It’s just porn. It doesn’t do anything by itself. It’s up to you what role it plays in your life.
While I get what you’re saying, it’s worth pointing out that there is a lot of extremely shady behavior that goes unchecked in the industry. A lot of performers are chewed up and spat out just a few years later, often addicted to drugs.
It’s definitely worth pointing out. Exploitation is always wrong, but the porn industry is a whole other level.
Sex work is work and sex workers deserve safe working conditions and reasonable pay just like any other workers.
Yep. There’s some producers trying to change that, but the cultural momentum is strong.
So hold their hand until they’re granny banging?
Have you no compassion for suffering humans? JFC.
Which? Who? The young dumb women you watched on a doc?
I can’t tell if you’re trolling me or what. I don’t understand what you’re asking.
Are you saying that the only people who suffer abuse in the adult film industry are “young dumb women” and as such are at fault for their suffering? Are you saying that there isn’t a widespread problem of sexual abuse in the industry?
I’m not trying to say that there is no “good” adult film studios out there. Many, if not most are worthy of praise. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have paid for subscriptions to studios that produce good work. But there is absolutely a problem with countless videos out there that are the result of sexual abuse.
I don’t know anything about the stuff that you’re talking about especially these days so I’m asking for references really is all. Documentation I’ve seen has been about women who we’re gonna be suffering no matter where the hell they went in life. It had nothing to do with the porn industry.
I’m no expert but a few minutes of searching came up with these links. They’re not all peer reviewed, but the first one is, and pretty much sums up what I’m trying to say. The other articles are about the allged sexual abuse that occurs on set, and a few articles are about the tragic stories of ex-performers who took their own life due to the severe trauma they experienced on set and afterwards.
Again, I’m not saying that all adult content is bad like this. Nothing is black and white like that. I’m saying that a lot of disgusting material is out there and it’s possible to watch a video without knowing the story behind it. As such I believe it is a viewer’s responsibility to do some research before they enjoy something. A little bit of background about the studio producing a scene is not hard to find and can go a long way to ensure you’re enjoying something that nobody had to suffer for.
As an aside: the attitude that “if someone was going to suffer anyways who cares if they suffered for this” is truly a sad way to think.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629520/
https://nypost.com/2018/08/29/i-was-treated-like-a-piece-of-meat-adult-actress-waits-for-metoo/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/accuser-james-deen-had-help-raping-me
http://www.augustames.com/index.php/blog/
https://nypost.com/2018/01/23/why-porn-stars-are-dying-at-an-alarming-rate/
Sexologists seem to generally believe it can be.
My general attitude is to treat it like any other easy good feeling thing. Masturbating whenever you feel bad leads to it being your primary coping mechanism which isn’t ideal if you want an emotionally healthy sex life. I’d compare it in that way to using marijuana or alcohol. It’s a great way to have some fun and not a healthy coping mechanism.
That’s a very black and white way of putting it. As long as you’re an adult who can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and you’re not spending hours obsessed with it I don’t think it’s unhealthy. The way you phrase ‘avoid it completely’ makes it sound like you’re going out of your way to avoid it already.
(I think the problems are coming through with the generation being ‘brought up on porn’, and thinking real sex is like it is in the videos online but that’s a different story really.)
What you said at the end is 100% accurate and actually becoming a big issue
Masturbating is healthy, so who told you otherwise?
It gets problematic when you have health issues or social problems due to porn or if you neglect other parts of your life.
It’s a way healthier addiction than a drug addiction though. Smoking, drinking, substance abuse in general are more harmful to your body. Even if you drink just one glass of wine every month it will probably be more harmful in the long run than masturbation.
1 glass of wine a month sounds a little too less… I’d like one every meal after masturbating
Watching porn =/= masturbation. Nobody is saying masturbating is unhealthy.
An addiction is capable of ruining your life. It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s such an incredibly toxic thing to be told that “well at least you’re addicted to x and not y”. It’s nothing but a terrible excuse to keep using and will only make things worse.
The question of the initial post is ‘can porn be used in a healthy way’. I answered the question inferring that porn is primarily used for masturbation.
Porn addiction can ruin your life like any other addiction. You’re right with that. It’s just easier to die due to substance abuse than through porn addiction.
You’re making it sound like watching porn immediately leads to an addiction and you should stop watching porn. In moderation, porn consumption is not unhealthy. However, even in moderation, substance abuse can have long lasting effects.
Just like nobody made the point that masturbating is unhealthy, I didn’t say, or even imply, anything about death or porn leading to an immediate addiction. It seems like you have a problem where you just wildly misinterpret words for whatever reason.
Just like nobody made the point that masturbating is unhealthy
The initial question is framed in a way implying that porn might only ever be consumed in an unhealthy way, meaning that masturbation would be unhealthy.
It seems like you have a problem where you just don’t interpret words for whatever reason.
Pretty sure it is same as with anything. Too much is too much and of you get addicted, the it is obviously too much. Couple times a week to jack off is probably ok.
Thumb rule with anything: if there is no problem and it doesn’t cause harm to anyone, then why not?
It can be used in healthy ways, to explore your own preferences and fetishes, for relaxation, to learn your partner’s desires, you name it.
But as with everything the dose makes the poison. When your thoughts are permanently around your next chance to watch porn, you search (and probably find) ways to watch in public/inappropriate settings, … Then you have a problem.
As someone else put it perfectly in another comment: it’s just porn. It’s not going to affect the life of the person viewing it unless said person lets it.
IMO, tho, as with most things things in life, just doing as the Greeks did is a good rule of thumb: you doing this in moderation? you’re good.
Why doesn’t the alcoholic put down the bottle? He is letting it damage his life and should simply choose to stop.
The alcholic is already in a habit. What i put was not written with the idea of an addict in mind, simply that the act (porn) is not some evil, rotten thing that should be avoided like the plague, but should instead be treated as a neutral thing and viewed with moderation–should a normal, non-addicted person decide to do so at all.
Also, that you used that specific example for your comment, considering I actually did put the bottle down a while ago because yeah, boiling it down, it pretty much was destroying my relationships and not doing my already weak ass immune system any favors, made me crack a smile NGL
wow. just commenting to say I can’t believe two folks did this type of bs response to your comment. its clear the OP and you were discussing casual use of things and not unhealthy levels especially since your original comment goes out of the way to mention moderation.
Eh. It be like that sometimes. Re-reading everything again, i was pretty clear in what I said in both the reply to the OP and comments back to them. They and anyone else wanting to take it as something contrary to what I actually wrote down (which itself isn’t rocket science) is on them, really.
OP didn’t imply thqt he was asking about it at an unhealthy level, so i responded to that.
Not always a matter of choosing yourself.
Problems can also form subconsciously.It’s not going to affect the life of the person viewing it unless said person lets it.
Does that apply to compulsive gamblers? “Unless said person lets it” is pretty presumptive and condemns people that may actually have a problem and no longer be able to conjure the willpower to stop whatever the negative habit is.
You’re speaking about a compulsive habit at that point, so no. That’s a completely different animal than what i meant.
I wrote the above along the lines of “Is the action bad in of itself? No. CAN it turn into a bad habit and hurt a person? Yes. All depends on the person interacting with it”
Like, as a former (recovering? Don’t drink anymore, besides, at best, 1 bottle at gatherings, if even that, and sometimes during hangouts) alcoholic, yeah I’ll call out when companies and other people try to enable someone with a drinking problem to keep going…but I’m also not gonna go around and say “all alcoholic beverages bad” because I recklessly abused something that is known to hurt the body if used without restraint and paid for it. Maybe it’s a poor comparison since porn can’t physically hurt you the way alcohol can (tho it can mentally warp a person in some ways, especially if they’re younger/have nobody to teach them properly about sexual education) but that’s the only example I can give and i hope i got my point across.
I didn’t say “all porn bad.” I in fact urged moderation.
i hope i got my point across
Since you had such an ungenerous interpretation of what I said, it’s fair game for me to say that claiming “it’s (porn in this case) not going to affect the life of the person viewing it unless said person lets it” is naively idealistic and does nothing to actually help anyone that might need help after getting stuck in a rut from excessive hedonic treadmill running, be it from porn or anything else.
So we’re basically saying the same thing about the subject then. Wonderful. Dunno how you got me saying “It’s not going to affect the life of the person viewing it unless said person lets it” to mean “it applies to people who damned themselves down this road willing and people who has an actual problem with it” in the context of OP’s question
Now, “Ungenerous interpretation of what [you] said” where, exactly?
You asked “does it include compulsive gamblers?”
And I answered No, because I answered the OP’s question from a general perspective–not asking as someone who already has a compulsive urge to masturbate/drink/gamble/whathaveyou. The first one can be affected either positively or negatively by something, if they let the habit control them vs the other way around, while the other’s already affected in a negative way, so i didn’t bother bringing them up. (Not even touching on the fact that it should be obvious, or well, at least it is to me, you CANNOT advise or help an addict in the same way you’re going to advise a person whose curious/a bit green on something they wanna try)
Wait, was it in my anecdote about me deing a drunk? If that’s the case, then there was a failure to communicate on my part and I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply that you said “all porn bad”, i said it to point out how distiling something that to a basic category like “all alcohol is bad” without the nuance of “it’s less the thing and more the different people interacting with the thing” to be…well, bad, and reductive because context matters.
Wonderful.
I didn’t think anything good would be likely to come after so much
that early in your reply.I kept reading.
Yeah I’m out. I quit Reddit for a reason.
Edit: I should preface this by saying I am approaching the question from the perspective of whether or not it is ethical due to the systemic abuse of women in the industry.
I have mixed feelings and would argue professional porn is, at least as it exists in the here and now, is completely exploitative on a systemic level.
If we move past that and limit the confines of the question to amateur/self-owned type paid porn: I would say it requires a society with healthy sex-ed in order for people to have a healthy relationship with porn on a societal level.
On the individual level, context matters a lot.
Personally, I think it should be temporarily banned until we fix the social problems that drive people into it.
I know it sucks for the people who have a healthy and consensual relationship with the industry, but as it is now sucks worse for the people who get exploited and abused.
Not only women are abused. Men and envy actors are harmed aswell. Basically most ‘low level’ people in the industry are, even porn stars. The ones pulling the strings are well off.
Good point, it’s less prevalent but still a huge thing. I only say this due to all the stories about “studios” that are basically abuse rings made by the men acting in the videos. There’s some fucked up shit going on in that industry.
Modern porn is a problem, firstly it teaches you a lot of wrong things and gives you a bad understanding of how sex should be and what it means to be a respectful participent in a sexual encounter.
Another problem is the disturbing amount of human suffering in the porn industry. So many abused and raped and you can never know which is which, heck you can’t even know if that “teen” is a 19 yo or a 15 yo since they will always say 18 but try to get the youngest possible.
There are healthy ways though, there is “ethical porn” (search it) which vets the actors and pays them fairly, it usually also is more soft and presents a much more realistic view of sex.
Just like any extremly rewarding action you should be careful not to get addicted to it.
P.S: don’t confuse porn with masturbation, two different subjects with different issues.
As a cis man I watch female friendly porn. I’m disturbed by all the step-porn.
It’s disturbingly common! I guess it’s just the current trend of “inappropriate relationship”, which used to be nurse/patient, teacher/student, boss/secretary, etc. It’s more pathetic (to me) to see the cast “acting” as family members than to pretend to be a certified teacher. I’ve got to assume they roll their eyes whenever the camera stops rolling.
Can cigarettes be used in a healthy way? Eh, only in very specific scenarios but those are generally the exceptions that prove the rule.
For most people, the best thing that porn can do for you is “not hurt you that bad.” Pornography certainly doesn’t promote health (porn and mastuabration are two different things), and you’d be hard-pressed to find a doctor or medical study that encourages pornography consumption. If you don’t need it, you’re not missing anything by not watching it, but if you do, be very careful of how much of it you watch, what type of content you find yourself watching, and be aware of the negative effects that pornography can have on mental and sexual development.
Comparing a carcinogen to a video.
Pp boy coming with generalizations and no actual facts or research
Can cigarettes be used in a healthy way? Eh, only in very specific scenarios
Gonna have to bite and ask what very specific scenarios smoking could be healthy?
Cigarettes aren’t the best treatment for anything and the potential benefits never outweigh the harm but cigarette smoking treats some types of ulcers, colitis, and a few other lower GI issues. It may also prevent or reduce the severity of Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s dementia, endometrium cancer, uterine fibrosis, and endometriosis. It also negatively correlates with DVT and may make you more likely to survive if you have a heart attack.
Probably should’ve said “nicotine” instead of cigarettes because the benefits only come from the nicotine. Nicotine is a mild stimulant that’s scientifically shown to have mood-boosting effects, even on non-smokers and can help relieve high blood pressure. Obviously it’s not the best at either of these, but those are some medically beneficial side-effects.
I mean yeah I vape, that makes sense because it wasn’t the nicotine itself which was killing my lungs.
Apparently nicotine itself is as bad for you as caffeine, the worst thing about it is it’s insanely addictive without giving much of a high or anything in return…
Gonna have to bite and ask what very specific scenarios smoking could be healthy?
For those times when someone points a gun at your head and says ‘smoke this or die.’
People are completely missing your point but I agree. It’s not beneficial. Even in the best case it’s just going to be neutral.
Well if you’re not aroused before and are aroused after, and your goal was to masturbate, that’s hardly neutral.
Well it’s positive from hedonistic point of view but so is getting high. I’d still claim that there’s no physical or psychological health benefits to it. In the best case it simply just doesn’t harm you.
For me, porn is not really worth it because I get addicted easily. Some people might be able to use it in a healthy way but Idk.
uh oh. This is one of those ‘not under capitalism things’.
I don’t think porn is necessarily unhealthy by itself. I can see how a youn teen can get a messed up world view from it, but any well-functioning adult shouldn’t be succeptible. As with literally everything, moderation and self-control is key.
Taps the sign about moderation
Everything in moderation including moderation
Wasn’t that a major reason for moving to Lemmy?
As an addict I’d say that it can’t be used in a healthy way. What I mean by that is that there’s no benefit to watching porn. That doesn’t mean it’s always going to be bad but that at best it’s neutral. If you can keep it under control and it doesn’t negatively affect your life in other ways then I don’t think you need to worry about it but it’s a slippery slope. If you take 100 people and give them access to porn I’d bet that the total effect is going to be a net-negative even though most of them are going to be more or less unaffected.
