Humans have a superpower called empathy. By watching others experience pleasure, we ourselves can experience that pleasure and people will pay for that.
I'm pretty sure that when we get aroused from porn, that's not an empathetic response. (There may be empathy involved, but it's not primarily empathetic. We can test this: do sociopaths get aroused by porn?)
I never claimed it was primarily empathy. But imagine watching porn where there was no emotion expressed. Uninterested faces and motions. Absolutely no expression from the face, not even flexed muscles or anything to indicate enthusiasm. Pure and simple intercourse. It would look like nature, simple utility. That is not arousing.
Nope. Maybe you're young and you allways had porn available at your fingertips (internet). When I was a teenager, I'd come accross just a couple of movies on VHS a year. Beyond that, I'd have to watch the blacked out, static filled, almost unwatchable image from the unsubscribed-to porn channel on cable. Couldn't see their faces, couldn't see expression, but could still see outline of bodies. Still got aroused.
Kids have less capacity for empathy and a starving man will always eat crumbs. I did my fair share of cable box hacking/noise sifting/etc, but usually adults tend to mature in their preferences. Would you still be aroused by that content?
I also probably had a lot more testosterone in my body back then... but if I was still starving, then maybe. I guess I won't know, since there's the internet now...
Really, you're declaring your own porn preferences as a universal human constant?
I didn't say anything about my preference. I said the emotions expressed will be invoked in the viewer.
Nature can be arousing. People are aroused by mannequins, photocopiers cars, other things without emotion. I don't think empathy is at all necessary.
It's a biological drive, like hunger, but it's the only one that's primarily mental, rather than physical. When you eat food, it literally gets into your blood and changes your body chemistry. So watching hamburgers is not the same as eating them. But how can your body detect sexual satisfaction without the involvement of the mind? It can't. So you can transmit it remotely.