Okay, you become aware that there is something that is correlated with a reduction in rape and other sex crimes, divorce, std's, teen sex, and that increases prosocial behavior... what doubts could you/do you have about said thing? — anonymous66

I'll attempt to answer this myself. I think many people do have the intuition, "I think porn is wrong", without being about to find the words to express why. Perhaps the thinking is something like this:
I'm not sure the best world is one in which sex is treated the way it is in porn videos. Wouldn't a world in which people use sex to express their love, respect and commitment be better than our current world?

I can even imagine a world in which porn expresses the best of humanity... Perhaps a better world might be one in which porn exists, but that porn shows us how to be better people.

I suppose I'm making some assumptions... like, casual sex isn't as good as sex between people who are committed to each other. and/or a world in which sex takes place between people who are committed to each other is better than a world in which casual sex is commonplace. Even the idea that some sex is better than others is probably controversial to some.

And some people believe that porn does exemplify treating people as a means to an end in a way that is disheartening.

How would a virtue ethicist view porn? Would a virtuous person enjoy porn? (hard to see how porn promotes wisdom, courage, justice and temperance).

But there's a cardinal difference between playing video games and porn in terms of the outcome (although if you don't know what it is, I'd be embarrased to have to explain it. :-} ) — Wayfarer

Wayfarer, you know I'm a very stupid fellow and need things spelled out in excruciating detail. Do overcome your embarrassment and explain it.

Since the human sexual drive has not changed recently (say, during the last 30,000 years) what has changed that has resulted in men (usually) watching porn for long periods of time?

Technology, technology, and technology.

First, pornography has become abundant, inexpensive, and ever-more easily accessible in the last 60 years. Prior to the 1960s, the US post office actively policed distributing sexually explicit material. Books like Lady Chatterley's Lover or Tropic of Cancer were still being barred from the US in the 1950s. During the 1960s a series of court decisions resulted in the practical end of censorship of erotic materials.

• By 1970 legal retail sales of sexually explicit material (aka pornography) was established -- granted, in adult-only stores. The same stores dispensed 8mm film loop views of explicit sexual activity--25¢ per minute (more or less). A few xxx rated films, like Deep Throat (1973), achieved a sort of cult status.
  
• In the 1980s video replaced 8mm loops in adult book stores, and as video players became more common, were rented out for home viewing. Later video was replaced by DVDs.
  
• By 2000, porn had become readily available on the Internet (itself a new thing). As bandwidth widened, more and better viewing experiences could be had. (Dial-up access to porn was frustrating--really slow.)
  
• Now one can watch porn on cell phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, and on any previous delivery system still in working order.

Second, leisure time has increased. Whether the available 'leisure time' is the result of a choice or the result of underemployment or non-employment is an important question, but many guys have quite a bit of otherwise unoccupied time on their hands.

Third, social involvement has decreased among many sectors of the population. See "Bowling Alone". Where once there were many social organizations and venues (Masons, Oddfellows, Eagles, Elks, churches, etc.) these are either much less popular now.

So, CONCLUSION, Watching a lot of porn was brought to people the same way that long aisles of crispy, salty, sugary, greasy snacks, sweetened sodas, and bottled water were brought to people, promoted, and sold.

there's a cardinal difference between playing video games and porn in terms of the outcome — Wayfarer

I have some dim, vague pre-conscious intuition that video games and porn might, possibly, lead to different outcomes. But...

Activities that we enjoy doing involve the pleasure centers of the brain -- whether that's finally getting the kitchen cleaned up, playing video games, watching porn, going out to dinner, posting on this forum, or attending Mass. Obviously, the rewards are not the same from activity to activity, and different centers of pleasure are involved. The pleasure we get may be the sense of self-enhancement, relief from the irritation of cooking amidst total disarray, and so on. Or, it might be satisfaction of very basic drives like food and sex.

People who spend all their free time cleaning, playing video games, watching porn, eating, posting on this forum, or engaging in religious activity (and who don't live in monasteries) are somewhere between slightly deranged, very undisciplined, or at least unbalanced in their life activities.

I think this thread is fake pornography.

unbalanced in their life activities. — Bitter Crank

Born o'er the crashing waves of existence, amidst boredom and preference-lacks.
Torn between the goals of salty snacks and the tech of the latest hacks
We are poised forlorn, with existence we now must deal
Never enough, boredom comes nipping at our heel.

Very good!

One edit suggestion, line 3,
We are poised forlorn, with existence we now must deal

Thanks! Done. I was trying to rhyme the first three lines though..any way to keep that, or do you think it still works without it?

two rhymed couplets works just fine.

In line one, does 'born' reference birth, or being carried? In the first case, 'born' is the right word. In the second case, 'borne' is the right word (past tense of to bear). If the first, it would make more sense, maybe, to say "born into the crashing waves of existence". But if life carries us over the crashing waves, then borne.

Forcing rhymes too hard can result in very weird word choices. Go for the more obvious word, rather than something has to be forced to fit. Like you could say,

...over coming existence we are now bent on
...boredom comes nipping at our achilles tendon

It rhymes but the rhyme is too forced. deal/heel is better.

This is 'free verse' so this is a bit beside the point, but you have too many syllables in the first line and too few in the last line. Don't change anything here, but in the future try to get the same number of 'beats' (emphasized syllables) unless it is free verse which has much looser rules (at least, so I have been misled to believe).

I condone the genocide of the entire coconut race if I'm honest. Especially the rum.

I do find it interesting though that all the examples of immorality you gave (swearing, atheism, apostasy, polytheism) are all examples of generally shitty moral positions. Since they don't cause any harm, it's impossible (from a progressive perspective) to justify taking any harmful action against offenders.



Affairs and DUI both have the capacity to cause harm, so certainly the basis for us considering them to be immoral is still the harm that they (tend to) cause.

The third example you gave is curious... If someone is so rich that stealing a small amount from them wont have any effect whatsoever, then it's not immoral to do so. In theory if 7 billion people all then did the same action then harm of some kind would in fact be done, but that's a much larger action than just a single small transaction with guaranteed zero effect. That actually does jive with my political views though. If someone really is that rich and the masses can thrive only at the leisure of the elite, exploiting them back becomes a simple matter of reciprocity.

Perhaps the thinking is something like this:
I'm not sure the best world is one in which sex is treated the way it is in porn videos. Wouldn't a world in which people use sex to express their love, respect and commitment be better than our current world? — anonymous66

How would a virtue ethicist view porn? Would a virtuous person enjoy porn? (hard to see how porn promotes wisdom, courage, justice and temperance). — anonymous66

Well said.

People who spend all their free time cleaning, playing video games, watching porn, eating, posting on this forum, or engaging in religious activity (and who don't live in monasteries) are somewhere between slightly deranged, very undisciplined, or at least unbalanced in their life activities. — Bitter Crank

Why, BC, do you include 'engaging in religious activity' be categorised as 'unbalanced or undisciplined', and why do you think that would be done 'for pleasure' or 'to stimulate the pleasure centres'? Don't you think that might be a mis-characterisation?

There are many kinds of leisure activities and cultural pursuits that can be pursued, but porn is exclusively related to the generation and satisfaction of the sexual impulse.

Possibly, just possibly, you've become a little jaded by your experiences. ;-)

Never enough, boredom comes nipping at our heel. — schopenhauer1

Boredom is simply desire in disguise - namely, desire for something different.

I read the obituary of a highly-esteemed ethical philosopher recently. It noted in passing:

There are many anecdotes about the ways in which he simplified his life to take as little time as possible away from his work. He ate only twice a day, with almost no variation in what he had at each meal. He ate cold food only, mostly fruits and vegetables without any preparation. Even when he could have had freshly ground coffee with only a minute’s additional preparation, he drank instant coffee, often with water straight from the tap. He sometimes kept a book open on the chest-of-drawers so that he could read while putting on his socks. His speed in reading was phenomenal, in part because his power of concentration was prodigious. Wanting to preserve his mental and physical capacities, he took an hour every evening during his last decade to get vigorous exercise on a stationary bicycle, but never without reading philosophy (or occasionally physics) while furiously pedalling.

Why, BC, do you include 'engaging in religious activity' be categorised as 'unbalanced or undisciplined', and why do you think that would be done 'for pleasure' or 'to stimulate the pleasure centres'? Don't you think that might be a mis-characterisation? — Wayfarer

"all their free time", remember. Religious activity often does, and should involve pleasure--"taste and see that the Lord is good"--but not sexual pleasure (churchmen get into trouble there). "Too much religion" for the typical layman is unbalanced. The negative effect of an unbalanced, excessive level of religious activity is (usually) an extremely narrow, and shrinking, aperture of what is considered good and acceptable in other people. Too many ordinary activities begin to look like sins.

In other words, if something is not harmful what makes it immoral? — VagabondSpectre

I do find it interesting though that all the examples of immorality you gave (swearing, atheism, apostasy, polytheism) are all examples of generally shitty moral positions. Since they don't cause any harm, it's impossible (from a progressive perspective) to justify taking any harmful action against offenders. — VagabondSpectre

You were looking for things that were not harmful but were immoral. It seems to me that swearing, atheism, apostasy, and polytheism are all harmless, in and of themselves, but many people consider them to be immoral. Considering them immoral is kind of shitty, especially if death is the punishment.

I consider abortion (particularly abortions prior to the 20th week or so) to be harmless. Perhaps not pleasant for the woman, but not harmful if done properly. Many people consider abortion immoral (you've probably heard of people like that). The harm the abortion-is-immoral crowd sees is because they have granted personhood status to the fetus. Many anti-abortionists go back to the moment of conception to declare personhood.

Religious activity often does, and should involve pleasure — Bitter Crank

Au contraire, they're not about pleasure or pain. The 'sensory life' is naturally highly attuned to pleasure and pain, because these are after all sensations, the very ligaments of 'sensory existence'. But the attribute of spiritual-religious life is to cultivate detachment or indifference to pleasure and pain. I suppose that is illustrated dramatically by ascetics who subject their bodies to excruciating torture to demonstrate their overcoming of the pleasure-pain nexus. I could paste in some images, but won't, although I do happen to have a rather charming Chinese minature of a sage demonstrating indifference to pleasure:


Here the monkey offering the mango represents sensuality. The sage looks bored.

But in any case, the joy of a philosophical/spiritual/religious kind is found in letting go the attachment to pleasure. Where it becomes problematical is when it becomes consciously abstemious, censorious, or puritanical, but in my experience, that usually arises from preoccupation with the behaviour of others, or clinging to views about how other people ought to be. It can also happen because there's a disconnect between where you're really at, and where you think you ought to be at - this happens a lot in 'Churchianity', where the dogmas are recited, but the psycho-dynamics are misunderstood (which is what provided such fertile ground for the early works of Freud.)

Possibly, just possibly, you've become a little jaded by your experiences. — Wayfarer

It is certainly the case that I am jaded by my experiences.

There are many kinds of leisure activities and cultural pursuits that can be pursued, but porn is exclusively related to the generation and satisfaction of the sexual impulse. — Wayfarer

I say that porn is not exclusively directed toward the generation and satisfaction of the sexual impulse. How so?

Porn, like all entertainment we receive through media, is a product from which enterprising people derive income. What is the purpose of commercial television programming? Entertainment? Only incidentally. The primary purpose of porn, commercial television and radio, magazines, and so on is to provide bait for consumers to see the advertising. Content is cost at a magazine, advertising is the income.

"But porn is free. I'm not paying for it." How is it free? By one means or another you are paying for the porn you watch. Some of the fee your carrier charges you to get porn works its way back to the provider. There are ads next to pornography. Sometimes there are memberships you have to pay for. DVDs are not given away for free, just as reel to reel video, print, or 8mm film views were not given away. Porn is not offered as a free public service. The per-view cost may be very low, but if millions of people pay a very small amount for something, it adds up to real money after a while.

The purveyors of porn--and a lot of other goods--are primarily concerned about making money. The consumer's sexual interest is being subverted for the purpose of making money.

Porn watching is, to a certain extent, a pleasureless meaningless activity. Only with the personal engagement of one's 'erotic machine' does porn remain interesting and arousing for a period of time. Just as eating junk food is a pleasureless, meaningless activity. We, like some dogs, will eat whenever food is put in front of us--not because we are very hungry, or long for a wonderful dining experience. Oh, food: eat.

In instances where people buy porn for the immediate purpose of achieving sexual arousal and satisfaction (like in hotels) the average duration of watching is pretty short. Tape turned on; a few minutes later he is all done. Tape turned off.

The average guy doesn't require hours to reach arousal and satisfaction. From my jaded experience, average man gets aroused and achieves sexual satisfaction in less than 15 minutes and some in a good deal less time than that. ONLY if they are prolonging the pleasure do they take longer.

So, guys who spend 3 hours watching porn (without an erection, quite possibly) are clearly not doing this just for arousal and satisfaction. They are engaged in a largely meaningless time-killing activity.

Religious activity often does, and should involve pleasure
— Bitter Crank

Au contraire, they're not about pleasure or pain. — Wayfarer

Asceticism and sages cultivating indifference to pleasure is one of the varieties of religious experience; it isn't the ultimate expression. There are no "ultimate" expressions of religion.

Once on a day of worship Jesus was going through the grainfields. As the disciples walked along, they began to pick the heads of grain. The Pharisees asked him, "Look! Why are your disciples doing something that is not permitted on the day of worship?" Jesus responded to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him?
He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him”

Jesus said to them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath — Mark 2:23-27

Jesus didn't preach asceticism and indifference What Jesus did or didn't say doesn't mean that you are wrong (or your sage either, indifferent to the mango offered by the monkey). There are no ultimate religious teachings. Maybe your sage was just depressed? Anhedonia is next to godliness?

The consumer's sexual interest is being subverted for the purpose of making money. — Bitter Crank

But nevertheless it is the commercial exploitation of an insatiable desire.

Asceticism and sages cultivating indifference to pleasure is one of the varieties of religious experience; — Bitter Crank

I don't see it like that - again that is mistaking the means for the end. It's only a means to detach the mind from the illusory domain of transient senses, where most of us (speaking for myself) are thoroughy ensared. (I would love to be able to participate in this conversation from a lofty olympian perch of serene detachment, but, alas, cannot.)

detach the mind from the illusory domain of transient senses — Wayfarer

Getting detached from the illusory domain of transient senses usually results in kitchen disasters, as it did just now.

'Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first' ~ Arabian proverb ;-)

The better question is: What is pornography people? How is it virtuous?

Porn is form of entertainment (or it should be). It’s not the viewer’s sexual conquest, substitute for friends, romantic partners, a reflection of value outside the represented sex act(s) or sex relationships. I don’t think many can even address the question of virtues of pornography because it’s just a means to some other end. Even the often assigned purpose of “getting off” has this problem. Most people can “get off” without looking at pornography. It’s not like they are without arousal or an inability to touch genitals against something, and so need porn to do the work for them. There’s something else to pornography. We seek it in addition to “getting off.” In most popular discourse around the use of pornography, no-one pays attention to the porn itself, which kinda stops anyone addressing it in terms of virtue.

So what about porn itself? Why are people interested in spending all that time trawling the internet for videos, looking for pictures, flicking through magazines and part with hard earned cash when they might just rub one out themselves? What is it about porn that makes people interested and apparently has them thinking it’s necessary for their well-being?

Much like any from of entertainment, porn is desirable because it, itself, makes a particular moment more interesting, exciting, pleasurable or perhaps even poignant. In this respect, it can be part of the well-being of living an interesting life, at least as any other sort of relaxing or interesting time-filling activity we might engage in. It may also be a part of a well-being of sexual expression. Some people like to express their sexuality on representations other people view, either because the like showing their sexuality off or the want to show something about sex (as in the act sex and its relationships) itself. Some virtuous benefits to pornography, interesting entertainment, sexual expression and positive representations of sex itself (as opposed the sort of romantic relationship its meant to be used in), are pretty clear if you think about it.

The trouble is benefits to well-being occur where sex itself or representations of sex itself is important. For a lot of people who watch porn, this isn’t really the case. They are thinking of porn as a means to an end— getting off, seeing hot women have sex, watching the “bitches” get degraded as they deserve, a proxy for having a sexual relationships with another person or attaining a social value of having a sexual possession. To understand pornography (at least with respect to the viewer) just as an entertaining representation of sex is difficult for a lot of people.

Then again, I don’t think that’s surprising when most of our discourse around sex and relationships treat them as a question of gaining a possession of social value or individual glory. Most of the time they are only talked about in terms of getting what you desire or what is desirable. People really have to look in the right places to find stuff which distinguishes porn, relationships, sex and social value from each other, and how each relate to other people.

I believe it is reasonable to consider the adultery immoral, and yet no one was harmed. — Arkady

Morality, as distinct from ethics, is rule based. If the moral rule is 'No adultery', then adultery is immoral by definition.

I'm honestly having trouble parsing through what you're trying to say here. The typos are not helping either to be honest.

Why are people interested in porn? Because people are sexual creatures, and porn presents a fantasy world of sex. And a better question to begin with would be "is porn virtuous?"

I'm honestly having trouble parsing through what you're trying to say here. — Noble Dust

Hint: quit now, save yourself a lot of pointless effort.

And a better question to begin with would be "is porn virtuous?" — Noble Dust

The OP wants to address the question as to whether porn is harmful and/ or immoral, so I don't think the question as to whether it is virtuous is really relevant here. It could be ethically neutral or it could benefit some and harm others; I think it is always a mistake to generalize.

I was replying to Willow of Darkness saying "how is porn virtuous?"

Ah, I missed that Willow asked that; comment should have been addressed to Willow, then.

The better question is: What is pornography people? How is it virtuous? — TheWillowOfDarkness

I like the question, "How does the existence of porn help people practice the virtues?" or how about, how does porn help one's progress towards moral perfection or Eudaimonia? As to what it is? I'm the OP... I had in mind internet porn, specifically videos of people engaging in sex.

Now that I think about it... there are many videos that merely show people having sex (some only show people masturbating by themselves), without any context or plot.
In those cases, I suppose one could easily imagine that those people are behaving in a virtuous way, and/or are in a committed relationship. But, I suspect most videos portray sex between people who barely know each other and/or portray the actors as people fornicating or committing adultery. It is the message behind the porn that is the biggest issue. see this post.

I can even imagine a world in which porn expresses the best of humanity... Perhaps a better world might be one in which porn exists, but that porn shows us how to be better people.

Edited to add: I think I like this wording better: I can even imagine a world in which porn expresses the best of humanity... Perhaps a better world might be one in which porn exists, but that porn inspires us to be better people

Jesus didn't preach asceticism — Bitter Crank

This could not be more false. Any passing glance at his sayings in the NT or the consensus of scholars who associate him with Jewish ascetic movements is enough to rubbish such a suggestion.

This isn't the thread to debate this--Jesus probably would prefer not to be evaluated in a porn thread--but I think a case can be made that he didn't require good people to be ascetics.