I've stopped watching porn

[jason_]

Earlier this week I decided to stop watching porn.

I am on this path, too, and I desire you best of luck. Your worst enemy will be boredom.

 

I've been on the path of cecesation myself. It hasn't been successful as I would have liked, but knowing others are attempting the same enhances my resolve.

 

I think in the final analysis porn is a net negitive behavior (watching and performing). It's not necessairily evil, but it's corrupting and I don't see that it has so many redeeming qualities.

 

Thanks all for sharing your thoughts on a paradoxicly common yet little disscussed issue.

[J. D. Stembal]

Thanks all for sharing your thoughts on a paradoxicly common yet little disscussed issue.

 

I am interested to find a solid explanation as to why mastuerbation is necessary undesirable, as it has many health benefits. In the wild, so to speak, the male human would be having sex around once a day at least.

 

http://www.mensxp.com/health/live-healthy/8858-10-health-benefits-of-masturbation-for-men.html

 

As a personal note, I've tried the 30 day cessation protocol, and it was pretty terrible.

 

Also, why am I getting wedding and bridal popups when I now go to porno websites? Talk about a boner killer!

 

http://www.bridaltune.com/wp-content/themes/morning/topvideos.php?utm_source=dp&utm_medium=click&utm_campaign=top-videos&utm_term=26

[PatrickC]

Earlier this week I decided to stop watching porn. I think it is wrong to watch. Sex should be for lovers, and there is no love between me and a stranger made of pixels. On top of my moral problem with it, I've become more and more disgusted with it. Simple nudes disturb me and make me think: who is this woman? Why would she choose to act in this way? What happened to her that influenced her to do this? Where are the people telling her to stop? Why isn't she telling herself no? Doesn't she want to hold onto her dignity and self respect? Of course this applies to males too, this is simply my heterosexual perspective. Has anyone else stopped watching porn for the same sort of reasoning?

 

Good for you, I used to have meh attitude to it in the past. But after seeing men improve demonstrably after making the same decision, I've become much more of an advocate for this decision.

 

That said, the overal improvements came about with other changes in their lives, so the 'not watching porn' was just a part of that self improvement. But it was a significant one that helped them with energy levels, more active love seeking and being more productive and social in general. Masturbation is fine on occassions, it really is mostly about the porn, which seems to encourage some men to just indulge too much.

[Jer]

I have to concede it was a broad statement but I don't see an inconsistency in what I've said.

 

All I'm stating is that past sexual abuse (particularly to children) causes people to take up these occupations, or at least is a significant factor in it.

Do you have any sources? Vid below is an evolutionary psychologist and a porn star who say the "damaged goods" hypothesis is contradicted by data.

 

Yeah, I have messed up this message. I have rewrited it several. What I wanted to communicate is that:

 

I do not know if porn is a crime or immoral toward the actress and I never have asked myself this question. I do know that it has negative impact on me as a person and my relationship to it is not dissimilar to relationship that alcoholic has with a bottle. I want to end it. That obviously is far different from what i have previously written, but that is what I meant. Sorry for messing it up.

why the "toward the actress" distinction? Are you saying there's a moral difference between a man getting paid to do porn and a woman?

[TheSchoolofAthens]

Can you elaborate by what standard it is wrong to watch or how you came to the conclusion that it is an issue of morality?

 

It's not. You're uncomfortable watching it, and that's an honest thing to say, but to say "X is wrong" requires higher standards of proof than the ones used for regular judgements.

To the above two quotes: I do think it is wrong. If I believe that monogamy is right and has the potential to be a moral relationship, and that promiscuous behavior is wrong and immoral, in other words not good, then it is hard to justify porn isn't it? It is r type people being recorded in their wreck less ways, all so that we can see another man's cum in HD on a woman's face. That is, in my honest opinion, wrong to support, it opposes my values.

 

Firstly, there's no such thing as a "standard porn unit."  The people involved in one place can be quite different from those in another.  Like real life.  I won't watch something where the guy is a jerk, or something else triggers my "ain't right" sensors.

 

I like SM videos, and from one outlet, with the models seen over and over, there are unscripted moments, mere instants within hours, where the female sub gives the male dom a glance, with eyes and/or smile that you can't miss, saying "OH yeah, that is just right, give me MORE!"  She's getting her wishes.  Probably paid decently; w/o or supplementing another job with hours on her feet or sitting in an office chair, or commuting long distances, which are hard on health.  

 

I can easily agree that past abuse might lead to many porn actresses, but we're talking many thousands of women, if not millions by now.  I don't believe all of them are abused.  Maybe many, but not all.

I don't care if a woman/man gets to have sex for money nor do I care that it must be great to have orgasms as a career and thus save people form walking long distances. But your point about the porn star enjoying the trade reminds me of something I've just read:

"Regarding the porn industry, I used to  think that porn stars (especially women) are tortured souls who have fatally compromised their humanity for money in a manner similar to prostitutes.  Then I caught a "porn awards" show on HBO and saw actresses beaming and crying (apparently) real tears of joy, in one case with equally jubilant mom sitting in the audience, upon receiving an award for "best fellatio scene" or similar." here

Those happy women belong to a disgusting culture which I don't want to belong to. Sure it's voluntary, that is fine, but people being idiots is also voluntary and I don't want to support idiocy.

 

Do you realize how much female porn stars can make?  Many are making 150k+ per year, so there's plenty of reasons a woman might choose to do this kind of thing for a living.

 

In fact, I heard that in Japan it's not uncommon for a woman to pay her way through college by being a prostitute.

 

Yes, some of them are emotionally scarred, and do it because they think that's all they're good for, but many more do it because it's a relatively low-skill job that pays as good as, if not better than a job you'll get after college.  (NSFW Alert: look up Bella Knox. She's a Libertarian College student that does porn to pay for college)  Assuming that they're just wounded woman who were coerced or forced into it is a bit judgmental.  Sure, some are, but many are there because they like the work and the pay.

I don't see why that matters at all. Don't you realize how much mafia members make? 150k+ a year isn't bad. Of course a porn star is a lot different from a mafia man - a porn star is doing work voluntarily. My point is that sure, I understand the $$$ incentives but making good money doesn't justify sick cultures. The real problem is the culture that I'd be supporting. In other words, women who cry tears of joy for getting the trophy for best three dick anal video. Talk about a promiscuous, r type, not family friendly culture to be giving money to!

[dsayers]

To the above two quotes: I do think it is wrong. If I believe that monogamy is right and has the potential to be a moral relationship, and that promiscuous behavior is wrong and immoral, in other words not good, then it is hard to justify porn isn't it? It is r type people being recorded in their wreck less ways, all so that we can see another man's cum in HD on a woman's face. That is, in my honest opinion, wrong to support, it opposes my values.

I think you missed my point. You used morality a couple times (as if morality is up to us), but then later express it as your values. There's nothing wrong with disliking something. It's another thing entirely to say that others who do it are committing a crime.

 

Also, you've collectivized other people in defiance of the rationality of collectivization and competing data presented in this thread.

 

I hope you read the post where I shared how damaging it was for me to be misled into thinking that something that is natural is in fact tantamount to burning for eternity.

[Will Torbald]

To the above two quotes: I do think it is wrong. If I believe that monogamy is right and has the potential to be a moral relationship, and that promiscuous behavior is wrong and immoral, in other words not good, then it is hard to justify porn isn't it? It is r type people being recorded in their wreck less ways, all so that we can see another man's cum in HD on a woman's face. That is, in my honest opinion, wrong to support, it opposes my values.

 

So far you have only stated that inside your head these things are wrong. Well, good for you. But outside your head what you think is irrelevant. It's called an opinion, not a statement of fact. Not a statement of ethics, but aesthetics. To use the language of morality in a matter of personal taste is dishonest.

[TheSchoolofAthens]

I think you missed my point. You used morality a couple times (as if morality is up to us), but then later express it as your values. There's nothing wrong with disliking something. It's another thing entirely to say that others who do it are committing a crime.

 

Also, you've collectivized other people in defiance of the rationality of collectivization and competing data presented in this thread.

 

I hope you read the post where I shared how damaging it was for me to be misled into thinking that something that is natural is in fact tantamount to burning for eternity.

Hold up. Never did I say that those who watch porn are committing a crime, did I? Immorality is not equivalent to only criminal behavior such as rape, theft, and murder. It is immoral but perfectly legal to tell a lie in most cases.

 

"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man." - Ayn Rand

One thing that man needs to survive a  relationship is a good, trustworthy, reliable, virtuous partner. In order to obtain such a partner, one has to practice sex carefully. Therefore, responsible sex is ethical sex.

Promiscuous sex does not lead to a quality relationship, it leads to a life of destruction, danger, and pain. Such sex is anti happiness, thus is anti man and it therefore unethical/immoral.

 

For the same reasons I oppose screwing women just for fun, I do not watch women (or people) screw just for fun. It is unethical behavior and if I were to support unethical behavior I'd be acting unethically.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Do you have any sources? Vid below is an evolutionary psychologist and a porn star who say the "damaged goods" hypothesis is contradicted by data.

 

why the "toward the actress" distinction? Are you saying there's a moral difference between a man getting paid to do porn and a woman?

 

Her interview is interesting.. I am only a few minutes in but she is very vague about why she wanted to do porn. She said she "fell into it." Have to finish the video another time, but I just thought that was interesting, since people with little self knowledge or particular blind spots tend to be vague and use deterministic language when describing choices they made in the past. Especially a choice of such magnitude, to enter the porn industry, you would think would be more curious than "oh I felt into it" or "Oh I always liked pushing the envelope"

 

Does she ever talk about her childhood in the video?

 

Btw someone mentioned "bella knox," and in the same post mentioned that those in the porn industry may not be victims of dysfunctional modelling of sex and physical intimacy. I thought that person might want to mention "bella knox" was raped. So yes, she claims she did porn to pay for college, but I don't for a second believe that is any kind of particular reason to do porn - the rape seems much more relevant.

 

And after watching the data point they brought up which they said may "disprove" in part the "damaged goods hypothesis" is that the women who enter porn say they did it for money, sex, and fun - in that order. Well do we expect them to say they are normalizing dysfunctional sexual interactions they had modeled for them (of which I'd include single-motherhood)?

[Matthew Ed Moran]

"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man." - Ayn Rand
One thing that man needs to survive a  relationship is a good, trustworthy, reliable, virtuous partner. In order to obtain such a partner, one has to practice sex carefully. Therefore, responsible sex is ethical sex.
Promiscuous sex does not lead to a quality relationship, it leads to a life of destruction, danger, and pain. Such sex is anti happiness, thus is anti man and it therefore unethical/immoral."

 

This is just a series of tautologies - I don't think you have actually proven that watching porn is immoral. Engaging in promiscuous sex may be different because there is the possibility of conceiving a child without being able to support him/her, so it may be more useful for you to stick with the action at hand - watching pornography.

[dsayers]

Hold up. Never did I say that those who watch porn are committing a crime, did I? Immorality is not equivalent to only criminal behavior such as rape, theft, and murder. It is immoral but perfectly legal to tell a lie in most cases.

Yes, "immoral" refers to the performative contradiction that property rights are valid and invalid simultaneously during the initiation of the use of force. Including lying is as much of an assertion as saying that two people who have sex while being recorded and people that watch that recording are initiating the use of force. "Be honest always" refers to unchosen positive obligations, and is therefore an unethical proposition. Meaning that by claiming people must be honest always or they are initiating the use of force, you are being less consistent in your values than people who have sex while being recorded or watch that recording!

 

All you've done in this post is use words like unethical and virtuous instead of immoral, which doesn't get you off the hook. Look, my most sophisticated and established abuser also passes off his opinions/values as fact in an attempt to manipulate others into thinking he is virtuous and/or not scrutinizing his words. This is probably why once I was able to think rationally, these contradictory and/or self-congratulatory nonsenses stick out to me. So I say again: It's a different thing to have a preference than it is to objectively claim something is "wrong."

 

You've also now moved the goalposts from watching porn to having promiscuous sex. For that matter, "sex" isn't fundamentally different if somebody engages in it once or a hundred times. All you're doing is using a bunch of language to paint something as sinister since that is your opinion instead of providing a rational case for why other should abstain. Again, and I wish you would at least acknowledge this, I'm taking the time to say all this because I think it's dangerous and harmful to improperly identify something that is harmless as harmful and/or labeling people that are engaging in voluntary behaviors as being subjected to coercion. This is not good for you and it's irresponsible (if not makes you culpable) to encourage others to engage in similar mis-categorization.

 

I also pointed out collectivizing, which is a challenge you haven't answered. Also, quoting somebody isn't an argument. But how about "reason = virtue = happiness"? If your motivation is virtue and happiness, then you need reason. Calling things not by what they are is not reasonable. It almost seems as if you're not open to the possibility that you could be wrong. Is this the case?

[russoft]

I stopped watching porn in 2008. With the extra time I had, I drastically improved my grades in college, and lost 70 lb of body weight. Got into good physical shape. Spent a couple years running and managed a 10 km run in under an hour. Spent another couple years weight lifting and managed to deadlift twice my weight. This coming from a guy who first had to shed 70 lb and dropped out of the category of "obese" to "normal". I also committed more of my time to volunteering.

 

I agree with the OP: I believe pornography is immoral. This is based on my religious convictions. I won't endeavor to argue the case here, but everything I've heard about the negative effects since quitting it has convinced me that it's worth ditching porn and focusing ones time elsewhere.

[dsayers]

I stopped watching porn in 2008. With the extra time I had, I drastically improved my grades in college, and lost 70 lb of body weight. Got into good physical shape. Spent a couple years running and managed a 10 km run in under an hour. Spent another couple years weight lifting and managed to deadlift twice my weight. This coming from a guy who first had to shed 70 lb and dropped out of the category of "obese" to "normal". I also committed more of my time to volunteering.

I think this is one of the problems with addressing "watching porn" with no other qualifiers. If all that you accomplished in this journey was "only possible" because you freed up time from watching porn, then it sounds as if you were doing so in extreme excess, which would be the problem, not the porn itself.

 

I agree with the OP: I believe pornography is immoral. This is based on my religious convictions. I won't endeavor to argue the case here

I'm confused. By making an objective claim, you're acknowledging that there's such a thing as truth and it's preferable to falsehood. But "I won't argue the case where I make the claim" says to me that you're not interested in whether your claim is true of false. I think this is a performative contradiction.

[RCali]

I stopped watching porn in 2008. With the extra time I had, I drastically improved my grades in college, and lost 70 lb of body weight. Got into good physical shape. Spent a couple years running and managed a 10 km run in under an hour. Spent another couple years weight lifting and managed to deadlift twice my weight. This coming from a guy who first had to shed 70 lb and dropped out of the category of "obese" to "normal". I also committed more of my time to volunteering.

 

 

Goodness, how much time did you use to watch porn for? Won't comment on the rest of the post, since it's been done enough in this thread.

[TheRobin]

 

And after watching the data point they brought up which they said may "disprove" in part the "damaged goods hypothesis" is that the women who enter porn say they did it for money, sex, and fun - in that order. Well do we expect them to say they are normalizing dysfunctional sexual interactions they had modeled for them (of which I'd include single-motherhood)?

The data point is actually this study here https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201212/are-porn-actresses-damaged-goods

 

Nothing to do with what you just claimed it to be.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

You're right, they didn't say the data point I mentioned proved/disproved anything. Thanks for the correction.

 

(time to work a bit more on taming my confirmation bias)

[Jer]

Does she ever talk about her childhood in the video?

 

 

I don't think so but he does ask her how she'd feel about a son or daughter going into the industry.

 

I agree with the OP: I believe pornography is immoral. This is based on my religious convictions. I won't endeavor to argue the case here, but everything I've heard about the negative effects since quitting it has convinced me that it's worth ditching porn and focusing ones time elsewhere.

 

Puritans and feminists have a lot of non scientific propaganda circulating, be skeptical of unfounded assertions. I used to think porn was immoral because I read it in a book that also claims the world is 6000 years old among other scientific innaccuracies. We have a better (scientific) method of determining truth now.

[AustinJames]

Great sex is like a fantastic meal; best enjoyed with the one you love most in the world. Porn is McDonalds-- but sometimes I still eat McDonald's, mostly because it's quick and convenient. I think the principle of moderation applies to McDonalds as it applies to porn; and partaking of both have similar moral significance.

[BaylorPRSer]

I'm 2 months into a no porn or masturbation streak.  It's been a very challenging yet rewarding experience so far.  However, to the people arguing it's a moral issue: have you not read anything this on this site?  

 

Seriously.  The morality that Christians and other religions have attached to these issues has harmed enough people as it is.  Please have another look at UPB.  

[dsayers]

I think the principle of moderation applies to McDonalds as it applies to porn; and partaking of both have similar moral significance.

By this, do you mean that both watching porn and eating food from McDonald's are behaviors that are not binding upon others and therefore have no moral component (amoral)? Because "has moral significance" doesn't seem like an accurate way to describe having no moral significance.

 

@BaylorPRSer: It's none of my business obviously, so of course there's no pressure to answer. But are you having sex in the meantime with a partner? Because there's health benefits to regular ejaculation. So while I obviously accept that you are free to do what you want for whatever reason you want, and I appreciate your honesty regarding the lack of a moral component, I would still hope your decision was an educated one. Either way, thanks for sharing.

[dsayers]

Also, I keep forgetting to share one of my favorite FDR video. One where

.

[AustinJames]

Yeah, 'lack of moral significance' just felt too wordy.

And I wanted to express the possibility of some arguable nuance regarding participation in or tolerance of an industry that is morally corrupt, i.e. meat industry/porn industry.

[Archer]

I think there's nothing morally wrong with making, watching, or distributing porn so long as everybody involved participated voluntarily. I can understand why some people would not want to watch it because of their own view of what sex is and what it should be, but personal preference doesn't make something morally wrong.

[Donnadogsoth]

The most correct thing to understand about pornography is that it is an operation designed to destroy you.  Its creators may be "innocent" of this understanding, but the stuff remains for the having, and with the same effect:  to wipe out your Christian sense of sexual morality.  Whether you're "a Christian" or not is immaterial to understanding that the old morality, the traditional, heterosexual, marriage-as-sacrament morality, is part of what the oligarchs find it in their interest to allow to decay, including here by the purveying of extremely ripe fruit.

 

"...The jaundiced man sees the whole world through the sour yellow of his own disposition.  'He that is giddy thinks the world goes round'--if you cannot conceive of the power of purity, yours is the problem and not the virtue's.  If you have spent many hours, each one duller than the last, poring over pornographic images of the sexes, you'll not be able to see [shakespeare's The Winter's Tale lovers] Perdita and Doricles as anything other than engagers in the same old act:  the Wife of Bath's 'olde daunce,' and she isn't speaking of a reel or a polka.  You will miss the beauty of this moment.  You will miss its very soul.

"I am insisting on this, because the sexual revolution has scorched us all, and has made it nearly impossible to understand the goodness of purity, in both its masculine and feminine embodiments.  We can hardly believe that the virtue exists at all [or that any virtue exists, other than the virtue of being fashionable].  Nor do we see the inner harmony between that virtue and others that we do still say we believe in, such as kindness, generosity, and loyalty.

"It was not supposed to be this way

" 'If you're not with the one you love,' sang the rockers at the Woodstock festival, 'love the one you're with.'

" 'I'm with you,' said a girl to a perfect stranger."

 

--Anthony Esolen, Defending Marriage

https://books.google.ca/books?id=JDwqCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=esolen+marriage&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=esolen%20marriage&f=false

[BaylorPRSer]

@dsayers: No I am not. There are too many possible reasons for why I am not to get into it now. It's a complicated area for me. However, I haven't found anything that conclusively demonstrates abstaining from ejaculation has any detrimental effects.

[BenjaminRVA]

I stopped watching porn because I couldn't get an erection to anything but porn in my early 20's. I'm less interested in the moral aspect of watching the models and their situation in life, etc...but I relate to your empathy for them, certainly. I wouldn't enjoy watching a video of someone being hurt (not because my viewing is an endorsement of the behavior or encourages it, but just because of basic empathy), and insofar as people in porn could be part of self-destructive lifestyle, that's a bummer. But that's not what made me stop. 

 

 

Porn:Sexuality::Junk food:nutrition. If you've ever dropped processed foods in favor of whole foods, you know how your tastes change. I know, for me, I used to find dark chocolate rather uninspiring, compared to super-sweet milk chocolates and other sweets. As I eliminated all the artificially salty and sweet foods I was eating, the taste of dark chocolate changed, dramatically....all kinds of subtle yet intense flavors emerged that my brain completely failing to register, before. 

 

 

The same thing has happened with my sexuality. When I was using porn, my brain was convinced I was fertilizing a harem of super-attractive women (with artificially-enhanced secondary sex characteristics) numbering in the hundreds or thousands, every day. At my leisure. My brain was convinced I'd hit the evolutionary jackpot...I was as genetically successful as a homo sapien could hope to be. In browsing this material, my brain produced a flood of dopamine, in response to all these receptive partners...and as with any neurochemical that gets produced in massive quantities, this drives down the numbers of receptors for dopamine, as your brain recalibrates to this new world where you can have as much "sex" as you want, around the clock. Problem is, dopamine doesn’t just get produced as a signal to pursue sex, it also serves as the “go get it” neurochemical for pretty much everything we do. As my dopamine receptors reduced in number, I became less responsive to the dopamine my brain produced to pursue real-life values and pleasures. I was lethargic and unmotivated...things that I used to find pleasure doing became dull. And, as I mentioned, it got to the point I couldn't respond sexually to real-life partners. And beautiful women in real life? I hardly noticed them, let alone pursued them.

 

 

As with my tastes for 85% cocoa chocolate, women in my everyday life have never been more beautiful. And yes, I've eliminated the ED. 

 

 

Not everyone who uses porn goes so far, just as not everyone who goes to Wendy's or McDonald's becomes obese. But it's not healthy. I notice people get defensive about their porn use, and I think this makes sense: you’re threatening their access to the harem. For the porn user’s brain, you’re threatening genetic death. 

 

 

But, I encourage every man to at least do a one-month experiment, where they give up porn, completely, and maybe reduce masturbation to once a week, or every other week. If you have a partner, I encourage you to abandon masturbation for the entire experiment. The important caveat is that, during masturbation or intercourse, focus on physical sensations or the body of your partner and not visual fantasy. The point is to avoid firing up the neural pathways activated during porn. If those reward pathways lay dormant for a month, what are the benefits? If you do the experiment and don't notice any benefits, great! But if you notice a difference in your motivation level in daily life, your sex life, your attraction to women in real life, etc....you might want to consider making the experiment permanent. 

 

 

And another important note: if you find you cannot climax without visual fantasy or porn, that should tell you something! Further, a lot of guys experience a sort of withdrawal called a flatline. Zero libido (and I mean ZERO! Penis feels completely devoid of life), dramatic mood swings, symptoms similar to depression, etc. This isn’t an indication that giving up porn or masturbation is bad for you….rather, it shows how deeply ingrained the need has become. There is another side of the flatline where things return to “normal,” except normal is about 100% improvement from where you were, before. Mine lasted more than two months, but it was so worth getting to the other side of it.

 

 

Here’s the video that got me started on the path to resetting my brain: 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU

[Kaesar Sm]

Earlier this week I decided to stop watching porn. I think it is wrong to watch. Sex should be for lovers, and there is no love between me and a stranger made of pixels. On top of my moral problem with it, I've become more and more disgusted with it. Simple nudes disturb me and make me think: who is this woman? Why would she choose to act in this way? What happened to her that influenced her to do this? Where are the people telling her to stop? Why isn't she telling herself no? Doesn't she want to hold onto her dignity and self respect? Of course this applies to males too, this is simply my heterosexual perspective. Has anyone else stopped watching porn for the same sort of reasoning?

Good on you mate! Hehe

[Flying]

Earlier this week I decided to stop watching porn. I think it is wrong to watch. Sex should be for lovers, and there is no love between me and a stranger made of pixels. On top of my moral problem with it, I've become more and more disgusted with it. Simple nudes disturb me and make me think: who is this woman? Why would she choose to act in this way? What happened to her that influenced her to do this? Where are the people telling her to stop? Why isn't she telling herself no? Doesn't she want to hold onto her dignity and self respect? Of course this applies to males too, this is simply my heterosexual perspective. Has anyone else stopped watching porn for the same sort of reasoning?

Porn hoes do it for money. Just like you probably do something that isn't ideal for money.

Watching porn is taking advantage of past sexual abuse, as simple as that. TheSchoolofAthens has the right idea to be disgusted by it.

Not saying i disagree. But when you go to Wall Mart and get a deal on something and some 60 year old man is helping you find what you need at isle 3 for minimum wage, are you not taking advantage of this persons poor decisions in life ?

Dumping porn from your life has massive personal benefits, ethics notwithstanding.

Maybe if it was a huge thing in your life. I use it once and awhile when needed. If my wife is on the rag or working late, its not practical to have sex. So I just use porn in those cases. I see no reason to cut it out of my life.

I agree that it is not immoral, but I've found that as I developed more empathy, I was grossed out with porn.  At first I tried to find some that was more affectionate and less degrading, but there's not much of it, which should tell you something.  Masturbating is not inherently bad, but I don't know that masturbating with the frequency that many men do these days is psychologically healthy either.  We ought not to shame the act, but try to gain some wider perspective about how we are programming our sexuality by giving into every sexual impulse.  I also think that the eastern mystics may have a point that it wastes a kind of energy, I find myself feeling depleted for a day or two afterwards, whereas if I go for several days without, I have an extra ooomph that can be directed towards other creative endeavors.

I find the opposite effect. The less I get my rocks off, the harder I find it to consentrate on more useful thing, Especially when I was single. And I hated feeling that surge of hormones just from seeing some wide hipped or big chested woman walk by. If I get my rocks off enough, I can walk by that woman without being distracted.

[J. D. Stembal]

Yeah, 'lack of moral significance' just felt too wordy.

And I wanted to express the possibility of some arguable nuance regarding participation in or tolerance of an industry that is morally corrupt, i.e. meat industry/porn industry.

 

How is the meat industry corrupt and how does this relate to pornography?

[shirgall]

How is the meat industry corrupt and how does this relate to pornography?

 

Besides the obvious innuendo?

[jgib]

Ran Gavrieli's thoughts on porn.

 

 

 

[J. D. Stembal]

Besides the obvious innuendo?

 

I know how the sausage is made.

[Donnadogsoth]

Thanks for this video, jgib--good.

 

Noam Chomsky was asked about pornography once and he said it should be banned, saying "It's not what human beings are."

 

What I don't understand is how any prostitution can be prosecuted at all.  Why wouldn't the prostitute or john simply set up a camera to film the proceedings and, if accosted by the authorities, simply shrug and say, "We're filming a porno"?

[Jer]

Thanks for this video, jgib--good.

 

Noam Chomsky was asked about pornography once and he said it should be banned, saying "It's not what human beings are."

 

What I don't understand is how any prostitution can be prosecuted at all.  Why wouldn't the prostitute or john simply set up a camera to film the proceedings and, if accosted by the authorities, simply shrug and say, "We're filming a porno"?

need a permit for that

[dsayers]

Noam Chomsky was asked about pornography once and he said it should be banned, saying "It's not what human beings are."

This is an appeal to authority, not an argument. Also, by banned, he means people should threaten you with violence for. This is not a rational prescription.