Papers please: for millions of Americans, accessing online pornography now requires a government ID. It could have global implications for the future of the web.
a survey of 1,000 young people concluded that pornography can normalise sexual violence and harmful attitudes among children.
That’s irrelevant. This argument assumes that age verification laws will reduce children’s consumption of porn. The war on drugs has shown us that prohibition of this kind of stuff doesn’t reduce anything and only ever makes it worse. All that will happen is children (and adults) will now go to worse/less moderated websites which will on average have more CSAM and other real sexual abuse.
True. But the people advocating for these laws don’t want to deal with nuance and compromise on what it would take to have a society where you educate people on sex in a healthy and positive way. These prohibitionists see the world as either bad or good - nothing in between. Good (how ever they decide to define it) must win no compromises, and the weapon that they use is unfounded fear of the bad and it works.
And the reason fear works is because it is easy and visceral and reality’s complexity doesn’t work for media’s need for sound bites.
I think the part about IDs is what’s important. They are not against porn, it’s just a good excuse to account for another part of your activities. Which may be used to classify you or even blackmail you, but I think knowing your preferences is enough. It may allow secret services to predict whom you may like or may not.
Naturally it will allow to track you.
There are many factors affecting energy spent on doing something.
I personally think that this timeline is fucking bullshit and we got there by always choosing the lesser evil, so libertarian (you may make it left-libertarian, I genuinely don’t care about left-right division because it’s mostly traditional and imaginary) revolutions in all the civilized countries are long overdue.
Not even libertarian, maybe the Empire at War: Forces of Corruption game was onto something. Maybe the left-right and libertarian-statist distinctions are obsolete for our time just like Roman optimates-populares distinction. Maybe we need some new line, formalist-naturalist (as in formal law versus natural law) or something. Where the former part would be existing political mechanisms and the latter part would be saying “no” to fools, thieves and bandits.
That was never a thing. I grew up in the 90s and I could easily find free porn websites. My main limitation was dial-up internet, not knowing where to find it…
Sometimes that wasn’t enough and the anticipation of not knowing whether you’ll see a nipple or a dick on the next few lines of the image was preferable.
I got in the habit of opening multiple tabs while reading a text story, and then finishing up when the tabs finally loaded.
Pretty sure the normalization of sexual violence and harmful attitudes came from the adults in my life. If parents and teachers adequately teach kids to identify those things and know that they are unequivocally wrong, then teens who see unhealthy stuff in porn will notice and be critical of it. Probably indignant, too, since no one is more justice focused than a teen who has just learned something about the world.
The issue is backward ideas about relationships being reinforced by adults, either through active misogyny or just never talking about it. This argument boils my blood because the porn itself is not the problem. Awful attitudes about relationships and women start very early and they often come directly from parents themselves.
I honestly think it’s about degrading the right to free expression. But yes also probably. The people who cast women and kids as pawns in need of protection are usually not super respectful to the real women/kids in their lives.
The “pornographers are the real misogynists” is pretty much coming from actual misogynists to soothe their own ego. “No, I am not misogynists for regularly beating up my wife, advocating for a total abortion ban and the end of no fault divorce! That dominator with his safe words and bondage is the one! I bet that submissive guy is also secretly a big misogynist! Everyone knows women don’t like sex, they just tolerate it for the baby and the husband. All they want is romance.” This is the common attitude of the anti-porn conservative men, regardless if they’re secretly watching it or not. There’s like a misogyny kink, which is pretty much “what if cartoon misogyny was a kink”, but often its fans are more ironic, though I’ve seen incels engaging in it.
I often watch porn that these people would call “super exploitative”. I even drew quadruple amputee hentai. Yet I’m against almost everything these kind of people stand for, especially their wish for the total control of (real) women. All my kinks are based on mutual consent and not on controlling every facet of another human being’s life due to reasons, and often those would put me on the more submissive side of things, I’m bisexual, etc… I’m super repulsed by those controlling aspects. (I swear the quadruple amputee stuff for me comes from empathy rather than doing whatever with someone who cannot do anything on their own!)
Note that “sexual violence and harmful attitudes” often also include any kind of BDSM or adjacent kinks, anal sex, fisting, scat, etc., all with intentionally misunderstood and exaggerated harms (if not outright just fabricated, like the people tying diapers to “normalization of pedophilia”, while stuff like even pubic hair removal was decried as such). Yes, kinks are becoming more popular thanks to porn (and communities around those kinks), even if it’s scat, which is even thought as disgusting by its practitioners. And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it’s done with mutual consent and with big care being put on safety. Except if you’re an Evangelical Christian, with a mission to save people that do sex outside of child making, and not in the missionary position.
That’s irrelevant. This argument assumes that age verification laws will reduce children’s consumption of porn. The war on drugs has shown us that prohibition of this kind of stuff doesn’t reduce anything and only ever makes it worse. All that will happen is children (and adults) will now go to worse/less moderated websites which will on average have more CSAM and other real sexual abuse.
True. But the people advocating for these laws don’t want to deal with nuance and compromise on what it would take to have a society where you educate people on sex in a healthy and positive way. These prohibitionists see the world as either bad or good - nothing in between. Good (how ever they decide to define it) must win no compromises, and the weapon that they use is unfounded fear of the bad and it works.
And the reason fear works is because it is easy and visceral and reality’s complexity doesn’t work for media’s need for sound bites.
I think the part about IDs is what’s important. They are not against porn, it’s just a good excuse to account for another part of your activities. Which may be used to classify you or even blackmail you, but I think knowing your preferences is enough. It may allow secret services to predict whom you may like or may not.
Naturally it will allow to track you.
There are many factors affecting energy spent on doing something.
I personally think that this timeline is fucking bullshit and we got there by always choosing the lesser evil, so libertarian (you may make it left-libertarian, I genuinely don’t care about left-right division because it’s mostly traditional and imaginary) revolutions in all the civilized countries are long overdue.
Not even libertarian, maybe the Empire at War: Forces of Corruption game was onto something. Maybe the left-right and libertarian-statist distinctions are obsolete for our time just like Roman optimates-populares distinction. Maybe we need some new line, formalist-naturalist (as in formal law versus natural law) or something. Where the former part would be existing political mechanisms and the latter part would be saying “no” to fools, thieves and bandits.
If you were a teenager, back when online porn were all pay sites, and so you were using Kazaa/Limewire instead, then you know.
That’s not Jenna. That’s a snuff film.
That was never a thing. I grew up in the 90s and I could easily find free porn websites. My main limitation was dial-up internet, not knowing where to find it…
I used to leech my neighbours WiFi on my PSP and download stories on the Sex Stories Text Repository because images were too slow.
Sometimes that wasn’t enough and the anticipation of not knowing whether you’ll see a nipple or a dick on the next few lines of the image was preferable.
I got in the habit of opening multiple tabs while reading a text story, and then finishing up when the tabs finally loaded.
Pretty sure the normalization of sexual violence and harmful attitudes came from the adults in my life. If parents and teachers adequately teach kids to identify those things and know that they are unequivocally wrong, then teens who see unhealthy stuff in porn will notice and be critical of it. Probably indignant, too, since no one is more justice focused than a teen who has just learned something about the world.
The issue is backward ideas about relationships being reinforced by adults, either through active misogyny or just never talking about it. This argument boils my blood because the porn itself is not the problem. Awful attitudes about relationships and women start very early and they often come directly from parents themselves.
Interesting. Maybe it’s projection about the porn THEY watch?
I honestly think it’s about degrading the right to free expression. But yes also probably. The people who cast women and kids as pawns in need of protection are usually not super respectful to the real women/kids in their lives.
Control addicts gotta get their fixes.
The “pornographers are the real misogynists” is pretty much coming from actual misogynists to soothe their own ego. “No, I am not misogynists for regularly beating up my wife, advocating for a total abortion ban and the end of no fault divorce! That dominator with his safe words and bondage is the one! I bet that submissive guy is also secretly a big misogynist! Everyone knows women don’t like sex, they just tolerate it for the baby and the husband. All they want is romance.” This is the common attitude of the anti-porn conservative men, regardless if they’re secretly watching it or not. There’s like a misogyny kink, which is pretty much “what if cartoon misogyny was a kink”, but often its fans are more ironic, though I’ve seen incels engaging in it.
I often watch porn that these people would call “super exploitative”. I even drew quadruple amputee hentai. Yet I’m against almost everything these kind of people stand for, especially their wish for the total control of (real) women. All my kinks are based on mutual consent and not on controlling every facet of another human being’s life due to reasons, and often those would put me on the more submissive side of things, I’m bisexual, etc… I’m super repulsed by those controlling aspects. (I swear the quadruple amputee stuff for me comes from empathy rather than doing whatever with someone who cannot do anything on their own!)
The word “can” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. A lot of things “can” have negative effects.
Note that “sexual violence and harmful attitudes” often also include any kind of BDSM or adjacent kinks, anal sex, fisting, scat, etc., all with intentionally misunderstood and exaggerated harms (if not outright just fabricated, like the people tying diapers to “normalization of pedophilia”, while stuff like even pubic hair removal was decried as such). Yes, kinks are becoming more popular thanks to porn (and communities around those kinks), even if it’s scat, which is even thought as disgusting by its practitioners. And there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it’s done with mutual consent and with big care being put on safety. Except if you’re an Evangelical Christian, with a mission to save people that do sex outside of child making, and not in the missionary position.