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This TED lecture
It makes the rounds on 4chan every so often, and the guys eat it up like shit-covered waffles and start massive pacts to stop jerking off (which they'll most certainly fail at).
Now, here's my question: if modern, high-stimulus porn has such devastating effects on the male human brain, then shouldn't it have effects on women's brains, too? Women are certainly watching porn to at least a similar degree that men are. So how come this guy has only gathered and presented data of porn's effects on men? Why doesn't he make any mention of women watching porn?
Personally, I think he's a snake oil salesman who intentionally plays into the idea that only sad, impotent men watch porn, designing the presentation to reinforce that in order to play into the insecurities of the men watching it. Then the lecture becomes popular and he can give it at further locations and make fat dosh doing so. It's a lowest-common-denominator bid, basically, and it seems to be working like a charm.
Your thoughts?
Comments
See that's the thing people aren't really sure about. Part of it is that a lot of porn is made with men as the intended audience and part of it is that there is a stigma about women admitting to liking porn. Well more so a stigma than admitting you like porn in general. So it's hard to be sure really.
As for the second part of your post it reads like "This guy is saying something I like could have negative side effects! Hack! Scammer! Kook!"
The idea that porn is harmful to a significant degree is intensely tied to conservative viewpoints. I hear, for instance, that pornography is much more accepted in mainland Europe, which is generally more centrist or leftist than the USA. It's all attached to the idea of sex and guilt having a symbiotic relationship, which is by all means a result of culture rather than any inherent trait of sexual activity.
So, this guy is basically using harmful cultural guilt and the insecurities of his audience to sell them bullshit. I hope his penis shrivels, and takes the form of a platypus.
^Not always, there were several anti-porn movements during the 70s, largely tied to second wave feminism, that asserted that pornography was always exploitative and demeaning to women.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I agree with that or not.
After actually sitting through the article the big thing about porn being addictive, well that certainly is a thing. Some of the details annoy me, especially his line about tastes reverting, implying there was something wrong with new ones in the first place. But yeah, porn does feed into addictive tendencies which is more of a problem than any moral handwringing.
Second-wave feminism was the most extreme and least tolerant form, though. For instance, I've heard that many modern adherents of second-wave feminism are transphobic.
There's no doubt that a lot of porn out there is demeaning to women, but that's a result of patriarchal culture moreso than porn. The solution to exploitative porn is not to act against pornography (which will never have much impact), but to work against the cultural elements that contribute to its social faults. A good place to start is in not consuming porn that exploits those elements.
If everyone did that, mind you, it would crush the US porn industry very quickly. From what I've seen, US pornography has the biggest problem with this kind of thing, although most professional porn in particular seems to be pretty bad this way. The internet has given rise to a plethora of couples filming themselves during the act, though, providing much more egalitarian porn for consumption. Keep in mind that during the heyday of second-wave feminism, porn was only in seedy cinemas and on video tape and therefore could only be distributed through professional channels.
The porn industry has changed a lot from the 70s though. I mean you don't hear stories like Linda Lovelace's or that-girl-from-the-90s-who-was-underage-during-filming-but-who-nobody-even-knew-to-be-so anymore. And most succesful female porn actresses do get a high degree of creative control.
Oh hey following porn stars on tumblr because neil gaiman says so does hand out rewards.
^^^I don't actually want to watch it right now; do you mean actually addictive or just habit-forming? As I understand it, for something to be literally addictive, it has to have withdrawal symptoms.
Do the annoyances that arise in the process of undoing habits count as withdrawal symptoms?
Eh, I don't know about that; I haven't watched the lecture itself but I've seen this guy's site, and he at least seems to have some scientific foundation for his views on porn. he also repeatedly comments that having sex doesn't have the same impact as porn. I'd personally like to hear a neuroscientist comment on the science behind his commens before I dismiss him as a conservative guiltmonger.
Porn addiction is a thing already, what new ground does this tread? Lotsa things have addictive properties, so you do that shit in moderation.