Personally, I think that porn is only a problem because the society we live in MAKES it a problem. People who feel guilty for masturbating only feel guilty because they're TOLD to. From a young age, they're told that masturbating is an embarrassing subject and that it's wrong to do it.
For the most part a agree with you here. But the fact must be recognized that it is sometimes destructive, and there is nothing wrong with a person who chooses not to masturbate for whatever reason. I also want to draw out the fact that masturbation and porn are not nessicarily synonamous, and the problems with one are not the problems of the other.
Oh, I don't mean to say that there's anything wrong with someone who chooses not to masturbate. In fact, masturbation seems to be unnatural, itself. Masturbation is probably against natural instinct, in that the object is procreation, not recreation. It doesn't hurt me, however, and I enjoy it. So it doesn't bother me.
I think that, if nobody were ever told that masturbation is wrong, that sex is embarrassing, and that porn is demeaning to women, we wouldn't be in this boat. People would masturbate because they want to. They would feel good about it. Porn would just be another kind of job, it wouldn't be any more embarrassing or strange than filing papers and answering telephones.
I can't help but disagree compleatly here. Perhaps if no one had been told such things the world would be a different place, but that is essentially the same argument that the nazis made as they eliminated the jews: if the jews never existed the world would be a better place (sorry, the comparison to nazis was not meant to be personal, I assure you I hold your views in MUCH MUCH less contempt then I hold the view the nazi's had). Such speculation is problematic because it basicly eliminates the freedom of humanity in the world. Sure a world with only one type of person would be more peaceful, but it's also really irrealistic to wish for and ultimately an affront to humanity.
We wouldn't know until we've seen it played out, though. For all we know, maybe the world WOULD have been a better place if the Jews never existed. (I'm not saying that this is my view and I don't agree with eliminating the Jews
now.) On the other hand, it could be even worse. We wouldn't know unless it actually played out that way.
I didn't really mean that everyone would be the same. I meant more... The scales would be tipped more towards people
not being embarrassed about it. As it stands, a good majority of the population is embarrassed when it comes to discussing sex.
I really don't think that the argument is even fair anyways. Pornography IS demening to woman, and generally a terrible force towards objectifying them as a sex objects. I feel no regret in saying that it is alot harder to think of a woman with the respect she rightfully deserves as a human being if you are excessively preocupied with her sexually. Speaking from my own experiance, the less I have been viewing pornography recently the easier it is to keep my mind where it should be when interacting with females. The objectifing of women in general is something that I personally find quite problematic in today's society, and something that I avoid at all costs in my own life.
How is it any different from watching a violent movie or playing a video game? It's still fantasy, just a different sort of fantasy. People need to keep the difference between fantasy and reality obvious.
This may be a place where we're quite different. I don't have problems with objectifying women. I keep the differences between fantasy and reality in mind. Even in my fantasies, I don't consider women to be objects. Even in porn, I don't consider them to be objects. I
know and always remember that women have thoughts, feelings, opinions, rights, etc... But I don't let that stop me from occasionally thinking about some of them sexually. (Not all of them. An example being one of my friends. It bothers me to think about her sexually. I don't consider her to be the kind of person that should be thought of in that way.)
I'm not denying that it can be addictive, everything can be addictive. In fact, I'm willing to put money on the fact that there are more people addicted to caffeine than there are to masturbation. Caffeine is much more unhealthy than masturbation. Caffeine is also a drug. Why are some drugs okay and some aren't? Who the hell makes these laws? Caffeine, tobacco and alcohol are legal. These are things that your body can become addicted to. These are things that are much more harmful than pot, but pot is illegal. Your body also won't become addicted to pot. Any addiction to pot is mental.
Being addictive is less of a problem with pornography than being destructive is. The fact that it is addictive only means that there is bound to be addicts that began early in life that end up stuck in there ways even after they disagree with the messages being portrayed and are frustrated with the consequences of addiction in there life. If coffee addiction was more distructive to a persons life you can bet there would be much more of a movement to help addicts recover. Being addiction is rarely a reason to combat addiction in and of itself, thus there is more to the issue than seems to be apparent on surface level.
Caffeine
is very destructive, though. It's a little difficult to notice because it's so incredibly widespread, moreso than porn, and nearly constantly being consumed. For example: People get so addicted to caffeine that, if they can't have their coffee in the morning, they feel drowsy all day. They're irritable, on-edge and depressed. Caffeine becomes a part of their life. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that caffeine is physically addictive as well as mentally addictive. (Porn isn't physically addictive.) Read
this for information on how caffeine works.
I think a movement to help caffeine addicts doesn't exist (or exists and is very small) because of the fact that caffeine has become so integrated in to peoples' lives that it's incredibly difficult to remove and most people just plain
don't care. More people care about porn addiction because the Church opposes porn and masturbation and so many people have been brought up to think that porn is wrong. (But not caffeine.)
So it's not necessarily because porn is a bigger problem, it's just getting more publicity.
