Comment by ativzzz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ativzzz | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty libertarian when it comes to things like drugs or sex work, but it's hard for me with porn. Maybe because I've been addicted to it for 20 years at this point so it's personal for me. You can call it a parenting failure or whatever, either way I'm addicted to porn and I think it will stay with me forever simply due to my lifestyle of remote tech worker. Luckily, it's not totally crippling, but it's definitely hampered my development

I don't know what a reasonable solution is. We forbid selling alcohol & cigarettes to people under a certain age because we deem it unhealthy for children's development, but we don't have the tools to do that for internet porn on a societal scale. Is digital ID the right solution here? Is there a better way to do this? The HN mentality is to tear down digital walls, and is it even possible without seriously harming the open web or personal privacy & security?

> > Maybe because I've been addicted to it for 20 years at this point so it's personal for me.

Without porn you would have been addicted to lingerie catalogues and failing that of course real p*y in the form of endlessly chasing girls and or prostitutes bringing financial ruin upon yourself.

Porn is just how sex drive manifests itself for men (we are visual creatures) in a frictionless world where there are 5bn cameras in our pockets.

There is no shame in going down because of sex drive, it has been engrained in our brains during the past 100 million years

You may be right lol. Honestly I hate my sex drive sometimes. Sure it's useful from an evolutionary perspective, but for me personally it does no good

> > Sure it's useful from an evolutionary perspective

It's also useful from a relaxation and performance perspective.

Every time you rub one out you give your brain the illusion that you passed your genes so you go through life much more relaxed because it's an orgy (pun intended) of 'mission accomplished' banners within the brain.

At least for me that's how I explain post nut clarity and relaxation.

yea i'm not sure having 8 hour long marathon porn sessions improves my performance or relaxation

though like you said earlier, I bet if it wasn't for porn I'd have multiple unwanted children or multiple STDs

These addictions are likely a symptom of another problem. It's not the porn itself that's the problem. It's likely childhood trauma or some other adversity that's caused the addiction.

for me, the porn was the trauma. early exposure to it without any parental controls (i had unfiltered access to the internet too young)

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