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[deleted] wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by tabby in The Porn Crisis That Isn’t by SJWarCleric

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tabby wrote (edited )

I guess where you and I disagree is that I think there's sufficient evidence for behavioral addictions (sex, porn, food, gambling, video games, internet browsing, exercise, etc.) due to the way the brain's reward system works and the modern environment. These addictions can begin as ways to cope with trauma similar to how exogenous chemicals can (note that I didn't say that porn is the same as meth or heroin). Watching too much porn can change the brain, and, for people for whom those changes are unwanted or deleterious, abstaining from porn for a while, or just cutting down, can be beneficial.

I'm not a fundamentalist. I don't think that all porn is bad or unhealthy, that all porn actors and actresses are abused, coerced, or exploited, or that everyone who watches porn has a problem. Sex is good (though not unqualifiedly good). I am, however, suspect of the eroticization of sadomasochism, domination and submission in much porn (and in some of my own tastes and fantasies), and much of porn is informed by and perpetuates patriarchy and rape culture.

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