Pretty straightforward: where does the awareness that porn wrecks your mind and sexuality stops and where does simply conservatism towards sexuality begins (even in cases akin to bolshe morality)?
EDIT: okay, better clarifying it - i came across some video from some youtuber claiming that pornography is evil, period. and that there are things such as “metapornography”, which could apply to someone in instagram posting videos of themselves in scant dressing and claiming likes of it. and that no-fap and anti-masturbation movements are good things.
i was really confused about that since that person came from apparently a progressive-yet-moralistic background. but talking to other people to see if some of my impressions checked, it came to my mind that it was a heavily directed video intended to attract left-leaning people to a conservative agenda. my bad.
It is very simple. When you are worried about yourself and your own actions that is normal. When you are concerned about what others choose, that is conservatism.
When you stop having a realistic view of porn. If you are using it as a simple pleasure and exploring sexual expression, there’s no issue.
If you see you are using it too much, and is causing you problems, you may need to be aware that you are developing an addiction like any other.
If you start purposefully avoiding it even at the cost of your own comfort and stress relief, saying things like “porn wrecks your mind and sexuality”, you are entering the current conservative, frustrating young people to manipulate them territory.
Like any vice honestly. It can be fun and enjoyable. Too much and then you need to get some help and it will affect you. Forcing it out of your life, however, is not actually dealing with your problems but rather just hiding from them. Finding the balance is the goal.
A true recovered alcoholic isn’t someone who demands his friends stop drinking when they are around him. That’s someone who is trying to hide from it. A true recovered alcoholic is someone who can see their friends enjoy a drink and say “no thanks” when asked.
Porn doesn’t wreck your mind if you’re a sensible person?
What are we talking about here? Easily impressionable people with no frame of reference? They’re susceptible to everything. Well-adjusted people with prior information? They’re susceptible to neither.
I maintain that what people mistake for porn addiction is just depression or possibly ADHD. Constant masturbation is a series of easy dopamine hits. If you quit cold turkey without making any other changes, you’ll probably just replace it with social media or gacha games.
To conservatives, any porn viewing is a “porn addiction.” That’s their line.
Porn addiction is not on that line, not even close.
When you start proselytizing your feelings about it including through seemingly bad faith posts on the Internet that beg the question.
Both notions are pretty far out there tbh. There is nothing wrong with ethically produced pornography.
Conservatives: all glimpses of porn are automatically upgraded to ADDICTION.
Progressives: all porn actors are automatically upgraded to HUMAN TRAFFICKING VICTIMS.
you support ADDICTION and HUMAN TRAFFICKINGI think most people absorb a puritan idea of “removed” from society. Even like liberals, queer people, and sex nerds (people into kink) will have a version of this. For the right, it’s usually a very misogynistic idea about how female sexuality and anything gay is evil. And this is usually what makes conservatives want to quit porn, though sometimes they won’t admit it and they’ll talk about like their essence or whatever.
So like you don’t need to quite porn for the right reasons, you can just do it. But maybe spend some time thinking why you want to do it, and if it’s because of some idea of removed or shame then you should also think about it you really want to hold those ideas, because they will ultimately make you just as miserable as the porn did.
Somewhere in the middle
