It damages families in a lot of ways. Porn users are almost universally addicts; you might say you're not, but if you're a regular consumer, try to go without it and see how long you last. I challenge all naysayers to do that. A few can do so without much effort, but the vast majority can't. This reality is opposite of the lie that most will claim.
There are accounts all over of addiction to porn and the feelings that it causes. Companions feel inadequate compared to the airbrushed, artificial bodies their companions lust after. Porn users perceive the subjects of their pornography in an abnormally sexualized light and it diminishes their emotional and intellectual sensitivity.
Pornography steals time, productivity, and money from its users; it is not a wholesome, upbuilding recreational activity as some here say, it is not comparable to video games. It is degrading to its subjects and its users.
Pornography, like drugs, is a mechanism to enrich a few for the moral entrapment of its many users. Porn users become addicted and can't stop using it. They go back for more and more. They desire harder and harder material. They seek to mimic what they see in their preferred pornographic material. How is any of this desirable?
Pornography has a large negative effect on its users. That's absolutely true and no amount of studies, hopes, oblations, snarky comments, or any other thing can change that.
Think of all the other things people are "addicted to" by your definition. Going to work every day. Eating. Brushing your teeth. Bathing. If you don't do those things, you will feel weird right? By your standards, routine == addiction, which makes your use of that word meaningless. Nice try though.
Pornography steals time, productivity, and money from its users; it is not a wholesome, upbuilding recreational activity as some here say, it is not comparable to video games. It is degrading to its subjects and its users.
Reading the newspaper steals time, productivity, and money. So does seeing a movie, or reading a book, or watching TV, or replying to trolls on HN. People do it anyway because the day is long and there is plenty of flexibility in most people's leisure schedules. An hour spent doing something enjoyable every few days is well worth the time cost for many people. For some people, that's porn. So what? Honestly, "getting it over with" probably increases people's ability to concentrate on something more interesting, since that part of their biology that needs to have sex is satisfied. So porn is probably good for productivity.
Companions feel inadequate compared to the airbrushed, artificial bodies their companions lust after.
I disagree. I have found everyone I've dated to be more attractive than anyone I've seen in porn. Outside of porn, though, I've definitely seen some girls that I would like to have but never will, perhaps unrealistically setting my standards. The reality it that any media or exposure to real life changes standards; porn affects those standards no more or no less than anything else.
They desire harder and harder material.
So what? Perhaps they wanted it before, but didn't know it existed? I have come up with a lot more interesting fantasies in my mind than I have seen acted out in porn. Does this mean I'm addicted to thinking?
Pornography has a large negative effect on its users. That's absolutely true and no amount of studies, hopes, oblations, snarky comments, or any other thing can change that.
You certainly haven't proven this in any of your posts. If anything, you are just projecting your fantasies onto others, just like you claim users of porn do.
But anyway, the good news is that your opinions on this don't matter. The rest of us will continue to enjoy porn. Sorry you won't join us.
"Going to work" is not an addiction for most people. Most would be fine to stop going to work; they may languish or feel unproductive now that there's a huge chunk of underutilized time in their day, but they don't have a constant compulsion to need to go to work. Pornography users are addicted in the way that there is a constant, very-difficult-to-resist compulsion to use it again and again. They literally cannot bring themselves to stop using it.
Reading the newspaper does not necessarily steal money, time, and productivity. As long as the practice of reading a newspaper is moderated, it enhances its user by teaching him new things about the world, about his contemporaries, and so on.
Pornography is not some innocent indulgence. It is dangerous and harmful. It cannot ever produce a net good upon its user. It's not like playing a sport or game where effects incidental of the enjoyment are beneficial to the participants. Pornography is always bad.
My opinions are just as good as anyone else's. You are free to do research and substantiate or dissubstantiate them. I'm not interested in finding and providing that research in this context as noted elsewhere in this thread.
And once again, we go from here to there with nothing in between. A good argument starts with a set of facts, and then gradually introduces more facts and commentary until the conclusion is the natural outcome. Your arguments start and end at the same place, assuming facts that you never introduced and that, arguably, aren't even facts.
My opinions are just as good as anyone else's. You are free to do research and substantiate or dissubstantiate them. I'm not interested in finding and providing that research in this context as noted elsewhere in this thread.
I don't need to "do research and substantiate or 'dissubstatiate' them". Your opinion does not matter to me. You said something, I think you're wrong. I am going to continue advocating the awesomeness of porn, and there's nothing you can do about it.
It seems like most of the educated world agrees with me, so right or wrong, I probably win.
And finally, I disagree that your opinions are any good. A good opinion is based on provable facts and personal experience. Your opinions are based on neither!
(My opinion is better, because I have personal experience with porn. You speak in absolutes, but are clearly wrong, because I look at porn and this action hasn't adversely affected my life in any way. If your argument was correct, my life would currently be ruined.)
This is true, I know only too well. I started my pornography career as a young boy, and my tastes have got more and more depraved over the years.
Now I can only get off with pictures of completely naked women.
> I challenge all naysayers to do that. A few can do so without much effort, but the vast majority can't. This reality is opposite of the lie that most will claim.
I have done this, and nowadays I don't even look at 1/100th of the porn I used to five years ago, e.g. all the porn I look at nowadays is a little of the person I might be sleeping with if I'm far away from him/her, and whatever random porn might be linked on random IRC channels I'm on (usually for amusement than arousal). Nothing really prompted me to change my porn viewing habits. But of course, then you will shove me into the "few" that can do this without effort. So what's the point of even answering that. :p
> Companions feel inadequate compared to the airbrushed, artificial bodies their companions lust after. Porn users perceive the subjects of their pornography in an abnormally sexualized light and it diminishes their emotional and intellectual sensitivity.
On one hand, I don't disagree that modern day mainstream non-amateur porn is ridiculous and artificial, it's almost become a total turn-off to me, minus a couple people like Sasha Grey, someone I never felt was really glamorized to that extent. But that does not mean that people are expecting airbrushed perfection, or that people feel inadequate compared to porn. I feel fat and full of stretch marks and a desperate need to exercise (stupid asthma issues right now) to get rid of all this flab on my body and I can never manage to get the perfect bikini shave down, but when I am sleeping with my current partner, and when I was with most of my former partners, I feel sexy, confident, attractive. Around him and what we do together, I get this amazing sense of sharing something so glorious, taking pleasure in pleasuring each other, happiness, stress relief...name anything good, and I've probably felt it. And I don't expect him to be perfect, I know he's got his own flab to lose, his own shortcomings, his own interests and fetishes that I might not be into and vice versa...and I know he's not 9" (or where the idea that "bigger is better" even came from). But I don't consider that to be a bad thing just because I saw (on some days) several hours of porn where there were perfect people doing everything I could possibly think of that I was into. Plus, half the stuff I've seen are so ridiculously unrealistic. In the heat of passion, are you REALLY going to be contorting bodies into that kinda position? Nope.
And I know every single person I have ever slept with has watched plenty of porn at some time or another and some still do. Yet none of them have gotten the idea that real sex is like the porn they watch. Because porn can only show so much, and if you don't realize it yet, you will once you actually sleep with someone.
(Oh oops, is this where the "you're promiscuous, clearly porn did that to you" part comes in?)
> Pornography has a large negative effect on its users. That's absolutely true and no amount of studies, hopes, oblations, snarky comments, or any other thing can change that.
"I'm right, you're wrong"...yes...how well that has solved arguments. Porn has been good to me, gave me an outlet for my sexual frustration (oh I never imagined I'd be talking about that on HN...), gave me something fun to watch and to make, gave me pleasure in one way or another. It hasn't made me skanky or promiscuous or hating on healthy relationships or preventing me from having them. It hasn't hurt me and it hasn't made me hurt anyone else, unless your idea of hurting people is safe, sane, and consensual fetish acts. There are far worse things in life, in my life? Maybe how I started playing WoW... :P
Personal anecdotes, yes, but hey, if we're all offering up our personal opinions and unsupported thoughts here...
