Bans are a bad way of dealing with things that people in general enjoy and want to do as part of their recreational time and do no direct harm to anyone besides the person doing it.
They're much more effective at dealing with things that directly harm other people.
Even if I agreed that porn could be harmful to some people, that would not make 'one guy watches porn' an act that harms a third party the way that 'one guy punches another guy' is.
A derailing quibble but I'd argue that we have neither banned slavery nor actually effectively eliminated it. In the US they specifically carved out an exception for convicts. All we effectively banned was chattel slavery, the nastiest and most inhumane kind. But people, broadly, don't enslave others because they directly enjoy it, but rather to make money.
One could argue that it's similarly ineffective to try to regulate away harms people do directly in the pursuit of money, as to regulate away hazards presented by the existence of things people do for fun. I would argue that trying anyway is worthwhile in both cases but that bans of fun things are often worse than a waste of time.
Ignoring the fact that you are wrong, why are Art, Darat, Helen, The Common Potato and acbytesla wrong? - they do not think porn is stumbled upon (certainly not easily, anyway (they will CMIIW)).
No, you're wrong. Porn is not hard to find if you put in a typical search term for porn. But you have to put in the terms. People don't stumble on porn anymore. But pretty much any age can search for it.
i agree you have to specifically search for porn to find it, or at least hang around adult websites that run those kinds of ads. i think you can contrast that with things like tobacco or gambling as far as limiting what children are shown and even have access to on the internet and find porn is one of the more restricted adult activities
Whilst I accept not all the 38% will have been truthful, I think you are going to need a bit more evidence than that. My experience (as an adult) is that I also rarely come across explicit material. I think the nearest was on FBook because I joined a filmmaking group. I think children's experiences will be different and their curiosity will make them much more vulnerable.
Oh, when I was a kid, I stuimbled on porn; or rather, boys of my age, and a little older, showed me very explicit porn mags. No idea where they found them - there was an urban myth about stashes of porn in mysterious woods, but my bet is they filched them from older brothers or dads - but find them and show them they did. And in my teens, there were films at parties from time to time. I didn't really enjoy any of it, but each to their own (the written form was my thing as i've said before). It certainly didn't harm me. I've quite enjoyed the real thing.
I realise that this is only a single data point, but in my early youth I did indeed find some magazines of this nature beside the (suburban) railway tracks in my neighbourhood. And they were really awful hard stuff too. I’d probably be as shocked at their content if I stumbled across them now as I was then.
Speaking of education about porn, here's an interesting(?) and potentially educational video essay on the "smut for women" market in book publishing:
I find this video relevant to this thread, because it does suggest some implications for the question of "rape culture" in western society. It also suggests that there is a significant vector for getting porn to young people, especially women, that is being overlooked by Poem, and is being overlooked by everyone seeking to regulate online porn (especially "porn for men").
However, the author makes two major assumptions that are not examined in the video itself. They are taken as true premises, upon which the discussion is based. First, the author assumes that pornography does have detrimental effects on individuals, the more so the more it is consumed. These effects would include addiction, development of ever more extreme paraphilias, and even such unpleasant side effects as Pedophilia Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Second, the author assumes that women engage with written pornography the way men engage with visual pornography, and that women engage with pornography to a much greater degree when the smut is linked to a storyline. Thus, "spicy" romance literature for women is in structure, content, and effect just as pornographic for women as videos on the 'hub are for men. Further, because this porn vector is being overlooked by pretty much everyone except for publishers with profit motives, it's totally unregulated relative to the more familiar categories of "porn for men". And it's getting more extreme, more pornified, and increasingly marketed to younger and younger audiences.
Neither of these assumptions are supported in the video. The author alludes to studies showing the harms that porn causes, but does not really cite them. Verifying these claims is left as an exercise to the viewer.
Finally, coming back to the topic of the thread: One claim the author makes is that women don't start out with rape fetishes. They develop rape fetishes as they read more and more smut, become more and more desensitized, and seek out more and more extreme scenarios to titillate themselves.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting counterpoint to some of the claims and reasonings being discussed in this thread so far.
I'm a reader of some of that stuff, but in my experience it's not particularly an extreme envelope pushing kind of thing. I'm pushing fifty and my two favorite erotica genres are a) basically that ◊◊◊◊, and b) incredibly shmoorpy love drenched stuff. And much like actual filmed porn, my tastes have been about the same since shortly after I got interested in the stuff in the first place, several decades ago.
My suspicion is the 'unhealthy' relationship with things that aren't very literally addictive, comes more from being stuck in a bad situation with addictive habits than from whatever specific thing such a person points their need for escape/distraction at.
Speaking of education about porn, here's an interesting(?) and potentially educational video essay on the "smut for women" market in book publishing:
I find this video relevant to this thread, because it does suggest some implications for the question of "rape culture" in western society. It also suggests that there is a significant vector for getting porn to young people, especially women, that is being overlooked by Poem, and is being overlooked by everyone seeking to regulate online porn (especially "porn for men").
However, the author makes two major assumptions that are not examined in the video itself. They are taken as true premises, upon which the discussion is based. First, the author assumes that pornography does have detrimental effects on individuals, the more so the more it is consumed. These effects would include addiction, development of ever more extreme paraphilias, and even such unpleasant side effects as Pedophilia Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Second, the author assumes that women engage with written pornography the way men engage with visual pornography, and that women engage with pornography to a much greater degree when the smut is linked to a storyline. Thus, "spicy" romance literature for women is in structure, content, and effect just as pornographic for women as videos on the 'hub are for men. Further, because this porn vector is being overlooked by pretty much everyone except for publishers with profit motives, it's totally unregulated relative to the more familiar categories of "porn for men". And it's getting more extreme, more pornified, and increasingly marketed to younger and younger audiences.
Neither of these assumptions are supported in the video. The author alludes to studies showing the harms that porn causes, but does not really cite them. Verifying these claims is left as an exercise to the viewer.
Finally, coming back to the topic of the thread: One claim the author makes is that women don't start out with rape fetishes. They develop rape fetishes as they read more and more smut, become more and more desensitized, and seek out more and more extreme scenarios to titillate themselves.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting counterpoint to some of the claims and reasonings being discussed in this thread so far.
i agree you have to specifically search for porn to find it, or at least hang around adult websites that run those kinds of ads. i think you can contrast that with things like tobacco or gambling as far as limiting what children are shown and even have access to on the internet and find porn is one of the more restricted adult activities
You're pushing 50. The issue is readers who are pushing 15, and are already reading stuff that was never available to you, over the course of your reading career.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
www.theguardian.com
