I was thinking about this the other day and thought this could be a good point for some discussion. I'm sure everyone on this site will have an opinion and I'd be very interested to read them! I thought I could get the ball rolling with my own views. After some thought, I think I am leaning more towards the yes side, but not completely. I think free tube sites should be banned. Round the clock free access to more porn that you can imagine is certainly not healthy at all, and the fact there is no financial barrier I'm quite certain exacerbates matters. I think there should always be a fee to pay as I do believe this would heavily influence people to stop watching porn. As for paid access, again I'm leaning more towards the yes side. It is also very hard to enforce the age restrictions online too and I think teenage years are when most people start watching porn so cracking down on underage porn use I think is a must. For me, I think porn should be legal but only sold in licensed shops as DVDs or magazines. This will a) ensure underage users can't have access, b) enforce the financial barrier c) it will limit the overall amount of porn use, for instance if a film costs say £10, I imagine customers would be likely to watch that for a while before buying another one, the ability to freely move between endless videos on the internet is definitely not healthy and d) I think a lot of people would be embarrassed to go in one of those shops (I know I would be) so that could act as another factor in deterring potential porn use. What do you make of these points? What are your opinions? Let's get a discussion going!
Good question. I guess more research has to be done. It’s kind of like asking if alcohol should be illegal if ‘some’ people get addicted to it. Although I would say it seems to be a big problem in our society. But the problem would be the practical aspects of blocking all porn from the internet!
I suppose with alcohol it does bring some benefits like creating social events as well as the cultural aspects etc, whereas I can't really see any of these kinds of benefits with porn at all. I do agree it's a big problem. I know in Turkey internet porn is completely blocked for everyone (I know because I tried when I was over there) so it is possible but I've no idea how to do it. Interesting points though mate!
I love when people on this site who relapse are advocating for it being banned, almost like they’re outing themselves (not mentioning specific names, but if this offends you, it may be directed towards you). You can argue all you want on whether porn should be banned or not. But in reality, a porn ban will be ineffective. It doesn’t take a scientist to access the Deep Web, and the only way you’d successfully get rid of porn is a North Korea-styled dictatorship where computers with Internet access aren’t allowed, and only a heavily-moderated intranet is used. And let me remind you: the government is not some benevolent mate of yours. The government wants power over you and the functionings of society. Yeah, I’d rather have access to porn than that, because I can control myself and not watch it.
True, but that's not really a valid reason for why porn should be illegal, isn't it? One could say there isn't any purpose for, say, spitballing your teacher other than to be a dick, but making that of all things illegal would be absurd. It's important to remember that this addiction, at least to some extent, is entirely your fault. Our fault. We put ourselves in this mess and we're here to get out of it. While I disagree with the lifestyle, I'm not going to advocate forcing people to find alternative ways (pretending banning porn would work at all) of entertaining themselves. I also think when people say porn should be illegal, they're only thinking about major porn sites and not looking at the big picture. If we were to define porn as any kind of explicit material featuring one or more people engaging in some kind of sexual activity, then a big part of our media (R-rated moves, adult TV shows, and M-rated videogames) would have to be banned or censored. To me, advocating the ban of porn is an idealistic and unrealistic worldview that suggests that in order to solve the issue, we need to cover all of it up with a blanket.
At young age, we fall prey to PMO. We were excited to explore more about P and found our self in compulsive behaviour. But we are wise enough to know its a trap now but continuously failing to recover from it. The psychological conditioning is strong and the Billion dollars market value. It can't be blocked, Those who behind, keep PORN alive and keep people addicted to it. It is one of the ways of controlling people.
The last thing I want is the federal government to make more laws. People should have a choice to watch, eat, read, smoke whatever they want even if it’s harming them just as long as it doesn’t infringe on another person’s rights and privacy. And when I mean “people” I mean grown adults. I don’t want some of you thinking I believe children should watch, eat, read, and smoke whatever they want. (Many of you may disagree, you won’t be the first) The only thing I will say about porn is that porn should stay in the porn websites. Too many times I’ve come across graphic shit on YouTube, Facebook, twitter, etc. Porn shouldn’t be on social media platforms that is accessible to all ages, but that has to be a choice by the owners of these social media platforms; not a law forcing them to do so.
Banning things doesn't work. It will create a black market for it. Look at how unsuccessful the war on drugs was, and prohibition was a complete failure.
I don't think internet porn should be illegal. It might sound baffling, and while I absolutely hate porn, not everyone is addicted. Not everyone has erectile dysfunction because of porn, not everyone is emotionally and physically drained because of porn, not everyone has developed extreme fetishes because of porn. We just can't do it to everyone else who consumes porn and do not suffer.
Thre are tons of studies that say that masturbation is good and almost no study to show the side effects, what? It feels like a conspiracy theory, right? There are some studies that say porn is super bad for the brain and yet again nobody says a thing about them. Think about it, have you ever felt the same person after you have watched your first porn videos? I think I know the answer, this "knowing" it makes you to feel like your eyes are open to something "more" something that you wish to forget.It's the same thing with masturbation, it will take months maybe years to be the same person you used to be before doing it and even then, this "knowing" stays there, you can't get rid of it. The moral lesson, if you are addicted, fight hard to be free, if you are not, stop watching P and M, you are poisoning yourself, your brain gets addicted to that pleasure and you can't enjoy anymore the little things life has to offer...
I wouldn't say I'm advocating for it, just looking for other viewpoints. I'm not so sure a North-Koreaesque dictatorship is needed. I'm pretty certain technology is at a stage where you could simply block certain sites. They've done it in Turkey for instance. I suppose the issue is because it's already so widespread, it's hard to get the worms back in can, whereas if it had never been around we wouldn't be having this problem. I'm glad you personally can control it, I can see you've got an impressive streak there and I congratulate you on that, but bear in mind it may be harder for other users. If you were to remove the temptation (or at lest the easy access ones) altogether then it would go a long way to stop porn use.
I think for me, where the line would be drawn as to what porn should potentially be banned would be when penetration of any kind takes place. That would just be my view though.
That's a good point, I suppose the best way would to be to try and uncover to what extent these problems occur, is it 10%, 20%, 30% etc of users who end up with significant problems because of porn? Then weigh up whether in light of these findings it's worth looking to ban it or not for the collective good. I don't know what the answer is but I'd be interested to find out. Might try and find a few studies.
Hmmm, not so sure on that one mate, you've got me there. My first thought would be that's okay because it would involve using your imagination as appose to being shown everything.
Thanks, mate! The thing about government is we lack a personal relationship with it like we would with maybe family members or friends, so it’s easy to get someone in government who wouldn’t care about our freedoms (of course there are family/“friends” who fall in this category too, but it’s not as prevalent with respect to the average person). If you think about it, a family unit thrives on socialism (we have one or two breadwinners working for the entire family’s need), but a government won’t because we lack that common, personal bond that we feel obligated to retain. The same can be said with censorship; parents can apply censors to get the best from their kids, or friends can do it; whatever. If the kids don’t like it, they can move out when they’re 18 or whatever. But when a government does it, not only can the family not control it, but the government, once again lacking that bond, can use it as a means of power and control. This point right here is why I say the government’s not your friend; the government’s there to enforce things that would otherwise be a disaster in a private system (such as justice). To tag along with that, the government shouldn’t need to do this, as we all have access to porn blockers and our own censors.
