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Very interesting article! Thanks for sharing.
I think his conclusion at the end of the article is pretty reasonable- people who get obsessed with porn are not that different from people who get obsessed with any other sort of internet content. If you spend 6 hours watching tik tok or K-dramas or twitch streams, you'll also end up feeling physically drained and kind of gross.
But then it sounds like the people he talked to are not just passively consuming the content, they're actually producing it, by putting a lot of effort into editing and curating it. And they're a community, actively talking to each other, encouraging (?) each other, or competing for status. Pushing each other to new extremes. This might be the only community these peop have, since most people are disgusted by this stuff, and their lifestyle doesn't lead to making friends easily.
It often seems that any kind of hetero mens' sexuality is taboo in polite society. LGBT people can have their pride displays, women can "own their sexuality" as a form of feminism, and everyone encourages. But when men talk about theirs, it's considered gross or threatening.
And like... it is. I get it. i really don't want to hear other guys talk about their sex fantasies, even if it's the same as mine.
But maybe that's something we can all get used to. Spend enough time on places like 4chan or certain discords and you do get used to it, even in its most extreme forms. Maybe there's room in polite society to allow men to express their sexuality a bit more, but still restrained. A middle ground, so that we can express ourselves without resorting to these unlimited anything-goes online spaces of depravity.
The 20th century was in part defined by women gaining the social privileges of men.
Perhaps the 21st century will conversely be about men gaining the social privileges of women. (Arguably, that has already happened, it's just you need to be wearing a dress to invoke said privileges.)
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