Is porn good but we just abuse it?

Exactly. We obviously have different views on religion, and probably on morality also, but this is completely besides the point when it comes to adolescents. In our democratic, liberal and tolerant culture, adults are only free to choose their own lifestyles because they are assumed to be rational and independent enough to do so, i.e., are adults.

Adolescents are not adults, and so even by the mainstream's liberal standards, they are not deemed 'fit' to be exposed to the all the ideas and influences of a 'marketplace'. Everyone knows this, it is the last vestige of a common morality, and its probably the best argument for restriction and censorship at the private level [and even, dare I say it, at the public level of law]. Because as it stands now, adolescents are fully exposed.

As for porn consumption among adults, that is where rational debate will have to come in [short of a Puritan/ Radical Right Revolution instituting Censorship]. This debate will no doubt continue to strengthen as the effects of porn addiction become more widely known. Sadly though, due to deeply entrenching logic and prejudices, where everything centers on our individual rights to something, it may only be those who are dragged down into the horrors of addiction, who feel the radical need to do something about it.

 

Its really terrifying how much damage porn can do while being so accessible for everyone.

 

And I respect your opinion . But I have read that article and anything I can get my hands on about the issue and even after dating and leaving an addict I still believe not everyone who views it gets addicted. If you are an addict you cannot see that because of your own experiences. You don't know how other people experience porn because you have never experienced it so differently. To use an example I have a good friend that was diagnosed with ADD at age 35. He had it his whole life but had no idea. He thought everyone's minds thought like that after all you are not inside anyone's mind but yours. It was only when he met a partner who noticed how he acted and suggested he seek help. He will never know how it feels to have a non ADD mind. Meds will help but not entirely. If the only experience you have with porn is your own how do you know what others have? You don't and you can't. And porn will never be banned in the US so the message needs to be about how it can be damaging and create awareness.

 

You watched porn for the same reason all of us did. Whatever reason anyone thinks they watch porn, there is only one reason anyone watches porn: it give us a dopamine high. If it did not, no one would watch it. It would be boring to us. Porn is an abuse of the naturally existing sexual reward portion of the brain. That part of the brain rewards sexual thoughts with a hit of dopamine, which feels euphoric; we like it. Of course, we do not know we are doing that, at the time, in the beginning, before the addiction forms, but that IS what we do when we watch P: we use it to get a dopamine high. That is the alpha and omega of the addiction. The only tool porn can be used for, is to generate a dopamine high. Don't beat yourself up. You are human, and all humans get a dopamine high from sexual thoughts, it is just that only some of us get addicted to using porn to generate those thoughts, and the prolonged, powerful dopamine rushes that come with it.

 

An adolescent knows its wrong, transgressive in some way, and has a mix of euphoria and nausea when viewing it for the first few times. Here is green fresh fertile ground for an addiction to grow on, and eventually smother like concrete.

The other thing is that even if many users deny that they are addicted... many of those will be in denial. I'd say it took a lot of people here a long time before they acknowledged they were, or could be, an addict.

Lastly, bracketing out the whole question of addiction, it is just plain morally wrong and dehumanizing at the individual level, and decadent at the cultural. Freud has a lot to do with our culture's obsession with sex, for he said we can not help ourselves, we are driven by it... which is close to a definition for addiction.

 

Saying porn is good is the thing someone makes up so they can feel good about a bad thing.

 

How?

 

I am not saying porns a good thing not at all. Just that it's not necessarily bad for everyone. I don't view it, I'm female and my ex was a hardcore addict. So I'm not trying to make something bad good?

 

We tend to look at the underlying 'determinants' of our behavior today [justification]. Before we strived toward certain ideals which would shape our behavior. Those ideals were also social in nature, they were something we could collectively agree on insofar as we were social animals as opposed to natural animals. And this was no mere ideology, it was a culture - like learning the rules to the most important game of all.

 

From an addict's perspective I'm inclined to strongly disagree. Simply because I know just how much damage it's done in my own life.

From a more philosophical view, I can say that yes to an extent it can be managed in moderation. But the truth is, there are different types of addictions. It's such a difficult type of addiction to deal with and manage because unlike even some drugs it's so incredibly easy to attain and satisfy. If there was a kind of spectrum for the varying types, P addiction would (or should) be in the same category as the hardest of hard drugs.

The best way to view it is, if P was completely eradicated from existence tomorrow what harm would it cause the world in the long term, say in 20 years? I don't believe it would cause any damage, it'd be a tremendous benefit in fact. Short term? Well, like drug addicts P addicts also go through withdrawal and that's another beast in itself.

 

I can speak from experience that porn will take you to places you never thought possible, BAD places. Not only are you harming yourself you are also contributing to an industry that fuels human trafficking, sexual abuse, violence and drugs. But that's not the image the glamorous 20 something on the film set (or their producers) want to akcnowledge or talk about, they don't care for example, that their content is accessed by many children on the internet on a daily basis, if they did they would do something about it. Instead we have to wait for the governments of this world to step in and force them to buck their ideas up. The days of Playboy centrefolds are long gone. I think a lot of people still think of that when they talk about 'porn' who have not actually gone out and searched for it on the internet. If you have addictive or compulsive behaviours like I did or still do to some point then porn is only going to make your life severely worse, like drugs will or alcohol.

 

I am trying to think of what harm there would be hmmmm... not much. But there are many things we could say that about. I do know some couples that quite enjoy it together but if it disappeared it would not change things all that much. But the point is it won't. At least here in the US where people get up in arms about anytime someone tries to take away "their rights." So we have to attack the problem in other ways. Get the word out that porn can be very dangerous tell our stories and explain that we are not just a bunch of religious zealots. Not that there is anything wrong with being religious but members of the public dismiss things that are based on religion. I'm not religious at all. People need to see this and further studies need to be done to support the science.

 

Porn is just business and if there are people who consume, it will exist and it doesn't offer any benefit than make you feel miserable later on and it will not help you to achieve anything in the life.

Porn is never good and it will never be, as it is just consumer product without any benefit.

 

Yes, it should make us question the whole 'paradigm' of consumption, and what the Good Life actually is. Perhaps porn is 'good' insofar as it may wake people up to the reality of virtue and vice.. dare I say, good and evil.

 

You nailed it Buzz. Nobody ever told me it was wrong growing up. The first porn I looked at was my stepdad's porn. Friends all looked at it. Even the idea that porn is wrong was never expressed by anyone that mattered to me.

So why did I hide it? Why did I know it was wrong, a transgression? Because porn is objectively wrong and this truth was etched so deeply into my heart that all the poor upbringing and societal ignorance in the world couldn't erase it. And I tried. I worked hard to blunt my intuition and conscience and ended up addicted.

There ought to be an effort to protect children from porn. The free for all free internet porn thing needs to be stopped. Witness the desperation and degredation of the human spirit evident on this site. Why is there a legal difference between porn and prostitution?

 

Is porn good but we just abuse it?

 

I think only very small portion of people who consume it will find ''virtue'' in the end and the majority just will feel okay with it as it will be presented as ''natural'' while in another way just ''degrading'' while they will not admit, as if they would do it then people wouldn't lean towards it as they would be seen as they did something wrong and they morally would feel worse of their actions.

So it means it would ''Wake up'' only persons who aren't affected so much by society ''Propaganda'' and we can see where it's more accepted there is lower ''birth rate''.

As really the relationships get weaker and higher divorce rates, also works who have a strong mind or miserable lives. Who are in the middle, as the majority will not really do anything about it mostly.

 

Yes, I'd say that parental refusal to grapple with the problem of porn is actually a form of NEGLECT. But then, it's more than likely that a lot of them are grappling with the problem in a different way... it's a middle-class phenomenon now - it is no longer the fringe activity it once was, but has gone mainstream [this is why I think government needs to get involved... if it doesn't, you'll just see the continued decay of society... from the inside out]. The fact that many parents are themselves using may cripple them in providing good guidance in this area.

Social ignorance is one thing, but parental negligence is quite another. And I'd say that it is this issue of censorship for adolescents, both at the private and public level, that is the most effective strategy for raising people's awareness that porn may actually be potentially vicious... not the harmless pastime it is mostly made out to be.

 

Anything can be abused. Not everybody who drinks is an alcoholic. Same with porn. If we give it such power we are saying we are not responsible for our behavior.

 

I disagree.
I dont see any real societal benefit of porn

You can claim its mind expanding and sexual exploration etc but its very male centric and degrades women

I have read a few books on this topic - and its shocking what goes on