On this episode, the girlx/womxm listen and learn from award-winning adult film director and screenwriter, Jacky St. James. Jacky details what a day of shooting on a porn set really entails, the effect of "tube sites" on the industry, the wisdom of MILFs, and how cancel culture came for porn (proving that nothing really is sacred). The episode comes to completion with a discussion on the future: AI sexbots and how parents can teach kids about responsible consumption.
“So much about today’s adult industry seems like an undeft parody of Hollywood and the nation writ large. The top performers are comic-book caricatures of sexual allure. The prosthetic breasts and lifted buttocks and (no kidding) artificial cheekbones are nothing more than accentuations of a mentality that yields huge liposuction and collagen industries. The gynecologically explicit sexuality of Jenna, Jasmin, et al. seems more than anything like a Mad magazine spoof of the “smoldering” sexuality of Sharon Stone and Madonna and so many other mainstream iconettes. Not to mention the fact that the adult industry takes many of the psychological deformities that Hollywood is famous for—the vanity, the vulgarity, the rank commercialism—and not only makes them overt and grotesque but seems then to revel in that grotesquerie”.
Trimix is three different medications that relax the arteries in the penis. It is confusing; this is smooth muscle tissue that is not under voluntary control the way that a skeletal muscle is. Normally, these arteries are very tensed up, but in the right hormonal state, they relax, allowing blood to flow in. Smooth muscle relaxation does not necessarily correlate with the a general subjective sense of being "relaxed" in this case.
Trimix is relatively safe and is unlikely to cause systemic side effects, but there are concerns with priapism (having an erection for too long, which is a medical emergency) and repeated injections always carry risks like bleeding and infection and scarring. Pretty much anything is bad if you use too much of it.
There isn't really any such thing as a permanent erection. However, after a few hours in that state, there is a risk of permanent damage. The concern is that blood is trapped in there, meaning there isn't actually much flowing in or out, so tissue starts dying from lack of oxygen. This could lead to erectile dysfunction, or in the worst case, could actually cause gangrene, requiring amputation.
the issue with choking is that it's normative and part of the sexual script. ppl had various interests in roughness forever. but now many younger women just expect to choke them during coitus. that's weird
Why is it weird? If they like it, then good for them for knowing what they like and asking for it. If you don't like it, then don't do it. But why stigmatize it?
If it's because "they only learned it from porn," then so what? I've learned things I do and don't like from lots of non-porn media (and I'm sure you have, too), why does porn de-legitimize the preference?
1) Love Sarah's quip that the strap-on is essentially trans black-face. I think everyone should troll this idea in intersectional discourse and see if anyone bites. I expect it'd fry brains much like hitting Harry Mudd's androids with the Paradox of the Liar.
2) Just a word of warning for the ladies out there: I don't care how much you mean to me, there will not be needles. Nope.
I (male in 50’s) am an advocate of porn as adult entertainment which can enhance sex. Just as there is bad food, there is bad porn; just as food can be misused by people, so can porn. Just like alcohol is age restricted, so should porn. I have not been convinced that porn is categorically wrong—it is not for everybody, just like alcohol or any other pleasures.
When porn conveys mutual pleasure, it can expand interests or intrigue partners. Sometimes people may feel ashamed of having certain “kinks” or interests that may seem “weird” but these are actually more common than not. The ravish fantasy that women have is one; the “rougher” sex is another; the taboo interest in anal sex, etc. You get my point. What seems more common to me than I imagined when talking to my women friends is that they enjoy being a bit submissive in bed, desiring a bit of roughness from their men with attention to their (the woman’s) pleasure. Male aggression channeled into desire to please their partner. There is after all a point when pain and pleasure seem to meet.
I don’t find the anti-porn arguments made by Dworkin or Mackinnon compelling (they are paternalistic and don’t reflect reality; the dehumanization argument for me is odd. As a physician, patients exploit my skills to help themselves and I get paid; “exploitation” is everything and nothing.)
I find Paglia much more refreshing and honest- sex, at some level, is power-- power dynamics which alternate between partners, which can be liberating; the power to surrender to mutual pleasure, to give and take. It is a better description of sex.
This does not necessarily lead to promiscuity, and it is not anti-family or anti-traditional: people have been intoxicated by eros for eons, and how these desires are expressed don’t need to lead to some orgy free-sex fantasy—the number of “conservative” couples that are “wild” in the bedroom is more than many would think. Sex is not just an “animalistic” or base desire—it can lead to intense emotional understanding and compassion. But it can be hard for people to talk about sex (shame, personal tastes which change. etc).
Porn can help make sex deeply gratifying because it is not hiding the fact that sex is a messy human entanglement. If porn actors (who are capable of having sex with non-committed partners and get paid for it) can help couples explore their erotic desires then I don’t think porn is so bad.
Sarah’s concern about what it does to young people’s “brains” are valid. I don’t think porn is for young people but neither is alcohol. But I would be willing to bet that in prior generations humans were probably more aware of sexuality— they would see and hear it in the smaller homes with their parents, neighbors and cousins as they pursued their interests— less graphic of course.
I agree with some of what you write, but I don’t think you’re giving the dehumanization argument enough credit. It can simultaneously be true that all employment involves exploitation and dehumanization and that extending these effects to the intimate, private, emotionally charged realm of sexuality is especially nasty. Watching people have joyless, perfunctory sex for money has little to do with “intense emotional understanding and compassion”. And, against the idea that “there is good porn and bad porn”, these problems seem like a structural consequence of commodifying sexuality into a product to be sold on the market instead of treating sex as an end in itself.
With regards to children, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment. The problem now is that young children will be exposed to some extremely commercialized pornography online, or they will get stuck with one of those teachers who wants to "queer" them in school. I don't see any way that they get to adolescence in ignorance. So it's really the responsibility of parents and of the broader society to prevent either of those things from being their sex ed.
With regards to adults, the conventional wisdom among the educated is that all power dynamics are inherently abusive, and all sexual activity requires explicit, constant, affirmative consent. What you describe as being hard to talk about is, as far as I'm concerned, impossible. It takes two to tango, and the women I know are not one of the two.
When I see people in heterosexual relationships, I see people from other countries, people from conservative or religious backgrounds, or on the other end of the spectrum, I see anarchists who use a ton of drugs and have sex with everyone. I really don't see a lot of educated professionals with liberal views in heterosexual relationships, and I think my generation's norms make this extremely difficult.
Great episode. I do think that there is a bit of “wanting to have your cake and eat it too” from Jacky. She was a bit critical of 50 Shades because its depiction of BDSM was not real or needed more research…yet she admits that her porn is also “acting” and not real. BTW I am not anti-porn.
50 shades is harmless fun and is so obviously silly fantasy that I find it hard to blame the author even if some people are foolish enough to take it as a guide to life, which I doubt is the case anyway.
I read most of the first book. My feelings were mixed. It was a prince charming story. The writing seemed formulaic (like Dan Brown books). The main character Anastasia didn’t seem to have much of a unique character, but I think that may be intentional because that would make it easy for a woman reader to see herself as Anastasia. Christian was a man that needed a woman to fix him, which is a common trope, but he was rich and charming. I think what appealed to women was the desire he displayed to her that he didn’t have for other woman, along with the taboo of being a BDSM fantasy that many woman hold. In the end it was silly but may have led to people be curious about kinks.
Jacky says women are dominating the porn industry at the moment, so I guess we can add that to the list of fields and endeavors in which men are falling behind. Sheesh. How do you like them apples.
I’m probably shouldn’t do this but I’m going to share my experience with the choking thing.
I’m currently a 46 year old gen X man. I was married in my late 20s and divorced in 2013. When I went back out on the dating market for the first time in 8 years with Tinder now the main thing, it was a bit of a culture shock.
A lot of the girls I would end up sleeping with would want me to choke them. Not actual choking, not anything to do with oxygen deprivation. Erotic asphyxiation is a completely different thing from the phenomena I observed. They just wanted light simulated choking. Holding them by the neck basically.
It was not my idea nor ever would be, but they would guide my hand to their throats and wanted me to apply light pressure. I would just hold my arm out and they would push against it to control the pressure.
It’s a turn on because it’s a dominance move I guess, they like it for the same reason they want to be grabbed and fucked hard and have their asses slapped, it’s just a new move in the “rough sex” department that had somehow become popular while I was away.
I was fine with doing it when they wanted it, it was never my thing but I was able to get into it. But I found it anthropologically interesting that all of a sudden when I started dating in 2013 this was like “a thing” than lots of girls wanted.
I’m not sexually active any more so I don’t know what going on currently. (Prostate cancer)
I'll have to say, I really don't understand why porn is such a hang-up for so many people; I think it really highlights that our culture is both sex-negative and completely obsessed with sex at the same time.
It inevitably comes down to "how do we tell our kids about it" or "how do we protect our kids from it" or something similar. I have two boys, aged 2 and 4. Here's what I plan to tell them when they get older: Porn is just like a WWE wrestling match.
In a WWE wrestling match, you've got two people who are ostensibly fighting each other: they look mad, they're punching, kicking, and throwing each other around with wrestling moves, etc. But their "punching," "kicking," and "wrestling moves" look nothing like you would see in a real fight.
All of their moves are extremely heightened and made to look good on camera. Both guys are always acting, not just with their faces and voices but with their body language as well. Everything is hyper-sensationalized so that it makes for great entertainment. Yes, it's super physical, they're taking real bumps and bruises, but it's an act. Most of all, it doesn't look like what real fighting looks like, so don't learn all of those "moves" and think that you can actually carry yourself in a real fight.
Same with porn. Yeah, they're definitely doing some acts that are related to actual sex, but everything is heightened, over-the-top, completely played for the camera and not each other, and doesn't really have much to do with real sex, so don't learn those "moves" and think that you can actually carry yourself well in a real encounter.
Then the conversation can continue, but to me this analogy is on point and, once established, easy for a kid/teen to understand.
Yes, I understand that there can be negative effects from porn, but nearly all of them can be mitigated by just a little bit of decent and non-squeamish parenting.
I am more worried about the effects on their brains while they are young. Boys get exposed to porn at shockingly young ages, and that almost certainly will do to them what sugar has done to child health.
I think the better arguments against porn are ethical, or even aesthetic, rather than health related. That’s with regard to viewing it, of course. Jacky’s frank discussion of the health effects on performers (especially, counter intuitively, the men) was as informative as it was disconcerting.
I wouldn't expect it to cause physical harm. What I would expect it to do is create a desensitization to overstimulating visuals and situations that will not be reflected in pursuit of a real experience. If the real thing is seen to be awkward and/or boring, there's less incentive to pursue it. As I understand it we are seeing increased isolation manifesting in Gen Z, and I can easily see how having easily-available super-stimulating masturbatory material can be a substitute for the hard work of finding a partner. The question is how big a role it plays in the isolation (versus, say, social media and the COVID lock-down psychological impact.)
I’ve yet to see any compelling scientific evidence for the “superstimulus” hypothesis, and it doesn’t have the ring of truth anyway. Is it really super stimulating to watch dead-eyed, drugged up, bored people have joyless, reluctant sex for their job?
What I want to know about, and what I don't see a ton of research on, are the health effects of being completely sexually abstinent during young adulthood. Most of the research in this area is about cultural taboos and is interesting but not that applicable to the third of men or whatever it is now who have just completely quit.
Yes. I mean there's an obvious loneliness argument, but from a urological perspective, I think the prostate cancer stuff probably reflects a general sense that that if you have a car, you should take it for a drive every now and then to keep it running properly, and the same probably holds true for the pertinent part of one's anatomy.
Yeah I don’t want my boys exposed to it when they’re young either, but is this really that hard to do? I guess my oldest is only 4, but I’m not finding a non-stop barrage of porn coming his way yet.
I’m sympathetic to criticisms of pornography and sex work. I see them as the extension of commodification, alienation, and objectification into one of the most intimate areas of human life. They transform sex from a relation between people to a relation between person and object, or between people treated as objects. I don’t see these criticisms as “sex-negative”. For me, opposition to alienated employment-sex is tied to a positive view of sex as a humanistic good.
I’m GenX aged. and when I was growing up, teens might get their hands on a stash of playboys, or an X rated video tape or two, or even a suggestive scene from a mainstream book or movie. where their brains had to fill in a lot of blanks to create a full sexual fantasy. Back then, you had to develop your erotic imagination, without a fire hose of all the porn in the world streaming into your pocket
on demand. I think the problem is kids are developing their sexuality without developing either their imaginations or their adaptability to real world situations.
It’s hard to know all the effects that change has had, but the uptick in ED among very young men when they’re with a flesh and blood partners seems likely related, as does the rush of teen girls declaring themselves “asexual.” It’s not as simple as “porn bad,” but viewing too much graphic porn before having any other sexual experiences seems to be changing something crucial about psychosexual development.
Yes, this is all true. But it’s true of all of the media we consume, not just porn. Everything is hyper sensationalized in movies, tv shows, media coverage, and kids shows. For me, the only recourse is to just abstain from it. We don’t watch kids shows (they seem to be tailor made to cause ADD these days) or movies. We do things outside, we read.
Limiting exposure is the only real thing you can do in my opinion.
In this sense, the argument is much the same as with violent video games or rap with lyrics about violence and so on. The argument is always made that people (particularly kids) will take the content literally and apply it literally in the real world.
On its face, I think it is a compelling argument, but it's been wrong an awful lot.
I'm not sure sex correlates with violence that way. One can consume all kinds of violent content, and not be involved in a violent situation at any point in life. Sexual imprinting is a different animal. Exposure to sexual situations at an early age can have lifelong impacts on ones preferences and attitudes, which is why child sexual abuse, even when non-violent in its execution, is considered abuse. It has an adverse impact on the child. I don't know that seeing extreme sexual content as a pre-teen doesn't have a similar effect. But I do know that, unlike violence, sexual activity (or lack thereof) will certainly play a role in one's adulthood.
I think you're conflating different issues. Imprinting occurs at critical periods of development. People imprint all kinds of behaviors, including sexual ones. That also includes violence, which, for example might be why the strategies used in Palestinian schools are so effective in producing senselessly violent adults.
In-person action versus viewing something on a screen is a separate consideration, where clearly real life has an entirely different effect.
To be clear, I think pre-pubertal children shouldn't be viewing pornography. There's a lot of things that aren't developmentally appropriate for young children. But this is the precautionary principle I'm using. If anything, I'm surprised there isn't more evidence of harm in this area.
Yes, I think most of the arguments that porn leads to measurable harms (for viewers) lack evidence and don’t hold up to rigorous scrutiny. The better case against porn is simply that it’s a profoundly ugly and dehumanizing expression of sexuality. You could argue that it’s illiberal to advocate banning it on such grounds, but there’s a lot of space between “this should be banned” and “this is unproblematic” where this view his meaningful implications.
In the interview they talk a lot about this faux incest stuff, which I agree is creepy and weird. There are a lot of things in this space that are creepy and weird, but it is difficult to disaggregate how much of those is revealing some genuine depravity in the average viewer versus how much of it is an artifact of the industry itself, which is clearly full of people with very not average sexualities. My inclination is to think that to the extent that this choking phenomenon is happening at all, it's probably more in the social contagion category. I don't think that a lot of people actually like this sort of thing. But I don't know that as fact.
Regardless of what I might intuitively think, I am very hesitant to judge someone else's sexual proclivities.
I’m hesitant to judge someone else’s sexual proclivities too, and my view isn’t really about that. What’s ugly and dehumanizing is specifically sex-as-employment, not any particular fetish, kink or orientation. I subscribe to Marx’s view that all employment involves dehumanization and alienation, in that the employee is performing a function for a paycheck and is not inherently invested in the outcome of what they are doing. Porn simply expands that alienation into the most private and intimate areas of life. I actually think the term “sex work” is quite apt in that regard.
Fair enough, but even in this episode I think they talked about how there is an overlap between far left activist views and a newer conception that explicitly uses the term "sex work". And of course, people can volunteer to put their images out there without getting paid.
I mean if you really want to get Marxian about it, shouldn't it boil down to: "from each according to her ability, to each according to his needs"?
Yes, I don’t really have any criticism of people putting their image out there without getting paid, although of course I’d recommend they think carefully before doing so.
My application of Marx is for a critique of the commodification of sexuality. That doesn’t imply support for the egalitarian distribution of commodified-sexuality along gendered lines. Quite the opposite, those views are in complete contradiction.
Still listening, but on the "how old can performers work," an interesting case study is Maitland Ward, who starred on Boy Meets World in the nineties and started doing porn a few years ago. She's 47 so she must've started in her forties.
David Foster Wallace’s piece on the adult video awards from “Consider the Lobster” is still the best writing on porn I’ve read: https://genius.com/David-foster-wallace-big-red-son-annotated
“So much about today’s adult industry seems like an undeft parody of Hollywood and the nation writ large. The top performers are comic-book caricatures of sexual allure. The prosthetic breasts and lifted buttocks and (no kidding) artificial cheekbones are nothing more than accentuations of a mentality that yields huge liposuction and collagen industries. The gynecologically explicit sexuality of Jenna, Jasmin, et al. seems more than anything like a Mad magazine spoof of the “smoldering” sexuality of Sharon Stone and Madonna and so many other mainstream iconettes. Not to mention the fact that the adult industry takes many of the psychological deformities that Hollywood is famous for—the vanity, the vulgarity, the rank commercialism—and not only makes them overt and grotesque but seems then to revel in that grotesquerie”.
Trimix is three different medications that relax the arteries in the penis. It is confusing; this is smooth muscle tissue that is not under voluntary control the way that a skeletal muscle is. Normally, these arteries are very tensed up, but in the right hormonal state, they relax, allowing blood to flow in. Smooth muscle relaxation does not necessarily correlate with the a general subjective sense of being "relaxed" in this case.
Trimix is relatively safe and is unlikely to cause systemic side effects, but there are concerns with priapism (having an erection for too long, which is a medical emergency) and repeated injections always carry risks like bleeding and infection and scarring. Pretty much anything is bad if you use too much of it.
Yes but explain this one: “Gay man hospitalized with permanent erection” https://www.thepinknews.com/2019/08/09/gay-man-hospitalised-with-permanent-erection-that-may-never-go-down/
The stuff of nightmares.
There isn't really any such thing as a permanent erection. However, after a few hours in that state, there is a risk of permanent damage. The concern is that blood is trapped in there, meaning there isn't actually much flowing in or out, so tissue starts dying from lack of oxygen. This could lead to erectile dysfunction, or in the worst case, could actually cause gangrene, requiring amputation.
the issue with choking is that it's normative and part of the sexual script. ppl had various interests in roughness forever. but now many younger women just expect to choke them during coitus. that's weird
Why is it weird? If they like it, then good for them for knowing what they like and asking for it. If you don't like it, then don't do it. But why stigmatize it?
If it's because "they only learned it from porn," then so what? I've learned things I do and don't like from lots of non-porn media (and I'm sure you have, too), why does porn de-legitimize the preference?
Finally watched, have two comments:
1) Love Sarah's quip that the strap-on is essentially trans black-face. I think everyone should troll this idea in intersectional discourse and see if anyone bites. I expect it'd fry brains much like hitting Harry Mudd's androids with the Paradox of the Liar.
2) Just a word of warning for the ladies out there: I don't care how much you mean to me, there will not be needles. Nope.
I (male in 50’s) am an advocate of porn as adult entertainment which can enhance sex. Just as there is bad food, there is bad porn; just as food can be misused by people, so can porn. Just like alcohol is age restricted, so should porn. I have not been convinced that porn is categorically wrong—it is not for everybody, just like alcohol or any other pleasures.
When porn conveys mutual pleasure, it can expand interests or intrigue partners. Sometimes people may feel ashamed of having certain “kinks” or interests that may seem “weird” but these are actually more common than not. The ravish fantasy that women have is one; the “rougher” sex is another; the taboo interest in anal sex, etc. You get my point. What seems more common to me than I imagined when talking to my women friends is that they enjoy being a bit submissive in bed, desiring a bit of roughness from their men with attention to their (the woman’s) pleasure. Male aggression channeled into desire to please their partner. There is after all a point when pain and pleasure seem to meet.
I don’t find the anti-porn arguments made by Dworkin or Mackinnon compelling (they are paternalistic and don’t reflect reality; the dehumanization argument for me is odd. As a physician, patients exploit my skills to help themselves and I get paid; “exploitation” is everything and nothing.)
I find Paglia much more refreshing and honest- sex, at some level, is power-- power dynamics which alternate between partners, which can be liberating; the power to surrender to mutual pleasure, to give and take. It is a better description of sex.
This does not necessarily lead to promiscuity, and it is not anti-family or anti-traditional: people have been intoxicated by eros for eons, and how these desires are expressed don’t need to lead to some orgy free-sex fantasy—the number of “conservative” couples that are “wild” in the bedroom is more than many would think. Sex is not just an “animalistic” or base desire—it can lead to intense emotional understanding and compassion. But it can be hard for people to talk about sex (shame, personal tastes which change. etc).
Porn can help make sex deeply gratifying because it is not hiding the fact that sex is a messy human entanglement. If porn actors (who are capable of having sex with non-committed partners and get paid for it) can help couples explore their erotic desires then I don’t think porn is so bad.
Sarah’s concern about what it does to young people’s “brains” are valid. I don’t think porn is for young people but neither is alcohol. But I would be willing to bet that in prior generations humans were probably more aware of sexuality— they would see and hear it in the smaller homes with their parents, neighbors and cousins as they pursued their interests— less graphic of course.
I agree with some of what you write, but I don’t think you’re giving the dehumanization argument enough credit. It can simultaneously be true that all employment involves exploitation and dehumanization and that extending these effects to the intimate, private, emotionally charged realm of sexuality is especially nasty. Watching people have joyless, perfunctory sex for money has little to do with “intense emotional understanding and compassion”. And, against the idea that “there is good porn and bad porn”, these problems seem like a structural consequence of commodifying sexuality into a product to be sold on the market instead of treating sex as an end in itself.
Prostitution existed long before industrial capitalism. There is no extension
Yes, extending may not be the best word since it implies a sequence of events, which isn’t my intention. You can substitute “applying” if you prefer.
With regards to children, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment. The problem now is that young children will be exposed to some extremely commercialized pornography online, or they will get stuck with one of those teachers who wants to "queer" them in school. I don't see any way that they get to adolescence in ignorance. So it's really the responsibility of parents and of the broader society to prevent either of those things from being their sex ed.
With regards to adults, the conventional wisdom among the educated is that all power dynamics are inherently abusive, and all sexual activity requires explicit, constant, affirmative consent. What you describe as being hard to talk about is, as far as I'm concerned, impossible. It takes two to tango, and the women I know are not one of the two.
When I see people in heterosexual relationships, I see people from other countries, people from conservative or religious backgrounds, or on the other end of the spectrum, I see anarchists who use a ton of drugs and have sex with everyone. I really don't see a lot of educated professionals with liberal views in heterosexual relationships, and I think my generation's norms make this extremely difficult.
Great episode. I do think that there is a bit of “wanting to have your cake and eat it too” from Jacky. She was a bit critical of 50 Shades because its depiction of BDSM was not real or needed more research…yet she admits that her porn is also “acting” and not real. BTW I am not anti-porn.
50 shades is harmless fun and is so obviously silly fantasy that I find it hard to blame the author even if some people are foolish enough to take it as a guide to life, which I doubt is the case anyway.
I read most of the first book. My feelings were mixed. It was a prince charming story. The writing seemed formulaic (like Dan Brown books). The main character Anastasia didn’t seem to have much of a unique character, but I think that may be intentional because that would make it easy for a woman reader to see herself as Anastasia. Christian was a man that needed a woman to fix him, which is a common trope, but he was rich and charming. I think what appealed to women was the desire he displayed to her that he didn’t have for other woman, along with the taboo of being a BDSM fantasy that many woman hold. In the end it was silly but may have led to people be curious about kinks.
I haven’t read it, but I fondly remember watching hilarious dramatic readings from it on YouTube back in 2013.
Jacky says women are dominating the porn industry at the moment, so I guess we can add that to the list of fields and endeavors in which men are falling behind. Sheesh. How do you like them apples.
I’m probably shouldn’t do this but I’m going to share my experience with the choking thing.
I’m currently a 46 year old gen X man. I was married in my late 20s and divorced in 2013. When I went back out on the dating market for the first time in 8 years with Tinder now the main thing, it was a bit of a culture shock.
A lot of the girls I would end up sleeping with would want me to choke them. Not actual choking, not anything to do with oxygen deprivation. Erotic asphyxiation is a completely different thing from the phenomena I observed. They just wanted light simulated choking. Holding them by the neck basically.
It was not my idea nor ever would be, but they would guide my hand to their throats and wanted me to apply light pressure. I would just hold my arm out and they would push against it to control the pressure.
It’s a turn on because it’s a dominance move I guess, they like it for the same reason they want to be grabbed and fucked hard and have their asses slapped, it’s just a new move in the “rough sex” department that had somehow become popular while I was away.
I was fine with doing it when they wanted it, it was never my thing but I was able to get into it. But I found it anthropologically interesting that all of a sudden when I started dating in 2013 this was like “a thing” than lots of girls wanted.
I’m not sexually active any more so I don’t know what going on currently. (Prostate cancer)
Stuff like this just makes me think it's time for AI girlfriends.
Second
First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Second on his own ep, but first on the porn ep, smh
I'll have to say, I really don't understand why porn is such a hang-up for so many people; I think it really highlights that our culture is both sex-negative and completely obsessed with sex at the same time.
It inevitably comes down to "how do we tell our kids about it" or "how do we protect our kids from it" or something similar. I have two boys, aged 2 and 4. Here's what I plan to tell them when they get older: Porn is just like a WWE wrestling match.
In a WWE wrestling match, you've got two people who are ostensibly fighting each other: they look mad, they're punching, kicking, and throwing each other around with wrestling moves, etc. But their "punching," "kicking," and "wrestling moves" look nothing like you would see in a real fight.
All of their moves are extremely heightened and made to look good on camera. Both guys are always acting, not just with their faces and voices but with their body language as well. Everything is hyper-sensationalized so that it makes for great entertainment. Yes, it's super physical, they're taking real bumps and bruises, but it's an act. Most of all, it doesn't look like what real fighting looks like, so don't learn all of those "moves" and think that you can actually carry yourself in a real fight.
Same with porn. Yeah, they're definitely doing some acts that are related to actual sex, but everything is heightened, over-the-top, completely played for the camera and not each other, and doesn't really have much to do with real sex, so don't learn those "moves" and think that you can actually carry yourself well in a real encounter.
Then the conversation can continue, but to me this analogy is on point and, once established, easy for a kid/teen to understand.
Yes, I understand that there can be negative effects from porn, but nearly all of them can be mitigated by just a little bit of decent and non-squeamish parenting.
I am more worried about the effects on their brains while they are young. Boys get exposed to porn at shockingly young ages, and that almost certainly will do to them what sugar has done to child health.
It’s an extensively researched topic and my understanding is there isn’t much evidence that porn use causes actual medical harm. Derek Thompson did a review of it a few years ago here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/what-is-pornography-doing-to-our-sex-lives/589576/
I think the better arguments against porn are ethical, or even aesthetic, rather than health related. That’s with regard to viewing it, of course. Jacky’s frank discussion of the health effects on performers (especially, counter intuitively, the men) was as informative as it was disconcerting.
I wouldn't expect it to cause physical harm. What I would expect it to do is create a desensitization to overstimulating visuals and situations that will not be reflected in pursuit of a real experience. If the real thing is seen to be awkward and/or boring, there's less incentive to pursue it. As I understand it we are seeing increased isolation manifesting in Gen Z, and I can easily see how having easily-available super-stimulating masturbatory material can be a substitute for the hard work of finding a partner. The question is how big a role it plays in the isolation (versus, say, social media and the COVID lock-down psychological impact.)
I’ve yet to see any compelling scientific evidence for the “superstimulus” hypothesis, and it doesn’t have the ring of truth anyway. Is it really super stimulating to watch dead-eyed, drugged up, bored people have joyless, reluctant sex for their job?
What I want to know about, and what I don't see a ton of research on, are the health effects of being completely sexually abstinent during young adulthood. Most of the research in this area is about cultural taboos and is interesting but not that applicable to the third of men or whatever it is now who have just completely quit.
Is there any reason to suspect lack of sexual activity in young adulthood would have any health effects?
Yes. I mean there's an obvious loneliness argument, but from a urological perspective, I think the prostate cancer stuff probably reflects a general sense that that if you have a car, you should take it for a drive every now and then to keep it running properly, and the same probably holds true for the pertinent part of one's anatomy.
To put it delicately, lack of sexual activity isn’t the same thing as lack of urological activity.
Yeah I don’t want my boys exposed to it when they’re young either, but is this really that hard to do? I guess my oldest is only 4, but I’m not finding a non-stop barrage of porn coming his way yet.
sleepovers are the danger zone. you've got time.
Agreed, no sleepovers for us and I'm trying like hell to avoid public school. I only have a year and a half left to make that one happen...
I’m sympathetic to criticisms of pornography and sex work. I see them as the extension of commodification, alienation, and objectification into one of the most intimate areas of human life. They transform sex from a relation between people to a relation between person and object, or between people treated as objects. I don’t see these criticisms as “sex-negative”. For me, opposition to alienated employment-sex is tied to a positive view of sex as a humanistic good.
I’m GenX aged. and when I was growing up, teens might get their hands on a stash of playboys, or an X rated video tape or two, or even a suggestive scene from a mainstream book or movie. where their brains had to fill in a lot of blanks to create a full sexual fantasy. Back then, you had to develop your erotic imagination, without a fire hose of all the porn in the world streaming into your pocket
on demand. I think the problem is kids are developing their sexuality without developing either their imaginations or their adaptability to real world situations.
It’s hard to know all the effects that change has had, but the uptick in ED among very young men when they’re with a flesh and blood partners seems likely related, as does the rush of teen girls declaring themselves “asexual.” It’s not as simple as “porn bad,” but viewing too much graphic porn before having any other sexual experiences seems to be changing something crucial about psychosexual development.
Yes, this is all true. But it’s true of all of the media we consume, not just porn. Everything is hyper sensationalized in movies, tv shows, media coverage, and kids shows. For me, the only recourse is to just abstain from it. We don’t watch kids shows (they seem to be tailor made to cause ADD these days) or movies. We do things outside, we read.
Limiting exposure is the only real thing you can do in my opinion.
In this sense, the argument is much the same as with violent video games or rap with lyrics about violence and so on. The argument is always made that people (particularly kids) will take the content literally and apply it literally in the real world.
On its face, I think it is a compelling argument, but it's been wrong an awful lot.
I'm not sure sex correlates with violence that way. One can consume all kinds of violent content, and not be involved in a violent situation at any point in life. Sexual imprinting is a different animal. Exposure to sexual situations at an early age can have lifelong impacts on ones preferences and attitudes, which is why child sexual abuse, even when non-violent in its execution, is considered abuse. It has an adverse impact on the child. I don't know that seeing extreme sexual content as a pre-teen doesn't have a similar effect. But I do know that, unlike violence, sexual activity (or lack thereof) will certainly play a role in one's adulthood.
I think you're conflating different issues. Imprinting occurs at critical periods of development. People imprint all kinds of behaviors, including sexual ones. That also includes violence, which, for example might be why the strategies used in Palestinian schools are so effective in producing senselessly violent adults.
In-person action versus viewing something on a screen is a separate consideration, where clearly real life has an entirely different effect.
To be clear, I think pre-pubertal children shouldn't be viewing pornography. There's a lot of things that aren't developmentally appropriate for young children. But this is the precautionary principle I'm using. If anything, I'm surprised there isn't more evidence of harm in this area.
Yes, I think most of the arguments that porn leads to measurable harms (for viewers) lack evidence and don’t hold up to rigorous scrutiny. The better case against porn is simply that it’s a profoundly ugly and dehumanizing expression of sexuality. You could argue that it’s illiberal to advocate banning it on such grounds, but there’s a lot of space between “this should be banned” and “this is unproblematic” where this view his meaningful implications.
In the interview they talk a lot about this faux incest stuff, which I agree is creepy and weird. There are a lot of things in this space that are creepy and weird, but it is difficult to disaggregate how much of those is revealing some genuine depravity in the average viewer versus how much of it is an artifact of the industry itself, which is clearly full of people with very not average sexualities. My inclination is to think that to the extent that this choking phenomenon is happening at all, it's probably more in the social contagion category. I don't think that a lot of people actually like this sort of thing. But I don't know that as fact.
Regardless of what I might intuitively think, I am very hesitant to judge someone else's sexual proclivities.
I’m hesitant to judge someone else’s sexual proclivities too, and my view isn’t really about that. What’s ugly and dehumanizing is specifically sex-as-employment, not any particular fetish, kink or orientation. I subscribe to Marx’s view that all employment involves dehumanization and alienation, in that the employee is performing a function for a paycheck and is not inherently invested in the outcome of what they are doing. Porn simply expands that alienation into the most private and intimate areas of life. I actually think the term “sex work” is quite apt in that regard.
Fair enough, but even in this episode I think they talked about how there is an overlap between far left activist views and a newer conception that explicitly uses the term "sex work". And of course, people can volunteer to put their images out there without getting paid.
I mean if you really want to get Marxian about it, shouldn't it boil down to: "from each according to her ability, to each according to his needs"?
Yes, I don’t really have any criticism of people putting their image out there without getting paid, although of course I’d recommend they think carefully before doing so.
My application of Marx is for a critique of the commodification of sexuality. That doesn’t imply support for the egalitarian distribution of commodified-sexuality along gendered lines. Quite the opposite, those views are in complete contradiction.
Still listening, but on the "how old can performers work," an interesting case study is Maitland Ward, who starred on Boy Meets World in the nineties and started doing porn a few years ago. She's 47 so she must've started in her forties.