." (The same can be said of the cooptation of human liberation into the corporate-centered "third wave" feminism, insofar as that stopped being about economic justice and turned into totemic careerism.)

Finally, I would never say "pornography" is "every bit as confining and twisted" as its "puritanical counterpart." Rather, the way pornography is defined, and thus the contours of its existence, are to this day a function of puritanism, generally they go together.

But to accept for the sake of argument your dichotomy or presentation of puritanism and pornography as opposite extremes (when they are more like two sides to the same coin), even then, until there is COMPULSORY pornography, it cannot be compared to the puritanical proscriptions on sex, which are enforced, as you say, by fear and intimidation. And violence. Who the hell is enforcing pornography?

"Thrust" or aggressive marketing is not the same, widespread acceptance or nonchalance is also not the same, unless the day comes when fundamentalist Christians, as they seem to fear, are forced to wank at the altar of hardcore and engage in teh gay.