How Much Porn Are We Watching? A Lot | Hacker News Reader

How Much Porn Are We Watching? A Lot

thewalrus.ca

11 pointspseudolus21 comments

Open articleView on HN

I was expecting statistics, eg. in minutes per year per head, maybe even with demographics, but the article has none of that.

This deals with one of our primary human drives. It's very easy to condemn those showing bad behavior in public, but too often it's motivated by a lack of access to privacy or mental illness. As long as no harm is intended, I don't really feel this is one of our larger concerns.

Just from my own personal experience, porn makes me apathetic, unproductive, and consequentially - miserable. Happy to see more people my age are starting to think that maybe porn is not such a good thing. I've cut it out of my life about as much as I can.

It's interesting. In the days since the election my Threads feed has been dominated by posts claiming that your experience means you wrote Project 2025, you are a misogynist, Nazi, etc. You aren't following the Science. 9 out of 10 neuroscientists agree, the smooth flavor of OF isn't just tasty, it's better for you! It's just your hate that makes you see these negative consequences.

can you provide links to these posts?

If this were social media I would just screenshot it for you. There are also people posting more I guess, substantial criticisms of Project 2025, for example. I'm not sure what you're after, but my point is merely to relay the rhetoric. I'm only trying to reflect the climate, which should be easy enough to infer. Another thing I would cross reference this article and the zeitgeist with would be the Kinsey Report. Sex maniacs everywhere! This is just how humans are! Well, yeah, with that sample set. I'll stop short of any potential implications of Kinsey, et al, or asking 'why is so much of it free?' which might introduce analogies to vice or drug pushing, etc, and therefore intentional subversion. Whatever consenting adults want to do with themselves or each other is up to them, IMHO. However I think it's silly to talk past people with traditional values. I sincerely hope it isn't 'a tell' to call them fascists for simply not wanting their kids exposed to hypersexuality, etc. We had that happen once in society already and it didn't end well for my people.

> I'm not sure what you're after, but my point is merely to relay the rhetoric

I think many of us don't encounter that rhetoric in our own lives or in the lives of those we connect with, even those of us that are open about our own traditionalist or radical ideas.

So people are asking for the opprtunity to see where you're encountering it, so we can start to understand why you (some) seem so beseiged by it while others are completely oblivious and don't encounter it at all.

It seems like you're taking the vitriol and rhetoric for granted in a way that some of us can't immediately relate to, and that kind of thing makes people curious. It's clearly not a universal experience, so what's making it so different for you than for some of the rest of us?

I've started a project of saving some topics on social media across networks, specifically because people are out of touch about the contentious things other people see

I haven't added these kinds of topics to the list but if there's interest I'll start

this seems like it might be useful!

Do you have a link where someone said 'porn make me unproductive and unhappy and I cut it from my life' or similar and another responded to him any of the word you say? Any link to that thread post?

People are just plain weird if you're saying the truth. They should just read more and write less.

>Enough porn is being consumed in some public libraries that they have had to adapt their computer policies.

I laughed at this, this is 100% true. I have a relative who works at the town library, and she has seen many people (mostly older men) watching porn at the library. Some do not even hide it, anyone walking by can see what is going on on the screen.

I found this surprising since she told me there is not much they can do. I thought about volunteering to block it, but I realized it would open up a whole can of bureaucratic worms.

There's been a bit of a backlash among younger generations against sex scenes in movies and shows, and while some people think it's because they're more prudish, I wonder if part of it may be because of easy access to porn. Watching two naked actors bounce around suggestively is less titillating than it used to be when you can pull up the real deal, on demand, from your pocket.

The backlash is because they aren't having sex themselves. Whether their sexual needs are being "met" or satisfied by porn is another question.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-...

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/teen-sexual-activity-c...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr196.pdf

in addition to the other comment

they also are more prudish, in that context. they don't want to be turned on in that context specifically because they're inundated on social media feeds and the specifically erotic sources they compulsory indulge in. there's a pushback because many are addicted and don't actually want to be.

they lack any world where there was a healthy balance to refer to, so its not just an indulgence, its debilitating. and many aren't socially adept at getting what they're seeing in person, or able to afford recreational use to get that in person.

its a pretty unique combination.

I'd argue that erotic sources are nothing new. Consider swimsuit calendars and pinup girls. You could even look at the shows from the sixties and seventies to find people being chosen for sex appeal. For instance, there's the classic question for Gilligan's Island: Ginger or Mary Ann. The debate was literally over their relative sex appeal. This isn't a new trick.

I'd suggest that perhaps the style of seduction has changed, but the negative response is wholly new, at least among the targeted recipients.

Its not about the sex appeal, its about actual sex

Depictions of that existed in the 60s and 70s in the US but was limited to some magazines, there was stigma of obtaining, possessing, browsing. There was stigma on the creators, and the creators relied on producers

Pretty much all of those frictions are gone, and now its an algorithm fueled funnel to independent creators and their highly interactive porn, from social media to subscription feeds. live streams weekly like a tv show from any adept creator. in some areas there’s a non-negligible to high chance that any pretty woman you meet and exchange social media with has a link to her porn or “content”, all while the followup direct messages never come for a more casual or nontransactional relationship, if replied to at all. a world where the strangers, random porn actors, are still accessible in a separate tab, or suggested on the site where the other girl’s profile led to. I’ve been at pool parties and bars where a girl shows me her OnlyFans content feed on her phone, just scrolling.

I think this has nothing to do with the consistency of an outlet, for a tease. And recognizing it as different explains the demand for these neutered films. A lot of people, the target audience, wants a break from being targeted.

I think it’s because the sex scenes are almost always gratuitous and out of place. They rarely serve the story and almost always detract, and many movies would arguably be better without it. I feel the same way when a movie pauses to make a political or social PSA. Like, it’s fine if it’s a natural flow of the story arc. But it’s almost always just a jarring deviation.

In the days of the early web there was a database that would give you timestamps and descriptions of nudity in movies, so that you could cut straight to the chase

Or maybe I am remembering a scene from a raunchy comedy of that era (which probably prompted someone to make it)

But the point is that in the dial up era there was no other way for horny people to get full motion video and audio smut, and there was a high demand for it

Today the supply has far outpaced demand and we can consume as much as we can, all day every day.

Movies simply don’t need to cater to that need any longer, and the movies are better for it

It could be that a large amount of porn consumption is kept as a private thing, but when sex scenes appear in media that is consumed "in public" (theatres, on the living room couch with friends, etc.) any reminder of that private life might cause anxiety about sexual preferences being found out by others. So the natural inclination is to react as strongly as the rest of the people against such scenes to avoid standing out. Also, maybe such prudishness could also publicly channel negative thoughts about the private porn consumption in an indirect way, in a "that's not really me" sense.

I'm speculating here since porn is easier to hide the consumption of entirely unlike something like drugs. A more sympathetic reaction towards such scenes could be unconsciously seen as as much as a giveaway as a razor with mystery powder on it.

And maybe finally there will be less focus on sex in the thematically unrelated movies. It's simply boring and predictable at this point, while taking valuable screen time out of 99 minute runtime. Same with forced old audience references in kids content and kid jokes and in the older audience content.

Movies shouldn't be a salad of all possible tropes, genres and references just to try catch widest possible audience.

If you consider that a young horny male after watching porn and finishing himself off would be much less aggressive in seeking/forcing a woman, because his hormones have cooled off a bit, wouldn't that mean less groping and shitty behaviour against women?

Some research have been done about that:

https://annas-archive.se/md5/8b8fb4b900efc159d101ce16877dcb8...

My personal take on that and after speaking with several friends (married mostly) is that if your partner doesn't want it, porn can lead to a short-term peace in the family :)

Not sure about long-term consequences though...

But... DPRK soldiers getting access to the internet have been doing exactly that:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/glob...

Good luck fighting the primal instinct with regulation or shaming.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com