I wonder how the developers feel - working for a leadership team / company that apparently doesn't care much about ethics.
You could ask the same of any adtech employees.
Nothing wrong with consuming content that increases sexual excitement, but there are more ethical options out there [0].
If we as consumers care about this then at least we can vote with our wallet or attention.
[0] https://mashable.com/article/pornhub-alternatives-free-porn-...
Can this be good for the general thought process of humans, that you get to grow up with these very visual images of adults having sex that is so far fetched from what making love actually can be between two people ?
At least for me personally it has taken a lot of willpower not to look at porn anymore, and I'm willing to admit it. I wish the children wouldn't have access to porn where ever they go. I mean, why is this not an issue ?
Is is it because we are afraid to admit that watching porn can cause issues in our thinking ? How it objectifies women, and how these visual images can take up our thinking during the day, how these overly tuned sexual images actually can hijack our thinking and focus on only lust and sexual thoughts all the time, thinking about the woman on the street as a object to be used rather than an person?
And what about the effects porn can have on the self worth of men, who are looking to perform like these actors on the screen and compare themselves to them when making love ?
I have a hard time understanding why porn is being normalized, why we as a society are not thinking about the negative effects it has on our society, especially young people who are now growing up with this content available from every device they choose to use.
There are many psychological issues related to watching porn and also there is the issue of having to resist the urge during the day if you have ever started the habit, I mean you can access it from anywhere, you just have to google and there you are.
I wish there would be some moral compass when it comes to working to porn companies, or talking about porn, or supporting this idea that porn is just part of everyday life, when in fact it is far for a healthy thing to be thinking about.
Of course, there are sides to this, maybe porn can reduce the amount of rapes and non-conforming sexual acts, but those should be considered morally wrong anyway and guided towards educating our children to restraining their urges towards that anyway.
It kinda irks me that in this discussion also porn is just seen as something very normal, when in reality for example 30 years ago porn was not everywhere. Now it is just couple of clicks away, and your mind can be filled with people gagging stuff down other peoples throats, people being choked, violent acts of sex and all kinds of impossible beauty standards to fill.
Imagine showing these acts to a five year old and what is going on in his mind while he watches this ? Imagine a 10 year old obsessively thinking about the act he saw, and not being able to forget it, as it is triggering something very primal in his still developing mind ? Image thinking that is normal, and that is how you treat people.
To me, this is just a sign of a sick society, and we should as parents and people who are aware talk about the harmful sides of widespread normalization of porn. It is not allright. If you are working on porn, you are causing possible millions of people to possible get hooked into this act of loosing their vitality (sexual energy) in front of their devices every day. This is a fact.
This is a direct loss in creativity also, in yogic traditions creativity is considered to be coming from the sexual energy, so everyday we are loosing so much creativity to the fact that people are just jacking off to virtual images.
And I'm not even touching the widespread and common abuse of young women entering the field, possible traumatizing them for life, when thinking that a porn actress career would be something to pursue. And this is all because companies like PornHub don't just care, all they care about is making a profit in the end from ad revenues, by trying to maximize profit on the weak willedness of their viewers. To me, that is immoral and something that should not be supported.
PornHub acts like they're all cool and that, and it's hip to view porn, but actually they are just a hightech pimp selling to the lowest common denominator and taking advantage of people in the process. I hope everyone who works for the porn industry, thinks about their actions and what consequences it ultimately can have on our society.
Anyway, that is just my view on this, hoping that this will spark some thoughts on the subject.
I have recovered from porn addiction, and I am more happy because of that. But it is just a few clicks away, and sometimes I still have to struggle with these thoughts taking over.
I'm no expert in this - but maybe a first good step would be to introduce some kind of rating system for porn, just like movies have. As with other things in our lives - porn is also on a spectrum. For example:
- Clips showing sensual sexual exchange between 2 people = safe
- Clips showing 10inch phalluses being rammed down your various orifices = probably needs a disclaimer that it's not reflecting the real world.
Regarding kids watching this stuff - I also wonder what this does to their brain development.
And regarding self-worth of men - if you promote the more realistic view of sex then porn can be educational, e.g. learning how to satisfy your sex partner.
You bring up yogic traditions - again not an expert in this, but didn't some yogis show how to elevate your creativity via tantric yoga?
But I think we can all agree (well not all, as is apparent from all the down-votes of the GP comment) that exploitation and abuse in porn is bad and hence why we shouldn't support companies that are not serious about eliminating this.
Not so familiar with tantric traditions, but still that is something more coming closer to elevating your creativity and vital energy through sexual acts, than just releasing it that porn is encouraging people to do.
If you think about this from a deeper perspective, porn is taking a lot of power away from our young men, so maybe it is a good thing to some parties to keep porn available, so people would not have their strength to themselves to resist control structures. But this is just a thought.
We should not support, and yet, pornhub probably makes millions from their exploitative acts.