StephenOABC saidKodiak
Huge amounts of text text text...
"Rampant Porn Use".
{Kodiak, you said nothing of merit against this.}
"Young men who deny, with a straight face, that sex has any mystery."
It depends on the partner and on the sex.
Okay, typing this a second time because accidentally went back a page and lost my work. Damn. But it went something like this:
Considering the huge amounts of text I had already written on the subject, considering the arguments and opinions I expressed in favor for and against the various positions offered by the book's author, and given the nature and role of porn in the 21st century, I really didn't feel it necessary to provide any response to that particular line. Surely the merit of my other arguments was strong enough that I didn't need to go into detail on the subject of porn. But alright, I can do so here no problem (except for when Firefox deleted everything I typed before).
"Rampant Porn Use"A zeroth-century, puritanical belief by celebrate, frock-wearing, hysterical virgins, is what I put here in my full already-too-long-post before. Granted, that may not carry much merit as a detailed and well-constructed argument, but I believe it does highlight an issue, which I may address in a future post.
Fist off, what is porn? The general definition of porn (pornography) is, to quote Google:
Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.
Mmmmmm...Anywho, so, that's what porn is. Now, porn seems to be held in a negative light by the author and the reviewer, somewhat suggested by the use of the word "rampant". Now, could it be that they think use of porn is okay, but that only
rampant, uncontrolled porn use is bad? Possible! After all, there are some fairly liberal priests out there, and if you can go from a religion that condemns and orders homosexuals to be put to death, to a religion that is comfortable with homosexuals, possibly even endorsing them--then surely porn might no longer carry such stigma as it did at one point in time.
Based on what I've read from them however, I don't think this is the case, and thus I'm going to interpret the phrase "
Rampant Porn Use" in the same way one says "
rampant drug use". A sort of, "it's all bad, but people using them all the time is even worse than it already is," take on pornography.
Now, why do they think it's bad? It's clear that the writer (Grant) feels sex has value (I agree!). It's also clear however, that to him, certain aspects of sex (
hypersexualized culture, sexual dissatisfaction, rampant porn use, unhappier marriages, young men who deny that sex has any mystery) have
negative value. Since "rampant porn use" is in that list, it's pretty clear Grant thinks it's a bad thing! But why? Well, it seems like Grant feels "rampant porn use" diminishes the value of sex. After all, that's the entire point of the book itself: trying to put forward the position that sex is
divine and special, and that these negatives are thus diminishing the value of sex.
Now, what evidence does he have for this? I don't know, I haven't read the book. But from what I know based on reports, articles and studies I've read on the subject of sex and physiology, sex and psychology, and sex and society, is that porn may actually be beneficial, for a lot of reasons.
Sex is part of our biology. It is something that has evolved as long as we've been evolving. It evolves with change in time, change in society, change in partners, change in stimuli (like porn!). Sex is important, and critical. "Our brains are hardwired for sex," is a phrase that's been tossed about. So what happens when something that is so integral to our DNA, is denied. Well, lots of strange things as might be imaginable. People begin to get frustrated, people begin to change in terms of their body chemistry, neurology, physiology.
And what happens when we masturbate, or observe sexually stimulating materials? We do what our body wants us to do. Our body distributes chemicals that are vital to our health and well-being. It gives us pleasure, satisfaction.
But for a society or religion to impose "THIS IS WRONG", and prevent people from doing these things,
that is where you get into trouble. You begin to tell people
masturbation is bad, they stop masturbating, their body's chemical composition changes, and before you know it their very psychology begins to be affected. They don't get the endorphin that sexual relief grants, or any of the other numerous effects that usually have positive effect. Sexual suppression is a
bad thing for us physiologically.
And what is porn for? Porn is for stimulating that arousal, for giving us that pleasure. Porn can be fun--porn can give new and exciting ideas for sex, fun games to play, fun ways to have intercourse. It can be amusing, it can be even hilarious--porn is just one of the many toys to play with, in the toybox of sexual fantasy.
And what about the
fact that those who watch more porn tend to have higher levels of sexual arousal, the desire for "solo-sex"
and sex with a partner?
Take a look at this neat little study conducted just this past March (2015)!
So that's my
short take on pornography. I have a few more points I can think of making, including going into the history of pornography which is fascinating, but I think this will do for now.
--------------------------
...on a side note, I'm going to break my usual impervious, friendly, neutral demeanor here and point out that I have been unable to find one of
your replies to my huge posts that addresses the points, counter-points, arguments, and counter-arguments I raise regarding any subject offered. What I normally see from you is skipping my points entirely, and retreating back to an initial position or argument, despite all the points made around it.
I wrote that huge post above this one, tackling so many different points, and the
one point you decided to single out, was the one that I
purposefully left unanswered because I found it so absolutely irrelevant when compared to the points I addressed throughout the rest of my post.
I would be seriously, honestly,
thrilled if you did a point by point deconstruction of one of my posts, directly responding to points I make.
