The way I look at it, anyone who indulges in porn isn't going to be a competitive threat to me or take my job. Why? Because they're preoccupied, lack self control and settle for fantasy over reality.
As for TV and movies, mostly true.
No. People knew novels were degrading and debilitating long before TV even existed:
http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.HTM
"This course of reading exacted no effort from the mind, and the more I indulged in it the more averse I became to the drudgery of business, and the more incapable of that accurate thinking and careful analysis required in the practice of the law."
"My fondness for romance, now become my ruling passion, not only impaired my powers of reasoning and investigation, but destroyed the balance of my mind by giving an undue preponderance to the imagination. The unnatural activity of that faculty, by presenting false and exaggerated views of persons and events, was frequently a serious disadvantage to me in my profession. Often when I was wrought into a fever of excitement by an ideal state of facts, the reality has so differed from my preconceived hypothesis, as to produce a sudden syncope of all my faculties."
"The excitement of novel reading is akin to intoxication. When it subsides, it leaves the mind collapsed and imbecile, without the capacity or the inclination for active exertion."
He wrote that in 1839, just 12 years before Moby Dick was published. Wonder what he thought of that fiction book, generally considered to be one of, if not the, best English language novels written.
I dispute this statement. For one, more people alive now can read than could read back then.
Also, we no longer engage in the sport of bear-baiting.
> Wonder what he thought of that fiction book [Moby Dick], generally considered to be one of, if not the, best English language novels written.
He likely thought it was crap, because the British reviewers thought it was crap, because they got a mutilated copy to review. It wasn't until Melville was dead that the book actually got a fair shake.
What I meant is that I'm pretty sure that reading even a salacious fiction book today is better for your mind than most movies. Active vs passive engagement, etc.
Firstly, (almost) everyone watches porn: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/relationships/6709646/All-men-wat...
Second, nothing in consuming porn inherently means the person "lacks self-control" (there's certainly porn addicts, but they're not the majority) or "settles for fantasy" - in fact, many couples watch porn together and use it to improve their own sex life.
Thirdly, porn is a highly competitive industry with a lot of talent in producing, managing and distributing content, both online and offline. They run very big websites and serve huge amounts of video traffic per minute. Xvideos alone has twice the page views of Reddit.
But I'd like to say that personally, I prefer to let women decide for themselves what degrades them, instead of taking the position that I know best, and considering that many women nowadays watch porn (1 in 3 porn viewers, according to Nielsen), I'm not sure if they feel that way.
Most pornography is not degrading to anybody—it’s merely people seeking to make money or have a good time—and a considerable portion of it doesn’t even involve women. To say nothing of the female viewers of porn.
Most pornography does not trivialise intimacy, and there are vast amounts of erotic fiction and pornography with legitimate, deep characters with whom the audience is meant to be emotionally involved. In addition, not all intimacy in real life is deep: people often have “meaningless” sex even within the context of a relationship. If you’ll pardon the wording, it’s okay if a happy couple feels less like “making love” and more like “fucking”. And this is both natural and healthy.
As for toxicity to children and families, I’m baffled as to how knowledge of sexuality could be at all detrimental to the welfare of a child or family structure. Most children find sexual topics boring or revolting anyway, and I strongly doubt that pornography alone is sufficient to tear a family apart. Of course, pornography of children is another matter entirely.
But junk food for the mind? Absolutely! Porn is not necessary—I used to watch porn mainly when I was bored and lonely, and by avoiding things that bore me and keeping myself in the company of others, there is much less of a reason for me to seek it out.
Still, I don’t see the need to spurn it outright—people watch porn every day and it doesn’t hurt anybody.
It's amazing how many people think it's their place to decide when someone else is being degraded.
Also, why women? Why single out a specific gender?
While I don't happen to agree with such views I think there are some good reasons why they exist and men who hold such views often do so out of a sense of protectiveness for women generally. But if women are to achieve equality, such things need to change. Unfortunately, idealistically protesting the supposed degradation of women basically agrees with the default cultural assumption that women are mere sex objects who get used by men and thus tends to reinforce it rather than undermine it. As a woman, I have found that whining and complaining that men should not treat women as sex objects is a really weak position to take because it respects the assumption that all the power to change things is held by men, not women. A far stronger position is to turn the tables on men and talk about them like they are sex objects for my pleasure. Edit: I mean as a form of rebuttal/to make a point. In practice -- i.e. in a relationship -- I don't think it really works for either party to be objectified.
Somewhat in Space Dragon's defense, I think there may be some correlation between a man liking porn and a man treating women as mere sex objects. I cannot say though which is cause and which is effect -- i.e. whether men who view women as mere sex objects are more attracted to porn or whether watching porn promotes such attitudes. I only know that men who treated me decently tended to have little interest in porn. I don't much care for it myself, though that isn't out of judgmentalism. It simply doesn't float my boat.
I doubt it, given the negative correlation between porn and sex crimes:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v046j3g178147772/fulltex...
Maybe it's the case that those who most objectify others will be satisfied with using porn pretty much exclusively if that's an option, but I doubt it works like that. I think porn simply fulfills the 'punching bag' need, and allows other emotions to come to the fore in the real world.
> I have found that whining and complaining that men should not treat women as sex objects is a really weak position to take because it respects the assumption that all the power to change things is held by men
I fully agree.
I also think that one part of achieving equality is to realize that women objectify men, and that it's in their power to stop such behavior. Especially since any man who objects to being objectified by a woman is placed in a very precarious position in our current society, much like how people pretty much assume it's impossible for women to rape or abuse men.
In any case, I don't see how porn being or not a respectable genre does in any way invalidate what I wrote.
"Science fiction should get out of the classroom and back in the gutter where it belongs!" -Dena Benatan Brown.
Sci-fi is decently respected now, but some authors have gladly embraced Dena Brown's advice. When writing science fiction, you shouldn't care about respectability. That's not the point.
So yeah. Same goes with porn. Porn doesn't care if it's respectable. That is not porn's goal.