Is Porn Bad for You?

[Luther Blissett]

Much like how you've described this process with amateur porn* no one can keep boundaries on anything in this discussion. What does it mean that the simple act of making the private public is traumatizing to survivors?

I've said straight out, I'd like to see more filmed consensual activity. I do have a problem with abuse in the porn industry. Why are these two being conflated?

*Which I am not seeing in great proliferation, I am seeing a lot of professional porn labeled as amateur, and a few actual amateur vids here and there, maybe my search skills are off.

It's very difficult to get statistics (lots of porn returns), but I do believe that amateur, recreational, and/or female-produced (which I think is an important distinction) pornography makes up a huge percentage of online pornography. Perhaps not the majority, but a large percentage. When my ex was still in the industry and self-publishing, I remember her telling me something about the statistic being around 25% - and with the proliferation of forums like tumblr which is vastly female-centric and female-produced, or r/gonewild, or even female-run sites like itouchmyself / ifeelmyself (which even my ex-pornographer ex continued to consume often after quitting) I believe that statistic would have to be much higher today.

I see it as similar to technology bringing down the record industry or the rise of the Pirate Party in Germany. But then again, I am finding myself agreeing with you on most counts and have always been adverse to corporate pornography, especially after I started dating my ex and was taught what it was about.

Maybe I should just bow out of this conversation. I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my current girlfriend and work longer hours than she does.

[compared2what?]

I'm confused by this post c2w. Absolutely no idea where you're reading what you seem to be reading into my posts. Where did I get to be insensitive to the problem of drug addiction/trafficking/enslavement?

I don't think that you are insensitive to it, or even that you're insensitive to perceptible signs of it in pornographic images and/or in close association with the production of pornography, in any meaningful sense of the word "insensitive." You may very well be intimately familiar with and thoroughly aware of it through personal experience that you processed in a different way than I did or -- ftm -- in the same way, for all I know or do not know. And you could (of course) also be casually aware of it in a general way, but essentially unfamiliar with, uncomprehending of and uninterested in the numerous and diverse forms of personal hell through and/or in which drug addicts (and addicts of all kinds) live. As most people are.

In short: I have neither any way of knowing, nor any need to know, nor any particular right to pronounce an opinion on any aspect of the matter. That's precisely why I would not characterize every and/or any expression of personal interest or concern regarding pornography that did not acknowledge the frequent centrality to its production of drug addiction/trafficking as blindness to it.

In the event that I did see someone saying something that was actively insensitive to the realities of addiction for essentially no-fault reasons that were clearly not indicative of any real insensitivity or blindness to it, I certainly might comment on it in non-accusatory terms. For example, were someone to say...

I'm more concerned about the effect that this has on victims who end up serving these dopamine hungry pervs than their eventual impotence. For me, those who buy into sites selling images of the rape and/ or torture of minors are guilty of aiding and abetting those rapes, and sentencing should be commensurate with that, not the typical 3 years which has been dished out in the past.Those who host those sites are equally guilty I think. If we were talking about images of another kind of crime, lets imagine for a moment that film of blowing up buildings full of innocent people became a money spinner, a dopamine spiker, a source of vicarious pleasure for the disconnected sociopaths with minimal capacity for empathy, netting the crime industry and its bankers a goodly pile through contributions from viewers, would we have been as blasé as we are about the flood of images of child pornography?

...I might ask him or her to consider whether that was really the best way to think and talk about addicts to whose possible implication in acts of rape they had given no serious consideration and about which they were wholly uninformed.

If he or she appeared to me to be receptive to further information on the question, I might also go on to say that the real mood and behavioral effects that this particular kind of dopamine deficit has on the people who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with are more or less the same as those frequently seen in the prodomal stages of Parkinson's, which is also a dopamine deficiency syndrome -- ie, they would be fatigued, withdrawn, and depressed, with a reduced capacity for concentration, focus, decision-making and planning, all of which are necessary for the successful commission of sex crimes, as is an interest in committing them, which would be likewise diminished had it been present to begin with, which -- as I've already said -- it's no more likely to be among sex addicts than it is among any class of people other than sex offenders.

However, I also might not. Because, while it's information that's objectively of considerable import and relevancy here, it's also complex and arcane and of very little general interest. Furthermore, few people are likely to have much to say about it. So I wouldn't be contributing to the discussion so much as I would be imposing limitations on it, after (or even before) a certain point.

But that's just life. It's not a reflection on anybody's sensitivity. And none is called for, afaic.

[compared2what?]

I'm confused by this post c2w. Absolutely no idea where you're reading what you seem to be reading into my posts. Where did I get to be insensitive to the problem of drug addiction/trafficking/enslavement?

I am confused also but I believe it boils down to the usual concerns that survivors voices will require some sort of special attention and set of concessions and admissions that make everyone uncomfortable.

No. It boils down to a concern that might be plainly stated like so:

Rape is not an ordinarily enjoyable act to witness or experience, by definition. It's no more acceptable to say, as a matter of opinion, that any broadly defined class of people takes enjoyment in witnessing it than it is to say that any class of broadly defined people enjoys experiencing it.

It's acceptable to assert fact as fact while saying either, as should go without saying. But the factual standard that justifies saying it is equally high in both cases, due to the profound offense to general and innocent sensibilities that such statements would otherwise cause.

Likewise, on a more personal note:

Please don't attribute my concerns to a selfish and uncaring wish to avoid making just concessions and admissions that would discomfit everyone without due cause for saying so. Or, alternatively, state the due cause. Because those are very hurtful things for anyone to say about someone else. And it's thoughtless to say them casually.

That either applies to everyone or to none. I vote for the former. But we certainly don't have to discuss it ad infinitum. And speaking only for myself, I don't believe I have anything further to say about it.

Much love, respect and admiration to you, as always.

[Project Willow]

No. It boils down to a concern that might be plainly stated like so:

Rape is not an ordinarily enjoyable act to witness or experience, by definition. It's no more acceptable to say, as a matter of opinion, that any broadly defined class of people takes enjoyment in witnessing it than it is to say that any class of broadly defined people enjoys experiencing it.

I don't agree. As to your first statement, a least one defined class of people absolutely does enjoy witnessing rape, far more than most of us are willing to accept or there wouldn't exist a multibillion dollar child porn industry. It's not the only one. According to what I've directly experienced, and to the accounts of porn industry abuse survivors, it is also quite possible to rape a woman while forcing her to perform as if she weren't being raped. I have seen videos that could fit this description, and I've not seen any sort of campaign to have them abolished, so I think it's fairly safe to assume that some men are enjoying them. That's the phrase I used, some men. That was sexist, I should have said some people. I'd gladly listen to your advice on what sort of classification I should use instead so to as avoid general hurt feelings.

While we're on the topic, then why did you answer: "I agree with you on every point. Also, I'm sorry." to this post: http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=436221#p436221

It's acceptable to assert fact as fact while saying either, as should go without saying. But the factual standard that justifies saying it is equally high in both cases, due to the profound offense to general and innocent sensibilities that such statements would otherwise cause.

So it's more appropriate that I stifle my views than it is to point out what I see as a disturbing reality? Or even to ask questions about it which if you go back and look at all of my postings here, I'm mostly asking questions and trying to understand, but you'd rather I just be silent because I don't have a set of stats to back up my observations?

As far as I know Linda Lovelace was used as a slave in her early porn career, but aren't her films still widely popular, aren't there people enjoying them today? What does she say about it? Is this something appropriate to talk about?

Likewise, on a more personal note:

Please don't attribute my concerns to a selfish and uncaring wish to avoid making just concessions and admissions that would discomfit everyone without due cause for saying so. Or, alternatively, state the due cause. Because those are very hurtful things for anyone to say about someone else. And it's thoughtless to say them casually.

I stand corrected. Only profound confusion and frustration lead me there and were entirely due to my own shortcomings.

[compared2what?]

Till now, i've been criticising porn that debases/is violent towards low rank participants, for reasons that are clear. Now i'd like to make a different, subtler criticism of porn as a whole (i haven't been holding out, this angle is new to me, from a mate over dinner).

All porn, even porn that is nonexploitative nonsexist etc (assuming such exists), shares a sad foundation: it can only provide symbolic relief for real needs. What is symbolic relief? Its wearing an expensive branded tracksuit and living in a trailer, its playing shoot'em'up video games after kissing ass all day. Just as movies make us vicariously powerful or impassioned, providing symbolic relief for our lack of power and passion in real life, porn provides a symbolic tableux for us to scrape up a little synthetic power and/or imagined intimacy. With our ego's thus reinflated, we can show up for another days humiliations IRL (so we can afford our smokes/grog/shoes/car/porn so we can show up for another days humiliations...).

Getting that symbolic relief may be better than doing nothing with or suppressing the itch .. but really i think the itch is a symptom we should be listening to rather than 'take a pill'/quick wank/symbolic relief.

_________________

DISCLAIMER: It seems clear to me that you are not talking about pedophiliac fantasies here. Therefore my remarks below should not be read as bearing on them. I am responding solely to the points raised by your post at face value and as I understood it.

Thanks in advance for the consideration.
_________________

There's nothing at all symbolic about the relief that people routinely derive from their private fantasies, both sexual and non-sexual. Human imagination can be put to many powerful and constructive purposes, as well as to many powerful and destructive ones, needless to say. But it's inherently multi-purpose, and virtually all humans exercise it in the service of their personal needs on a regular basis without compromising their capacity for meeting those needs via other means in the slightest. Not by as much as one iota, in fact. It's obviously possible for people to be unhealthily dependent on their fantasies in a way that impairs their capacity for just about any and every type of real-world functioning. But that's a complex pathological state that's distinct from simply having a regularly active fantasy life for recreational/leisure or self-soothing purposes, at one's own discretion, as time, energy and taste permit.

So let's back up a little bit here: Fantasy is a very common component in the inner lives of virtually all people. Broadly speaking, both sexual and non-sexual fantasies serve a compensatory emotional end of some kind, typically self-comfort. It's very, very common for people to have repetitive, ritualized fantasies about doing things that they don't have the slightest wish or hope of doing in reality, owing to -- for example -- their witting awareness that in reality, there aren't any Jedi knights or -- for another example -- any hot, horny cheerleaders. Because most people who are oriented to three can't fail to notice that they've only ever seen those things in movies that appeal to their fantasies, which do not necessarily have a straight-up one-to-one correspondence with the real people and behaviors they find appealing.

Let's now turn our attention to common fantasies about dangerous and alarming acts that most people could easily realize if they wished, such as suicide: Most people do have a transient fantasy about that at some point in their lives without feeling the faintest real desire even to die, let alone to kill themselves. A small subset of those people that's still pretty sizeable have intense fantasies about suicide during a time in their lives when they're intensely miserable due to some real-life cause, which they resolve in their fantasies by killing themselves. Those people are at higher statistical risk for suicide overall than people of the same gender who did not have intense suicidal fantasies under equivalent circumstances at roughly the same stage of their lives, all other things being equal.

However, they're at lower statistical risk for suicide overall than people of the same gender who did not have intense suicidal fantasies under equivalent circumstances who own guns, drink alcoholically and have more than one first- or second-degree relative who died a suicide. And none of the people in either the fantasizing group or the non-fantasizing is at all likely ever to be at a particularly significant risk for imminent suicide without showing any observable signs of it to anyone in advance.

And that's definitely not to say that one or more of them mightn't just go ahead and end his or her life abruptly and without any regard at all for the statistical improbability it would entail. Because they might. It's merely to say that fantasy content of a profoundly volatile and highly consequential nature is not -- repeat not -- a reliable predictive indicator of anyone's real-world plans or wishes to do anything, or a reflection of their ability to process their emotions and experiences in a non-imaginary context. Behavior and personal history are both more reliably predictive of all of those things, and more objectively detectible by others, to boot. There is therefore no reason to invade people's private fantasy lives in order to ascertain that they don't pose a threat to themselves or others. Nor would it be possible to do so, even if there were But there are quite obviously always going to be people whose complete concealment of any sign of their dangerous desires is part and parcel of their serious plans to act on them.

If there's any reason why sexual fantasies are (or even should be) regarded as being in a class by themselves, distinct from all other regular exercises of the human imagination, I either don't know or don't understand what it is. FTM, I'm not even sure I understand what advantage anyone would gain if they were. I mean, we're all much, much more than the sum of the stories we tell ourselves/consume, not less. Or so it seems to me, anyway.

But maybe that's just me.
______________

wintler2, my friend:

Please believe that I neither accuse you of saying anything homophobic or hateful nor even believe you to be capable of saying anything homophobic or hateful. What I believe is that your logic is flawed, and that's all. But in the interests of demonstrating to what dangerous effect the introductory premise of the argument that you're making could be put, I ask you to consider what distinguishes it from this:

All homosexuality, even homosexuality that is non-predatory, non-diseased etc (assuming such exists), shares a sad foundation: it can only provide symbolic relief for real needs.

I'd say that what you actually said was distinct from the above in any number of meaningful ways. And I do not say otherwise. But I'd also maintain, as an absolute matter of principle, that the blanket condemnation of anyone's private sexual practices should be reserved solely for practices that are absolutely contemptible. And I do so maintain.

[compared2what?]

No. It boils down to a concern that might be plainly stated like so:

Rape is not an ordinarily enjoyable act to witness or experience, by definition. It's no more acceptable to say, as a matter of opinion, that any broadly defined class of people takes enjoyment in witnessing it than it is to say that any class of broadly defined people enjoys experiencing it.

I don't agree. As to your first statement, a least one defined class of people absolutely does enjoy witnessing rape, far more than most of us are willing to accept or there wouldn't exist a multibillion dollar child porn industry.

Pedophiles are not a broadly defined class of people.

It's not the only one. According to what I've directly experienced, and to the accounts of porn industry abuse survivors, it is also quite possible to rape a woman while forcing her to perform as if she weren't being raped. I have seen videos that could fit this description, and I've not seen any sort of campaign to have them abolished, so I think it's fairly safe to assume that some men are enjoying them. That's the phrase I used, some men. That was sexist, I should have said some people. I'd gladly listen to your advice on what sort of classification I should use instead so to as avoid general hurt feelings.

To use the phrase that's nearest to hand, I'd suggest:

"I think it's fairly safe to assume that some men are enjoying them, [possibly/probably/if] [unknowingly]."

Or something to that effect. But it's just a suggestion, and you don't have to take it, by any means.

While we're on the topic, then why did you answer: "I agree with you on every point. Also, I'm sorry." to this post: http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=436221#p436221

I understood the "again, to me" to be a more than sufficient qualification in context. So I agreed and was sorry.

It's acceptable to assert fact as fact while saying either, as should go without saying. But the factual standard that justifies saying it is equally high in both cases, due to the profound offense to general and innocent sensibilities that such statements would otherwise cause.

So it's more appropriate that I stifle my views than it is to point out what I see as a disturbing reality? Or even to ask questions about it which if you go back and look at all of my postings here, I'm mostly asking questions and trying to understand, but you'd rather I just be silent because I don't have a set of stats to back up my observations?

No, not at all. I think it's inappropriate, unnecessary and potentially profoundly offensive to general and innocent sensibilities to say that a broadly defined class of people derive sexual enjoyment from witnessing rape unless you're sure that's what they're enjoying as well as what they're witnessing.

If I thought it was appropriate for you to stifle your views, I would have said so. But I don't think it.

As far as I know Linda Lovelace was used as a slave in her early porn career, but aren't her films still widely popular, aren't there people enjoying them today? What does she say about it? Is this something appropriate to talk about?

I don't know how widely viewed or popular pornography featuring Linda Lovelace at any stage of her career is now. She passed away not too long ago in 2002, may she rest in peace. She said quite a bit about her porn career, it was a subject she addressed extensively and not always consistently, due to pressure from ghost-writers, publishers, and maybe other factors. I've always thought there was absolutely no question that she was very severely abused and utterly dominated by her manager/sometime husband. I'm not sure whether she herself referred to herself as his slave, so I'm hesitant to so denominate her of what might well be my own accord. But loosely speaking, I sure wouldn't quibble over whether it was accurate to say that what she experienced was enslavement. I think it would be.

Her experience is on-topic, afaic. It's probably not perfectly representative of similar or equivalent experiences of abuse in contemporary porn production, for the obvious reasons. But the differences are probably potentially instructive. So that just is what it is.

Likewise, on a more personal note:

Please don't attribute my concerns to a selfish and uncaring wish to avoid making just concessions and admissions that would discomfit everyone without due cause for saying so. Or, alternatively, state the due cause. Because those are very hurtful things for anyone to say about someone else. And it's thoughtless to say them casually.

I stand corrected. Only profound confusion and frustration lead me there and were entirely due to my own shortcomings.

Thank you. I'm sincerely sorry both for your frustration and/or confusion (and/or anger, etc., if any) and for my contribution to them. You have no shortcomings, in my eyes, in the sense that I wouldn't wish you to be any different than you are in any way, except for eternally happy, healthy and successful in all your endeavors. Plus, I don't know, immortal. So don't be silly.

[Project Willow]

If I thought it was appropriate for you to stifle your views, I would have said so. But I don't think it.

So all of this boils down to the idea that, in one of my posts I was negligent or imprecise with qualifying rhetoric? Due to the vehemence with which you were responding to me however, I took you to mean I should refrain from sharing my observations, which you might understand was kind of upsetting to me. May I ask that in future you pick out the offending sentence so that I may edit it rather than presenting me all the philosophical underpinnings of your objection first? I am not as careful a writer as you, obviously, and I have other priorities...

No, not at all. I think it's inappropriate, unnecessary and potentially profoundly offensive to general and innocent sensibilities to say that a broadly defined class of people derive sexual enjoyment from witnessing rape unless you're sure that's what they're enjoying as well as what they're witnessing.

We aren't going to agree here. In my opinion, it is far more offensive that people turn a blind eye to the exploitation of women in the porn industry, so I'm willing to risk that I might be insulting a few random people who might actually take offense at what I'm saying. I'm also gambling that if some men here are offended, they will speak up. This is not directly analogous but it is related, I cause people pain when I simply tell them what happened to me. That may not feel fair to them, but it's part of the process, and it's a lot less fair for me to have to put up with continued abuse and never ask for help.

[Project Willow]

So, yeah… It's pretty amazing the stuff that turns us humans on — and it's often scary! "Whoa! If that turns me on, then I must be a freak!" Well, maybe, I guess… but not necessarily. You may just be like the rest of us human-animals, and that's all. And it's amazing really just how little control we human-animals have over what we find sexually arousing sometimes. "But I'm 'supposed' to be turned on only by _________, _________, and _________!" ("Hey, I'm allowed those last two on the list 'cause I'm a liberal Protestant now…") Well, it doesn't work that way. Sorry.

Porn can be an in-your-face reminder of the very, very humbling fact that we're not really masters of much of anything, including our genitals sometimes. ("Ha! Ha!")

FWIW.

Thanks Sim.

I am tempted to wonder, along those same lines, that perhaps at base a preponderance of individual sexual impulses, as they exist in this culture and at this point in our evolutionary history, inherently entail a certain amount of what we might commonly label abuse. Dare I wonder about this out loud? I don't know, the atmosphere in here is fairly incendiary already.

Given the prevalence of various deviances, including CSA, and the mass popularity of porn imagery that debases women, maybe what is rare and abnormal is the desire for mutually satisfying and respectful love making? Maybe sex is just another system involving abuse that allowed us to survive as a species, like war. Perhaps one reason so many people are so reactive about this topic is that in too many cases, heartfelt beliefs, as well as societal beliefs, are belied by the components of real sexual desire.

Then again, what I know of how people form their proclivities somewhat argues against this general thesis. We seem to be like ducklings in that capacity, to oversimplify, imprinting either the role of top or bottom going forward from the formative experience, but we've had this discussion before.

[Project Willow]

I see it as similar to technology bringing down the record industry or the rise of the Pirate Party in Germany. But then again, I am finding myself agreeing with you on most counts and have always been adverse to corporate pornography, especially after I started dating my ex and was taught what it was about.

Maybe I should just bow out of this conversation. I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my current girlfriend and work longer hours than she does.

I hope you are right about the tech overturn, but I worry that the male gaze has already set all the perimeters and what goes forth, for a while at least, will be dictated by what came before.

Thank you for sharing your inside view, and I hope your ex is well and happy.

[Hammer of Los]

...

I think there is a very good possibility that the proliferation of porn on the internet, in all its forms, is indeed bad for people, many people, all over the planet. It is bad in very many different ways for very many different people.

Therefore I would just like to say that I fully support blanc and project willow, and dear old wintler2, on this one. And Canadian Watcher too, I think. In other words, I tend to agree with those whose answer to the OP question is, broadly speaking, a YES.

Of course, the OP title is a question.

You may not know the answer, or you may doubt the answers of others. You may doubt the answer you yourself give.

But where a doubt arises, you must first seek a means to resolve that doubt.

In this case, the means to resolve the doubt would clearly be to give up porn, and then see if there are improvements in your life, and/or in the lives of those closest to you.

That is the only means to resolve the OP question, isn't it kiddies?

If we resolve our doubts, we may find ourselves in agreement. In synch, if you will.


ps Wintler2 is indeed a wise old bird. Sorry again to you for doubting you, dearest friend of my heart. I am a silly old mammal.

[compared2what?]

If I thought it was appropriate for you to stifle your views, I would have said so. But I don't think it.

So all of this boils down to the idea that, in one of my posts I was negligent or imprecise with qualifying rhetoric? Due to the vehemence with which you were responding to me however, I took you to mean I should refrain from sharing my observations, which you might understand was kind of upsetting to me. May I ask that in future you pick out the offending sentence so that I may edit it rather than presenting me all the philosophical underpinnings of your objection first? I am not as careful a writer as you, obviously, and I have other priorities...

No. It's more than that. But let's skip it. I too have other priorities, which I'm now going to cease posting here and attend to as I should. Please accept my apologies in whatever measure they're due, as well as both my gratitude and my affection, each in some very large and indeterminate measure.

[ON EDIT: I love you, but "vehemence"? Due cause or GTFO, as they say. ]

No, not at all. I think it's inappropriate, unnecessary and potentially profoundly offensive to general and innocent sensibilities to say that a broadly defined class of people derive sexual enjoyment from witnessing rape unless you're sure that's what they're enjoying as well as what they're witnessing.

We aren't going to agree here. In my opinion, it is far more offensive that people turn a blind eye to the exploitation of women in the porn industry, so I'm willing to risk that I might be insulting a few random people who might actually take offense at what I'm saying.

The comparison creates a false dichotomy that again equates solely to an accusation that I am blind to the exploitation of women in the porn industry, once it's reduced to its lowest common denominator. That's simply not true. But neither is it terribly important, I guess.
_______________

Take care, everybody.

[Simulist]

Take care of yourself, C2w. You're a gift.

[compared2what?]

Thanks, honey. Big love. Bye now!

[barracuda]

See you later, compared.

...the atmosphere in here is fairly incendiary already.

It doesn't have to be. But as you say, we're seeing through different eyes. For example,

I guess I could understand your resentment if this thread were named, "Is The Porn Industry Bad?", or something like that.

I perceived blanc's statements to be specifically addressing the porn industry.

I honestly read her statements which I responded to there as referencing pornography generally.

Also, I'm trying to point out that exhibitionism is not necessarily a bad thing, or the result of abuse, but is a rather commonly held proclivity amongst people of all stripes.

Can you please point out a post where someone claimed that exhibitionism was the result of abuse? I missed that one.

I cannot! Because that was my own thought, small though it might have been: that the act of displaying oneself sexually to strangers is not necessarily or even usually the result of coercion.

I think there is a very good possibility that the proliferation of porn on the internet, in all its forms, is indeed bad for people, many people, all over the planet. It is bad in very many different ways for very many different people.

I feel like I can agree with this statement pretty much entirely, which I do, and still answer the OP question in the negative. Because, to me, the gradual reframing of that question to include the most vile or problematic aspects of - so far - pedophilia, sex slavery, female debasement, sexual addiction and the excresses of the porn industry have taken me so far from what my experience is in the realm of porn that I feel genuinely to be looking at a very different picture. I mean, really - I have a collection of vintage Payboy magazines. And though I realise that possession may not signify a triumph of feminist mores, may even represent a certain objectification of women, I now view those magazines with a nearly incomprehensible nostalgia of innocence. Sexuality is at least partly a matter of personal tastes, and tastes change with time, accountable or not.

the means to resolve the doubt would clearly be to give up porn, and then see if there are improvements in your life, and/or in the lives of those closest to you.

This is funnny to me, because as a 53-year-old single father living in close proximity with my relatives, I have very, very little time to spend with my sexuality, and perhaps no real "quality time" at all, except for the most occasional situations, for going on eight years now. I would say it has been somewhere in the neighborhood of five years or more since I've watched a pornographic movie, though I will admit to now and then sneaking peeks at pictures on the internet. Yes, my sex life is a ridiculous sham these days, and it's almost certainly downhill from here. Would that I had enough time to look at porn in the proper manner it would take to allow "giving it up" to have any meaning!

Anyway, this thread is officially depressing me now. I have so little interest in arguing about the pros and cons of pornography it's incredible that I ever even posted on the subject. It was an ill-considered impulse which I found impossible to resolve with any dignity, and nearly impossible to extricate myself from. I'd much rather discuss sex with people who are interested in sex as a panopoly of sensual and exciting human activities than be informed, once again, in however a roundabout way, and for the one gazillionth time in my life, that something is very wrong and there are plenty of reasons to feel shame about looking at pictures of naked women, or that there is a proper way for me to experience my libido other than how I am comfortable or even delightfully uncomfortable doing so. I was raised a catholic, fer cryin' in a bucket, and spent years studying feminist critque. I doubt if I've heard a single argument on this entire thread that I hadn't heard hashed to death thirty years ago, when porn was little more than Bob Guccione and the Mitchell Brothers. Did any of those arguments have any effect on the effect that some dirty pictures have on the contents of my pants? Not likely. Did I question my very motivations when the reflexive movement of my pockets were less than politically correct? Perhaps for a moment, which gratefully would pass of necessity unheeded.

Also, I can only imagine that there is nothing more boring or pathetic than hearing the opinion of this fifty-three year old man on the subject of mastubation. God. OMG. I doubt there are many subjects here less appealing to talk about in polite company or outside of the confidences of very select audiences of very, very close and significant persons and in very specific situations, of which this forum is decidedly not one. And for me to tell you completely how I feel about the subject would actually entail even more descriptive anecdote of a sexual and sensual nature which I have absolutely no intention of passing along in this context, and which feeling I am rather certain is reciprocated completely. I would see my favorite Bouchers burned before I would subject either of us to that.

But the very, very last thing I need in my life at the moment is a disagreement which brings discomfort to people who I consider, at this time in my life, my very good friends, really, especially over something as inexplicable and idiosyncratic as my ironic personal preferences of sexual fantasies and their presentation in pornography. If we have to argue to antipathy and irritation, I insist that it be about something else. Entirely. If you must form a poor opinion of me, there are much more pertinent avenues of approach than this one, I hope.

Given the prevalence of various deviances, including CSA, and the mass popularity of porn imagery that debases women, maybe what is rare and abnormal is the desire for mutually satisfying and respectful love making?

It's a fair question, but I really doubt that overall human sexuality has changed in any significant way in the last ten-thousand years.

[Project Willow]

The comparison creates a false dichotomy that again equates solely to an accusation that I am blind to the exploitation of women in the porn industry, once it's reduced to its lowest common denominator. That's simply not true. But neither is it terribly important, I guess.

No dichotomy intended, and of course I know you are not blind to exploitation. I was merely attempting to point out that I am willing to accept certain side effects of my actions, that by contrast you find unacceptable. As you see rather, it is I who doesn't live up to your standards.


..........................

Anyway, all this arguing gets me heated up. I think need a break too.

........................

You're on your own, old man.