Is porn addiction relevant in the ungodly?

[Desert Dweller]

no doubt driven by the increase in women working outside the home.

So why not study that phenomena if , and I'd agree, it is the main cause of using formula?

But never mind, next I'll see reports telling farmers that rain is good for their land (well many are turning to zero grazing) and sunshine and fresh air is good for people's wellbeing (too many are cooped up all day in artificial buildings,light and air con); and not forgetting of course the influential study(at a cost of countless dollars) telling us that war is bad for people (too many seem to be indulging in war these days).

But back to topic:-

Porn is such a new phenomenon (online that is) that I'm not aware of any latter day Kinsey's studying resultant behaviours. So meantime I'll use common sense and my own feed-back which so far suggests that aside from
teenagers experimenting for fun, those who make a habit of it tend to have problems, be they godly or not.
I'd image a reasonable test might be something like: Ask women if they would like to have partners who habitually watch porn (or in the terms of the OP , an addiction). Personally I don't need to wait for the results, I know what most women will say.
Another would be (perhaps in parallel) to see how many 'addicts' maintain healthy long-term relationships.

[Beth]

Are you trying to imply that everyone who looks at porn are addicts?

[Desert Dweller]

Are you trying to imply that everyone who looks at porn are addicts?

If this is directed at the post above this question the answer is no.
The post was taking the OP expression "porn addiction".

Why are you worried? What have you been looking at? Didn't anyone tell you that such sites can do nasty things to your computer, like download diallers, adware, pop-ups.....?

[Beth]

Originally Posted by onthedole

Why are you worried? What have you been looking at? Didn't anyone tell you that such sites can do nasty things to your computer, like download diallers, adware, pop-ups.....?

Why am I worried? What the hell kind of question is that? Is it a baiting one, a smart ass one? I am trying to make sense of what you are saying here because you are not articulating yourself well.

You are spouting such nonsense, in all honesty. Taking about research being nonsense. There are some areas of research that is rubbish, but behavioral studies are not. They help us better treat people with behavioral problems, including those who are in addictive or compulsive behaviors.

Health studies on breast milk are also important. It can be a tough decision to decide whether to nurse or to bottle feed. Bottle feeding lessens the burden of care of the infant on the mother, so it is helpful for the mother to determine if the benefits to her child outweigh the benefits of her freedom to herself. Not to mention the fact that breast feeding can be painful. Is the bonding and health benefits worth sitting there for an hour crying or wincing because of the pain?

If people want to look at porn sites, there are firewalls and ways to eliminate or reduce the amount of spyware that goes into your system.

[SharonDee]

Originally Posted by onthedole

Ask women if they would like to have partners who habitually watch porn (or in the terms of the OP , an addiction). Personally I don't need to wait for the results, I know what most women will say.

Do you? Please share what you "know" most women will say. Most women here? Most women in the US? Most women in the west? Most religious women? Most nonreligious women?

I'm curious.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by SharonDee

Do you? Please share what you "know" most women will say. Most women here? Most women in the US? Most women in the west? Most religious women? Most nonreligious women?

I'm curious.

As am I.

[Farren]

onthedole, with respect, your views on this thread smack of a very narrow view of the human experience.

For a start, your reply to Beth implied that you feel her motive in questioning your views is the defensive reaction of a habitual porn user. That in turn implies that you believe no reasonable person can see habitual porn use as a good thing so any stated views to the contrary must be the embarrased defence of a guilty pleasure. Perhaps it was misplaced jest, but you comments about spyware and porn sites seem both childish and ill-informed. There are spyware-free, safe sources of porn both on and off of the internet.

I also notice that you avoided responding to some very succint replies to what seems like all-too-familiar fluffy new-age anti-scientism to me. In response to your rhetorical question of how the human race survived this long without science, GD rightly pointed out that they didn't survive awfully well. Would you prefer to live in a society plagued by the Black Death, or one where there's a 50% chance of death during childbirth? This kind of anti-science posturing is laughable on its face.

The first glimmerings of the modern scientific method are over 3000 years old. In order to answer your rhetoric (were it taken seriously), one would have to examine prehistory and an examination of the tenuous, often brutal existence of foraging pack animals in the wild convinces me that I'm considerably better off than many of my prehistorical ancestors.

Here's a clue: We don't need science to survive. No-one here has made that claim. But it has considerable capacity to enhance our experience.

And do you honestly believe that all of the right behaviour in life is blindingly obvious to us? That we spring from the womb equipped to make sensible choices at every turn? Its not science that makes people murder their lovers, beat their children, drink and drive, commit suicide, go to war with other nations and so on and so on. Many of our most innate instincts betray us.

Science assists us in making well-informed choices. The very manner in which it is done prescribes it from addressing all of the issues we're faced with and it would be foolish to place all one's faith in science, but rejecting it in its entirety and attempting to proscribe it from consideration seems absurd, especially on an Internet message board.

Back on topic, I also take issue with some of your hidden presumptions. I look at porn reasonably regularly (every few days) and do not have a committed relationship. You may feel this vindicates your position but that would only be because you're blind to other possibilities which also fit the facts.

Over the last five years I've outright avoided relationships for a variety of reasons. One of the foremost among them is that of the six relationships I've had, 4 women expected me to severely curtail my friendships with other people. Of the two that did not, one made a concerted effort before coming round to my view on the issue. The former lover in question still calls me two or three times a year and has me over for dinner with her hubby and kids i what has become an annual tradition. We parted for a variety of reasons unrelated to the denial of selfish love (in fact it was more because of having enough love to recognise we could find other, better suited partners)

My personal philosophy is that I will not ever circumscribe my love for one individual for the sake of another individual and I love my friends dearly, each and every one of them. I still love and respect every single woman I've dated and have never parted on bad terms (some I'm still good friends with). While it has caused short-term flare-ups, its stood me in good stead. I don't have a single person in the world I call an enemy to nor, to the best of my knowlege, does anyone consider me an enemy.

However, I recognise the family-building instincts in human beings that lead to the selfish aspects of romantic love and have come to see them as fairly unavoidable, unless I'm lucky enough to meet an individual with the (what appear to be) extreme philosophies I hold on life. I've come to appreciate why monks and nuns of many faiths and philosophies seek enlightment alone. It certainly frees you up in some respects and allows desired development along certain axes that is more difficult with a partner. I'm not saying having a committed partner doesn't have other benefits, just that the converse has benefits sought by some.

Reading this you might be thinking "but that's how we're meant to behave. It's what we were designed to do" but that would just be the naturalistic fallacy rearing its fallacious head again. There's no self-evident design in our behaviour, no inherent ought. In fact, one of the glorious things about the humanity we find ourselves with is that we appear to have the capacity to override selected instincts, to redesign ourselves with net positive consequences.

Finding myself partnerless, horny, averse to one-night stands and possessing ready access to material that sexually stimulates me, I naturally use it for entertainment from time to time. But its a consequence of avoiding relationships, not a cause for the lack thereof. Similarly, you'll probably find that the individuals you mention who are regular porn users and not in committed relationships have either

a) been frustrated in their attempts to acquire sex and so must settle for a simulcrum in the form of porn
b) consciously decided that committed relationships are too much effort or have down-sides and so regularly use porn
c) find the sex they're getting inadequate in the relationships they have and therefore use porn, with the consequence that their partners, who have prejudices as you appear to, terminate their relationships

Then of course there's the question of who you mingle with and who you get to observe. Lets not forget that someone living in a particular period of French history could note a positive correlation between the showing of ankles and the general decline of marriage in gay Paree. But that would be entirely as a result of their prejudices and failure to recognise the difficulty independently minded women might have pleasing tradition-bound men in changing times.

My brother and sister-in-law for instance, freely admit - no - proclaim. Loudly. In any company. that they regularly watch porn together because they both find it stimulating. It's a shared pleasure.

Do I sexually objectify women because of my use of porn? Ha! No. Not a chance. Half of my good friends are women. My childhood friend and former business partner has no issue with me and his wife going out on the town because he's ten years her senior and doesn't enjoy parties any more - and because he knows we're good friends quite aside from my friendship with him. I went to India with another woman friend to study Oracle and we shared a hotel bed without sex for a month. I'm dead comfortable with women as friends and intellectual equals and that sense of comfort is reciprocated.

It doesn't mean I don't consider them sexually from time to time, but that's healthy. There's no shame in saying "damn, you look sexy today" to a friend. Hell, I say it to male friends, having overcome this stupid guy thing about not appraising the attractiveness of your own sex. In fact, its liberating to talk about it without fear of social censure. I recall sitting in a Jacuzzi once with a friend's girlfriend (a ramp model) kneeling next to the Jacuzzi and chatting to me. I couldn't help looking straight down her bust and was obviously distracted so she said "are my boobs distracting you" and I said yes and she went inside, put on a shawl and came out to carry on chatting.

So there you have it. Regular use of porn does not make you a drooling troll-like creature who is awkward around women because you're constantly mentally undressing them. Some couples enjoy porn together. Some men enjoy porn immensely and talk about it overtly and have perfectly swimming friendships with women.

Porn is a relatively new thing and there's a predictable backlash that can easily account for a large portion of the phenomenon you've observed. But such observations can clearly be accounted for because of that backlash. I've no doubt that there are many obsessive people who take an excessive and unhealthy interest in it that tarnishes their sexual prospects. There are obsessive people who are committed to lunatic asylums because their excessive desire to wash their hands until they are bloody and raw renders them non functional.

But I think your characterisation of all regular porn use being problematic is nothing more that restricted exposure to alternative lifestyles and your rhetorical questioning of the likelihood of a woman seeking out a man who uses pornography regularly is simply an appeal to the widespread nature of that prejudice in contemporary society, not some self-evident "common sense".

[dave_a]

Originally Posted by Farren

onthedole, with respect, your views on this thread smack of a very narrow view of the human experience.
<snip>
But I think your characterisation of all regular porn use being problematic is nothing more that restricted exposure to alternative lifestyles and your rhetorical questioning of the likelihood of a woman seeking out a man who uses pornography regularly is simply an appeal to the widespread nature of that prejudice in contemporary society, not some self-evident "common sense".

Well, to play devil's advocate, he did say "Ask women if they would like to have partners who habitually watch porn (or in the terms of the OP , an addiction). Personally I don't need to wait for the results, I know what most women will say."

When you say "...is simply an appeal to the widespread nature of that prejudice in contemporary society" you do appear to be in agreement with his assertion.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by dave_a

Well, to play devil's advocate, he did say "Ask women if they would like to have partners who habitually watch porn (or in the terms of the OP , an addiction). Personally I don't need to wait for the results, I know what most women will say."

When you say "...is simply an appeal to the widespread nature of that prejudice in contemporary society" you do appear to be in agreement with his assertion.

I'm assuming a subtext from the generally disaproving tone of onthedole's posts and responding to that. In the context of preceding and later posts and the frequent employment of rhetorical questions rather than direct statements, I presume the "simple test" is meant, in onthedole's mind, to signify some self evident problems with habitual porn use rather than cultural inertia.

[lisarea]

I can see your perspective, onthedole, and it does make sense. Thing is, it's the generalizing that makes it break down, IMO.

Everyone is different. Your generalizing your own attitude is, to me, no different from swingers calling monogamous couples uptight and insecure. Both are entirely subjective and personalized attitudes being justified with sweeping generalizations. Different people just have different perspectives on monogamy and different standards for their own relationships, and each couple has to work those issues out for themselves, which usually involves some degree of compromise.

Now, if your perspective on anything falls far outside the mainstream, it's probably going to be more difficult for you to find a partner whose views on certain fundamental issues mesh closely enough with yours to be compatible. This includes views on both ends of the spectrum. So you may be right that most women would prefer their partners not look at porn. (I don't know, but I'll assume it for the sake of argument.) Does that mean that men shouldn't look at porn? No. Not unless it's something they don't want to do, or something that is unimportant enough for them to include it in a compromise.

The way I see it, unless there's some horribly egregious double standards going on, I'm not all that interested in what agreements other people come to. I'm really stretching, too, to imagine why I might care. I mean, I guess if some coworker's wife decided he wasn't allowed to go on business trips with me, that'd piss me off. And I do get a little pissed when I see couples where one is really walking all over the other. But as long as the agreements are mutual and respectful, I honestly don't care what makes other couples happy and fulfilled, and I don't believe that my own perspectives on those issues have any relevance to anyone but me and that one guy out in the living room.

[Desert Dweller]

OK, I've been told.... so I will pull back and reconsider. I thought it was ok to offer ones' opinions...that this was what the forum is all about.
My reaction to scientism is that of a minority...because I have to yell so much just to be heard, I admit it can make my position difficult.(Which is why I said earlier I envy the position of science..the establishment..it's such an easy viewpoint to hold) Until one really gets into the topic it's difficult to explain to anyone how deeply scientism rules so many prejudices and permits untested assumptions to continue which in turn affect so many decisions (eg Govt uses scientific evidence for forestry clearance in this country...so ancient trees go to Japan as wood chip for toilet paper.)

I admitted at the outset that I've not watched porn....so I accept my ignrorance...I will continue to not watch it as it, at best seems to me to stimulate a relflex action and this is low level experience.

At least I've provided a patsy for many of you to respond to and this would appear to have opened up the thread a little.

As far as a definition of 'bottom of the heap' well I feel so shot down over that one that I will keep my thoughts to myself except to say the response is typical of the superior tone scientism takes with any other form of thinking.
For the record Mindell was first a physicist...and to dismiss his work out of hand is foolish...I'm thinking of a wonderful quote from Whitehead about the dismissal of evidence but it just wont come and my books are in storage.

very narrow view of the human experience.

maybe you're right...how does one evaluate these things? For over a decade I've worked with men in difficulty and find there is little, if anything which can shock me.So I don't think I'm narrow minded or judgemental.

I've expressed minority opinions and you've all largely agreed to dismiss my views. I say porn is a sign of decadence, not as some fundie or religionist, but as a person capable of making up my own mind. I would rather read the Story of O, or any of the beautifully written erotic stories available.

As far as all the girls who've questioned my position re what girls think of a partner who habitually uses porn, I take it that they disagree. Well the mind boggles...seems that males are 'dirty old men' but it's all ok for the girls.

Now I'll go off and have a nice cup of tea and rebuild my strength for my next challenge to the scientism-people.

[Desert Dweller]

A simple question for Goliath, SharonDee and Beth. You've just learned that your partner is a 'porn addict'.
How do you feel?

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by onthedole

For the record Mindell was first a physicist...and to dismiss his work out of hand is foolish...I'm thinking of a wonderful quote from Whitehead about the dismissal of evidence but it just wont come and my books are in storage.

You still have not presented any evidence to dismiss, only contentions and conjectures. The dearth of critical analysis or even the writings of Mindell on the internet should speak volumes about how seriously he is considered by his professional peers, but, since I don't believe a lack of evidence is evidence of anything, I reserve judgement until which time I've actually seen some evidence. That doesn't stop me from asking over and over again for the evidence.

Farren forgot one other option:
d) Person wishes to maintain sexual relationship with a person that physically repulses them and uses porn to inspire fantasies.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by onthedole

A simple question for Goliath, SharonDee and Beth. You've just learned that your partner is a 'porn addict'.
How do you feel?

I'd wonder what kind of porn she liked, and I'd probably view it with her.

Why do you ask?

[Godless Dave]

Originally Posted by onthedole

(eg Govt uses scientific evidence for forestry clearance in this country...so ancient trees go to Japan as wood chip for toilet paper.)

You have that backwards. The US Govt. often ignores scientific evidence when formulating forestry policy.

[Desert Dweller]

The US Govt.

I'm DownUnder...referring to magnificent Tasmansian Forests.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by onthedole

OK, I've been told.... so I will pull back and reconsider. I thought it was ok to offer ones' opinions...that this was what the forum is all about.

If this was in response to my loquacious post please forgive the lecturing tone I understand that your standpoint is probably the result of a distaste for something you consider disrespectful to people, which is a noble motive even if I personally think its misplaced. Please don't feel restrained in what you post just because the response is spirited.

I realise it was probably wrong to call you narrow-minded and fluffy, but that was in part a knee-jerk reaction to the matronly and presumptive tone of some of your posts :

Inasmuch as the regular use of pornography is a pursuit of short-term pleasure, is often solitary and can condition someone to have unrealistic sexual expectations, I can see why you might intuit that it is "unhealthy" and "unnatural". I just think the rationalisation you provided to express that intuition was shallow and lacking in subtlety. As Lisarea has indicated, there are a lot of generalities in your stated opinion. The distinction between "All instances of X are bad" and "Given the following circumstances and considerations, X can have a deleterious effect" is quite significant.

The thing is, very few people in industrialised nations still have the luxury of living close to nature. Whether you rage against it or not, a large part of our experience is entirely self-invented and often at odds with instincts adapted to more primitive circumstances. The pace of office life is unnatural in this sense. The conditioned air of offices is unnatural. The artificial light by which we read our books late at night is unnatural. Tearing along roads at speeds humans are not physically adapted to (in terms of reactions and so on) is unnatural.

The reason I raise this is that your comments on both science and sex give me the impression that you have a general mindset that I recognise because of feeling much the same way about certain things at various stages of my life and living and working with bohemians of the activist stripe in the past. So I'm assuming that you place great stock in mother nature's ability to supply us with all the answers if we only have the eyes to see and that you feel some behaviour is an affront to the natural order of things and must, therefore, have negative consequences.

[Desert Dweller]

Some insightful comments; and yes, you are right in as much as I've lived in the bush (the country side - but generally a little more wild than say European countryside) for many years now. it's very rare for me to go to a city, maybe once a year to see the kids. I once had a suit and worked in the city but couldn't take it...as you said Farren, I prefer more real (as distinct from cultural or artificial) atmoshpere around me.

For the last few years I've been on my own and would love to have a close partner; however that's not the case. Still, visiting a porn site is not so much distasteful as it is a sign of decadence. I mean by that, that the existence of this industry (taking up apparently some 60% of www volume and sales) along with other criteria (mass migration, return of slavery, concentration of the ruling group, distance between food production and consumption...) forms part of the criteria for civilisational ruin. It may be applied to any civilisational decline.

For instance, post WW2 archeology has uncovered the period ending around 1500 BC. Pottery shards, murals, designs exist which illustrate that any sexual combination you can imagine has been done already. There is nothing new except the media by which it is now delivered.

Therefore I feel there is nothing else I can do but oppose this exploitative industry in any way possible. (I'm not a moralist BTW, nor do I belong or subscribe to any religious or other group). If it is really just another urban artificiality then why isn't it run by local women....in this country they have their own shops where the girls can try out costumes and play with toys....
and why is it the domain of large and powerful corporations. If it really is harmless and good for urbanites let the girls run local shows. See if it become s the new suburban fad...like a tuppaware except its a porn night (not the lingerie nights which alread exist) . .. I can see the ad. "a little porn'll do ya"
For myself I will avoid it and when I am lucky enough to meet another partner then our mutual consent will lead us where our intimacy can go.

[Adora]

Originally Posted by onthedole

Sorry Adora...may have been some sort of compliment (and god only knows I need a few) but I don't get your statement.

I just meant I liked your thinking in regards to the answers-in-"scientific-discoveries discussion. But I'm weird like that.

Well, someone was buying all that baby formula and it wasn't the babies.

Just as with modern Majority World countries rise in using Nestle baby formulas, can we say "advertising lies"? I mean, c'mon. Even now advertising for things like chocolate-coated cereal and malt-and-sugar drinks have taglines like "Contains 1/3 daily XYZ vitamins and minerals", like it somehow makes up for all the other diabetes-inducing shit it does contain. The Nestle example is how they've both been upping the advertising in many Majority World countries, and adding their product to "human aid" supplies to widen distribution, without regard for the fact that to make the formula, you need water, and the risks for many of the people it's being distributed to of catching a life threatening disease from said water supplies is high. How about those funny old B & W ads that had a "credible doctor" in a white jacket "Research shows smoking is actually good for your health!"? The masses are easily distracted from common sense by the lure of pleasure/ease/a quick buck.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by onthedole

Yes. See you understiid quite well enough.

I shouldn't have to decipher your meaning, though. It's much easier for you to simply use specific terms such as "In talking with psychologists and addiction counselors...." rather than "in talking with people in the field..." because not everyone knows what field you are talking about or what types of professionals work in it, or which you mean.

I work with the public and have for over half my life, so am used to unreferenced pronouns and unnamed third parties, (ex: "I was told to call because this thing doesn't work"), but not everyone here has that experience.

Perhaps some of our communications problems in these threads are because you appear, to me, to assume everyone knows what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by onthedole

OK, I've been told.... so I will pull back and reconsider. I thought it was ok to offer ones' opinions...that this was what the forum is all about.

Of course you can offer your opinions, but you will find people respond best when your opinions are backed up with some reasoning they can understand (even if they disagree) and possibly even learn more about and research on their own.

My reaction to scientism is that of a minority...because I have to yell so much just to be heard, I admit it can make my position difficult.(Which is why I said earlier I envy the position of science..the establishment..it's such an easy viewpoint to hold) Until one really gets into the topic it's difficult to explain to anyone how deeply scientism rules so many prejudices and permits untested assumptions to continue which in turn affect so many decisions (eg Govt uses scientific evidence for forestry clearance in this country...so ancient trees go to Japan as wood chip for toilet paper.)

But by rejecting "scientism" you are handwaving away entire fields of study. With human behavior, for example, I think sociology, psychology, anthropology, psychiatry, endocrinology, neurolgy, evolutionary biology, and according to your Mindell, even quantum physics all have something to tell us about the human condition and why we behave as we do.

You are rejecting all of those scientisits and research in favor of a "new paradigm" which you have so far been unable to explain, define, nor have you even presented a method by which to learn about it or experience it.

I admitted at the outset that I've not watched porn....so I accept my ignrorance...I will continue to not watch it as it, at best seems to me to stimulate a relflex action and this is low level experience.

"Low level" experience? What do you mean by that?

Porn can just be fun and different and stimulating, especially within a long term relationship.

As far as a definition of 'bottom of the heap' well I feel so shot down over that one that I will keep my thoughts to myself except to say the response is typical of the superior tone scientism takes with any other form of thinking.
For the record Mindell was first a physicist...and to dismiss his work out of hand is foolish...I'm thinking of a wonderful quote from Whitehead about the dismissal of evidence but it just wont come and my books are in storage.

There is a physicist, whose name escapes me at the moment, who only works on creationism. I also reject his ideas out of hand.

You reject hundreds or even thousands of scientists when you hand wave everything away as "scientism". And if only ONE professional or author is the basis for your whole "new paradigm", of course you will not be taken as serioulsy. Most theories have a whole body of work behind it as support.

And again, as far as I am concerned, you have not adequately explained your ideas or opinions. You refused to even tell me if you were being literal or figurative with your energy and field discussion.

maybe you're right...how does one evaluate these things? For over a decade I've worked with men in difficulty and find there is little, if anything which can shock me.So I don't think I'm narrow minded or judgemental.

In what context have you "worked with men in difficulty", or are we supposed to guess what you are talking about again? Difficulties with what? What is your job? What are your credentials?

I've expressed minority opinions and you've all largely agreed to dismiss my views. I say porn is a sign of decadence, not as some fundie or religionist, but as a person capable of making up my own mind. I would rather read the Story of O, or any of the beautifully written erotic stories available.

Simply a matter of taste and opinion and it is your right to have preferences.

As far as all the girls who've questioned my position re what girls think of a partner who habitually uses porn, I take it that they disagree. Well the mind boggles...seems that males are 'dirty old men' but it's all ok for the girls.

Huh? Who said males are "dirty old men"?

I am perfectly fine with my husband looking at porn, even daily, with or without me. If he was spending inordinate amounts or money with it, lost interest in all other activities, and/or it involved other negative consequences, I would be worried and discuss it with him, but that is not the case.

[LadyShea]

If it is really just another urban artificiality then why isn't it run by local women....in this country they have their own shops where the girls can try out costumes and play with toys....

There are businesses where women have "sex toy" parties. There are female owned porn producers. Asia Carrera has made millions with her own website.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by onthedole

Some insightful comments; and yes, you are right in as much as I've lived in the bush (the country side - but generally a little more wild than say European countryside) for many years now. it's very rare for me to go to a city, maybe once a year to see the kids. I once had a suit and worked in the city but couldn't take it...as you said Farren, I prefer more real (as distinct from cultural or artificial) atmoshpere around me.

I respect and understand that instinct. At the moment I'm living on a large plot an hour's drive from the outskirts of Johannesburg. Despite having to drive three hours a day to get to work and back, I love living in the quiet countryside and occassionally seeing the neighbour's cows grazing on our unused land.

I've been looking for a book called "Faster" that I browsed through in a bookshop in India and regrettably didn't buy. The central thesis appeared to be that we're like rats on a wheel. By favouring McDonalds-style businesses in every sector, we're ultimately condemning ourselves to run as fast as the fastest and most unnaturally paced in our society or suffer relegation to second class citizenship. On an evolutionary time-scale, we're mere moments away from bush-dwellers who in some cases spent only twenty hours of every week (by relevant expert estimation) "working" towards thier survival.

The movie Koyaanisquatsi (Life out of Balance) beautifully and wordlessly expressed this astonishing change, I think. When one has the privilege of enjoying clean country air and a slower pace, its easy to slip into a mindset of seeing our civilisation as somehow sick and even monstrous, because in terms of the arboreal and bush-dwelling adaptations we're physically equipped with, country life is far more naturally harmonious.

But that feeling of comfort disguises some salient realities. Our primitive forebears didn't experience the wilds of nature in the comfort of a modern home with electricity, running water, a telephone, the internet, helicopter-assisted emergency services, primary and tertiary education in math, art, biology, sport etc, space-age fibre clothing, mosquito coils, malaria tablets and so on and so forth. We're getting the best of both worlds.

Without that "sick", "monstrous" society, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the country life as we do. We'd be as fearful of the dark, helpless in the face of influenza killing our young and terrified of vicious predators as our forebears were. Worse still, the paucity of beautiful land and sheer volume of people required to provide us with those luxuries mentioned means that in order for us to enjoy unspoiled nature in the manner described, we rely on the majority of people being hopelessly mired in that existence that we by reflex judge as unsavoury.

IOW, its really a dream which only a privileged few can indulge in. There is no kindly, natural, "real" state that is self-evidently the space all humans should seek out.

Its telling that the Dalai Lama, a man who was raised in and appears to sincerely practice a system of thought that eschews all attachment to physical luxury - and a widely travelled man - has repeatedly stated that he believes general human welfare appears to be improving at a steady pace and humanity is probably better off than it was a one, two or three hundred years ago. I wholeheartedly agree with him.

For the last few years I've been on my own and would love to have a close partner; however that's not the case. Still, visiting a porn site is not so much distasteful as it is a sign of decadence. I mean by that, that the existence of this industry (taking up apparently some 60% of www volume and sales) along with other criteria (mass migration, return of slavery, concentration of the ruling group, distance between food production and consumption...) forms part of the criteria for civilisational ruin. It may be applied to any civilisational decline.

For instance, post WW2 archeology has uncovered the period ending around 1500 BC. Pottery shards, murals, designs exist which illustrate that any sexual combination you can imagine has been done already. There is nothing new except the media by which it is now delivered.

I think the most egrerious problem with this line of reasoning is that you've provided no benchmark for what constitutes "decline". The last days of a nation or culture are not, by definition the days of "decline". A nation can be a virtual utopia, the ideal state for its citizens, yet be destroyed by a baser culture or natural disaster.

It can even be argued that utopian societies are more susceptable to destruction by less (or more) scrupulous and less happy societies or factions.

A childhood friend of mine (who, as an aside, was a little too dogmatic and aggressive about his athiesm for my taste) once lent me a book called "The Missionaries", detailing the horrors visited on various cultures in the name of Christ. One account has stayed with me. Apparently there was a Polynesian island where Jesuits missionaries were frustrated with their utter failure to convert any of the islanders. The island's natural bounty was so great that very little effort had to be expended for food. The trees were full of fruit. The sea teemed with fish. The islanders fornicated variously and unselfishly.

Reasoning that "the devil finds work for idle hands", the missionaries (I don't recall the exact account clearly but presumably they had the aid of portuguese militia) burned down the forests, denuded the coast of fish and put the islanders to work. IIRC around 50,000 died of starvation in one generation.

Were they, close to their end, in "decline"? I think not. They were in utopia - then vicious, twisted men came and destroyed their paradise.

Therefore I feel there is nothing else I can do but oppose this exploitative industry in any way possible. (I'm not a moralist BTW, nor do I belong or subscribe to any religious or other group). If it is really just another urban artificiality then why isn't it run by local women....in this country they have their own shops where the girls can try out costumes and play with toys....
and why is it the domain of large and powerful corporations. If it really is harmless and good for urbanites let the girls run local shows. See if it become s the new suburban fad...like a tuppaware except its a porn night (not the lingerie nights which alread exist) . .. I can see the ad. "a little porn'll do ya"
For myself I will avoid it and when I am lucky enough to meet another partner then our mutual consent will lead us where our intimacy can go.

I think you'd benefit from knowing a few more people in the sex industry. Having befriended a prostitute, a stripper and a madam who, when I met her, was profiting handsomely (and fairly sharing the spoils with her ladies) from a phone sex line, I'm quite certain you have misconceptions about the oldest of industries. Sure, there are many unsavoury parts of it, but, like the gangsterism of the prohibition, those are in large part more consequence of unrealistic moralism than the inherent nature of sexual freedom.

[edit]

Prostitutes, especially, suffer double discrimination. They are often persecuted by the law, a fact which often allows unsavoury clients to abuse them with impunity, and at the same time held in low esteem, even by the clients that seek them out. Moralists lament their exploitation, but often (via the law and public attitudes fostered by populist meda) are the agents of their low status and persecuted condition. Porn stars are sometimes more fortunate, but nonetheless exist in a twilight world, a "golden ghetto" to appropriate a phrase from William Gibson, isolated from society.

I have a friend who, at the age of 33, was (I think) still a virgin due to a lack of eloquence and ready wit, among other things. He is a fabulous chap with a deep and fascinating mind, but his general mode of seriousness, stooped posture, lack of confidence and lack of easy wit make him less than sexy, even though he's physically well-constituted.

Its a matter of excruciating self-recrimination and doubt for him because he's a particularly masculine man (when seeking medical advice for his allergies, two doctors in succession told him he had a surfeit of testosterone).

One day he admitted to me that he had slept with a prostitute because he had to find release. He was quite distressed, actually, because AIDS is a serious epidemic in South Africa (one estimate puts the % of population that are HIV positive at 30%) and prostitution, thanks to it's legal status in SA (a thankfully hotly and publically debated status) offers no legal or medical protection to either the buyer or the seller.

I couldn't help thinking at the time of how many lonely men (and women) would benefit immensely from a legitimised and (even better) respected industry where both buyer and seller could conduct their business comfortably, without moral recrimination or fear of the risks.

Its idealistic and naive in the extreme, I think, to base ones social philosophy on the idea that everyone gets an equal shot at a loving, sexually fulfilling relationship simply by conforming to a particular system of thought. In terms of both personality predisposition and physical appearance we are born uneqal.

In a sense, the blanket condemnation of pornography and prostitution constitute an unfair and bigoted discrimation against the ugly, the socially inept - in short, the sexually unattractive, for whatever arbitrary reason the particular culture they find themselves in assigns them that problematic role.

P.S. I'm jealous. As comfortable as the seasonally-lush foothills of the Magaliesberg are, I would give my left testicle to live in the Tasmanian forests.

[Desert Dweller]

a "new paradigm" which you have so far been unable to explain, define, nor have you even presented a method by which to learn about it or experience it.

I'm pretty sure it was this thread Lady Shea in which i posed:

a. researchers are themselves active participants in the situation researched and that the researcher - situation relationship deserves to be studied. Also that

b.(in social research) the framework and variables of studies themselves change in the course of the study: and

c, that an important way of attesting the validity and significance of social knowledge is to feed-back into the situation researched studying how this feed-back influences further action .

No-one responded to this yet clearly these are very different from experimental science wherein there is an assumption (bloody huge one at that) of objectivity and contol of (some) variables. In short people are not predictable therefore reductionist experimentation is not an appropriate way to study people. (the disciplines you mentioned...psychol, sociology...all derive from the science of the 19th century. they wanted to be taken seriously (like maths and physics and chemistry) so they copied the assumptions and methods of the extant system. Unfortunately it's not as easy as that.

Farren re

Apparently there was a Polynesian island where Jesuits missionaries were frustrated with their utter failure to convert any of the islanders

Having been born and raised in the Pacific I can assure you that this story is fiction. It wasn't the Jesuits who got out there...it was largely protestant missionaries and while they did some idiotic and destructive things (eg read Paul Thereaux "Happy Isles Of Oceania") and did indeed screw up cultures by cutting those cultures off from their roots, no-one ever burned down any forests.

no benchmark for what constitutes "decline".

Rome is the usual example...I thought the benchmark could be indicated by the co-existence of the criteria given (ie slavery, migration....) I keep hearing this assertion that 'things are getting better' but I don't experience this in my own life, or those of close friends. For who is it getting better? To equate 'better' with some modern technology is dangerous and innacurate IMO. But here we would have to enter the difficult arena of 'Quality' and knowing how many will respond I daren't mention things of quality as it is subjective and far form universal. What I do expereince is an erosion of personal liberty (esp under new anti terrorist legislation), an increase in laws/by laws until doing ordinary activities is almost impossible (but that mostly from insurance which has caused so many activites to stop) , a growth of corporate power and a diminuition of individual rights (try telling my telco they've made a mistake!..at present I can't sent emails and they dont care a drop) , ...so there is this problem of things on one hand seem to be getting better yet so much is getting worse (state of large natural systems...ocean, forests, land....) .

I'm drifting well away from porn....but questions directed me thus.
It's early in the morning here and porn is the last thing I want to think about.
Quite honestly, judging by the emails which flood my inbox everyday, the thought of watching a teenager get buggered (for my entertainment) makes me feel a little ill.

thanks for your detailed reply.

[Adora]

Having been born and raised in the Pacific I can assure you that this story is fiction. It wasn't the Jesuits who got out there...it was largely protestant missionaries and while they did some idiotic and destructive things (eg read Paul Thereaux "Happy Isles Of Oceania") and did indeed screw up cultures by cutting those cultures off from their roots, no-one ever burned down any forests.

Er, I think Farren may be referring to much earlier in Asia's history, like the 1600s/1700s. That was when the Jesuits were all the rage around here, and Spain and Portugal were happily destroying "barbarian" cultures in the name of "God".

[Desert Dweller]

The dearth of critical analysis or even the writings of Mindell on the internet should speak volumes about how seriously he is considered by his professional peers,

Warrenly, with this you raise an interesting and problemtical dimension.

Let's assume the current paradigm is a circle. Something happends beyond, outside that circle; furthermore the new emergence challenges aspects of the original circle.

How can the new emergence be critiqued from the old perspective? By definition is it outside and furthermore those in the old cirlce have a vested interest in maintaining their position. (If the new begins to be utilised they might be out of a place, and we know how academics hold to their ivory towers, tight as can be).

I'm not defending Mindell here, hell why should I ...he's just another interesting writer who has given me some good ideas. However the situation above is very real; viz how to move forward, beyond the present circle where the old criteria may not be relevant.

A good example happened in Western Australia in the early 1900s. A Dr. found that there were bacteria in the stomach and it was this that stimulated acids which gave rise to ulcers. He treated successfully with an old anti-biotic and presto ulcers gone. No one believed him...the medical establishment (the paradigm or circle) said that nothing lived in the stomach. He went to London and was laughed out...nothing lives in the stomach...it was only because in this case his treatement was so easy to demonstrate that there was a change in thinking. Until that time the old paradigm could not critique his discovery.

How are we to approach this problem?