Expressing nausea at the existence of different opinions (a form of shaming, and also, several different logical fallacies in one package) is not the best way to invite robust and honest debate.
The burnout rate of porn and the known effects of porn addiction are not matters of personal opinion or bias, though.
You telling me what my words mean by claiming you can decode them for others is not a valid debating tactic.
You do not and cannot speak for all sex workers.
I have, thanks.
I repeat that you are not and cannot be a spokeperson for this entire area, also people early into any âjourneyâ - be it a new career, a personal quest, a pathworking, or even a diet - tend to be full of starry-eyed convert zealotry, and be seeing only the absolutely positive sides of the thing they have embraced.
Thatâs fine, but please donât mistake it for actual knowledge of all the issues involved, including on the consumersâ side.
Youâve claimed you can interpret my words for others, and now youâre claiming to speak on behalf of every sex worker, including those who donât share your innate privilege of being able to CHOOSE sex work. Thatâs not something one can just ignore, and continue debating as though these things are valid foundations to our conversation (if we have one) about this.
How long in approximate terms (months, years, etc) would you say youâve worked in this industry?
To quickly address a couple of other replies, I canât do multiple replies because it gets tiring, but I will just point out that NO amount of sacred sexual art or practice came close to the all-consuming nature of modern technology and its endless delivery of porn, most younger people are already usually somewhat addicted - in the literal sense - to their smartphones, add in a type of sexual content and availability never before seen, and you have a new phenomenon.
Itâs like trying to say the super-mordibly obese persons who need 24-7 carers, CPAP machines, and medications just to stay alive at that size, are just enoying the historical tradition of feasting and are in no way being harmed by their inability to leave their beds unaided (inb4 âfat-shamingâ - a conversation for another time though, perhaps).
Ty fur the edit btw! I will add that as a consumer of pornography on the regular it has 100% fucked my self esteem and led to me comparing my sexual competence with unrealistic expectations so I definitely see the negatives of that! I know that 100 years ago men only concerned themselves with healthy competition with their peers and nowadays its like if you arenât the top 1% youâre useless in bed.
Overall I think the idea of the sexual revolution has far outlived its use and is now majorly negative as a result.
Oof had to look it up as never read 50 shades. But even that feels better than the fake manufactured porn I see. @ladybhex Iâm very curious what your opinion on minors who watch porn having their entire understanding of sex be completely removed from any Romantic or emotional attachment whatsoever and if you think this will or has had any major ramifications? I ask because this was my experience as a minor
Here are just a handful of current problems that cannot be addressed by a simplistic âsex good, therefore all sex work goodâ model:
1. Revenge porn:
Please read that for a full understanding of the damage this can do to people.
2. Trafficking:
Please, also, take time to read that account.
3. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
If someone told a woman in 1985 that children would be shown porn in a handheld device which normalised it enough that they later wanted to work in porn, and to act as unpaid PR for the entire spectrum of sex-for-sale, this would be seen as abuse of women (primarily) for sexual gratification.
The new mindset that sex is always positive overlooks this: the term âsex workâ is being touted as morally superior to âprostitute,â and yet turns a womanâs body into a workplace, conveying the impression that being fucked by strangers in order to make a living is no different to becoming a CEO or working in retail.
I dispute that on the basis rape has always been treated with prison sentences (or even harsher punishments, including the death penalty), instead of financial compensation based on how much the same acts would cost, with a prostitute, on the open market.
Now, you could say prostitutes consent, but in reality addiction and compulsion are so intrinsically interwoven into most sex work, even in rich nations with welfare safety nets, as to make that point irrelevant.
Theft can be compensated with a financial payment, itâs a crime against property: womenâs bodies (menâs as well) are not property, therefore a crime taking a âserviceâ (which may also be bartered or sold) âfromâ them has never been treated this way â and rightly so.
Those are just some foundational points I wanted to make, be back on later for more.
Comparing a burlesque show to porn, itâs like comparing weed to crack.
You think in black and white, you think that if someone arguments against porn, theyâre as prude as an amish.
No, you can in fact differentiate, you know.
This is a sensitive subject, but I would like to make a few observations, if you donât mind.
First of all, to quote Christopher Hitchens, it makes absolutely no sense to penalise selling something that can be given away freely.
The other issue is slavery, which is indeed a huge problem in my part of the world, but most slaves actually work in agriculture. Should the fact that many farmhands are kidnapped and beaten, forced to work for free, etc⌠mean that farmwork itself should be made illegal? HardlyâŚ
Those are two separate issues and most prosititutes that work legally are there of their own free will and regularly commute between their home countries and their place of work, usually in Switzerland, Germany or Austria, where prositution is fully legal and EU citizens can engage in it to their heartâs content.
The grammar of the sentence âsex good, therefore all sex work goodâ sounds a bit cave-ish. Are you suggesting my statements be received as primitive and underdeveloped?
I never stated that sex is always positive. Iâm adding a more positive outlook (as its been my experience so far but can update you in 6 years if youâd like) to a largely disapproval-dominated thread. The information is important. I havenât stated a rebuttal against the articles youâve shared. Iâm reminding you that itâs not reflective of consumers / creators as a whole. Itâs one factor of sexuality that deserves discussion. We are doing just that.
Revenge porn, human trafficking, and the suffering associated with prostitute are all very important to discuss. These are sex-related matters, so they have correlations, but also ink into sexual deviance which is more a sociological / criminal discussion. Not simply pornâs affect on majick. They are separate matters from and do not represent consenting adult parties that enjoy recreational porn consumption or those who create it.
To be honest most successful people donât watch porn , it often is just a form of escapism , and if you look online there are lots of people telling yo how much their lives have improved by abandoning . It shortens your dopamine circuits so you always need a stronger high than before, this gives birth to depression, anxiety , and just not enjoying other aspects of life because of such high dopamine amounts being synthetically produced.
In my opinion and what Iâve seen happy people donât watch porn, it is just a dopaminergic splurge of escapism for people who are not happy with their lives . It takes way too much energy that they are using to work on their lives
If you ever read a self help book or a common one by Napoleon hill , he says that controlling sexual energy is necessary for acheiving goals . Wasting life force and dopamine on porn takes a huge chunk out of your wnergy to create a potential better reality
So essentially itâs just an energy siphoning trap , sure people can use it once in awhile but thatâs just now how itâs used at all by anyone .
Itâs just another matrixal pitfall , you let your animalistic desire for pleasures of matter take over for 10 minutes and feel like shit after
But if you enjoy it keep doing , most peopleâs perceptions will not change by arguing with Them
Not respecting only fans creators is justified because success is gauged in society based on how hard it is to achieve something or obtain it , millionaires work years building companies working 18 hours a day , ripping off your clothes for lonely horny people online is not going to be considered a respectable entrepreneurial endeavor by any logical member of society
And I personally am not looking to penalise selling sex itself or sex-related services, just saying that major problems exist, have always existed, and are now worsening due to online pornography, and that compulsion is like the seven-eighths of the iceberg which has always accompanied this field.
The farmworker comparison misses the mark by miles: firstly, any form of enslavement is bad, and distracting from the topic of this thread, the harms of online pronography and the factors which compel people into sex work, by trying to address other manifestations of slavery, is beyond the scope of this debate.
In a sense your argument nullifies every point that @ladybhex is making, as well, since sheâs coming from the point of view of someone who is making choices, and therefore can never address the experience of people addicted to porn, or compelled into sex work, including prostitution and pornography.
If she is to continue posting her own views (and I think she can and should) then that line has already been blurred for us, just as itâs often blurred for the people involved in porn and prostitution.
Obviously sex work and porn can be problematic, but my point is that this can be applied to almost any line of work, I suspect the strong emotions around this subject are largely a result of monotheism-induced moral panic.
A few little details first, before I get into the meat of this:
I donât recognise slut-shaming as a valid thoughtcrime at all, so Iâll move on from that one entirely. Itâs my wish that everyone feels happy to enjoy their lives and preferences, providing theyâre not harming anyone else. My original comments were about people addicted to porn, and exploitations within that industry, which DO measurably and inescapably harm many people.
As with the farmworker comparison above, choice to define oneself as a slut is not the same as being addicted to online pornography, or in a position of being forced into any kind of sex-related work.
If you wish to argue from emotion (that you feel sickened) youâre welcome to do so, but I am equally welcome to reject them in a debate about measurable effects of a phenomenon (online porn) on society. I used quotes on âjourney,â something you picked up on, because it was how you described your entry into sex work.
Echoing it without quotes may imply I have internalised your own definition, that sex work is always akin to a journey.
âA community like BALGâ is not the entity with which you are debating â you are debating me as a person.
And BALG is very much NOT a âpolitical debate forumâ â in fact we have a rule against that kind of thing.
So far this has been about lived experiences, and NOT politics, it needs to remain that way and I think we can accomplish that.
To the next point:
You earlier offered:
I should be the first one to vocalize whether or not Iâm being degraded or lacking self-respect.
⌠as a roundhouse reply in response to my comments about porn as a whole. And also:
I am happy to answer any questions regarding sex work and porn.
If we can establish that you donât and cannot speak for all sex workers, and that I donât and cannot speak on behalf of anyone else on there, that may pave the way to a better discourse.
The issue of people becoming addicted to the products of forced farm labour rightly belongs in a topic about obesity, and not here, this is about the problems around pornography for magicians. Maybe we can have that at some other time?
Itâs not moral panic though to say that sex is powerful, and porn addiction a real problem, along with the criminal underpinnings of the sex industry.
Itâs not an implication, a suspect idea I try to slide in under the radar â it is a proven fact to which many countries rightly devote millions of dollars and working hours of police time, social services, medical, psychological, and other provisions.
You have the advantages of your ancestorâs hard work, conquests, and sacrifice (whatâs also termed the âprivilege,â of living in a developed western nation) which permits you to choose to do sex work, on the basis it appeals to you.
The internet connection, your obviously high levels of education, literacy, and your relatively high social standing within your own community (compared to countries where extra-marital sex commands legal sanctions) are buffering you from the grim realities: that on any given day, the vast majority of women in the sex industry (from prostitution to porn) are either being compelled through physical violence, or are working simply to survive, whether for food and housing or to feed addictions severe enough to make how the money is earned, of less importance than feeding the need.
I understand addiction, and how shitty lived experience can feed into the need for more escape, deepening the addiction, and then how the two feed each other - though thankfully not on the level of crack-addicted prostitutes selling sex for meagre 2-figure sums, in all major cities of the world.
But I am acquainted with it well enough that Iâm not judging them for being in that situation, I am simply saying that addiction is yet another chain keeping hundreds of thousands of women in the crib, earning money for their pimps and dealers, instead of pursuing their real dreams and hopes.
To equate that to spiritual uses of sex energy is bizarre and misleading, and spits in the face of women who are right now in hellish conditions, and have zero choice.
Addiction to use of porn is another issue which I already addressed above. I could come back round to address this if the flow of our conversation permits at some point.
If early exposure to porn, such as you describe in your first post in this conversation here, has programmed you to find becoming a sex worker erotic, that is in itself something I am concerned about as a social issue, but I will assume you actually have free agency because itâs outside the scope of this conversation to do otherwise.
There always have been women who want a LOT of sex, and want to perform sexual acts for money, for self-gratification, and for display, this is something we can track back throughout history.
But just because you get off on doing whatever it is that you offer as a sex-related service doesnât mean we can safely say all sex work is good, or that there are not massive problems with the pornification of modern society.
Yes, I do criticise your argument as a vast oversimplification of the topic, motivated by your own personal enjoyment of the work.
You state: âRevenge porn, human trafficking, and the suffering associated with prostitute are all very important to discuss. These are sex-related matters, so they have correlation, but also ink into sexual deviance which is more a sociological / criminal discussion.â
And yet you have interjected your entirely positive (so far, and I hope it remains that way) experiences of doing sex work into a topic about possible harms. Balance is balance, and both âsidesâ so to speak are free to bring what they have to the table.
I would like to repeat my question: approximately how long have you worked in this field?
And here are a few more points, addressed at the overall topic (not you personally):
1. Porn is now saturated, and to make a living, women find themselves having to do increasingly risky and extreme acts to stand out
2. Social stigma remains, and can mar the lives even of those who were considered âsuccessfulâ
(You may argue that people who criticise the sex industry are to blame for this, to which I again point you to the seven-eighths of that iceberg, namely the exploitation, harm, and elements of compulsion which have always accompanied prostitution, and the desperation which drives a lot of women into pornography. But as things stand, painting porn as a golden pathway to liberation and happiness denies the lived experience of even the most successful women.)
3. Extreme acts done in porn, as the producers seek to outdo the competition, are having real and measurable damaging effects on the lives of young people
The normalisation of acts most people would not choose to do of their own volition is one of the most alarming things about pornification, and an area that âsex-positiveâ speakers are entirely failing to address.
Your contention that because young people have phones now, we should stand back and let that happen because you yourself are enjoying the experience of sex work, is something I disagree with, and is an appeal to the fallacy of inevitability â something which I reject completely, wherever it may appear.
Whether an unaware young person beating it to footage which was actually filmed without the subjectâs consent (whether fully coerced, revenge porn, or just someone doing porn because they donât have any other choice available, and they actually hate it) is a whole magick-related topic in itself, since photo-scanning is big on here, and implies that energy from photo and film can be directly perceived by the viewer.
Again that almost requires a whole other thread to discuss.
I donât think you understand , not such a thing really exist , itâs harmful to your brain, itâs not compatible with our biology , we didnât evolve to watch high speed porn , same thing as lab made drugs , synthetic causes have synthetic effects which are horrible for us
But are addicts voices of less importance than those who profit from selling the goods or services theyâre addicted to? How does this map into concerns about âableismâ you previously mentioned, when it comes to your own strengths and weaknesses?
Itâs an interesting point, outside your own choice of work: does a creator of a product which is known (clinically proven) to be addictive, have a social responsibility towards those whose addiction gets (no pun intended) out of hand?
Gambling machines in the UK have been criticised for being the âcrack cocaineâ of gambling addiction, are the bookmakers wrong to try to optimise the speed at which âuseâ becomes âaddictionâ and to avoid going that route?
Or is the need of the person profiting by selling goods and services, always going to trump all damage done to those who consume the product or service?
- a conversation for another time though, perhaps).
