Porn will never be a replacement for sex education.
But porn is also not going anywhere. That means that we have a choice to make. We can hide our heads in the sand, or we can — in addition to pushing for real lessons on sex for young people again — tackle the job of understanding the range of what porn is, evaluating what’s working and what we can qualitatively judge as good, and try to build a better industry and cultural understanding of sex. I choose to try.
Many aspects of traditional culture tried to hide sex away. The individual environmental and economic reasons for such practices have largely disappeared, but some factors have remained. The desire to ideologically control even the most intimate parts of people's lives has not gone away. Such impulses exist both on both the Left and the Right parts of the political spectrum. It seems like some kind of high watermark for the power of an ideology, a degree of absolute control to which many ideologies seem to strive.
It's not sex which needs to be valued. It's people, intimate feeling, and deep relationships which matter, including those which result from the creation of families.
One thing which seems to be true across history: Beware of those who react with too much acrimony around issues around sex. Also beware of those who advocate for too much license, for many do so out of shallow self interest, and/or to break down the current order of society. It's the approaches which maximize both freedom and moderation equally which strike me as the most prudent. Both freedom and moderation give the best chance for the individual to experience the genuine in this context.
> Porn will never be a replacement for sex education.
I'd also venture that "sex education" will never be a replacement for parenting.
The problem with pornography is that it treats sexual relations solely as pleasure-seeking or entertainment. Sex can be those things, but at its best it is more prominently an expression of intimacy and trust between partners. By definition, pornography can never show this aspect of sex.
The problem with laws against pornography has little to do with the quality or worthlessness of their target. The problem with these laws has everything to do with societal and governmental mechanisms it creates to control people's behavior. Such mechanisms, once emplaced are guaranteed to be misused by people with authority.
Maybe not at first, but it has always happened, always, throughout the history of humankind. The current proposed law against pornography is pretty bald-faced about the mechanism it intends to create. A total censor infrastructure, mandated and controlled by government, on every internet-connected device. For a fee you'd be able to register yourself for turning the censor off.
Later, you won't be able to "register" out. Later the definition of pornography will change. The scope of the program will expand, and soon it will be news and political thought that's getting suppressed by those filters.
Such laws must be fought against.
But so too should the ridiculous oversexualization of everything in daily life. Maybe it is inappropriate to be joking about 5 year-olds having a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe that commercial for hamburgers should only be about the quality of the food. Maybe there shouldn't be a special line of clothing just for "pulling" people at a dance club.
But none of those things has anything to do with laws, nor should they. They have to do with morals and values. They have to be taught and subscribed to, by an awful lot of people.
The most likely teachers for morals and values are parents.
This makes me wonder about the viability of a fictional screenplay about a young man who was raised entirely by prostitutes on a constant mental diet of Sex Education. Hopefully set in Space, produced by 20th Century Fox.
Porn has created an unhealthy image of sex for younger people, they think it's all about getting a quick fix rather than a meaningful relationship. Also makes them think they need to perform like that, there is way too much bad porn for any good porn to be considered worthwhile. Stoya is just a pornstar wanting to glamourise her otherwise degraded and depraved industry.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 24.6 ms ] threadBut porn is also not going anywhere. That means that we have a choice to make. We can hide our heads in the sand, or we can — in addition to pushing for real lessons on sex for young people again — tackle the job of understanding the range of what porn is, evaluating what’s working and what we can qualitatively judge as good, and try to build a better industry and cultural understanding of sex. I choose to try.
Many aspects of traditional culture tried to hide sex away. The individual environmental and economic reasons for such practices have largely disappeared, but some factors have remained. The desire to ideologically control even the most intimate parts of people's lives has not gone away. Such impulses exist both on both the Left and the Right parts of the political spectrum. It seems like some kind of high watermark for the power of an ideology, a degree of absolute control to which many ideologies seem to strive.
It's not sex which needs to be valued. It's people, intimate feeling, and deep relationships which matter, including those which result from the creation of families.
One thing which seems to be true across history: Beware of those who react with too much acrimony around issues around sex. Also beware of those who advocate for too much license, for many do so out of shallow self interest, and/or to break down the current order of society. It's the approaches which maximize both freedom and moderation equally which strike me as the most prudent. Both freedom and moderation give the best chance for the individual to experience the genuine in this context.
I'd also venture that "sex education" will never be a replacement for parenting.
The problem with pornography is that it treats sexual relations solely as pleasure-seeking or entertainment. Sex can be those things, but at its best it is more prominently an expression of intimacy and trust between partners. By definition, pornography can never show this aspect of sex.
The problem with laws against pornography has little to do with the quality or worthlessness of their target. The problem with these laws has everything to do with societal and governmental mechanisms it creates to control people's behavior. Such mechanisms, once emplaced are guaranteed to be misused by people with authority.
Maybe not at first, but it has always happened, always, throughout the history of humankind. The current proposed law against pornography is pretty bald-faced about the mechanism it intends to create. A total censor infrastructure, mandated and controlled by government, on every internet-connected device. For a fee you'd be able to register yourself for turning the censor off.
Later, you won't be able to "register" out. Later the definition of pornography will change. The scope of the program will expand, and soon it will be news and political thought that's getting suppressed by those filters.
Such laws must be fought against.
But so too should the ridiculous oversexualization of everything in daily life. Maybe it is inappropriate to be joking about 5 year-olds having a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe that commercial for hamburgers should only be about the quality of the food. Maybe there shouldn't be a special line of clothing just for "pulling" people at a dance club.
But none of those things has anything to do with laws, nor should they. They have to do with morals and values. They have to be taught and subscribed to, by an awful lot of people.
The most likely teachers for morals and values are parents.