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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32158 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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A big can of worms. This is why we should have stuck with properly interpreted obscenity laws (no, Japan's farcical censorship code does not count) and nipped this stuff in the bud. There would be no Mindgeek, no status quo where this stuff is part of popular culture and freely accessible. Nixon said it best I think:

The Commission contends that the proliferation of filthy books and plays has no lasting harmful effect on a man's character. If that were true, it must also be true that great books, great paintings, and great plays have no ennobling effect on a man's conduct. Centuries of civilization and 10 minutes of common sense tell us otherwise.

The Commission calls for the repeal of laws controlling smut for adults, while recommending continued restrictions on smut for children. In an open society, this proposal is untenable. If the level of filth rises in the adult community, the young people in our society cannot help but also be inundated by the flood.

Pornography can corrupt a society and a civilization. The people's elected representatives have the right and obligation to prevent that corruption.

The warped and brutal portrayal of sex in books, plays, magazines, and movies, if not halted and reversed, could poison the wellsprings of American and Western culture and civilization.

I'm fairly sure if Nixon were alive today, he would fully agree that the wellsprings of Western culture have been poisoned, in part by Mindgeek and co. Nobody wants to reproduce anymore, which in itself is enough to end civilization (not accounting for AI or life extension).

I'm pretty skeptical on the "people like porn too much and stopped fucking" theory; we're not the first society that's had easy access, and the variation in timeline for the TFR problem don't really line up well with any specific culture's sudden access to modern internet porn. (And, uh, pregnancy kink is common enough that The Gays sometimes get it.) It's tempting, and I can see the initial focus on it, but there's too many other potential drivers that seem more immediately connected.

I'm even more skeptical that, had humans reproduced by budding or like sqid, the philosophy of All Within The State would have not found some other problem or problems to solve first.

Are you a man? Do you have a partner? Do you watch porn? If yes to all three then I propose the following. Stop watching porn for 2 weeks and see how your relationship with sex changes.

For me, porn absolutely reduces the desire to have sex.

Yes to all three (though I do try not to watch porn). Trust me, it doesn't reduce my desire to have sex. It's an outlet at those times when I can't have sex, because I can't have sex.

I genuinely have no idea why anyone would prefer porn over sex. Availability aside, it is a strictly inferior substitute for the real thing. So based on my experience, no, I don't think availability of porn is causing people to have less sex.

I genuinely have no idea why anyone would prefer porn over sex.

Ease. No need to get your partner in the mood, no need to pleasure your partner, you get to focus solely on your own pleasure when you want to be pleasured and you're done when you want to be done.

I did say "availability aside". Yes, sex is harder to get - but when you can get it, it blows porn out of the water. That is why the "people are having less sex because of porn" hypothesis doesn't ring true to me, because that hypothesis basically says that people are willingly forgoing a superior experience for an inferior one.

Even if your partner is happy to have sex and all you need to do is ask, the reasons I listed are reasons why someone might not want to.

I disagree. I cannot envision someone seriously citing those reasons to not have sex in favor of having a wank. I certainly never would.

I don't get that much sex, but I don't find it as vastly pleasurable as you do. There's a decent chance that this is because I've wanked too much and have desensitized my penis, but whatever, it's reality now for me. If I had a partner who rarely would initiate sex, but would always say yes if I initiated- I imagine I'd have sex lots in the beginning of the relationship, then the experience would get a bit stale and I'd go down to a couple times a week.

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