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I will ask the same question that I've asked repeatedly: if porn is so bad and the NWO wants to get you addicted to it, then why do they make it so very difficult to distribute? Why does it seem like they're clamping down harder over time? Even pornhub can't take credit cards anymore, they only accept ACH transfers and crypto.
Porn (in the very broadest sense of the term) is one of the only authentically countercultural genres of art today, as evidenced by the severe institutional restrictions it faces. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Porn is inherently low status. Even in the 80s, being caught going into a porn store to rent a VHS was the height of embarrassment, made fun of on sitcoms etc.
It’s not just that horniness is embarrassing. The level of cringe was much greater that, say, merely catching your friend picking someone up at the bar for a one-night stand. The idea that you watch porn instead of actually getting laid makes you - in the eyes of much of society - a loser.
This is what really makes selling porn online so difficult to make profitable. Terms like “post nut clarity” (which, yes, has a real-world meaning but is most commonly used in relation to porn) speak to the shame of the whole enterprise. Men don’t want to feel like the kind of men who pay for porn.
There’s more deniability when it’s free. If I relentlessly make fun of Disney adults for 10 years and then go with my brother and his kids when they invite me along, my cognitive dissonance is limited. If I spend $300 for a ticket and rock up with Minnie Mouse ears and a rockabilly dress and a Snow White tattoo, I’m going to feel like a fucking loser.
Men don’t want to pay for porn because it makes them feel like losers. I don’t see why that’s not the obvious answer. When men had to pay to access it, more swallowed their pride. Now that it’s free and plentiful online, only the most committed coomers do.
Tangentially related but this paragraph reminded me of a passage from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:
Can't get away from ol' Lewis on this forum. I prefer Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg "Never be ashamed of who you are". Walk out of that porn store with your pocket pussy held high. It is the act of acting shameful that brings the scorn. Walk out to your Ferrari in a nice suit and people will even try to copy your bold pocket pussy purchase.
C.S. Lewis would probably agree as he was probably a bisexual if not gay
Your thesis was tested in the Sexual Revolution, and it seems to me that it's more or less bankrupt at this point. The tide isn't going the other way because Lewis Enthusiasts spammed Lewis quotes. It's going the other way because the results of the Sexual Revolution are so obviously, inescapably, unendurably wretched. You can argue either "Simping Is King Shit" or "It's your turn to swipe left" as much as you like; the percentage of people who not only aren't buying it but who are viscerally appalled by the evident results continues to rise organically and exponentially over time.
Shame is an innate and necessary part of the human mind. It's a warning alarm, and it exists to warn you of the existence of a serious problem. Turning off the alarm doesn't make the problem stop existing.
Shame is a low class cultural marker. If nothing is a threat to you then you have no shame. The rich and famous certainly have very little of it if it exists at all, mostly just a cultural nod to the lower classes when at that level, and you only feel it in defeat. It is a fear based emotion that only has the power you give it.
Shame is a human constant in all social classes.
No human has ever or will ever exist in a state where nothing is a threat to them.
For every shameless rich person, I can point to ten drug addicts shitting themselves on a sidewalk without apparent shame. Further, it seems to me that the absence of shame is the marker of defeat, when one is no longer even trying for goodness and virtue.
This at least is true, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, fear is a necessary and entirely rational response, because there are better states and worse states, and many of the worse states are extremely wretched. Rational fear is a motive force, a protective force. Its absence is a sign of insanity.
The drug addicts are on drugs and "have no choice". The rich guy cheating with 8 different mistresses only "feels shame" insofar as he is found out and it affects his status when they play it on the news. He doesn't feel a "natural shame" when he is fucking #6, or maybe he wouldn't do it. That dumb podcaster science guy being almost the perfect example.
That said, I agree with you personally, and I would never cheat on my wife, but I come on here to exercise the rational part of my brain, not the boyscout part. My behavior isn't always governed by reason. Nor is that the case for most people. But a perfectly rational actor would not feel it. I also have to disagree with the fear portion of your comment. Most is not warranted in this day and age, vestigial nonsense, like people who say they won't sit with their back to the door.
I think both the addict and the rich philanderer have, through their intentional choices, crippled their capacity to feel shame. I don't think this happens automatically; people who haven't intentionally crippled their own capacity for shame continue to feel it. Those who do cripple their capacity for shame in this way have damaged an important part of their own mind, making them less sane in a meaningful sense.
I would argue that the boyscout part is a subset of the rational part. Shame is deeply rational. Those who have crippled their capacity for shame are less rational, not more.
Some fears can be vestigial nonsense, depending on the specific environment. Fear itself remains rational, and always will so long as humans survive.
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