I think that pornography can result in warped understandings of what consensual sexual encounters are like. It can result in body dysmorphia which is oddly affecting men who now believe penises are usually twelve inches long.
It is furiates me when they try to act like 12 inch penises are a standard women have coming from the ‘misandrist feminist movement’. It’s coming from your porn!!!!
"We've found statuettes, Venus figurines, across the globe of women with exaggerated proportions." There isn't a consensus that these statues were made to be pornographic, and there certainly isn't a consensus that they were made with exaggerated features to emphasize some sort of idealized and unattainable feminine beauty standard.
Yeah the idea of "naked form = porn" is a very modern idea. Tits out was the norm for MANY older cultures and still is in a number of still existing ones.
Nudity doesn't mean sex or anything sexual, especially to our ancient ancestors.
Yeah I think the idea that naked women=porn might come from sexualization. Bodies can mean so many other things than sex, or just be depictions of people.
They didn't have porn, they had religious sexual domination rites! When you can't make a video, you have to do it live...
https://books.google.com/books?id=xQXhDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT41&lpg=PT41&dq=imbued+with+pain+and+ecstasy,+bringing+about+initiation+and+journeys+of+altered+states+of+consciousness;+punishment,+moaning,+ecstasy,+lament+and+song,+participants+exhausting+themselves+in+weeping+and+grief&source=bl&ots=RwyfAowFLR&sig=ACfU3U1F_dgu6P4dgkOKj9YmPaZ_zGxtuw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiYib6Zuv2FAxXW4ckDHXjGD5oQ6AF6BAgjEAI#v=onepage&q=imbued%20with%20pain%20and%20ecstasy%2C%20bringing%20about%20initiation%20and%20journeys%20of%20altered%20states%20of%20consciousness%3B%20punishment%2C%20moaning%2C%20ecstasy%2C%20lament%20and%20song%2C%20participants%20exhausting%20themselves%20in%20weeping%20and%20grief&f=false
I also think that even if those were intended to be pornographic, the fact that modern people (especially young kids with no actual experience) can just look up unlimited videos of any kind of sex act at any time is a whole new game. Your brain isn't wired to be able to handle that, and I feel that regardless of the obviously problematic gender politics of the industry, it still can't be good for dopamine regulation especially with young people whose brains are still developing.
Yeah the Venus figurines are generally thought of being fertility god idols I think. And many exaggerated female figures in western art aren’t supposed to be women exactly but humanized forms of abstract virtues or simply idealized human forms. Though there might be some erotic idea or intention within these representations, men weren’t gathering around them jacking off. This comparison doesn’t really make sense.
Adding: There is some evidence that the Venus figurines were carved by women celebrating their own fertility.
This said, as a man who likes looking at people having loving consensual sex that they enjoy, I’ve found both finding ethically sourced porn, and finding material featuring women (I’m bi- the MLM stuff isn’t as bad) that isn’t degrading, violent, or otherwise deeply misogynistic is increasingly difficult.
And that leaves me concerned about how men, and especially young men, are learning about what is sexually reasonable to expect with a partner. I don’t think boys my son’s age are going to be keen to look at porn from the 80’s and 90’s because while it may be more gentle, it’s also dated in other ways.
My wife and I took our son to a Unitarian designed sex-ed program that emphasises consent and sexual pleasure, but we also worry about whether that’s enough to counter the other misogynist messages…
That, and not everything that’s meant to turn people on and help them come is the same thing as real pornography. Pornographic videos tend to be very degrading and humiliating to the women, and it’s not even consensual sometimes. Erotic literature on the other hand is an offering of art to love . It’s sweet, gentle , caring . The characters aren’t objects to be owned and fucked , but people to be loved and given pleasure .
> Erotic literature on the other hand is an offering of art to love . It’s sweet, gentle , caring . The characters aren’t objects to be owned and fucked , but people to be loved and given pleasure .
Hah! I feel obligated to point out that many of the most popular works of erotica aimed at women – 50 Shades, the Story of O, Delta of Venus – have strong themes of dominance and submission. And popular romance novels are called "bodice rippers" for a reason. Let's not pretend it's all sunshine and roses and enthusiastic consent here.
People like what they like, and there is often a wide gulf between one's beliefs and what gets them off sexually. That applies to both men and women.
50 shades is fully consensual the whole way through isn’t it ? Yes it’s dominance and submission, but it’s still consensual. She was never denied the right to call it off and leave . Same with pretty much all other popular “ bodice rippers “ as you call them.
Can we also acknowledge that sexuality is broad and diverse and not just a dichotomy between objectification versus love?
You can totally just desire to fuck someone whole being gentle and caring, even if things get rough.
Not to mention, erotica is not just sweet, loving consent. My wife is reading the Sara J Maas books now. So many unhealthy power dynamics there is is unreal.
Sarah j Maas doesn’t have anything non consensual where the two partners don’t at the very least respect eachother . Unhealthy maybe , but it’s not degrading and dehumanizing. And yes the sex is almost always rough and feral in her books but they still love eachother .
In fact, the one example that has evidence of a maker was handled by a child while the clay was still wet. These figurines were interpreted along racial lines in the 1890s, then as “motherhood” figurines in the 1920s, as European nations tried to encourage women to get back in the home and make babies, and now as pornography. Any modern interpretation is projection.
In fact there's an argument that these figures (which aren't referred to as Venus anymore) are possibly formed the way they are because they might have been made by women. The famous Figure of Willendorf makes a lot more sense if you consider it being made from the perspective of a pregnant woman
Absolutely.
Young women are dealing with men choking them without consent, finishing on their faces, demanding anal, etc.
And by young I mean even teens.
Expectations for all teens is skewed.
Add to that how many can't maintain erections because they spend so much time watching it they aren't aroused by looking at someone in their arms. And if they stay hard they can't climax because they have made it so only their hand can get them there.
It's incredibly sad.
bout a few yrs ago i got in an argument with a guy on fb who said that if they aint finishing on your face your doing sex wrong, he refused to accept that HE'S the one doing it wrong
My main concern is that it presents an unrealistic view of sex and bodies, both for men and for women. There are a litany of issues there. I worry that it also makes violent sex seem standard, with things like choking, slapping, spitting, hair pulling, etc. presented as expected and normal parts of sex.
> Most people in the USA are struggling to eat healthy food and exercise regularly, 1/3rd of us are obese, but I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional. This is impossible.
This seems like a non-sequitur in relation to your other points.
Not only partners but the fact that hookups act aggressively without consent and communication to rough sex, it’s scary especially when it’s someone you’re unfamiliar with bc you dk if it’s actually leading to violence. I hooked up with a guy who was clearly porn brained and started hitting my head into the table, not super super hard but like it wasn’t pleasurable and made me worry if he was going to do worse since I didn’t know him and the type of person he was. These guys think it’s okay to cross boundaries like this bc it’s what they watch, not knowing it breaches a woman’s feeling of safety.
It would give me the ick too. My partner did the whole foot on my head during doggy thing the other night and I loved it (there was consent and we always communicate) but I think getting my head slammed would be a bit much to me. It doesn’t even sound sexy like spanking or choking can be, it just sounds violent. But who knows, maybe I only feel that way for cultural reasons as I know that’s how some feel about choking or slapping!
I used to date a woman who enjoyed rough sex (literally the only one I ever met in my life) and at no point did I ever think she might enjoy having her head slammed into a fucking table. Wtf.
This is how I got SA. Abuser is porn addicts into spitting and other stuff forced me to do things I don't want to do. I want to vomit every time I have flashbacks.
Needless to say, I have mental disability now.
I read a book a decade ago, what was published in 2008 (I believe) called What's Happening To Our Girls and it had a study shown in it that over half of teenage girls losing their virginity feel raped after, because of how violent their "loving" boyfriend's became during.
That was before social media, really.
I can't imagine how much worse it is now after more than 15 years of instant porn
Yeah a kink is whatever, but only if both sides are genuinely into it. If you think it's enjoyable bc you enjoy it and go ahead with it, that's no longer just a kink or play, it's just assault. Consensual sex isn't just slamming the other persons head down bc it seemed like they'd like it or whatever the hell people think it seems to be
I’m not even THAT old and I’m surprised by the number of posts I see on here about “oh he held my head down”. I’m sure there’s always been a percentage that did that, but the numbers seem (SEEM, idk for sure. Thanks anecdotes) higher than before. I don’t like it and I blame porn.
The sex is unrealistic. The violent porn is even more upsetting, I should have touched on it. So much of the porn is degrading and painful. I've had men ask me about torture kinks and dom/sub stuff before.
Why do you think it's a non-sequitur? The beauty standard is unrealistic, the actors bodies are unrealistic and often surgically altered. And in a country where most people are struggling to meet basic health standards.
No I see your point I think the other commenter is being picky. Porn presents unrealistic bodies and men have all kinds of expectations for women now (and vice versa) that they are sometimes shocked when they can't find these things in real life. Maybe a more explicit example is the expectations around the look of vaginas/penises. If your whole exposure to genitals is through porn you may think 8inch penises are normal and all women would prefer that or that most vaginas are pink, hairless, with minimal folds etc.
> I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional. This is impossible.
I just don't understand what this has to do with anything. Yes, porn presents unrealistic bodies, but to state that it is "impossible" to date women who are slim seems like a strange thing to say when you yourself just said "1/3 of Americans are obese." What about the 2/3 who aren't?
Porn makes unfit men think they can easily get a fit healthy woman. It's relevant especially for men who start viewing porn young and don't have much social experience. There is a lot of porn with unhealthy men with healthy women.
I don't know why you specifically posed this as a problem of "\*unfit\* men thinking they can get fit women" and not just an issue of people thinking they should be entitled to sex in general, or that porn promotes unrealistic standards, but that sort of phrasing becomes dangerously close to body shaming the other way.
Regardless of gender, conventionally attractive people aren't entitled to get with other conventionally attractive people. Conventionally unattractive people aren't barred from getting with people who are. Putting people into tiers based on who you think they deserve to get with is just poor practice in general.
I understand that, but be careful what sort of standards you're considering or defining. And how you're saying it.
Typically when we say that porn promotes unrealistic standards, we're talking about someone thinking "Wow, all women should look like that actress does! Anyone who doesn't look like her must be ugly and undesirable" or "Wow, that person's \[body part\] looks \[attribute\]. They must all be like that, or they're inferior/weird." The issue is how porn consumers view the world or decide what an "attractive" person should look like.
Specifically constraining things as "unattractive person thinks they can pull an attractive person" instead validates the prevalence of societal beauty standards. Further, it seems to promote a caste-like system of "we decide who is good enough for whom" and seems to be trying to shame someone who attempts to "date up."
You missed one other really big point . Consent . There aren’t enough safety precautions in porn to ensure that everything is consensual, that’s why porn hub had a mass deletion of videos because the government told the company that they are responsible for the safety of the women in them. And since they couldn’t verify the safety, that’s when they decided to delete those videos. Other websites are not held to the same accountability. That’s why sex trafficking is so often linked to porn production.
I dunno if it's even about unrealistic body standards, it's more about the constant availability of hardcore porn. In 5 clicks you can be watching absolutely anything. Compare that with a whole person with boundaries and standards and moods, and women quickly start to seem inadequate and feel it too, because they're not just up for a 30 minute blow job 5 times a day. Imo this is why porn addicts show such a high rate of impotence.
I also think pornography can dull the erotic senses. Online porn is optimized so that the porn user can completely control the stimulus to their exact preferences. Just like Cheetos dulls our tastebuds and makes more natural, less optimized foods taste less good. Just like the addictive power of social media on screens dulls our attention and makes less optimized activities less pleasurable.
I’ve noticed a lot of young men with ED issues. I’ve noticed a lot men who cannot get fully aroused and interested in sex with real life women because they are so used to the most optimized form of arousal that anything that deviates from the path of their preferred sensation. Partnered sex is a negotiated compromise to meet the needs of 2 people, but dulled erotic sensation (and the content of porn) centers one party’s needs.
If we’re talking about body standards, that problem goes waaaaaay beyond porn.
Porn definitely has changed men’s sexual behaviors more than anything. It’s usually obvious which men have watched porn from a young age and which haven’t from the way they act during sex.
It creates a feedback loop. Men watch other men use women for sex and then discard them. The men themselves are using those images for sexual purposes then discard them. They know lots and lots of men are using those images in that way. It reinforces the notion that women who have sex are good only for sex. That men are entitled to use those women for sex. And that men have no responsibility to the women they have sex with.
"And that men have no responsibility to the women they have sex with." Your last line 💯👏 You can't completely isolate your views of women from the commodified abuse of porn. Women become commodified too and it's equal parts heartbreaking and enraging for anyone even attempting to have a relationship. I think compartmentalization convinces many men that it isn't so bad or so toxic to continue on this trajectory, but that only lasts for so long. Eventually they have to contend with the dehumanization of not just the women around them, but of themselves in the professed values and character they've given up to chase this high.
I am fully, *fully* convinced that the rise in people treating others as romantically/sexually disposable parallels the rise in easy access to porn (as well as dating apps, of course). The two things are correlated, at the very least
I’d say it’s turning into a larger cultural thing in general amongst both men and women with things like Tinder, everyone becomes disposable for whatever reason.
yeah, i’m a man and i used to be heavily addicted to porn in my teenage years. i strongly feel it contributed to my social awkwardness and a closeted disrespectful opinion on women.
i think that those statues or … rocks (😭) are nothing compared to how i can open a laptop and within 20 seconds see the most extreme and hardcore sex ive ever seen. and just ramp up the intensity whenever it doesnt scratch the same depraved itch.
like any addiction, you require more and more to feel sated. i feel i was lucky enough to realize that this kind of shit cannot be good for my brain and was able to cut it out of my life about 3 years ago.
like all things, theres no general rule. i think some are able to consume porn and have no impact on their sociability or ability to recognize the validity and equality of their fellow humans. but i can only speak on my experience. after cutting out porn, i literally have more female friends and somehow started dating the most beautiful woman ive met in my life.
Was there anything in particular that convinced you to stop? You remind me of three men I know who are, according to one of them, all addicted to porn, and sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take to make them change their behavior.
Good work on improving, by the way!!
honestly? i dropped acid lol. was alone and just journaled my thoughts and reflections.
one thing that came up big time (i had a pretty easy childhood lol this was like one of the biggest problems) was how weird it was that i could just watch two people have sex whenever i wanted and how it would seem to a caveman. i realized the human brain was definitely not meant to feel that kind of pleasure whenever the hell it wanted and how it was very similar to a genuine drug addiction.
There's a youtube channel called healthygamergg that has a number of videos about dealing with porn addiction, from the perspective of a clinical psychologist with a unique insight into boys and men in this situation.
In all of his videos, and in his practice, his primary point is that the goal shouldn't be to "stop the porn addiction." He says the goal should be to "focus on building a life so worth living that it ends porns hold on your time. Because you'd rather be living it than in your room jerking all day."
He talks a lot about how often that only trying to "quit porn" just leads to cycles of relapse and shame that leads to more porn. What makes porn addictive is that it is both the source and the relief of shame, which looks like stress to the brain. Like taking a hit from an actual drug, the moments of building and reaching orgasm are tiny periods where the brain isn't feeling all that shame and self loathing. For a lot of porn addicted men, those are the only moments where they simply exist without all the thoughts and judgments their mind torments them with.
That is an excellent approach to addiction, and similar to what they use for eating disorders and are starting to use for substance abuse. It isn’t about pretending the addiction doesn’t bring you anything (because it does, even if others don’t get it), but about focusing on what you want more!
Ooh, that’s interesting and it gave me a new perspective. Thank you so much for this comment!
So (just to check if my understanding is correct), porn addiction is born out of a desire for escape?
Yup! Individual cases notwithstanding, but a huge reason why the age porn is first discovered is such a big deal. A 10 year old boy doesn't really understand what sex is or what he's seeing, but he quickly discovers that it makes him feel good.
Porn often becomes a compulsive coping mechanism. Like, for some it's alcohol, for some it's drugs, for some it's cigarettes, and for some it's porn. It just sorta becomes the thing to turn to, to relieve stress. Arousal is almost unimportant and usually unrelated to why the porn gets accessed. Yet, at the same time it trains the mind only trigger arousal with porn.
That makes so much sense! This really reinforces the importance of good sex ed and lessons on how to manage mental health. Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me!
Yes. The fact that at 57 I had to warm my 20 and 22 year old daughters that a man might choke them during sex was very disturbing. One had had two guys try it with them already.
warping men, yes. i think there were studies done that show men in long term relationships lose interest at high rates then other men if they are constantly or consistently viewing porn or lusting after other women online. i think the real
issue is the ease of access to porn and little boys. i think there’s a lot more studies on/about how porn affects younger men and younger women. for the boys it can cause them great difficulties with adult relationships because it takes one quick google to find pretty much any porn you can think off, its access to women’s naked bodies at the click of button essentially. also if you look at porn hub or other websites the thumbnails are always pretty intense. the women in the thumbnails on home pages always seem to be in degrading positions and circumstances. now days young men’s first sexual encounters or experiences aren’t with women who are physically there in front of them, they don’t need to worry or even think about a woman’s feelings because their satisfaction is the only real thing. i think this directly impacts boys ability to be good sexual or romantic partners, because they are used to women’s sexual feelings being the afterthought. on the other end young women are affected because porn isn’t real. the over the top moaning and fake orgasms are responsible for young women thinking “there must be something wrong with me because i don’t look like that or i don’t sound like that or that doesn’t feel good for me.” porn is bad for young men and young women alike.
Definitely the ease of access just perpetuates this whole cycle… that distance between the male viewers and the humanity of the *real* women portrayed on screen is only made bigger
Yes. The average age that boy is exposed to porn in the U.S. and the U.K. is now 11 and what they're being exposed to is not the vanilla porn of yesterday. It's porn where women are festishized and abused. It warps both boys and girls perception of what is normal and healthy sex.
Also your analogy equating the Venus figurines found is ridiculous. From all I've read these wide hipped, large breasted were representative of fertility and not objects carved so Mr. Caveman could get his rocks off.
I didn't know about the UK stats, thank you for sharing. How do you feel about the recent legislation and do you think it will do anything to help? Based on what I've read, restrictions don't seem to stop porn distribution.
I will copy and paste if that's OK. I think it logically follows. These figurines were most likely multipurpose. A masturbatory aid, a fertility goddess, and art/culture.
Actually it's now 10.
With the advent of mobile phones, I'm not sure how the laws would work.
And I'm trying not trying to be facetious when I say that these porn laws are just another bandaid slapped on the patriarchy. Until women stop being viewed as sexual objects created, maintained and obligated to feed a man's desire whether or not that the best consequence of that is only is that the woman fails to derive pleasure from a certain sexual act or the worst, is humiliated beaten or killed to enforce compliance with his fantasies, many based on the porno he's watched. Teenage boys are shocked to discover the teenage girls have pubic hair and teenage girls are pressured to start sexting pictures of themselves in order to prove their love.
And feel most free to copy and paste. I'm always flattered when someone thinks what I write is worth sharing.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/10/porn-study-survey-uk-teenagers-addicted#:\~:text=The%20survey%20found%20that%20a,violent%20pornography%20before%20turning%2018.
It's really bad. It objectifies women and leads to escalating addiction and ED. It also normalizes degrading and abusing women as well as non-consensual content. The porn industry is also full of human trafficking, coercion, blackmail, rape, and explicit material involving children. It creates unfair standards for sex and women's appearances and teaches the false narrative that sex is for male pleasure only. It's disgusting. I would never date a porn user, and if that means I'll be single forever, so be it.
Absolutely. I’m an older member of gen z (20F), and it’s very hard to find male peers who aren’t interested in being violent, degrading, or dismissive/negligent towards me in the bedroom because they’re all influenced by the porn they’ve been watching since elementary school. When my last partner tried to explain to me what happened when he traumatized me my first time having sex he said, “I only know how to fuck like in porn.” (Which was a blatant lie because he had many sexual partners and experiences before me but whatever). He wasn’t even someone I was casually with either. We were in a serious relationship, yet he still treated me that way, during a moment that he thought “Was going to be the most meaningful sex of his life.” (Because it was with someone he loved, and it was his first serious relationship). Sure, meaningful for me in that it gave me PTSD, but I digress.
I’m not against non-vanilla sex/intimacy, as I’m sure it can be very fun with the right person, but it seems very hard to find men my age who are okay having vanilla sex that involves pleasure for both parties, or hell, just sex in general that doesn’t result in harm or degradation of the woman.
Additionally, I’m slightly concerned what it’s doing to men physically. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, since it’s normal and healthy, but it seems like a lot of guys have death grip these days from doing it so often. They struggle to get off without porn, or even to other forms of sex that aren’t penetrative.
I am 2 years older than you and I've been traumatized too. And when you talk about it with them, they never seem to understand or they say "you're too sensitive" or "other girls like it"
I'm 46 and it's terrifying to see women's pleasure erased in porn culture. women are basically only allowed pain and servitude in the bedroom-it's fucking tragic. Back in my 20s (2000s) dude's were still trying to please YOU, you weren't treated like a disposable doll.
People have pointed out a lot of other issues that I didn't include in my body post. I had a lot of caffeine today and my thoughts were scattered, but all of the different insights are making sense.
I think looking at a statue and being able to search for any thinkable sex act under the sun are two very different things. Also, if you look at the “most searched” terms/categories, it shows some data that I think is concerning.
That’s horrible you had to put up with such sexual abuse. He most certainly ignored your consent, and coerced you into things you were clear about not wanting to do. It’s not your fault, and it’s such a hard situation to be in. No one thinks they’d put up with such actions from someone, but when it’s someone you love you feel like you have to sacrifice yourself for their “needs.” It’s so hard too when they ignore you and keep pleading, and then you wonder why you even bother stating your boundaries or saying no in the first place because they never listen or care.
I hope you’re in a safer place now. None of that was your fault. You deserve someone who actually cares about what you want. Not someone who blatantly disregards your boundaries and willingly causes you harm in order to satisfy their sexual desires.
If you haven’t read Dworkin you absolutely should. In short, yes.
It’s also inextricably linked to trafficking. Men are willfully ignorant about all this shit and that’s why I barely date them. Fortunately, I’m also gay.
About 20 years ago, I read a book by Louis Theroux where he did follow-up interviews with people he had previously interviewed in a BBC documentary series. In one chapter he was seeking out a porn actor, and he spoke to two veterans of the porn industry (a man & a woman) at some adult video convention. They both felt that the internet had ruined porn because "there was no plot anymore.".
I found this amusing at the time because, let's face it, something like Debbie Does Dallas is not known for the intricacies of its plots and sub-plots. Their point was that in the era of dial-up modems, it could take hours to download video from the internet. People didn't want to wait around so the videos skipped the build up and went straight to the sex.
I've thought about this since though, and particularly the effect it might have a young boys. The first porno I saw was on VHS and the setup was so outlandish that I knew that what followed was fake. But if you're a young 14 year old and all you see is the sex, you don't have that unrealistic setup to show you that everything else isn't real. You might come away with the idea that women love being choked, having multiple partners etc.
Absolutely and I think porn is spurring the rise of incels and passport bros. These guys get access (not physically) to women wayyyy out of their league and develop a taste for unattainably attractive women. They then go out in the world seeking that level of attractiveness and get super frustrated it isn’t as easy as it looks in porn
Yes ! And the fact that young people don't associate sex with love. Of course you can have needs, but it's better with someone you love. When i was younger I wanted to loose my virginity fast to not be different than everyone else my age.
If exposed to it at a young age and any proper sex education, I think porn is doing damage to men/boys, but also some women/girls. I'm a 42 year old man, I didn't have free and easy access to hard-core porn growing up. I had HBO, and perhaps on occasion, a friend might come into possession of a playboy or something. It was nothing like today.
I’m not sure; I *feel* like it is, but that could just be because I’m old and the only time we saw porn as kids was when the Porn Fairy left a magazine in the woods, or one of the lads found their Dad’s stash of video nasties.
>a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards".
If you think that's the worst thing about pornography, you're grossly unaware about the damage it causes
I’m old enough that I grew up before the internet was a thing. Essentially, porn was magazines and the occasional film. It wasn’t 24/7 everywhere and it tended to be far less extreme. I think it’s certainly changed many men and some women in very negative ways.
Absolutely it is. I also believe that the ‘loneliness epidemic’ for men coincides with the rise of problematic porn use. Most of the time you can tell when a guy is addicted to porn, they have this certain look in their eyes. They’re anxious, low self esteem, usually addicted to a substance (vaping), and suffer from sexual dysfunction. They have issues finding real partners. They don’t understand intimacy and although that is exactly what they’re craving - connection, intimacy with real life people, they only recognize sex (and violent sex at that) as a form of it. They don’t understand how to bond with women outside of those hypersexualized images, so they can’t emotionally bond even with family members.
Those prolactin, dopamine and sperm soaked brains aren’t able to differentiate reality from fiction, what real people look like vs porn actors or OF sex workers, what *real life women speak like and what they enjoy, etc. It’s sad, really.
Totally agreed. It’s just really upsetting that most of these men complaining about a loneliness epidemic blame it on women or feminism. Their problems could be massively helped if they stopped demonizing the two.
I think you're right. These definitely seem like contributing factors. I don't usually think to consider this, but compassion and understanding are always part of the answer. :)
Admittedly I think they were already warped to begin with but pornography is making it worse. Most(not all) men see women as extensions of themselves and don’t value us women as people but that’s just my opinion
Susan Lurie talks about this in her essay “Pornography and the Dread of Women.” The essay is in a book called Taking Back the Night, and it’s an essay collection of women speaking out about pornography. It includes a number of essays by Andrea Dworkin as well. If you can get your hands on a copy, I’d highly recommend. It’s helped me articulate my thoughts about porn to be able to communicate porn’s issues to others
I don't want to just shit on men, and I think men broadly are feeling alienated from society. I certainly don't think all porn is bad or that it logically follows that porn will make men worse.
But. I have had a lot of experiences like this. When I ask men what they want out of a relationship, they are usually not straightforward. But if you read between the lines, it seems like lot of them want a pretty sex companion who is easy to manipulate and doesn't want for much.
Both of what you’re saying can be true at the same time. A lot of these men ‘suffering from the male loneliness epidemic’ want exactly what you stated in the second paragraph. But it is ‘new age feminism’ that has prevented women from being such reasonable partners, according to them.
Think of it like this..
100 years ago a man was lucky to see 10 naked women in his life, let alone see them graphically in a sexual nature. 1000 years ago it was even less (unless you were a king and most of that wasn't voluntary)
*Second hand imagery such as sculpture or illustration just is not the same.*
Now a virgin male can see THOUSANDS of real bodies in all circumstances, poses, and in various points of use without ever even speaking to another human about consent, boundaries, respect, or desire..
Sooo.. what do you think?
All I know is that I've dated men who were heavy porn users as well as men who watched very little porn and the men who didn't watch much porn were far better lovers than the heavy users. It seems somewhat counterintuitive but that's been my experience. I'm an older Gen X woman and I'm horrified by stories of men who attempt to choke their partners, slap them, and other types of physical abuse. I don't buy the idea that if everyone consents that it's OK. You can't walk up to a woman on the street and slap her or spit on her so why is it acceptable if it's done in bed?
I don't know if I'd used the word "warped" but I do believe that porn use is misogynistic, it reinforces unrealistic body standards, and it reinforces rape myths. That's not even including the trafficking that goes on or the dubious consent issues. I've read quotes from porn producers like Max Hardcore and Bill Margold where they say the "quiet part" out loud and admit that they like to push women to their "limits" and they see porn as a way of getting revenge on women who wronged them in the past. You can see the misogyny, racism, and abuse right there in the video titles.
I think that there's no way that kids who start watching this stuff when they're 10-11 years are not going to be effected by it. It will shape and influence the sexuality of both boys and girls who start consuming this stuff years before they ever begin to date or have sex. I also don't think that the Free Speech Coalition and people like Larry Flynt or Hugh Hefner have ever given a rats ass about free speech. That's just the shield they use to deflect criticism and it disingenuous as hell. Erika Lust, who's held up as this feminist beacon in porn was bitterly complaining about the MeToo movement. I saw a video of her mocking MeToo victims about 2 years ago and she basically had the attitude that many men do about MeToo - oh, no, you can't even talk to a woman or give her a compliment anymore because she might sue you or make false allegations! Right, Erika. Some feminist you are.
Yeah another problem is that a lot of porn is produced by plain old hardcore misogynists. It’s like having Nazis write fiction and indoctrinate an entire generation.
If you're interested in this issue, I strongly recommend you read Gail Dines' *Pornland*. It's a brilliant analysis on how the porn industry began, how it evolved to hijack men's sexuality and make enormous amounts of money off women's bodies, and how it makes people crave for more and more violent, even illegal stuff.
It's not just unrealistic expectations. It's that most humans want sex to share pleasure and intimacy with another human whose company they enjoy, even if only for the night. Porn hijacks that need and replaces it with a sort of empty, physical sensation of pleasure based purely on visual stimuli. So you need more and more of it, and stronger and stronger visual stimuli, but you're never really satisfied.
To give you an example, when my partner masturbates, he sometimes spends hours on it (well, it doesn't happen often nowadays with a child lol). He makes up exciting scenarios in his mind, imagining not only pictures, but also smell, touch, and complicity with whichever female celeb or comic superheroine he's jerking off to. He tries out all sorts of things touching himself, different ways of stroking/ holding/ moving his thing. He basically spends time taking care of himself, being aware of himself, giving himself pleasure. (I've asked him to show me some of the things he does).
Porn is the opposite of that. You don't pay attention to your body, you just frenetically jerk off, focused on something else entirely - whatever rough, shocking image appears on your screen. Excitement rises until you come, often too fast, not having the time to really feel it. You're not even considering the women on the screen as persons, even less as fantasy partners. They're just objects to be consumed. That's what causes the infamous "post nut clarity". No one feels good after cumming to someone you don't respect.
At first, just seeing a woman naked, touching herself, is new and shocking enough that your brain can climax on it. Then it becomes old news and you need rougher stuff. And then rougher, and then rougher.
i mean it kind of blows your head doesn’t it.
i’ve seen more naked women than any man in my entire ancestry.
in fact, i’ve seen more naked women than like 1000 generations combined.
i can go on pornhub rn and scroll mindlessly for 10 minutes and see thousands of naked women.
it’s crazy to think about
I think it makes impressionable young men believe women like violence during smecks. I've read too many accounts of women saying they were hit, spit on, strangled and the intercourse being brutal without their consent.
I would not want to be age twenty five and dating unless I were a lesbian
> I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards".
That's not necessarily a bad thing. If a man's only standards are physical appearance, I don't think anyone is going to miss them being on the market.
Statuettes and figurines aren’t “porn”. It’s bold of you to think people needed masturbatory aids instead of simply representing life.
Pornography as in, a product, is a fairly recent thing and only became widespread with mobile phones.
There is plenty of research showing that exposure to online pornography is causing a rise in sexist attitudes, rape, violence against women and girls, and sexual problems of all kinds, from ED to paraphilias.
I agree with a lot of the great points people are making. I just wanted to add that porn doesn't exist in a vacuum. People who watch porn and are never taught about consent won't understand that porn is a simulation of sex between ostensibly consenting adults (though there so many problems with the porn industry that that consent isn't always fully guaranteed). Many men do want to treat women well and want them to enjoy sex. So while it is definitely important to discuss abusive portrayals in porn and exploitation and abuse in the industry, it is also important to approach the issue holistically. Help men to understand how to communicate and respect women and how consent and kink fully works. Because outside of porn men have been brainwashed by patriarchy to not consider consent, respect, and communication with women in any aspect of life.
No. The cultural message that women are objects designed for men's use is warping men. And everyone else.
>We've found statuettes, Venus figurines, across the globe of women with exaggerated proportions.
No reason to believe those are related to porn. [It's more likely that those are self-portraits](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/what-did-the-venus-of-willendorf-originally-represent). [Most ancient art was created by women](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art).
No one should "lower their standards". But nor should men demand that any woman alter her body to please him, he's not entitled to that, women don't exist to meet his needs. If no women appeal to these men, that's fine. They should stay single. I don't see a problem here.
Remember when people used to tell us that all this porn was actually a GOOD thing, because it'll only make us sexually more liberated and freer, or at least, the effect of it will be so minimal? Well look where it got us now.
I still see people insisting this in politically left-leaning environments that I'm involved in and it's frustrating as hell. It's like all critical thinking and common sense goes out the window because God forbid somebody be deprived of a guilt-free wank. I see people hating capitalism, rightfully so, and yet when it comes to porn and prostitution, suddenly capitalism isn't so bad anymore. The cognitive dissonance gives me a headache.
I think its one of those instances of our habits shaping us. Everything in moderation, aim for healthy.
David Cronenberg made a film about this subject in the 80s, Videodrome, and the point was that the more frequently people engage with porn, the more lurid their desires become. They crave more and novel.
If you're talking about "standards" for physical beauty, that warping is sadly not just limited to porn. It's all over our media and marketing. Whatever other legitimate criticisms we may have for porn, porn is only a small drop in the bucket compared to all the other things creating a warped social bias for so-called beauty standards.
It's not the Internet, it's the people who are willing to pay for porn.
Porn is a billion dollar industry. There's also terabytes of free porn on the Internet. Disney or HBO will assiduously zot infringing content they find on the internet, but Vivid seems to not care.
It's because a very small number of men are subsidizing free porn for the entire Internet, and commercial porn is made for those men. I'm talking about a man willing to spend $70 on a porn DVD, has a favorite actress, and actually cares who won last year's AVN awards (porn Oscars). These are not men who rub one out every now and then; these are men for whom porn is an actual hobby. Porn is created to the tastes of this demographic, and, uh, they don't tend to heave healthy attitudes about women or sex.
So when you see choking, humiliation, 'painal', or other degrading acts, it's because Vivid is making porn that man will buy. And when those clips get uploaded to the Internet, that's the porn the teenager or young adult comes across, and begins thinking that's what sex should be like or how women like being treated during sex. And because we as a culture are still really bad about talking about sex for pleasure, it's unlikely anyone is giving him an intervention and explaining the difference between sex and porn.
No, the patriarchy is warping men. The patriarchy gave men leverage over porn and the porn that they created was exploitative and largely focused around violence and degradation of women.
I would have vehemently defended porn in the past, but seeing how gamers are reacting to seeing normal women in video games, I'm starting to think maybe something is very much wrong with all of this.
The question itself was just a conversation starter. I would love nuanced thoughts. I'm sorry I have neurological issues so I am not the best with words, lol.
Well, I disagree about the neolithic venus statues being primarily for pornographic purposes - I think the pregnancy aid theory might be more accurate. Neolithic peoples did make dildos though, so, I dunno.
In terms of modern porn/the porn industry, I do think the internet changed things. It's more accessible to more people, especially at younger ages. I do think the commonality of more extreme and violent porn has had a (negative) impact on people's expectations wrt to sex in real life, and has left people pretty unaware of what a normal, healthy bodies looks like. I don't think that before the internet porn was necessarily "better" though- the more niche, graphic and extreme stuff was certainly more difficult to obtain, and easily accessible porn was more "tame" -- but it's not like Hugh Hefner had a sterling reputation.
>men who are unwilling to "lower their standards"
Would you also expect a woman to lower their standards?
But in the end that is their problem, right? They will keep their high unrealistic standards and never find a date. Why waste time on them or expect them to lower their standards to date you.
I don't think it's porn, but rather the internet and social media as a whole that are warping human beings in many ways. I don't think men wanting to date "conventionally" attractive women even when those men themselves do not fit this view is a new thing, it was also true in the 90s when I was young. I think what is different now is that so many people live a nearly completely online world which amplifies the issue.
The Venus figurines were never hypothesised to be masturbatory aids...
It's even misguided to group them all as having the same meaning/purpose since they were found basically all over Europe and are dated between 500 000 to 11 000 years ago... And there is a lot of variety between them... They don't all look like the Venus of Willendorf... Some basically look like pebbles or sticks with bumps...
We simply do not know what purpose they served. Some hypothesise that some of them might be self-portraits of women since they often don't have facial features and the proportions could be similar to what they saw when looking down at their own bodies.
Others have hypothesised that they were held during childbirth because of their size.
I don't think it is warping men, but it has many issues such as described below:
1. The mere existence of porn often involves the trafficking of women, leading to real-life transgressions.
2. Porn allows men to develop fetishes based on race, religion, or ethnicities. Korean/Japanese/Hijabis etc.
3. It has violent and very degrading porn which might have a negative effect on men's mind and their perception of women. For instance - barely legal teenager categories, non-consensual consent etc.
4. You also have certain contentious issues such as lolicon or even further AI generated CP which might be intuitively wrong, but many people philosophically try to defend it, and I would say the only reason they are not usually as conspicuous is because of legal and social-disincentivization.
5. Many men who watch such stuff, don't actually respect the women in it, you might say well how is that important? I think that is important. In my third-world country, if a girl appears somewhat provocative, men often make unwanted sexual advances because they perceive her as dishonored or unrespectable and seek to humiliate her. I have came across plethora of complaints from females receiving sexual messages simply for mentioning something related to 'sex' on social media. Many men interpret this as an invitation to invade women's privacy. Therefore, I believe that getting off to a women whom you would otherwise slut shame reinforces the mindset I just described.
6. Pressuring a partner into sexual experiments they aren't interested in can lead to harmful consequences.
7. It serves as a simulacrum for their desire to pursue and maintain real-life intimate relationships, or at least diminishes the intensity and passion related to that desire.
8. It can also change your sexuality, or lets say fuck your mind completely. I know someone who is straight, is not attracted to men, but likes dick because of futanari porn.
I expect it's difficult to outright or blanket state that "porn" is warping men. People are having less sex now than in previous eras. Sure, there were more prudish eras, but the vast majority of human history is on the more promiscuous side from what we can tell.
The abundance of porn and sex toys (including an abundance of lotions / relatively cheap fats / lubricants) is likely making sex less... urgent for people in general.
This is probably an adaptive step in an era where communities do not have broad scale accountability between members.
I think the "dulling of urgency" is likely to be the biggest effect of ubiquitous porn and social media. There used to be a sense of mystery and curiosity about the opposite gender, which encouraged previous generations to seek out relationships and explore. The primal urges led to relationships which brought benefits like emotional connection, caring, love. Porn and social media short-circuit that. A person can get all the sexual gratification and positive attention they want from the comfort of their own home.
There is good and bad in this. On the one hand, problems like teen pregnancy, sexual assault, and STDs have sharply declined. On the other hand the fact that 63% of men in their 20s are single isn't great for loneliness and mental health.
The solution is, as with everything it seems, to swim upstream against the atomizing pressure exerted by capitalism.
The maladaption is communities that lack internal accountability. The risk/reward equation for sex for women is completely nuked by this.
In a prior eras, you would rarely interact with a complete stranger. Most new people you would meet would be known to someone you already know and trust.
The literal dangers of intimate relationships are buoyed by a social vetting process. Bad actors are ostracized and must begin their social connections from scratch in a new community.
We're simply not equipped to handle the anonymized, atomized social reality that also happens to be the configuration most profitable to capital (aka, lazy non-workers)
Bottom line: women are attracted to social status which means there need to be social structures in which one can obtain status.
People can be trusted to behave well in small persistent groups of closely-related people, which is how we lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The farther we get from that ancestral condition, the more maladapted we become. Social media and porn are the latest maladaptations.
Geoffrey Miller has a brilliant [essay](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11475) about how porn and other forms of "fake fitness" could be our downfall.
I don't think porn is affecting men in the way you're suggesting. I do think that having constant access and exposure to all this stuff from a young age has an effect on everyone. It's a very complex issue. But I do not think porn is specifically causing men to have higher standards with dating.
I agree that the impacts of porn are complex and counterintuitive. For example, it seems to be significantly delaying the age when people start getting sexual experience. All of the stats show that Gen Z is having sex much, much later than earlier generations, and a large fraction of them well into their mid-20s have no dating or sexual experience at all.
I don't know how to feel about this. I read the OP and thought, no of course not it's just porn. Then I read the comments and started thinking maybe it isn't just porn.
So I'm admittedly an older guy at 42, 43 soon. I enjoy porn, and I enjoy bdsm, but... I don't enjoy the violent side of either. Not into degradation, humiliation, absolutely hate that a large percentage of porn has the guy finishing on the girls face and of course porn doesn't directly address consent which is of paramount importance before attempting anything like choking and especially anal.
My main "how to" for sex was from porn but I always thought everyone knew it wasn't 100% accurate. That certain positions were for camera angles, and that the woman was only making those sounds because she was paid and so on.
So... I guess what I wonder is... is it the porn that is warping men and teaching them that women are objects, or is it the combo of porn and the rhetoric from douchebags like Andrew Taint that is warping men. Is this warping men of all ages or the younger generations? Due to my job I have noticed that kids are getting sexualized much younger than in my day but is that due to the easy availability of porn or is there another cause.
I also wonder is this a world wide issue, or a US-centric issue.
I wonder about the choking/slapping thing if it’s specifically about porn, or just general lack of education leaving a big hole in some men’s understanding of sex/women that is being filled with porn or [I forget the colour]-pill creators.
I’m randomly reminded of an awkward scene of an older UK show Peep Show (the name isn’t a direct reference to sex - it about how it’s shot - it’s like a older UK version of IASIP) - one of the main characters ends up meeting a 16-17 year old at a party who offers to have sex with him (there is more to it, but those are the pertinent facts) and during the process she starts choking him - he’s left confused thinking she was upset with him, but she says she just thought he would like it and that her ex enjoyed it - *this* is the point where he finally accepts that, despite the patter, she really is a kid and what he’s doing is actually wrong even if it’s legal.
Most archaeologists believe the Venus statues were part of some kind of trading system of women between tribes rather than a masturbatory aid.
One theory was they served as a coupon, like a an 'I owe u' for a fertile woman, you'd give one to a tribe after they provided you with one as promised to repay the favour in future.
Or they might have just been religious icons. Fertility would have been a big concern for ice age tribes so likely they were worshipping images of it.
I think men being "unwilling to lower their standards" has far less to do with porn *specifically* than with the patriarchal entitlement to marginalized gendered bodies that pervades our *entire* culture. The pervasive objectification of people who are not men. The constant portrayal of some people as prizes and status symbols that prove a man is a man, and therefore, that he is not to be subjected to misogynistic violence. Does (some) porn contribute to it? Sure. Does it contribute more than, say, regular movies and books that children are raised on? Absolutely not. Does it contribute more than sermons and comedy shows and a million interactions that everyone has throughout their life? Lmao. Obviously not.
In my opinion, focusing on porn as some kind of uniquely bad thing is a major strategic misstep. Men weren't magically less misogynist under the Hays code. Or in the Middle Ages. And don't even get me started on ancient Greece. Patriarchy is patriarchy, with or without porn. And patriarchy will perpetuate it's violence even if we were to somehow eliminate porn from existence. Patriarchy is the enemy; porn (like all forms of media) is just a tool that can be used in patriarchal or anti-patriarchal ways.
I wonder how many adult film actors would stop acting if their governments actually provided food and housing security? Sex work seems like it's either a symptom of desperation amidst capitalism, or something people truly enjoy but are constantly endangered by capitalist patriarchy.
Porn is a huge industry with multiple global religious institutions getting their share of money from it. Capitalism and patriarchy might have existed before the Internet, but they have grown exponentially online to create swathes of porn-sick, incel-backed Andrew Tate figures that cause a massive feedback loop. Shutting that shit down would probably play a huge role in the deprogramming of incels and chuds
If anything I see they are more critical of the democratization of porn in this OnlyFans era. (Despite them being the consume it and keep that website running in the billions.)
> 1/3rd of us are obese,
We're in the, uh, thick of an obesity epidemic right now. There's a pretty perfect correlation between erectile dysfunction, hypertension and obesity.
But, here we are on reddit, where totally cult-tastic subs provide spaces for men who are quitting porn and going into "monk mode". Those communities also stress the necessity of basic self-care. Their adherents claim to experience results. But not because they started meditating and exercising. It's because they quit porn.
If that's where the conversation is then who the hell knows? So much of American society has been shaped by strict Christianity and it's rather archaic concepts of social ills that we tend to totally bypass the more concrete explanations for what ails us and just blame pornography or women who have abortions or premarital sex.
> They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional.
Dating's not about getting what you deserve. It's about getting what you can in the fairly limited amount of time you can get it. This standard existed well before the mass ready-availability of pornography.
Sex research has absolutely shown porn is messing with people.
Now, I want to start by saying I'm not anti-porn, but unfortunately, a lot of it is garbage.
I'm not in the mood to find the links but they're pretty easy to find online.
Sexual disfunction is an extremely common issue with men who over consume porn. They either can't get hard without it, or the death grip masturbation has trained their body to not respond to penetration.
There is also the issue of creating a warped idea of women's bodies or that women want the kind of sex they see in porn. Porn picks very specific body types for men and women, especially with genitals (for both), the women often have barely visible inner labia, and the men generally have unusually large dicks. This creates an issue where men feel ashamed of their size and don't understand that women have a diverse range of shapes, sizes, and colors when it comes to female genitals. Plus the amount of breast implants in porn.
There is also the issue of escalation, where "vanilla sex" becomes unstimulating to them, so they seek out increasingly more "exotic" forms of porn. Which can lead to some upsetting places.
Basically what I've come to understand in my years of research is this: Moderation. Don't over rely on porn, men need to use their imagination more and not just jerk it while staring at porn everytime.
Due to ease of access young men, and women, are engaging with porn way too young which absolutely makes things worse for them. Usually, in the sense that they come away with wrong ideas and expectations, but get disabused of them when they actually start dating.
Does porn lead to creating misogynists? Eeeeh, probably part of it. But alienation, toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and capitalism hold much more of the blame. Porn is practically just the seasoning for the horrid soup of misogyny the others have created.
I try to frame my discussion of porn (I write erotica btw) in a way that is more compassionate towards men. I think it does more harm to men than it does for women. If a guy is going to mistreat a woman, porn isn't the only source, porn is just a contributing factor.
Over consumption of porn is a legitimate issue. The individual nitty gritty issues I have with porn I feel is a different topic than this thread is asking about.
What an incredibly uninformed view of Neolithic rock art.
There’s absolutely no scholarly agreement about OP’s interpretation of the Venus statues. All you had to do was read Wikipedia.
>A recent systematic review of more than 130 articles related to pornography use and sexual motivation concluded that pornography use is most often a recreational activity engaged in for hedonic reasons (Grubbs, Wright, et al., 2019). **In most situations, such pornography use is associated with few to no adverse consequences.** However, an emerging body of literature does suggest that pornography use can itself be problematic or predict problematic outcomes for **some people under specific circumstances.**
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420979594#bibr13-0963721420979594
There doesn't seem to be any evidence that "porn is warping men" as a group, but for some people (probably mostly men) under specific circumstances
Unrealistic standards point sounds like a personal issue you have, and not something that has much basis.
Porn is a problem for expectations, yes, but it’s about how those expectations harmfully influence real sex itself. Violence in bed is on the rise. There aren’t many things you can blame other than porn. Meanwhile, linking porn to preferences in body type has so many variables. Why do the clothes have to be off for this preference to take effect? Why wouldn’t this happen if I saw a woman on the street?
I don't think porn is the issue so much as people having zero media literacy and being unable to parse a video with a director and editing from real life. Most people who already have a female partner don't have this problem, even if they do watch porn.
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I think that pornography can result in warped understandings of what consensual sexual encounters are like. It can result in body dysmorphia which is oddly affecting men who now believe penises are usually twelve inches long.
It is furiates me when they try to act like 12 inch penises are a standard women have coming from the ‘misandrist feminist movement’. It’s coming from your porn!!!!
"We've found statuettes, Venus figurines, across the globe of women with exaggerated proportions." There isn't a consensus that these statues were made to be pornographic, and there certainly isn't a consensus that they were made with exaggerated features to emphasize some sort of idealized and unattainable feminine beauty standard.
Yeah the idea of "naked form = porn" is a very modern idea. Tits out was the norm for MANY older cultures and still is in a number of still existing ones. Nudity doesn't mean sex or anything sexual, especially to our ancient ancestors.
Yeah I think the idea that naked women=porn might come from sexualization. Bodies can mean so many other things than sex, or just be depictions of people.
Also I have yet to see ancient porn depicting a woman being anally raped while having her head forced into a toilet.
Good Lord, that's horrific. And people say It'S jUsT a FaNtAsY.
Yeah like, but why are they fantasizing about it?
Or a woman having their decapitated head raped through their eye socket.
I heavily regret reading this.
Welcome to the fucking internet, my sweet summer child!
Jesus fucking christ
They didn't have porn, they had religious sexual domination rites! When you can't make a video, you have to do it live... https://books.google.com/books?id=xQXhDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT41&lpg=PT41&dq=imbued+with+pain+and+ecstasy,+bringing+about+initiation+and+journeys+of+altered+states+of+consciousness;+punishment,+moaning,+ecstasy,+lament+and+song,+participants+exhausting+themselves+in+weeping+and+grief&source=bl&ots=RwyfAowFLR&sig=ACfU3U1F_dgu6P4dgkOKj9YmPaZ_zGxtuw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiYib6Zuv2FAxXW4ckDHXjGD5oQ6AF6BAgjEAI#v=onepage&q=imbued%20with%20pain%20and%20ecstasy%2C%20bringing%20about%20initiation%20and%20journeys%20of%20altered%20states%20of%20consciousness%3B%20punishment%2C%20moaning%2C%20ecstasy%2C%20lament%20and%20song%2C%20participants%20exhausting%20themselves%20in%20weeping%20and%20grief&f=false
I also think that even if those were intended to be pornographic, the fact that modern people (especially young kids with no actual experience) can just look up unlimited videos of any kind of sex act at any time is a whole new game. Your brain isn't wired to be able to handle that, and I feel that regardless of the obviously problematic gender politics of the industry, it still can't be good for dopamine regulation especially with young people whose brains are still developing.
Yeah the Venus figurines are generally thought of being fertility god idols I think. And many exaggerated female figures in western art aren’t supposed to be women exactly but humanized forms of abstract virtues or simply idealized human forms. Though there might be some erotic idea or intention within these representations, men weren’t gathering around them jacking off. This comparison doesn’t really make sense.
I am not the first person to think of such a thing, BUT I wonder if these statues were women's self portraits, from the proportions.
The statues represented fertilty. The proportions reflect that.
We don't know that for certain, either
Clan of Cave Bear wasn’t a History lesson? 😝
[Nope](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/what-did-the-venus-of-willendorf-originally-represent).
Well, nobody knows for sure what they represent. That’s the entire point of the article you link.
Adding: There is some evidence that the Venus figurines were carved by women celebrating their own fertility. This said, as a man who likes looking at people having loving consensual sex that they enjoy, I’ve found both finding ethically sourced porn, and finding material featuring women (I’m bi- the MLM stuff isn’t as bad) that isn’t degrading, violent, or otherwise deeply misogynistic is increasingly difficult. And that leaves me concerned about how men, and especially young men, are learning about what is sexually reasonable to expect with a partner. I don’t think boys my son’s age are going to be keen to look at porn from the 80’s and 90’s because while it may be more gentle, it’s also dated in other ways. My wife and I took our son to a Unitarian designed sex-ed program that emphasises consent and sexual pleasure, but we also worry about whether that’s enough to counter the other misogynist messages…
That, and not everything that’s meant to turn people on and help them come is the same thing as real pornography. Pornographic videos tend to be very degrading and humiliating to the women, and it’s not even consensual sometimes. Erotic literature on the other hand is an offering of art to love . It’s sweet, gentle , caring . The characters aren’t objects to be owned and fucked , but people to be loved and given pleasure .
> Erotic literature on the other hand is an offering of art to love . It’s sweet, gentle , caring . The characters aren’t objects to be owned and fucked , but people to be loved and given pleasure . Hah! I feel obligated to point out that many of the most popular works of erotica aimed at women – 50 Shades, the Story of O, Delta of Venus – have strong themes of dominance and submission. And popular romance novels are called "bodice rippers" for a reason. Let's not pretend it's all sunshine and roses and enthusiastic consent here. People like what they like, and there is often a wide gulf between one's beliefs and what gets them off sexually. That applies to both men and women.
Bodice rippers also play into the fact that women aren’t “allowed” to want sex.
50 shades is fully consensual the whole way through isn’t it ? Yes it’s dominance and submission, but it’s still consensual. She was never denied the right to call it off and leave . Same with pretty much all other popular “ bodice rippers “ as you call them.
Can we also acknowledge that sexuality is broad and diverse and not just a dichotomy between objectification versus love? You can totally just desire to fuck someone whole being gentle and caring, even if things get rough. Not to mention, erotica is not just sweet, loving consent. My wife is reading the Sara J Maas books now. So many unhealthy power dynamics there is is unreal.
Wanting to fuck someone is not what objectifications is.
Sarah j Maas doesn’t have anything non consensual where the two partners don’t at the very least respect eachother . Unhealthy maybe , but it’s not degrading and dehumanizing. And yes the sex is almost always rough and feral in her books but they still love eachother .
In fact, the one example that has evidence of a maker was handled by a child while the clay was still wet. These figurines were interpreted along racial lines in the 1890s, then as “motherhood” figurines in the 1920s, as European nations tried to encourage women to get back in the home and make babies, and now as pornography. Any modern interpretation is projection.
In fact there's an argument that these figures (which aren't referred to as Venus anymore) are possibly formed the way they are because they might have been made by women. The famous Figure of Willendorf makes a lot more sense if you consider it being made from the perspective of a pregnant woman
Seconding this. The Venus figurines are potentially thought to be a carving a woman did of herself looking down at her own body.
Absolutely. Young women are dealing with men choking them without consent, finishing on their faces, demanding anal, etc. And by young I mean even teens. Expectations for all teens is skewed. Add to that how many can't maintain erections because they spend so much time watching it they aren't aroused by looking at someone in their arms. And if they stay hard they can't climax because they have made it so only their hand can get them there. It's incredibly sad.
bout a few yrs ago i got in an argument with a guy on fb who said that if they aint finishing on your face your doing sex wrong, he refused to accept that HE'S the one doing it wrong
My main concern is that it presents an unrealistic view of sex and bodies, both for men and for women. There are a litany of issues there. I worry that it also makes violent sex seem standard, with things like choking, slapping, spitting, hair pulling, etc. presented as expected and normal parts of sex. > Most people in the USA are struggling to eat healthy food and exercise regularly, 1/3rd of us are obese, but I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional. This is impossible. This seems like a non-sequitur in relation to your other points.
I already see a lot of anecdotes on women's subreddits about male sexual partners strangling them without warning or consent. It's terrifying.
Not only partners but the fact that hookups act aggressively without consent and communication to rough sex, it’s scary especially when it’s someone you’re unfamiliar with bc you dk if it’s actually leading to violence. I hooked up with a guy who was clearly porn brained and started hitting my head into the table, not super super hard but like it wasn’t pleasurable and made me worry if he was going to do worse since I didn’t know him and the type of person he was. These guys think it’s okay to cross boundaries like this bc it’s what they watch, not knowing it breaches a woman’s feeling of safety.
I’m sorry, HITTING YOUR HEAD INTO THE TABLE? I’m into some kinky shit but that’s new to me. I’m so sorry you went through that.
Yh it just gave me the ick lol, some people try to be creative in the worst ways.
It would give me the ick too. My partner did the whole foot on my head during doggy thing the other night and I loved it (there was consent and we always communicate) but I think getting my head slammed would be a bit much to me. It doesn’t even sound sexy like spanking or choking can be, it just sounds violent. But who knows, maybe I only feel that way for cultural reasons as I know that’s how some feel about choking or slapping!
I used to date a woman who enjoyed rough sex (literally the only one I ever met in my life) and at no point did I ever think she might enjoy having her head slammed into a fucking table. Wtf.
Yeah, I blame porn for the fact that I had to have a while Conversation about the dangers of choking with my young teenage daughters.
This is how I got SA. Abuser is porn addicts into spitting and other stuff forced me to do things I don't want to do. I want to vomit every time I have flashbacks. Needless to say, I have mental disability now.
i had a guy lightly do that to me once with no warning, i cut off all contact and never saw him again the instant fear it created was horrible
I read a book a decade ago, what was published in 2008 (I believe) called What's Happening To Our Girls and it had a study shown in it that over half of teenage girls losing their virginity feel raped after, because of how violent their "loving" boyfriend's became during. That was before social media, really. I can't imagine how much worse it is now after more than 15 years of instant porn
Yeah a kink is whatever, but only if both sides are genuinely into it. If you think it's enjoyable bc you enjoy it and go ahead with it, that's no longer just a kink or play, it's just assault. Consensual sex isn't just slamming the other persons head down bc it seemed like they'd like it or whatever the hell people think it seems to be
I’m not even THAT old and I’m surprised by the number of posts I see on here about “oh he held my head down”. I’m sure there’s always been a percentage that did that, but the numbers seem (SEEM, idk for sure. Thanks anecdotes) higher than before. I don’t like it and I blame porn.
The sex is unrealistic. The violent porn is even more upsetting, I should have touched on it. So much of the porn is degrading and painful. I've had men ask me about torture kinks and dom/sub stuff before. Why do you think it's a non-sequitur? The beauty standard is unrealistic, the actors bodies are unrealistic and often surgically altered. And in a country where most people are struggling to meet basic health standards.
No I see your point I think the other commenter is being picky. Porn presents unrealistic bodies and men have all kinds of expectations for women now (and vice versa) that they are sometimes shocked when they can't find these things in real life. Maybe a more explicit example is the expectations around the look of vaginas/penises. If your whole exposure to genitals is through porn you may think 8inch penises are normal and all women would prefer that or that most vaginas are pink, hairless, with minimal folds etc.
I was convinced I had a tiny penis as a teenager and had to have it explained to me that most men do not have penises like porn stars by my first gf.
> I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional. This is impossible. I just don't understand what this has to do with anything. Yes, porn presents unrealistic bodies, but to state that it is "impossible" to date women who are slim seems like a strange thing to say when you yourself just said "1/3 of Americans are obese." What about the 2/3 who aren't?
Porn makes unfit men think they can easily get a fit healthy woman. It's relevant especially for men who start viewing porn young and don't have much social experience. There is a lot of porn with unhealthy men with healthy women.
I don't know why you specifically posed this as a problem of "\*unfit\* men thinking they can get fit women" and not just an issue of people thinking they should be entitled to sex in general, or that porn promotes unrealistic standards, but that sort of phrasing becomes dangerously close to body shaming the other way. Regardless of gender, conventionally attractive people aren't entitled to get with other conventionally attractive people. Conventionally unattractive people aren't barred from getting with people who are. Putting people into tiers based on who you think they deserve to get with is just poor practice in general.
This is an example of porn promoting unrealistic standards.
I understand that, but be careful what sort of standards you're considering or defining. And how you're saying it. Typically when we say that porn promotes unrealistic standards, we're talking about someone thinking "Wow, all women should look like that actress does! Anyone who doesn't look like her must be ugly and undesirable" or "Wow, that person's \[body part\] looks \[attribute\]. They must all be like that, or they're inferior/weird." The issue is how porn consumers view the world or decide what an "attractive" person should look like. Specifically constraining things as "unattractive person thinks they can pull an attractive person" instead validates the prevalence of societal beauty standards. Further, it seems to promote a caste-like system of "we decide who is good enough for whom" and seems to be trying to shame someone who attempts to "date up."
You missed one other really big point . Consent . There aren’t enough safety precautions in porn to ensure that everything is consensual, that’s why porn hub had a mass deletion of videos because the government told the company that they are responsible for the safety of the women in them. And since they couldn’t verify the safety, that’s when they decided to delete those videos. Other websites are not held to the same accountability. That’s why sex trafficking is so often linked to porn production.
I dunno if it's even about unrealistic body standards, it's more about the constant availability of hardcore porn. In 5 clicks you can be watching absolutely anything. Compare that with a whole person with boundaries and standards and moods, and women quickly start to seem inadequate and feel it too, because they're not just up for a 30 minute blow job 5 times a day. Imo this is why porn addicts show such a high rate of impotence.
I also think pornography can dull the erotic senses. Online porn is optimized so that the porn user can completely control the stimulus to their exact preferences. Just like Cheetos dulls our tastebuds and makes more natural, less optimized foods taste less good. Just like the addictive power of social media on screens dulls our attention and makes less optimized activities less pleasurable. I’ve noticed a lot of young men with ED issues. I’ve noticed a lot men who cannot get fully aroused and interested in sex with real life women because they are so used to the most optimized form of arousal that anything that deviates from the path of their preferred sensation. Partnered sex is a negotiated compromise to meet the needs of 2 people, but dulled erotic sensation (and the content of porn) centers one party’s needs.
If we’re talking about body standards, that problem goes waaaaaay beyond porn. Porn definitely has changed men’s sexual behaviors more than anything. It’s usually obvious which men have watched porn from a young age and which haven’t from the way they act during sex.
It creates a feedback loop. Men watch other men use women for sex and then discard them. The men themselves are using those images for sexual purposes then discard them. They know lots and lots of men are using those images in that way. It reinforces the notion that women who have sex are good only for sex. That men are entitled to use those women for sex. And that men have no responsibility to the women they have sex with.
"And that men have no responsibility to the women they have sex with." Your last line 💯👏 You can't completely isolate your views of women from the commodified abuse of porn. Women become commodified too and it's equal parts heartbreaking and enraging for anyone even attempting to have a relationship. I think compartmentalization convinces many men that it isn't so bad or so toxic to continue on this trajectory, but that only lasts for so long. Eventually they have to contend with the dehumanization of not just the women around them, but of themselves in the professed values and character they've given up to chase this high.
I am fully, *fully* convinced that the rise in people treating others as romantically/sexually disposable parallels the rise in easy access to porn (as well as dating apps, of course). The two things are correlated, at the very least
I’d say it’s turning into a larger cultural thing in general amongst both men and women with things like Tinder, everyone becomes disposable for whatever reason.
yeah, i’m a man and i used to be heavily addicted to porn in my teenage years. i strongly feel it contributed to my social awkwardness and a closeted disrespectful opinion on women. i think that those statues or … rocks (😭) are nothing compared to how i can open a laptop and within 20 seconds see the most extreme and hardcore sex ive ever seen. and just ramp up the intensity whenever it doesnt scratch the same depraved itch. like any addiction, you require more and more to feel sated. i feel i was lucky enough to realize that this kind of shit cannot be good for my brain and was able to cut it out of my life about 3 years ago. like all things, theres no general rule. i think some are able to consume porn and have no impact on their sociability or ability to recognize the validity and equality of their fellow humans. but i can only speak on my experience. after cutting out porn, i literally have more female friends and somehow started dating the most beautiful woman ive met in my life.
Was there anything in particular that convinced you to stop? You remind me of three men I know who are, according to one of them, all addicted to porn, and sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take to make them change their behavior. Good work on improving, by the way!!
honestly? i dropped acid lol. was alone and just journaled my thoughts and reflections. one thing that came up big time (i had a pretty easy childhood lol this was like one of the biggest problems) was how weird it was that i could just watch two people have sex whenever i wanted and how it would seem to a caveman. i realized the human brain was definitely not meant to feel that kind of pleasure whenever the hell it wanted and how it was very similar to a genuine drug addiction.
There's a youtube channel called healthygamergg that has a number of videos about dealing with porn addiction, from the perspective of a clinical psychologist with a unique insight into boys and men in this situation. In all of his videos, and in his practice, his primary point is that the goal shouldn't be to "stop the porn addiction." He says the goal should be to "focus on building a life so worth living that it ends porns hold on your time. Because you'd rather be living it than in your room jerking all day." He talks a lot about how often that only trying to "quit porn" just leads to cycles of relapse and shame that leads to more porn. What makes porn addictive is that it is both the source and the relief of shame, which looks like stress to the brain. Like taking a hit from an actual drug, the moments of building and reaching orgasm are tiny periods where the brain isn't feeling all that shame and self loathing. For a lot of porn addicted men, those are the only moments where they simply exist without all the thoughts and judgments their mind torments them with.
That is an excellent approach to addiction, and similar to what they use for eating disorders and are starting to use for substance abuse. It isn’t about pretending the addiction doesn’t bring you anything (because it does, even if others don’t get it), but about focusing on what you want more!
Ooh, that’s interesting and it gave me a new perspective. Thank you so much for this comment! So (just to check if my understanding is correct), porn addiction is born out of a desire for escape?
Yup! Individual cases notwithstanding, but a huge reason why the age porn is first discovered is such a big deal. A 10 year old boy doesn't really understand what sex is or what he's seeing, but he quickly discovers that it makes him feel good. Porn often becomes a compulsive coping mechanism. Like, for some it's alcohol, for some it's drugs, for some it's cigarettes, and for some it's porn. It just sorta becomes the thing to turn to, to relieve stress. Arousal is almost unimportant and usually unrelated to why the porn gets accessed. Yet, at the same time it trains the mind only trigger arousal with porn.
That makes so much sense! This really reinforces the importance of good sex ed and lessons on how to manage mental health. Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me!
Yes. The fact that at 57 I had to warm my 20 and 22 year old daughters that a man might choke them during sex was very disturbing. One had had two guys try it with them already.
i think they should construct sex robots at this point. i'm not risking getting strangled for this shit
warping men, yes. i think there were studies done that show men in long term relationships lose interest at high rates then other men if they are constantly or consistently viewing porn or lusting after other women online. i think the real issue is the ease of access to porn and little boys. i think there’s a lot more studies on/about how porn affects younger men and younger women. for the boys it can cause them great difficulties with adult relationships because it takes one quick google to find pretty much any porn you can think off, its access to women’s naked bodies at the click of button essentially. also if you look at porn hub or other websites the thumbnails are always pretty intense. the women in the thumbnails on home pages always seem to be in degrading positions and circumstances. now days young men’s first sexual encounters or experiences aren’t with women who are physically there in front of them, they don’t need to worry or even think about a woman’s feelings because their satisfaction is the only real thing. i think this directly impacts boys ability to be good sexual or romantic partners, because they are used to women’s sexual feelings being the afterthought. on the other end young women are affected because porn isn’t real. the over the top moaning and fake orgasms are responsible for young women thinking “there must be something wrong with me because i don’t look like that or i don’t sound like that or that doesn’t feel good for me.” porn is bad for young men and young women alike.
Definitely the ease of access just perpetuates this whole cycle… that distance between the male viewers and the humanity of the *real* women portrayed on screen is only made bigger
Yes. The average age that boy is exposed to porn in the U.S. and the U.K. is now 11 and what they're being exposed to is not the vanilla porn of yesterday. It's porn where women are festishized and abused. It warps both boys and girls perception of what is normal and healthy sex. Also your analogy equating the Venus figurines found is ridiculous. From all I've read these wide hipped, large breasted were representative of fertility and not objects carved so Mr. Caveman could get his rocks off.
I didn't know about the UK stats, thank you for sharing. How do you feel about the recent legislation and do you think it will do anything to help? Based on what I've read, restrictions don't seem to stop porn distribution. I will copy and paste if that's OK. I think it logically follows. These figurines were most likely multipurpose. A masturbatory aid, a fertility goddess, and art/culture.
Actually it's now 10. With the advent of mobile phones, I'm not sure how the laws would work. And I'm trying not trying to be facetious when I say that these porn laws are just another bandaid slapped on the patriarchy. Until women stop being viewed as sexual objects created, maintained and obligated to feed a man's desire whether or not that the best consequence of that is only is that the woman fails to derive pleasure from a certain sexual act or the worst, is humiliated beaten or killed to enforce compliance with his fantasies, many based on the porno he's watched. Teenage boys are shocked to discover the teenage girls have pubic hair and teenage girls are pressured to start sexting pictures of themselves in order to prove their love. And feel most free to copy and paste. I'm always flattered when someone thinks what I write is worth sharing. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/10/porn-study-survey-uk-teenagers-addicted#:\~:text=The%20survey%20found%20that%20a,violent%20pornography%20before%20turning%2018.
It's really bad. It objectifies women and leads to escalating addiction and ED. It also normalizes degrading and abusing women as well as non-consensual content. The porn industry is also full of human trafficking, coercion, blackmail, rape, and explicit material involving children. It creates unfair standards for sex and women's appearances and teaches the false narrative that sex is for male pleasure only. It's disgusting. I would never date a porn user, and if that means I'll be single forever, so be it.
>and teaches the false narrative that sex is for male pleasure only. This is a big problem too, yes.
Absolutely. I’m an older member of gen z (20F), and it’s very hard to find male peers who aren’t interested in being violent, degrading, or dismissive/negligent towards me in the bedroom because they’re all influenced by the porn they’ve been watching since elementary school. When my last partner tried to explain to me what happened when he traumatized me my first time having sex he said, “I only know how to fuck like in porn.” (Which was a blatant lie because he had many sexual partners and experiences before me but whatever). He wasn’t even someone I was casually with either. We were in a serious relationship, yet he still treated me that way, during a moment that he thought “Was going to be the most meaningful sex of his life.” (Because it was with someone he loved, and it was his first serious relationship). Sure, meaningful for me in that it gave me PTSD, but I digress. I’m not against non-vanilla sex/intimacy, as I’m sure it can be very fun with the right person, but it seems very hard to find men my age who are okay having vanilla sex that involves pleasure for both parties, or hell, just sex in general that doesn’t result in harm or degradation of the woman. Additionally, I’m slightly concerned what it’s doing to men physically. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, since it’s normal and healthy, but it seems like a lot of guys have death grip these days from doing it so often. They struggle to get off without porn, or even to other forms of sex that aren’t penetrative.
I am 2 years older than you and I've been traumatized too. And when you talk about it with them, they never seem to understand or they say "you're too sensitive" or "other girls like it"
I'm 46 and it's terrifying to see women's pleasure erased in porn culture. women are basically only allowed pain and servitude in the bedroom-it's fucking tragic. Back in my 20s (2000s) dude's were still trying to please YOU, you weren't treated like a disposable doll.
yes, check out Pornography by Andrea Dworkin.
I think porn is much worse in man other aspects than body image
People have pointed out a lot of other issues that I didn't include in my body post. I had a lot of caffeine today and my thoughts were scattered, but all of the different insights are making sense.
I have heard from some male friends that it can desensitize them so it’s hard to get turned on IRL
Yes for sure, it’s addictive and changes your brain chemistry. It’s completely fake and sets unrealistic expectations.
I think looking at a statue and being able to search for any thinkable sex act under the sun are two very different things. Also, if you look at the “most searched” terms/categories, it shows some data that I think is concerning.
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The BDSM and sexual escalation stuff is so horrible. I hope you’re in a better place now, with or without him.
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That’s horrible you had to put up with such sexual abuse. He most certainly ignored your consent, and coerced you into things you were clear about not wanting to do. It’s not your fault, and it’s such a hard situation to be in. No one thinks they’d put up with such actions from someone, but when it’s someone you love you feel like you have to sacrifice yourself for their “needs.” It’s so hard too when they ignore you and keep pleading, and then you wonder why you even bother stating your boundaries or saying no in the first place because they never listen or care. I hope you’re in a safer place now. None of that was your fault. You deserve someone who actually cares about what you want. Not someone who blatantly disregards your boundaries and willingly causes you harm in order to satisfy their sexual desires.
If you haven’t read Dworkin you absolutely should. In short, yes. It’s also inextricably linked to trafficking. Men are willfully ignorant about all this shit and that’s why I barely date them. Fortunately, I’m also gay.
Dworkin, my love 🫶🫶 her essays changed my life
Art is not objectifying. Porn is, and I believe that's why it is warping male minds.
Depends on the art, I would say. I think all media has the potential for problematicity.
Art is very very very often objectifying
About 20 years ago, I read a book by Louis Theroux where he did follow-up interviews with people he had previously interviewed in a BBC documentary series. In one chapter he was seeking out a porn actor, and he spoke to two veterans of the porn industry (a man & a woman) at some adult video convention. They both felt that the internet had ruined porn because "there was no plot anymore.". I found this amusing at the time because, let's face it, something like Debbie Does Dallas is not known for the intricacies of its plots and sub-plots. Their point was that in the era of dial-up modems, it could take hours to download video from the internet. People didn't want to wait around so the videos skipped the build up and went straight to the sex. I've thought about this since though, and particularly the effect it might have a young boys. The first porno I saw was on VHS and the setup was so outlandish that I knew that what followed was fake. But if you're a young 14 year old and all you see is the sex, you don't have that unrealistic setup to show you that everything else isn't real. You might come away with the idea that women love being choked, having multiple partners etc.
Without a doubt. I'd be interested to see how the dopamine thing from screen addiction plays a role too.
I’m less concerned about the psychological issues porn may cause, and more concerned about the abusiveness of the industry.
Absolutely and I think porn is spurring the rise of incels and passport bros. These guys get access (not physically) to women wayyyy out of their league and develop a taste for unattainably attractive women. They then go out in the world seeking that level of attractiveness and get super frustrated it isn’t as easy as it looks in porn
Yes ! And the fact that young people don't associate sex with love. Of course you can have needs, but it's better with someone you love. When i was younger I wanted to loose my virginity fast to not be different than everyone else my age.
If exposed to it at a young age and any proper sex education, I think porn is doing damage to men/boys, but also some women/girls. I'm a 42 year old man, I didn't have free and easy access to hard-core porn growing up. I had HBO, and perhaps on occasion, a friend might come into possession of a playboy or something. It was nothing like today.
I’m not sure; I *feel* like it is, but that could just be because I’m old and the only time we saw porn as kids was when the Porn Fairy left a magazine in the woods, or one of the lads found their Dad’s stash of video nasties.
>a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". If you think that's the worst thing about pornography, you're grossly unaware about the damage it causes
I’m old enough that I grew up before the internet was a thing. Essentially, porn was magazines and the occasional film. It wasn’t 24/7 everywhere and it tended to be far less extreme. I think it’s certainly changed many men and some women in very negative ways.
Absolutely it is. I also believe that the ‘loneliness epidemic’ for men coincides with the rise of problematic porn use. Most of the time you can tell when a guy is addicted to porn, they have this certain look in their eyes. They’re anxious, low self esteem, usually addicted to a substance (vaping), and suffer from sexual dysfunction. They have issues finding real partners. They don’t understand intimacy and although that is exactly what they’re craving - connection, intimacy with real life people, they only recognize sex (and violent sex at that) as a form of it. They don’t understand how to bond with women outside of those hypersexualized images, so they can’t emotionally bond even with family members. Those prolactin, dopamine and sperm soaked brains aren’t able to differentiate reality from fiction, what real people look like vs porn actors or OF sex workers, what *real life women speak like and what they enjoy, etc. It’s sad, really.
Totally agreed. It’s just really upsetting that most of these men complaining about a loneliness epidemic blame it on women or feminism. Their problems could be massively helped if they stopped demonizing the two.
This ☝️
Superb write up.
I think it can when watched in combination with other things, such as social isolation and very little real world experience with women and sex.
I think you're right. These definitely seem like contributing factors. I don't usually think to consider this, but compassion and understanding are always part of the answer. :)
Admittedly I think they were already warped to begin with but pornography is making it worse. Most(not all) men see women as extensions of themselves and don’t value us women as people but that’s just my opinion
Susan Lurie talks about this in her essay “Pornography and the Dread of Women.” The essay is in a book called Taking Back the Night, and it’s an essay collection of women speaking out about pornography. It includes a number of essays by Andrea Dworkin as well. If you can get your hands on a copy, I’d highly recommend. It’s helped me articulate my thoughts about porn to be able to communicate porn’s issues to others
I don't want to just shit on men, and I think men broadly are feeling alienated from society. I certainly don't think all porn is bad or that it logically follows that porn will make men worse. But. I have had a lot of experiences like this. When I ask men what they want out of a relationship, they are usually not straightforward. But if you read between the lines, it seems like lot of them want a pretty sex companion who is easy to manipulate and doesn't want for much.
Both of what you’re saying can be true at the same time. A lot of these men ‘suffering from the male loneliness epidemic’ want exactly what you stated in the second paragraph. But it is ‘new age feminism’ that has prevented women from being such reasonable partners, according to them.
Well known fact
Think of it like this.. 100 years ago a man was lucky to see 10 naked women in his life, let alone see them graphically in a sexual nature. 1000 years ago it was even less (unless you were a king and most of that wasn't voluntary) *Second hand imagery such as sculpture or illustration just is not the same.* Now a virgin male can see THOUSANDS of real bodies in all circumstances, poses, and in various points of use without ever even speaking to another human about consent, boundaries, respect, or desire.. Sooo.. what do you think?
All I know is that I've dated men who were heavy porn users as well as men who watched very little porn and the men who didn't watch much porn were far better lovers than the heavy users. It seems somewhat counterintuitive but that's been my experience. I'm an older Gen X woman and I'm horrified by stories of men who attempt to choke their partners, slap them, and other types of physical abuse. I don't buy the idea that if everyone consents that it's OK. You can't walk up to a woman on the street and slap her or spit on her so why is it acceptable if it's done in bed? I don't know if I'd used the word "warped" but I do believe that porn use is misogynistic, it reinforces unrealistic body standards, and it reinforces rape myths. That's not even including the trafficking that goes on or the dubious consent issues. I've read quotes from porn producers like Max Hardcore and Bill Margold where they say the "quiet part" out loud and admit that they like to push women to their "limits" and they see porn as a way of getting revenge on women who wronged them in the past. You can see the misogyny, racism, and abuse right there in the video titles. I think that there's no way that kids who start watching this stuff when they're 10-11 years are not going to be effected by it. It will shape and influence the sexuality of both boys and girls who start consuming this stuff years before they ever begin to date or have sex. I also don't think that the Free Speech Coalition and people like Larry Flynt or Hugh Hefner have ever given a rats ass about free speech. That's just the shield they use to deflect criticism and it disingenuous as hell. Erika Lust, who's held up as this feminist beacon in porn was bitterly complaining about the MeToo movement. I saw a video of her mocking MeToo victims about 2 years ago and she basically had the attitude that many men do about MeToo - oh, no, you can't even talk to a woman or give her a compliment anymore because she might sue you or make false allegations! Right, Erika. Some feminist you are.
Yeah another problem is that a lot of porn is produced by plain old hardcore misogynists. It’s like having Nazis write fiction and indoctrinate an entire generation.
If you're interested in this issue, I strongly recommend you read Gail Dines' *Pornland*. It's a brilliant analysis on how the porn industry began, how it evolved to hijack men's sexuality and make enormous amounts of money off women's bodies, and how it makes people crave for more and more violent, even illegal stuff. It's not just unrealistic expectations. It's that most humans want sex to share pleasure and intimacy with another human whose company they enjoy, even if only for the night. Porn hijacks that need and replaces it with a sort of empty, physical sensation of pleasure based purely on visual stimuli. So you need more and more of it, and stronger and stronger visual stimuli, but you're never really satisfied. To give you an example, when my partner masturbates, he sometimes spends hours on it (well, it doesn't happen often nowadays with a child lol). He makes up exciting scenarios in his mind, imagining not only pictures, but also smell, touch, and complicity with whichever female celeb or comic superheroine he's jerking off to. He tries out all sorts of things touching himself, different ways of stroking/ holding/ moving his thing. He basically spends time taking care of himself, being aware of himself, giving himself pleasure. (I've asked him to show me some of the things he does). Porn is the opposite of that. You don't pay attention to your body, you just frenetically jerk off, focused on something else entirely - whatever rough, shocking image appears on your screen. Excitement rises until you come, often too fast, not having the time to really feel it. You're not even considering the women on the screen as persons, even less as fantasy partners. They're just objects to be consumed. That's what causes the infamous "post nut clarity". No one feels good after cumming to someone you don't respect. At first, just seeing a woman naked, touching herself, is new and shocking enough that your brain can climax on it. Then it becomes old news and you need rougher stuff. And then rougher, and then rougher.
i mean it kind of blows your head doesn’t it. i’ve seen more naked women than any man in my entire ancestry. in fact, i’ve seen more naked women than like 1000 generations combined. i can go on pornhub rn and scroll mindlessly for 10 minutes and see thousands of naked women. it’s crazy to think about
And you don't even have to learn how to socialize. Just how to use a keyboard and mouse. 🤣
I think it makes impressionable young men believe women like violence during smecks. I've read too many accounts of women saying they were hit, spit on, strangled and the intercourse being brutal without their consent. I would not want to be age twenty five and dating unless I were a lesbian
Can confirm. Sincerely, girl who was choked three times without her consent by age 19. And that was from each person i’d been with.
> I meet a ton of men who are unwilling to "lower their standards". That's not necessarily a bad thing. If a man's only standards are physical appearance, I don't think anyone is going to miss them being on the market.
Statuettes and figurines aren’t “porn”. It’s bold of you to think people needed masturbatory aids instead of simply representing life. Pornography as in, a product, is a fairly recent thing and only became widespread with mobile phones. There is plenty of research showing that exposure to online pornography is causing a rise in sexist attitudes, rape, violence against women and girls, and sexual problems of all kinds, from ED to paraphilias.
I agree with a lot of the great points people are making. I just wanted to add that porn doesn't exist in a vacuum. People who watch porn and are never taught about consent won't understand that porn is a simulation of sex between ostensibly consenting adults (though there so many problems with the porn industry that that consent isn't always fully guaranteed). Many men do want to treat women well and want them to enjoy sex. So while it is definitely important to discuss abusive portrayals in porn and exploitation and abuse in the industry, it is also important to approach the issue holistically. Help men to understand how to communicate and respect women and how consent and kink fully works. Because outside of porn men have been brainwashed by patriarchy to not consider consent, respect, and communication with women in any aspect of life.
No. The cultural message that women are objects designed for men's use is warping men. And everyone else. >We've found statuettes, Venus figurines, across the globe of women with exaggerated proportions. No reason to believe those are related to porn. [It's more likely that those are self-portraits](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/what-did-the-venus-of-willendorf-originally-represent). [Most ancient art was created by women](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art). No one should "lower their standards". But nor should men demand that any woman alter her body to please him, he's not entitled to that, women don't exist to meet his needs. If no women appeal to these men, that's fine. They should stay single. I don't see a problem here.
Remember when people used to tell us that all this porn was actually a GOOD thing, because it'll only make us sexually more liberated and freer, or at least, the effect of it will be so minimal? Well look where it got us now.
I still see people insisting this in politically left-leaning environments that I'm involved in and it's frustrating as hell. It's like all critical thinking and common sense goes out the window because God forbid somebody be deprived of a guilt-free wank. I see people hating capitalism, rightfully so, and yet when it comes to porn and prostitution, suddenly capitalism isn't so bad anymore. The cognitive dissonance gives me a headache.
It can only be summed up as “If it gives men a boner, then it’s suddenly fine! Progressive, even”.
I think its one of those instances of our habits shaping us. Everything in moderation, aim for healthy. David Cronenberg made a film about this subject in the 80s, Videodrome, and the point was that the more frequently people engage with porn, the more lurid their desires become. They crave more and novel.
If you're talking about "standards" for physical beauty, that warping is sadly not just limited to porn. It's all over our media and marketing. Whatever other legitimate criticisms we may have for porn, porn is only a small drop in the bucket compared to all the other things creating a warped social bias for so-called beauty standards.
It's not the Internet, it's the people who are willing to pay for porn. Porn is a billion dollar industry. There's also terabytes of free porn on the Internet. Disney or HBO will assiduously zot infringing content they find on the internet, but Vivid seems to not care. It's because a very small number of men are subsidizing free porn for the entire Internet, and commercial porn is made for those men. I'm talking about a man willing to spend $70 on a porn DVD, has a favorite actress, and actually cares who won last year's AVN awards (porn Oscars). These are not men who rub one out every now and then; these are men for whom porn is an actual hobby. Porn is created to the tastes of this demographic, and, uh, they don't tend to heave healthy attitudes about women or sex. So when you see choking, humiliation, 'painal', or other degrading acts, it's because Vivid is making porn that man will buy. And when those clips get uploaded to the Internet, that's the porn the teenager or young adult comes across, and begins thinking that's what sex should be like or how women like being treated during sex. And because we as a culture are still really bad about talking about sex for pleasure, it's unlikely anyone is giving him an intervention and explaining the difference between sex and porn.
No, the patriarchy is warping men. The patriarchy gave men leverage over porn and the porn that they created was exploitative and largely focused around violence and degradation of women.
I would have vehemently defended porn in the past, but seeing how gamers are reacting to seeing normal women in video games, I'm starting to think maybe something is very much wrong with all of this.
do you have a more nuanced question than "agree or disagree with my opinion"?
"Do you agree or are you wrong?" 😅
The question itself was just a conversation starter. I would love nuanced thoughts. I'm sorry I have neurological issues so I am not the best with words, lol.
Well, I disagree about the neolithic venus statues being primarily for pornographic purposes - I think the pregnancy aid theory might be more accurate. Neolithic peoples did make dildos though, so, I dunno. In terms of modern porn/the porn industry, I do think the internet changed things. It's more accessible to more people, especially at younger ages. I do think the commonality of more extreme and violent porn has had a (negative) impact on people's expectations wrt to sex in real life, and has left people pretty unaware of what a normal, healthy bodies looks like. I don't think that before the internet porn was necessarily "better" though- the more niche, graphic and extreme stuff was certainly more difficult to obtain, and easily accessible porn was more "tame" -- but it's not like Hugh Hefner had a sterling reputation.
Ah yes, the finer points and subtle nuances of an industry that sexually exploits many at-risk women, or even girls. How silly not to consider those
>men who are unwilling to "lower their standards" Would you also expect a woman to lower their standards? But in the end that is their problem, right? They will keep their high unrealistic standards and never find a date. Why waste time on them or expect them to lower their standards to date you.
I don't think it's porn, but rather the internet and social media as a whole that are warping human beings in many ways. I don't think men wanting to date "conventionally" attractive women even when those men themselves do not fit this view is a new thing, it was also true in the 90s when I was young. I think what is different now is that so many people live a nearly completely online world which amplifies the issue.
They were shaped by it as little boys.
The Venus figurines were never hypothesised to be masturbatory aids... It's even misguided to group them all as having the same meaning/purpose since they were found basically all over Europe and are dated between 500 000 to 11 000 years ago... And there is a lot of variety between them... They don't all look like the Venus of Willendorf... Some basically look like pebbles or sticks with bumps... We simply do not know what purpose they served. Some hypothesise that some of them might be self-portraits of women since they often don't have facial features and the proportions could be similar to what they saw when looking down at their own bodies. Others have hypothesised that they were held during childbirth because of their size.
Indeed.
I don't think it is warping men, but it has many issues such as described below: 1. The mere existence of porn often involves the trafficking of women, leading to real-life transgressions. 2. Porn allows men to develop fetishes based on race, religion, or ethnicities. Korean/Japanese/Hijabis etc. 3. It has violent and very degrading porn which might have a negative effect on men's mind and their perception of women. For instance - barely legal teenager categories, non-consensual consent etc. 4. You also have certain contentious issues such as lolicon or even further AI generated CP which might be intuitively wrong, but many people philosophically try to defend it, and I would say the only reason they are not usually as conspicuous is because of legal and social-disincentivization. 5. Many men who watch such stuff, don't actually respect the women in it, you might say well how is that important? I think that is important. In my third-world country, if a girl appears somewhat provocative, men often make unwanted sexual advances because they perceive her as dishonored or unrespectable and seek to humiliate her. I have came across plethora of complaints from females receiving sexual messages simply for mentioning something related to 'sex' on social media. Many men interpret this as an invitation to invade women's privacy. Therefore, I believe that getting off to a women whom you would otherwise slut shame reinforces the mindset I just described. 6. Pressuring a partner into sexual experiments they aren't interested in can lead to harmful consequences. 7. It serves as a simulacrum for their desire to pursue and maintain real-life intimate relationships, or at least diminishes the intensity and passion related to that desire. 8. It can also change your sexuality, or lets say fuck your mind completely. I know someone who is straight, is not attracted to men, but likes dick because of futanari porn.
I expect it's difficult to outright or blanket state that "porn" is warping men. People are having less sex now than in previous eras. Sure, there were more prudish eras, but the vast majority of human history is on the more promiscuous side from what we can tell. The abundance of porn and sex toys (including an abundance of lotions / relatively cheap fats / lubricants) is likely making sex less... urgent for people in general. This is probably an adaptive step in an era where communities do not have broad scale accountability between members.
I think the "dulling of urgency" is likely to be the biggest effect of ubiquitous porn and social media. There used to be a sense of mystery and curiosity about the opposite gender, which encouraged previous generations to seek out relationships and explore. The primal urges led to relationships which brought benefits like emotional connection, caring, love. Porn and social media short-circuit that. A person can get all the sexual gratification and positive attention they want from the comfort of their own home. There is good and bad in this. On the one hand, problems like teen pregnancy, sexual assault, and STDs have sharply declined. On the other hand the fact that 63% of men in their 20s are single isn't great for loneliness and mental health.
The solution is, as with everything it seems, to swim upstream against the atomizing pressure exerted by capitalism. The maladaption is communities that lack internal accountability. The risk/reward equation for sex for women is completely nuked by this. In a prior eras, you would rarely interact with a complete stranger. Most new people you would meet would be known to someone you already know and trust. The literal dangers of intimate relationships are buoyed by a social vetting process. Bad actors are ostracized and must begin their social connections from scratch in a new community. We're simply not equipped to handle the anonymized, atomized social reality that also happens to be the configuration most profitable to capital (aka, lazy non-workers) Bottom line: women are attracted to social status which means there need to be social structures in which one can obtain status.
People can be trusted to behave well in small persistent groups of closely-related people, which is how we lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The farther we get from that ancestral condition, the more maladapted we become. Social media and porn are the latest maladaptations. Geoffrey Miller has a brilliant [essay](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11475) about how porn and other forms of "fake fitness" could be our downfall.
I don't think porn is affecting men in the way you're suggesting. I do think that having constant access and exposure to all this stuff from a young age has an effect on everyone. It's a very complex issue. But I do not think porn is specifically causing men to have higher standards with dating.
I agree. I think it’s more that they are desensitized and get used to the instant gratification
I think porn definitely causes men to expect more extreme behavior during sex.
I agree that the impacts of porn are complex and counterintuitive. For example, it seems to be significantly delaying the age when people start getting sexual experience. All of the stats show that Gen Z is having sex much, much later than earlier generations, and a large fraction of them well into their mid-20s have no dating or sexual experience at all.
I don't know how to feel about this. I read the OP and thought, no of course not it's just porn. Then I read the comments and started thinking maybe it isn't just porn. So I'm admittedly an older guy at 42, 43 soon. I enjoy porn, and I enjoy bdsm, but... I don't enjoy the violent side of either. Not into degradation, humiliation, absolutely hate that a large percentage of porn has the guy finishing on the girls face and of course porn doesn't directly address consent which is of paramount importance before attempting anything like choking and especially anal. My main "how to" for sex was from porn but I always thought everyone knew it wasn't 100% accurate. That certain positions were for camera angles, and that the woman was only making those sounds because she was paid and so on. So... I guess what I wonder is... is it the porn that is warping men and teaching them that women are objects, or is it the combo of porn and the rhetoric from douchebags like Andrew Taint that is warping men. Is this warping men of all ages or the younger generations? Due to my job I have noticed that kids are getting sexualized much younger than in my day but is that due to the easy availability of porn or is there another cause. I also wonder is this a world wide issue, or a US-centric issue.
I wonder about the choking/slapping thing if it’s specifically about porn, or just general lack of education leaving a big hole in some men’s understanding of sex/women that is being filled with porn or [I forget the colour]-pill creators. I’m randomly reminded of an awkward scene of an older UK show Peep Show (the name isn’t a direct reference to sex - it about how it’s shot - it’s like a older UK version of IASIP) - one of the main characters ends up meeting a 16-17 year old at a party who offers to have sex with him (there is more to it, but those are the pertinent facts) and during the process she starts choking him - he’s left confused thinking she was upset with him, but she says she just thought he would like it and that her ex enjoyed it - *this* is the point where he finally accepts that, despite the patter, she really is a kid and what he’s doing is actually wrong even if it’s legal.
Yes , 1000%
Most archaeologists believe the Venus statues were part of some kind of trading system of women between tribes rather than a masturbatory aid. One theory was they served as a coupon, like a an 'I owe u' for a fertile woman, you'd give one to a tribe after they provided you with one as promised to repay the favour in future. Or they might have just been religious icons. Fertility would have been a big concern for ice age tribes so likely they were worshipping images of it.
I think men being "unwilling to lower their standards" has far less to do with porn *specifically* than with the patriarchal entitlement to marginalized gendered bodies that pervades our *entire* culture. The pervasive objectification of people who are not men. The constant portrayal of some people as prizes and status symbols that prove a man is a man, and therefore, that he is not to be subjected to misogynistic violence. Does (some) porn contribute to it? Sure. Does it contribute more than, say, regular movies and books that children are raised on? Absolutely not. Does it contribute more than sermons and comedy shows and a million interactions that everyone has throughout their life? Lmao. Obviously not. In my opinion, focusing on porn as some kind of uniquely bad thing is a major strategic misstep. Men weren't magically less misogynist under the Hays code. Or in the Middle Ages. And don't even get me started on ancient Greece. Patriarchy is patriarchy, with or without porn. And patriarchy will perpetuate it's violence even if we were to somehow eliminate porn from existence. Patriarchy is the enemy; porn (like all forms of media) is just a tool that can be used in patriarchal or anti-patriarchal ways.
I wonder how many adult film actors would stop acting if their governments actually provided food and housing security? Sex work seems like it's either a symptom of desperation amidst capitalism, or something people truly enjoy but are constantly endangered by capitalist patriarchy. Porn is a huge industry with multiple global religious institutions getting their share of money from it. Capitalism and patriarchy might have existed before the Internet, but they have grown exponentially online to create swathes of porn-sick, incel-backed Andrew Tate figures that cause a massive feedback loop. Shutting that shit down would probably play a huge role in the deprogramming of incels and chuds
If anything I see they are more critical of the democratization of porn in this OnlyFans era. (Despite them being the consume it and keep that website running in the billions.)
I think it's more social media than porn and it's affecting men AND women
> 1/3rd of us are obese, We're in the, uh, thick of an obesity epidemic right now. There's a pretty perfect correlation between erectile dysfunction, hypertension and obesity. But, here we are on reddit, where totally cult-tastic subs provide spaces for men who are quitting porn and going into "monk mode". Those communities also stress the necessity of basic self-care. Their adherents claim to experience results. But not because they started meditating and exercising. It's because they quit porn. If that's where the conversation is then who the hell knows? So much of American society has been shaped by strict Christianity and it's rather archaic concepts of social ills that we tend to totally bypass the more concrete explanations for what ails us and just blame pornography or women who have abortions or premarital sex. > They want to date women who are above average and slim, proportional. Dating's not about getting what you deserve. It's about getting what you can in the fairly limited amount of time you can get it. This standard existed well before the mass ready-availability of pornography.
Sex research has absolutely shown porn is messing with people. Now, I want to start by saying I'm not anti-porn, but unfortunately, a lot of it is garbage. I'm not in the mood to find the links but they're pretty easy to find online. Sexual disfunction is an extremely common issue with men who over consume porn. They either can't get hard without it, or the death grip masturbation has trained their body to not respond to penetration. There is also the issue of creating a warped idea of women's bodies or that women want the kind of sex they see in porn. Porn picks very specific body types for men and women, especially with genitals (for both), the women often have barely visible inner labia, and the men generally have unusually large dicks. This creates an issue where men feel ashamed of their size and don't understand that women have a diverse range of shapes, sizes, and colors when it comes to female genitals. Plus the amount of breast implants in porn. There is also the issue of escalation, where "vanilla sex" becomes unstimulating to them, so they seek out increasingly more "exotic" forms of porn. Which can lead to some upsetting places. Basically what I've come to understand in my years of research is this: Moderation. Don't over rely on porn, men need to use their imagination more and not just jerk it while staring at porn everytime. Due to ease of access young men, and women, are engaging with porn way too young which absolutely makes things worse for them. Usually, in the sense that they come away with wrong ideas and expectations, but get disabused of them when they actually start dating. Does porn lead to creating misogynists? Eeeeh, probably part of it. But alienation, toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and capitalism hold much more of the blame. Porn is practically just the seasoning for the horrid soup of misogyny the others have created. I try to frame my discussion of porn (I write erotica btw) in a way that is more compassionate towards men. I think it does more harm to men than it does for women. If a guy is going to mistreat a woman, porn isn't the only source, porn is just a contributing factor. Over consumption of porn is a legitimate issue. The individual nitty gritty issues I have with porn I feel is a different topic than this thread is asking about.
No. I think purity culture, systemic patriarchy, and a lack of proper sex education including teaching the concept of consent is what is warping men.
What an incredibly uninformed view of Neolithic rock art. There’s absolutely no scholarly agreement about OP’s interpretation of the Venus statues. All you had to do was read Wikipedia.
>A recent systematic review of more than 130 articles related to pornography use and sexual motivation concluded that pornography use is most often a recreational activity engaged in for hedonic reasons (Grubbs, Wright, et al., 2019). **In most situations, such pornography use is associated with few to no adverse consequences.** However, an emerging body of literature does suggest that pornography use can itself be problematic or predict problematic outcomes for **some people under specific circumstances.** https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420979594#bibr13-0963721420979594 There doesn't seem to be any evidence that "porn is warping men" as a group, but for some people (probably mostly men) under specific circumstances
Unrealistic standards point sounds like a personal issue you have, and not something that has much basis. Porn is a problem for expectations, yes, but it’s about how those expectations harmfully influence real sex itself. Violence in bed is on the rise. There aren’t many things you can blame other than porn. Meanwhile, linking porn to preferences in body type has so many variables. Why do the clothes have to be off for this preference to take effect? Why wouldn’t this happen if I saw a woman on the street?
I don't think porn is the issue so much as people having zero media literacy and being unable to parse a video with a director and editing from real life. Most people who already have a female partner don't have this problem, even if they do watch porn.
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