I am not against porn on any moral or ethical level as long as the content is produced with everyone’s consent and some level of protection for everyone involved, or if it’s material being shared by adults for fun. Fantastic, more of it. Everyone should enjoy the good things in life and that includes sexuality.
That said, porn addiction is damaging not necessarily just because it alters your perception of relationships, but because anything you do that creates pleasure spikes/associations can have negative effects on your ability to derive pleasure from other things. And if you start getting hooked on porn early in life, these changes to your brain become extremely hard to break and you can set yourself up for chronic issues like depression, anhedonia and anxiety. And yes, also fucked up ideas about sex and relationships.
I don’t think a ban is appropriate and I don’t trust the agencies that want to manage our age-verification, but I do think something needs to be done that doesn’t just hand wave it off as “let the parents do their job” because we don’t live in that world. Parents are just children with more bills. Nobody knows how to parent, much less parent properly though difficult topics.
I am admittedly unsure what the right answer here is. A lot of the internet, not even just porn, is very damaging to our minds. Our attention spans are shot, we all just read the worst thoughts from the slimmest margin of people and focus on those edge cases about any idea or topic and it ruins our ability to socialize or engage with others happily. And a lot of young people around the whole world are just deeply stuck in ruts of doom-scrolling, porn, social-media and influencers giving fake advice and selling scams to anyone with access to a credit card.
I feel like with all problems it comes back to capitalism fucking everything up for everyone, but I also know we’re nowhere near a point where people are going to start like, creating effective governments so that services and systems can be nationalized safely. I wouldn’t trust a nationalized trash-can in the USA, not sure how bad it is in Australia but it’s just a matter of time before capital ruins every developed country with a few cents to rub together.
edit: if your impulse is to push back on this, it’s kinda telling bro.
That is a terrible article on an argued topic, dealing with the feelings of morality surrounding porn addiction and not touching on the psychological pleasure/reward cycle that compulsive behavior creates. You misunderstand the actual debate or you’re looking for the articles to support your feelings. It’s a debated topic but most professionals believe that porn is addictive even if it’s not a defined condition.
There is debate about if porn addiction is a real, separate issue than just compulsive behavior, but the vast consensus is that porn is addicting, just that by itself it doesn’t count as a separate addiction when people show the same addictive behavior towards things like video games and other things that don’t chemically interact with the brain, so the argument is if we should make a blanket category for compulsive behavior for certain media and habits.
It’s about the categorization and definitions, not a pass that porn and similar compulsive behavior isn’t a danger.
the world’s leading guide on psychological disorders, asserts that pornography, as well as sex addictions, are not psychological disorders.
But does that mean porn isn’t addictive, and that people can’t become addicted to it? Absolutely not. Because the APA or DSM-5 has not “recognized” something does not mean that it isn’t real.
Lots of people are harmed by addictive behavior, about a lot of different things that aren’t always written up in a book. I’ve talked to too many guys who have had problems with this for me to dismiss it just because some wannabe celebrity doctors found they can make bank supporting our bad habits that don’t leave physical marks.
There are thousands and thousands of people who have suffered addiction to behavior that gives them dopamine, from scrolling to video games to porn, if it’s not real to you… GREAT, shut up and go away. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.
I am not against porn on any moral or ethical level as long as the content is produced with everyone’s consent and some level of protection for everyone involved, or if it’s material being shared by adults for fun. Fantastic, more of it. Everyone should enjoy the good things in life and that includes sexuality.
That said, porn addiction is damaging not necessarily just because it alters your perception of relationships, but because anything you do that creates pleasure spikes/associations can have negative effects on your ability to derive pleasure from other things. And if you start getting hooked on porn early in life, these changes to your brain become extremely hard to break and you can set yourself up for chronic issues like depression, anhedonia and anxiety. And yes, also fucked up ideas about sex and relationships.
I don’t think a ban is appropriate and I don’t trust the agencies that want to manage our age-verification, but I do think something needs to be done that doesn’t just hand wave it off as “let the parents do their job” because we don’t live in that world. Parents are just children with more bills. Nobody knows how to parent, much less parent properly though difficult topics.
I am admittedly unsure what the right answer here is. A lot of the internet, not even just porn, is very damaging to our minds. Our attention spans are shot, we all just read the worst thoughts from the slimmest margin of people and focus on those edge cases about any idea or topic and it ruins our ability to socialize or engage with others happily. And a lot of young people around the whole world are just deeply stuck in ruts of doom-scrolling, porn, social-media and influencers giving fake advice and selling scams to anyone with access to a credit card.
I feel like with all problems it comes back to capitalism fucking everything up for everyone, but I also know we’re nowhere near a point where people are going to start like, creating effective governments so that services and systems can be nationalized safely. I wouldn’t trust a nationalized trash-can in the USA, not sure how bad it is in Australia but it’s just a matter of time before capital ruins every developed country with a few cents to rub together.
edit: if your impulse is to push back on this, it’s kinda telling bro.
porn addiction isn’t real
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too
That is a terrible article on an argued topic, dealing with the feelings of morality surrounding porn addiction and not touching on the psychological pleasure/reward cycle that compulsive behavior creates. You misunderstand the actual debate or you’re looking for the articles to support your feelings. It’s a debated topic but most professionals believe that porn is addictive even if it’s not a defined condition.
There is debate about if porn addiction is a real, separate issue than just compulsive behavior, but the vast consensus is that porn is addicting, just that by itself it doesn’t count as a separate addiction when people show the same addictive behavior towards things like video games and other things that don’t chemically interact with the brain, so the argument is if we should make a blanket category for compulsive behavior for certain media and habits.
It’s about the categorization and definitions, not a pass that porn and similar compulsive behavior isn’t a danger.
https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/is-porn-addiction-real/
Lots of people are harmed by addictive behavior, about a lot of different things that aren’t always written up in a book. I’ve talked to too many guys who have had problems with this for me to dismiss it just because some wannabe celebrity doctors found they can make bank supporting our bad habits that don’t leave physical marks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction
Porn addiction isn’t a real thing, sparky.
There are thousands and thousands of people who have suffered addiction to behavior that gives them dopamine, from scrolling to video games to porn, if it’s not real to you… GREAT, shut up and go away. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.