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What has porn done to your humanity?

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Started 1 year ago by julie42
Latest reply from UrsaMinor

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julie42
Member

So I tend to think very differently from a lot of my siblings. You know...logically.

One of my sisters has always been known as "the good one." She was training to be a missionary for a while. Then she had a big revelation a few years back and realized that the bible was not literal and all that. She ended up converting to Orthodox Christianity. Though I admire the fact that she stepped away from the fundamentalism, it's a bit frustrating because she seems to think after her conversion that now she has finally figured it all out. And it turns out, fundamentalists are way easier to argue with than vague spiritualist beliefs.

I had just read an article about Santorum wanting to ban porn, so I was laughing to her about it. She said "Hmm...I think I would actually support that."
...are you serious??

I kept explaining to her that while I don't like porn and a lot of people are uncomfortable with it, you can't just ban something because you don't like it.

But she kept saying that it goes so much beyond that and that sex affects us in a much more profound way!
(Now whenever she talks about something like this, her voice changes into something more profound sounding, so imagine a soft, quiet, thoughtful, concerned sounding voice).
"But what does watching porn do to a person? What does that do to their humanity?"

Then I asked her "Well, what does it do to to a person's 'humanity'?" and she got defensive because it's not fair of me not to take her ideas seriously just because she doesn't have proof. But...if you're going to support the banning of something that a lot of people would be against, you better fucking have some scientific proof!

I would point out that smoking or drinking can be bad for people, but that's not the same because that doesn't affect your humanity!!
Or I would point out that plenty of people watch porn and are doing just fine psychologically. But just because they seem fine doesn't mean they are!!

I just can't take her seriously. She uses that "humanity!!" argument for everything that she can't explain, but she feels. She's said the same thing about gay people. She doesn't necessarily think they shouldn't be allowed to marry...but...what does that do to a person? What does that do to their humanity?

So I pose the question to everyone here: What has porn done to your "humanity"?
Have any of you grown extra arms? Any wings? Morphed into a crocoduck?

Posted 1 year ago #
Morpheus91
Member

I think porn can create unrealistic expectations and reinforce certain attitudes, but the same could be said for a lot of entertainment. If you approach it with a proper understanding of what it is vs. what real life is, there's really no problem.*

*Well, other than the fact that once you've seen a few pornos you've seen 'em all, but that's a whole different topic. :D

Posted 1 year ago #
FO
Member

"she got defensive because it's not fair of me not to take her ideas seriously just because she doesn't have proof."

WHY!?

It's not like that any bullshit deserves respect only because it's convoluted enough and enough people believe in it.
You should suggest her voodoo.

Also.
"What does RELIGION do to humanity!?"
Makes it ask respect for ideas without evidence!
How fucked up is this?

Anyway.
I do use porn and I do am psychologically fucked up, so I'm not really the best champion for anything really.
What does it do for me?
It gives me a distraction and an outlet for when my circumstances are worst.

What does it do for most people?
It skews perceptions of sex, giving it an idealized and shallow and polished outlook, exactly as religion does, in different ways.
But if we had any meaningful sex ed, people would be able to tell the difference instead than learning from fantasy sources.

Higher levels of porn consumers are also linked to conservative or prudish social environments, the more religious the more extreme, and their increase is usually accompanied by a decrease in violence and rape.

Posted 1 year ago #
Len
Member

@FO: I like your comment people would be better able to tell the difference if they had meaningful sex education. I guess that's true of many things - if you don't (can't) learn about something, then it makes you scared.

As for porn harming my humanity, apart from the hairy palms and blindness, I haven't noticed any changes.

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

@Julie:

How is it that you haven't pressed her to defined "humanity"? It's an airy-fairy term the way she's waving it around. In this context it is normally taken to mean "the state or quality of being human". So if reading or watching porn makes you less human, then the definition of "human" reduces to "someone who has not read or watched too much porn [yet]".

Really, you have to nail down what she means by "humanity" as a first step to having a meaningful discussion. And if she can't define what she means by it, then she has no argument to make against porn that doesn't amount to "I am personally opposed to it for unspecified reasons".

Does porn actually harm people in some definite way? Well, I can see it reinforcing stereotypes, but lots of things do that, so it isn't unique or special and doesn't even stand out particularly in that regard. Unless you're proposing to ban everything that produces Socially Undesirable Side Effect X, you're being dishonest about your motives for banning it.

The really important issue facing us is, why is 99.9% of the available porn so bad? I think if we could solve this problem, the moral objections to it would vanish. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

I would point out that smoking or drinking can be bad for people, but that's not the same because that doesn't affect your humanity!

LOL. Whereas people who are addicted to these things, when they *don't* get them regularly, can act like beasts rather than humans. :)

It all devolves down to religious desire to control the pleasure response. Many things that are religiously proscribed that are still taken at all seriously today generally have to do with two features: they are pleasurable activities that, in excess, can be harmful. I even have a (small) spot of sympathy for the point of view; humans are easily misled by their pleasure response into thinking something is harmless or even good when it is anything but. I just tend to think that religious ethical systems, by and large, are incapable of properly regulating the ideal because they make too many assumptions about what activities are too dangerous to indulge in, and paint with too broad a brush about the vagaries of reaction to the same stimulus among different people. (Buddhism being an interesting exception, with the point generally being finding a moderate path to one's pleasurable experiences so that one doesn't burn out and end up suffering even more.)

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

@Ursa: It wasn't a very long conversation and the basic structure of it was that she would raise an objection to it, I would completely destroy that objection, and she would sit quietly trying to think of a new one.

I think the funniest moments were when she would try to turn it around so that I was defensive like "So do you actually think it has no negative effect?"

A lot of times when we get into these conversations where she objects on something on a moral/emotional basis, but thinks it should apply to everyone, she turns it around on me. I'll be explaining why just because she is uncomfortable with something doesn't mean everyone is, and she'll say, "How can you believe that? How can you say that what's right for one person isn't right for another?" She completely misses the point that I'm not talking about right or wrong, I'm talking about people's choices and whether or not I have a right to restrict those choices.

I really need to explain to her the concept of a taboo to show why she might have a negative reaction to these sorts of things, but they are normal for others.

I think if I had gotten around to asking her what humanity meant, it would eventually lead to living how we were created to live, meaning in the image of God. That would have been a smart move on my part because she kept insisting that she wasn't against it just because of religious beliefs, but it was obvious that she was. And once we get to religion, I think even she understands that a religion can't ban something just for disagreeing with it.

What I was really surprised that she couldn't seem to grasp is that, yes, for some people, porn is a really bad thing. Some people use it in a very negative way that can affect their sex lives or their relationships and give them an unhealthy view of sex.
But that doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. Plenty of people watch it and are not addicted to it and don't feel the need to act out the scenarios.
And that's where the "Just because they seem fine doesn't mean they are!" came in. And that's where these conversations tend to end because I get a slight smirk on my face that I can't hide and she gets more mad.

I just wanted to say "prove it" after literally everything she said.

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

@Ursa: It wasn't a very long conversation and the basic structure of it was that she would raise an objection to it, I would completely destroy that objection, and she would sit quietly trying to think of a new one.

I think the funniest moments were when she would try to turn it around so that I was defensive like "So do you actually think it has no negative effect?"

A lot of times when we get into these conversations where she objects on something on a moral/emotional basis, but thinks it should apply to everyone, she turns it around on me. I'll be explaining why just because she is uncomfortable with something doesn't mean everyone is, and she'll say, "How can you believe that? How can you say that what's right for one person isn't right for another?" She completely misses the point that I'm not talking about right or wrong, I'm talking about people's choices and whether or not I have a right to restrict those choices.

I really need to explain to her the concept of a taboo to show why she might have a negative reaction to these sorts of things, but they are normal for others.

I think if I had gotten around to asking her what humanity meant, it would eventually lead to living how we were created to live, meaning in the image of God. That would have been a smart move on my part because she kept insisting that she wasn't against it just because of religious beliefs, but it was obvious that she was. And once we get to religion, I think even she understands that a religion can't ban something just for disagreeing with it.

What I was really surprised that she couldn't seem to grasp is that, yes, for some people, porn is a really bad thing. Some people use it in a very negative way that can affect their sex lives or their relationships and give them an unhealthy view of sex.
But that doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. Plenty of people watch it and are not addicted to it and don't feel the need to act out the scenarios.
And that's where the "Just because they seem fine doesn't mean they are!" came in. And that's where these conversations tend to end because I get a slight smirk on my face that I can't hide and she gets more mad.

I just wanted to say "prove it" after literally everything she said.

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

And that's where the "Just because they seem fine doesn't mean they are!" came in.

There's an argument that will come back to bite her. See all these seemingly healthy, happy, well-adjusted Christians with apparently solid marriages and 2.1 children? Just because they seem fine doesn't mean they are.

Your sister should realize that if her argument undermines her own point when turned around, she probably shouldn't be using it.

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

Exactly. We should ban religion because it affects people in such a profound way and it affects how they see the world. And just because they seem perfectly happy and healthy doesn't mean they are! It's for their own good...

It's just so annoying to talk to her anymore because she always acts so fucking moral and assumes that that's the way everyone is supposed to see the issue and then gets mad at me for explaining why she's wrong.

Ever since she changed her beliefs she's become so sure of everything even though her beliefs have become more vague.

Posted 1 year ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

Ever since she changed her beliefs she's become so sure of everything even though her beliefs have become more vague.

That's pretty common; when you discover a new way of thinking or new ideology it can seem like it has the answers to everything and is just "obviously right". It takes a while, through adverse experience and discussion, for the sheen to wear off. For some few people, it never does, but most people eventually learn to moderate their enthusiasm, even if they will never explicitly admit it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Caroline
Member

OK Julie,
I´ll post this just once (carefully), and I´ll never back this thread again. I´m just transferring info in order to answer your question as much as possible.

"What has porn done to your humanity?"

If we compare tha human body to a builidng, we´ll find a main primary source of power that is the reptilian brain connected to the sexual organs.
That makes our instinctive force, the wild foot in which we have grafted our exterior brain´s layers (such as mammal and neo cortex)

Coming back to the comparison to a building we may say that the sexual center is the building´s boiler (caldera) that provides energy to the whole system.

We have two options about connecting that power source.

1-
As we´ve seen in the Caduceo's symbol for MEDICINE, that sexual energy is represented by a snake (the same snake that Virgin Mary is standing on AND NOT TREADING)

http://gangliosidos-globosidos.wikispaces.com/file/view/medici_caduceo.jpg/30708218/medici_caduceo.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pid2rPEXlhw/TEcpZ2Kef1I/AAAAAAAACs0/TbtH6dygixU/s400/simbolo+farmacia+serpiente+copa+yosedemedicina.jpg

That snake is coiled in the stick, or in a DNA chain, or in a cup´s foot to reach the uppper site (the brain) and make the winged snake (quetzalcoatl) that means the invulnerable human being, the healt by managing the main power source. The intelligence of the neocortex.

this means to connect the sexual energy to the brain this way:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1fkbFoIWfKo/TrSRi6OqJbI/AAAAAAAABcQ/dXDpyZCaQug/s1600/caduceo2.png

in order to develop the neocortex and allow the mind to make an invulnerable human being, absolutely self awared and absolutely capable of self restoring.

2-
If that doesn´t happen, and the sexual energy doesn´t flow upside towards the backbone until the brain, it just goes down from the sacrum coccyx towards the ground in a storm of pleasure (sexual pleasure) and waste of the precious energy that was intended to fill the cup, make the winged snake, or develop the neocortex
And that wasting of energy to the ground is represented by this image:

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/285547/285547,1233414804,6/stock-vector-silhouette-of-a-young-slim-woman-with-devil-tail-and-horns-posing-on-camera-side-view-24169819.jpg

So, what your sister feels, and tried to explain, but the stupid church doesn´t even know, is this:

"The porn is making a human being to return to the reptilian status (pre neo cortex) making a significant loss of mind qualities, even irrecoverable. And the health itself is being strongly commited as well"

OK, this was aninfo transferring but I WON´T DISCUSS ABOUT THIS.
Just giving some info.

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

We already have a saying in English that sums this up more succinctly- "A stiff prick hath no conscience".

Posted 1 year ago #
FO
Member

@Julie: I second Elemenope.
She is currently living in an environment where these things are continuously repeated as truths without any challenge whatsoever.

She assumes that everyone sees things that way because around her, everyone DOES see things that way.
She's too sheltered.

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

Nope, Caroline! No, no, nooooo.

I don't mind discussing these things on your thread, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't derail other people's threads.

We've already established that your ideas have no scientific basis in the other thread. But you didn't listen to anything we said and you continue to post in exactly the same way, forgetting that it adds nothing to the conversation.

You may have noticed in this one that a huge part of the problem with this issue is that my sister seems to think I should agree with her based solely on her feelings, which isn't fair because people have different feelings, so why should I assume hers are correct?

Try to stay based in reality when you post. What are your actual opinions on the subject? Does porn offend you or do you like it? Does it bother you when other people watch it? Do you think it has negative effects on people or can it be more of a release? Should the government be allowed to ban it just because a politician is offended by it?

Talk about these types of things. I don't care at all about the winged snake our our building's boiler.

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

I think a lot of it is her boyfriend. She met him during the time when she had left her old beliefs, but hadn't fully figured out what she believed.

She met this guy and he was very into philosophy and he's incredibly pretentious and states philosophy as fact. It's her first boyfriend and she's head over heals for him and she's convinced they're meant for each other. I remember having a conversation with her about the meaning of life or something and when she got stuck and couldn't answer my questions, she called her boyfriend because "He just explains it so much better than I can."

She's just in a really horrible stage of her life where yes, she's happy, but she's with a douchebag who tells her what to think and she sucks it up and gets really annoying to talk to because all our conversations turn out the same way.
But I can't convince her that anything's wrong because she's happy. So whatever. I hope it's just a phase.

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

I'll make my opinion clear and sit back and watch the comments fly.

Porn, so long as it is produced by willing participants of legal age, is morally neutral. The act of watching or reading it, in itself, is morally neutral. But like any activity, it can become a real problem if you let it take over your life to the exclusion of other important things. Not because it's porn, but because you've lost your perspective and are obsessing over something to the detriment of yourself and other people who have to deal with you. You could just as well obsess over attending religious services, or collecting guns, or playing video games.

Posted 1 year ago #
Caroline
Member

@Julie

Don´t worry :)
take it easy! I said that was the UNIQUE POST, and nobody will answer it, not even me. Just ancillary info. Ok? (about what your sister feels)

Is important for you to know that I have no intention to derail neither your post nor anyone´s post. What you have to do with a meaningless info is just to ignore it, and not to react against that.

I´m a friend here, not a troll. And I deeply respect every people´s thread.

Please keep that in mind :)

Posted 1 year ago #
FO
Member

@julie: yup, you may want to let her a bit, she needs the emotions.
Don't get mad, stay close to her.
And if the discussion goes to philosophy, remember that Aristotle was so convinced that women have more teeth than man that never bothered to actually check.

Posted 1 year ago #
julie42
Member

@Ursa: That's pretty much my opinion on it. Anything that takes over your life can be a negative thing, but nothing should be banned just because some people abuse it.

As for it having a more profound effect...well I think for some people sexual issues tend to have a stronger effect, but I wouldn't say more profound as in more meaningful. And some people can watch porn and be just fine, but it's their drug addictions or hoarding problems or whatever that take over their lives.
It seems like by her logic, the size of the problem isn't the main point, it's the meaningfulness of the problem.

@Caroline: Haha, I guarantee you that my sister's feelings on the issue have absolutely nothing to do with what you posted. They are much more simple. Since we were raised as Christians, we were raised to view sex as inherently bad and sexual sins as much worse, disgusting things than something like stealing or name-calling. I have let go of religion and let go of the taboo feeling associated with sex, so even though my preferences about sex differ from other people's, I can still accept their lifestyles. She hasn't been able to let go of the taboo feelings, so she has a lot more trouble accepting that other people might want to live differently.

@FO: Yes, I usually try to avoid these conversations because I know I will never see eye to eye with her.
It's frustrating because I don't really know how to interact with people and have a conversation without stating my views or explaining my thoughts on their views, and that's when she gets offended.
If I don't say anything, she'll press me for what I think, but then if I say what I think, we'll end up in another debate.

Posted 1 year ago #
FO
Member

@julie: then just laugh.
Take her insistence as you would with a kid pressing for candies, don't take your claims or requests seriously, tease her if necessary, but avoid any direct confrontation.
Ask her questions if you want, register the answers as cute and take it easy.

Her answers won't be rational, so you don't have to handle it rationally.

Posted 1 year ago #
Caroline
Member

@Julie:

Let´s go to the microwave oven ;)

Posted 1 year ago #
Justice Gustin
Member

Porn- How else could I have been so content being single all these years?

And what Ursa said.

The U.S must be one horny country according to statistics. The disturbing part is that it claims: In total, more than 100,000 web sites feature pornography with children and more than 116,000 search requests are made each day for pornographic materials that feature children and minors.

Since launching in August 2006, YouPorn alone has become the most popular pornographic website on the internet. In November 2007, it was reported to be the largest free pornographic website. As of May 2011 it was the 83rd most popular website overall.

Just be careful- YouPorn employs Yahoo!, Google, and Quantcast resources that enable tracking and potential linking to personally identifiable information, says Wikipedia.

Posted 1 year ago #
LRA
Member

Meh. Porn is a commercial product like any other. Some of it is great. Some of it is fine. Some of it is shitty. Some of it is harmful. You can't lump it all together and make a judgment.

Kinda like humanity... when people try to lump human behavior into a broad, broad, broad category like "humanity" they leave out the hugely important fact that human beings are different from each other. Some of us are great. Some of us are fine. Some of us are shitty. Some of us are harmful.

I think the big problem here is oversimplification of the problem.

And there ya go. My $0.02.

Posted 1 year ago #
Kodie
Member

What has driving a car done to your humanity?

It's been my observation that all those most basic manners they teach you in primary grades are useless once you get a driver's license. Wait your turn, don't cut, don't let someone else cut, obey the street signs, rules of the road, and the right of way. They teach you all that stuff again right before you get a permit, in case you forgot, but you don't need them at all when you're on the road, especially if you drive a beemer or a taxi or an SUV with blackout windows.

Of course, this doesn't apply to every driver or even maybe most drivers. Just a lot of them. Should we take their licenses away? Should we outlaw driving? I'm not saying that.

You could really make this subject about anything - a lot of things have the capacity to be rotten. If you believe "rotten" means a sin against god, you might have ideas how to correct the situation at its root by eliminating the thing by law. That's a simplistic solution. I saw something on the news about a school which made hugging against the rules. Of course this should eliminate any inappropriate contact, but it doesn't solve any problems. We are talking less and less and just making a band-aid rule to cover any eventualities. We could talk about porn more, but it is taboo. We just let it exist and all the crap that's bad about it persists, but it's not all bad. Let's just put an end to it altogether.

What it does for my humanity either way is forgo a rational discussion about how to avoid the pitfalls. It's just taboo, we either hate it or consume it in secret, and in the secrecy of it exists the bad stuff as well as the ok stuff. If you outlaw it, there will still be porn. Bottom line.

Posted 1 year ago #
Mogg
Member

I feel the need to sing "I've got a little list" from the Mikado. After all, that's what those who want to ban porn, or contraception, or dumping your old Christmas tree on anything other than the approved day are doing, they just changed the lyrics.

Personally, if I was the Lord High Executioner I'd ban football before porn. At least those who watch porn don't assume everyone else in their social circle wants to know how good the porn they saw last night was, porn doesn't take over 15 pages of the newspaper for 6 months of the year, and porn watchers don't generally flood the streets and take over the roads and public transport in drunken, noisy mobs afterwards.

You can play this game with pretty well anything ;-)

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

I have to admit, I'm glad I did my formative porn watching in the early 80's when the women didn't look like Barbie Dolls, and they still had body hair. The brief bits of modern porn I've seen come across as either robotically mechanical, or when emotion appears at all, angry.

As far as what that 80's porn did to my humanity, well, it made my humanity want to get laid. Also, Kay Parker may have given my humanity a lifelong love of older women.

Posted 1 year ago #
kholdom0790
Member

Porn? Hmm. Complete disinterest. The vast majority of porn I've seen is mechanical and sterile. The actors don't seem to enjoy each others company; they do not take pleasure from the activity. Occasionally if I found the women to be astonishingly hot I might feel some arousal (I have never found a man in a porno to be remotely attractive - of course, they're largely not the focus of the thing anyway); but I can't get over the fact that they're paid to do it.

And they probably have to have sex for hours at a time - I don't even like it to go for more than half an hour usually. So basically, when I see porn I just tend to think of how uncomfortable they must be. Maybe they're not, maybe they like it - but if so they could show it more convincingly. So if we watch porn now I like amateur stuff - like a couple who just like the 'thrill' of making video and posting it. I find it more real and intimate.

TL;DR - my humanity's intact but boy do I find commercial porn boring and stilted.

Posted 1 year ago #
Custador
Moderator

I actually enjoy porn from the '70s and early '80s, because at the time the industry had the clout to make big-budget films which featured actual plots, with actual characters - Plus the sex was more imaginative and varied.

Porn nowadays, particular American porn, seems to me to be one endless round of thirty-five year old women with terrible breast-implants pretending to be eighteen, having sex which is probably physically (and psychologically) damaging. Oral, vaginal, painful looking anal, more oral, facial money shot. Rinse and repeat.

There's no joy to it. In fact, if anything there's anger instead. It's pretty screwed up, and I honestly think that some of it is dangerously close to rape - I've seen porn where it was not only obvious that the female performer was not enjoying it, but also that she was distressed and in pain. I do worry that there are viewers (particularly men) who could be desensitised to the point where they think that stuff like that how sex is supposed to happen.

In fact, there was a guy a few years ago who made porn under the pseudonym of Max Hardcore who made a lot of money explicitly depicting legal-age women as under-age, and performing violent, painful and humiliating acts upon them. I won't even call them "sex acts", because some of them had nothing to do with sex as far as I can see. He was actually convicted and imprisoned over it.

So yeah. Most modern porn is either really shit, frighteningly rapey, or both. Old school pr0n for the win.

Posted 1 year ago #
Mogg
Member

Porn does nothing for me (I find it completely incomprehensible that depictions of people who aren't me having sex might be a turn-on, but clearly I'm in a minority), so I consulted the household's porn expert, my housemate. He said that he much prefers amateur porn because it's more realistic and the participants tend to be looking like they are enjoying what they are doing. Like Custador, I worry a bit about some of the things I've heard about modern porn, but given that I have very little other than hearsay to base that on I'd prefer not to blanket judge the entire industry. As a concept I believe it is morally neutral, but yes, exploitation of participants male or female seems to be a problem.

Written porn (erotica is perhaps a better word) can be amazing, but most of it is just embarrassingly bad. A friend of a friend has been a slash fic writer for years, and it just makes me want to shake her and tell her to get a real life.

Posted 1 year ago #

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