Ask HN: Folks who grew up with online porn, are you addicted? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Folks who grew up with online porn, are you addicted?

5 pointsilrwbwrkhv7 comments

There was an article here a while ago about how Gen Z wants less gratuitous soft core in their TV shows and movies; one theory was that if they want porn they know where to find it, so they consider it even more jarring than we do when it's shoehorned into content, not as a plot point, but merely as fan service.

That was just a misreported survey https://static1.squarespace.com/static/633f0603fdaa7311ba384... where headlines used the "sex" angle because it draws more clicks, but the survey includes "romance" in the same category as well.

Of course you can recycle the argument and just say that Gen Z wants less gratuitous romantic relationships in their TV shows and movies; one theory being that if they want romance they know where to find it, so they consider it even more jarring than we do when it's shoehorned into content merely because there's a demographic who's into that kind of thing.

I (Gen X) actually do agree with the recycled argument: eg most police procedurals would be just as good, or even better, without the gratuitous romantic interest character(s).

(A friend of mine once explained soap operas as: people are so addicted to poking their noses in the sex lives of others that they voluntarily watch shows devoted to the sex lives of fictional others)

Got my first computer with a modem in my bedroom when I was 14 in 1997. Meaning, I explored the emerging internet unsupervised. Of course, I watched a lot of porn.

I'm 40 now and still occasionally watch porn. Maybe once a month. So definitely not addicted. Also, I didn't even develop any kinks.

No, it's like heroin.. after a certain point/age you burn out and are not addicted anymore. You can do this with porn too. But like heroin, it isn't consequence free.

I was. Didn't think about it or realize it. Didn't understand how much it was affecting me or my wife.

I stopped porn entirely when I became Catholic. I also don't masturbate anymore. Sex with my wife is now actually meaningful instead of mechanical or self-gratifying.

I'm still cleaning the gutters of my mind so there are times when I'm overwhelmed with images of porn I've seen in the past, but when that happens now I just pray for the people involved in that particular image and ask God for mercy for them.

welcome to the cave

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