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Pr0n's Effect On Society
Rytis writes "An article at the Financial Times is analysing the growing impact of internet pornography, the phenomena itself and the problems that it causes to our society. Surveys within Great Britain have shown that more than a half of 9-19 years olds have seen pornography online. From the article: 'To some men, Haynes argues, clicking on porn is simply a way to pass the time. It's a hobby. Once they'd idly play solitaire; now they idly click on a porn site. Others, though, succumb to addiction: Most addictions are to do with internal emptiness, wanting to fill up dead space, and addiction is always destructive.'"
Well then, let the Anonymous Coward posting begin!
WARNING! The following message contains adult material and may offend you if you belong to any religious group or if you agreed entirely with Monty Python's song "Every Sperm Is Sacred."
I once heard a psychology professor say that 90% of men surveyed anonymously admit to masturbating. The other 10% are lying.
You can either agree with that or deny it, I don't care. But I would like to point out that this behavior has its advantages for society. Yes, that's right, I said advantages.
Young men are reaching sexual maturity before they're reaching mental maturity. The fact that many of them grow up in highly populated areas doesn't help. Oftentimes young parents without the resources or attitude to raise a child give birth and this subsequently results (usually) in an imperfect forced marriage or a child whose parents are not married. In either case, much more stress is placed on the developing youngster than the child needs and this can often lead down the road to delinquency or misbehavior.
There are also sexually transmitted diseases to worry about in the world. You usually don't catch anything from your hand.
Pornography functions as an alternative to fornication. And I'm talking about regular good old fashion hetero or homosexual adult (above 18) porn. Hardcopies (magazines and videos) of pornography seems risky. You have to store them and purchase them--they leave a paper trail. But internet pornography is accessible and can often be acquired for free. It doesn't leave such an obvious trail back to the user.
Yes, it's unhealthy to pass up healthy relationships for internet pornography but for young men (and probably women) who are prematurely sexually active, it probably acts as a safe alternative to non-monogamous relationships.
These are in no way scientific conclusions but it seems logical that many men would choose internet pornography to fill the sexual needs anyone who has testicles often develops.
Sorry to sound like Dr. Ruth but that's my thoughts on the subject. It doesn't bother me or make me feel gross or creepy that men all around are probably using internet pornography. It's just a safety valve for most of them and a better solution than being promiscuous.
"Porn is an addition (...) I used to have a problem"
Anecdotal evidence does not a proper study make.
I do not see how seeing pornography is a problem at all for our youth. While 9 may be a little too young, I definetly do not see the problem with 11 or 12 year olds viewing it.
We allow our children to see violent imagery everywhere, from our games to the news. But we are so violently against sexual imagery. I know that as a child I was much more curious about girls and sex before I finally discovered both pornography and masturbation. I was able to be a functioning male teenager because I did not need to be overly preocupied with sex.
Would you rather more children start having sex at the age of 12? Or would you rather them find some pornographic pictures online and spend some "quality" time alone in their bedroom once every few nights? Humans are wired to start having sex long before 18, so we either give them an outlet or start having alot more teen pregnancies.
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
i'd even take it a step further than that...
the internet would not be where it is at today if it weren't for porn. I would bet money that if porn didn't exist, most people would still use dial-up connections as broadband would be too expensive or inaccessible.
the same goes the other way though...i would argue that the internet has driven the demand for porn.
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
... it's only because our society's attitude toward sexuality is morbid and ridiculous.
The idea that seeing a naked human being, or even seeing people having sex, would somehow "harm" a person is completely silly.
Thanks to the abhorrent way our society has rejected natural sexuality by demonizing it and calling it "dirty" it kind of make sense that exposure to it would cause "harm".
Kind of the way our society puts a forbidden stigma around alcohol consumption for people under the age of 21.
In many countries wine and beer are a normal part of life and young people are exposed to it accordingly. You don't typically see alcoholism problems or alcohol abuse in general in these countries.
In the United States, it's taboo. And anything taboo is simply irresistible to young people. The end result is a pattern of excess and abuse.
Sex and sexuality are not bad things. Can there be bad consequences to uncontrolled sexuality? Sure. Same goes for uncontrolled lawn mowing, or uncontrolled hand washing. The point is that if our society didn't make it taboo, normal exposure to it wouldn't be "harmful".
Obviously there are exceptions. Exposing a 6 year old to scenes of graphic rape fantasies would probably be a bad idea. But exposing that same child to a naked form won't harm them at all.
Think about this. What existed first? Sexual thoughts, or porn? (To paraphrase Bill Hicks.) Porn exists because humans have sexual thoughts, not the other way around. R.I.P. Bill.
Just replace "pr0n" with "video games", "beer", "marijuana", etc. and you basically have the same story. It's what keeps politicians employed, and children safe supposedly.
It's the age range. Sure, 50% of kids 9-19 have viewed Internet porn, but I bet close to 100% of kids that are, say, 14-19 have.
Seriously, I don't get what the big deal is. 9 may be a little young to view porn, but I'd rather catch my 15 year old masturbating to Internet porn than impregnating or being impregnated by someone else.
So, 50% of the 9-19 year olds have seen online porn.
How many of those have also seen porn magazines?
How does that compare to previous years?
I had definately seen porn mags by the time I was 19. If the same percentage of the population have seen porn, does it matter if it's online or printed?
But somehow I don't believe him, I have heard of people who have ruined their marriage by becoming addicted to pr0n, some have been fired for looking at pr0n while at work. If that is not the behavior of an addict then I don't know what is. One definition of addiction states: "compulsion or overpowering urge to use a substance, regardless of potential or actual harm", most of the definitions imply that there has to be a substance involved, but in the case of pr0n the substances are the neurotransmitters in the brain.
In fact any activity that involves a powerfull release of certain neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamin) into the pleasure centers of the brain can become "an addiction" -- it can be food, it can playing games, gambling etc.
Cool, from being rational beings capable of creating works of Art like the David or Mona Lisa, we're downgraded to sex-hungry animals. Keep it going, Mr. Darwin.
Darwin's theory postulates that fitness and not nobleness leads to evolution.
That crack-whore welfare mama with 18 children is more fit evolutionary wise than the lonly artist who creats beautifull paintings but kills himself due to depression before breeding.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
There's much more to life and human relationships than sexual expression. Don't get me wrong - I love that aspect of my life, and would not want to become celibate again - but are you really advocating that we provide kids with access to porn as a part of their developmental processes?
The appeal to the violence argument is ridiculous, too. Don't *add* porn, *remove* the violence! If that means that your kids (and you) end up watching less (or no) TV, and skip almost every movie, can you argue that you have been harmed in some way?
What about investing that time in relating to each other, playing board games, having conversations, investing in hobbies where you build or create things, or enjoy things created or performed by others?
Porn is a trap - it feeds the pleasure centers of the brain, devalues the humanity of the person being used for that pleasure, and damages people's ability to relate to one another in a healthy way. Real relationships are not self-focused, but must have a significant component of other-focus or they don't survive.
Are you really advocating that we train our kids that it's all about *them*!?!?
Please tell me you're trolling!
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
It's a popular modern quirk to consider ones time so unique and so different from any other time, but the reality is that people are people and we haven't really changed.
Try looking up how long it was after the invention of motion pictures before the first pr0n video was created. I bet you'll be surprised. I'd look it up for you (it's a little tricky to track because most film histories try to ignore the baser applications of the technology) but I'm at work. There are several excellent books on the subject though.
And before the internet, 75% of 9-19 year olds have seen print/film pornography. It's not like porn didn't exist before the internet. Oh, and they messing up the results including the 18 and 19 year olds, who are legally allowed to look at porn.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yeah, uh huh. I am guessing the she has never headed down to the book store and checked out the "romance novel" section.
So-called romance novels are nothing more than porn for women. It has been in western culture for decades and it breeds unrealistic expectations of men in women.
Of course, no one has every really studied that because it is just words, not pictures. But, take a look at the story arc of just about every romance novel. Look at the characters. Examples:
"Porn for women" has been around as long and been more widely available than "porn for men", yet no one complains, does studies, or even talks about it. But, that is ok because porn for women isn't pictures, it is words. And, we all know that reading books and stories doesn't effect the thoughts and minds of people unless there are pictures, right?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
No, it has to do with the natual reaction with the arrival of Puritans who insist on impressing their values on the rest of us. If porn is a problem for 1% of its consumers, that makes it about ten times "safer" for society than gambling, driving, drinking, or sex itself. Yet the political leverage to be gained by demonizing it far outstrips the magnitude of the problem. That is what harms our society, not any hypothetical problems associated with porn itself (which are really problems associated with your marriage).
Yup...
Addictions arn't really about the object of the addiction so much as the personality of the person. Thats been my experience. Take myself as an example. I have noticed my own patterns...
Left to my own devices, I self regulate my addictive substances and whatnot. Sure I go through binges with coffee and pot, and even alcohol sometimes. (of course by binges I mean times of relativly heavy use, not like drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning or drinking for days on end)... but they are rare and I tend to use them just now and again.
Except, if I have an external driver. Work is an external driver for coffee, a little caffine buzz helps me focus and frankly I don't regulate my sleep well and suffer from sleep apnea so sometimes my sleep isn't as restful as it could be... coffee is a natural form of self medication.
for pot, its pothead friends. Its alot harder to come up with a reason to not smoke today, than it is to come up with reasons to not smoke on a daily basis. That "right now" to "every day" connection is a hard one, because one is a single decision, the other is the pattern of those decisions. I think thats one of the fundamental issues with all addictions. Moderation is hard and you have to actually pay attention to it.
however, if my main pothead friend goes away on vacation or we are otherwise separate for a coupld of weeks, my habbit goes way down, in fact, within two weeks I have just about stopped.
Alot of people don't do that. In fact, I have seen a friend who went from addiction to drugs and particularly pot, to replacing that complete lifestyle with religion... and boy did he replace it. Next thing you know... just like before when EVERYTHING was related to smoking weed, now EVERYTHING is related to loving jesus.
Im talking living with people in his church, getting a tattoo of jesus on a cross over his heart, declaring himself a born again virgin etc... total and complete.
I dunno, I agree addiction is generally a symptom of an underlying issue, some people just need something to fill part of their lives and when they find something, fill their lives with it, be it drugs, or religion, or games, or porn.
However its alot easier to say porn or drugs are the problem, than it is to tell a person how to fill in the emptiness in their lives... thats something a person has to find for themselves.
Honestly I think alot of it is that our society is one in which it is very easy to isolate yourself. Easy to interact and be around people all the time without ever really having meaningful relations with them. Easy to get cut out from any social scene.
Just look at craigslist, and the popularity of speed dating sites etc. Theres alot of people looking to fill a void in their lives. Hell I was recnetly bitching at a roomate of mine about how we never seem to do anything, theres no social scene anymore, we stopped throwing parties because the same old people show up, and frankly, as one put it....
"I think if you had told us that the people who show up now to our parties would be the only people left in a few years, (other roomate) and I would have given up years ago"
Another roomate asked his uncle "what did you do when you were our age?"... his reply... they went to bars every night. Funny, we were just complaining that all there is to do during the hours that we can all hang out together is go to bars, and maybe go bowling or play pool. (not counting things we can do in the house of course)
And people wonder why I smoke pot so much. Its like my ex boss told me once when we were having a random chat "I used to smoke pot, it started because I had nothing to do, then smoking pot just became something to do".... gee that sounded fammiliar.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Yeah it's not like any of this is new. What really irritates me is that while saying that addiction is about filling some internal emptiness they infer that easy access to pornography is a problem. No, the internal emptiness is the problem, and people will fill it with video games, porn, crack, sex or whatever else. People who are prone to addictive behavior are prone to addictive behavior regardless the source. There are things that are genuinely physically addictive like hard drugs, etc, but the only reason porn is even thrown in here is because it's seen as "naughty". If somebody was addicted to excercise for example, nobody would think twice about it because it's sociall acceptable. It's only because it's nekkid people that there's an article about it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
So women decided that men who have a lot of sex are studs, and women who do are whores? And women created marriage in the first place with the line, "to love, honor, and obey" applying only to them and not their husbands. I'm sure that's also why women make less money doing the same job as men do, because they drive the ethics that dictate the wage scale. In short, I don't agree that women drive ethics in the good ol' U.S. of A. unless their religious right doctrine (created by men) tells them to speak out against porn. Any woman I know who actually has the strength to determine her own ethics actually likes, appreciates or at least respects porn.
and no, you guys can't have their e-mails.
However its alot easier to say porn or drugs are the problem, than it is to tell a person how to fill in the emptiness in their lives... thats something a person has to find for themselves.
You know where I've always heard almost exactly as you've written here? In church. In fact, one Christian pop song has the stanza, "There's a God-shaped hole in all of us / And the restless soul is searching / There's a God-shaped hole in all of us / And it's a void only He can fill."
Every person has needs, wants, and desires that will always need filling. It's the very floorboards of economics. The question comes down to "How does one fill that hole in their soul?" Hopefully they'll do it constructively, but the destructive ones tend to be a lot more fun at first, ergo vastly more popular. By the time the negative effects come around, the person may be too far gone to realize it.
The real trick is to learn to understand that we're creatures of infinite desire, and to begin to think rationally about how to cope with that in a way that won't destroy us. Many major religions try to fill an infinite hole with an infinite God (at least the ones that profess a god or gods). The ones that don't profess (a) god(s) try to teach you how to suppress or channel your desire.
I know there's a general hostility toward religion here, but I submit to you that the idea and the effects of religion on the human psyche are generally positive, because they help people learn to channel humanity's biggest motivator to (usually) positive ends.
(And no fair bringing up the crazies. There are a few psychos in every crowd.)
>No, it has to do with the natual reaction with the arrival of Puritans who insist on impressing their values on the rest of us.
Someone needs to mod the parent post + insightful. I completely agree with his point, and I'd also like to mention that the strong reaction stems from the fact that many slashdot readers tend to be both intelligent, and critical thinkers; and we see a con for what it is.
The recovery industry is just that; an industry; from the time I jumped on the net 11 years ago I saw the 12 step freaks trying to turn recreational internet (and porn) usage into an "addiction" (which gives them a reason to ask you to hand over $$ to them for so-called "treatment").
It's sad that people are buying into this scam to any degree at all.
What is it that Ayn Rand had ellsworth tooey say in the fountainhead? That he wants everyone to be miserable because happy people have no use for him and his kind? It's exactly the same for the 12 step freaks. If you drink, then OMG UR AN ADDICT; if you do anything at all (that they can make money holding a seminar and selling books for), then OMG U R AN ADDICT.
Getting back to the original point; the reaction of slashdotters does not prove that the people putting forth this "porn addiction" scam are valid; quite the opposite, it proves that the lie is easy to see that everyone and their dog can point it out.
. . . you only needed access under your parents' bed to view Dad's pr0n.
Now you need to hack his password.
What?
It's a popular modern quirk to consider ones time so unique and so different from any other time
That's not a modern quirk at all. To state this is to consider our time so unique and so different from any other time.