Am I the only one that thinks there’s something positive to stricter control of pornography?
Even if you love porn and grew up exposed to it as a kid, you gotta admit that there are psychological effects on avid adult viewers and more on minors.
Think about what was available as a kid, too. Wait 10 min for a 3 minute to load or just search pics. Now it’s a completely different overstimulating world that transforming how people relate to sex and themselves.
I was sex-negative until recent years due to Catholic conditioning mixing with unlabeled asexuality. Seeing the rising movements against porngraphy has driven me to veer strongly sex-positive, especially after the 2024 USAmerican election.
An “anti-pornography” movement is incredibly dangerous because it can leverage that label to steamroll through anything “for the children” and ward off all but the strongest and loudest criticism. It’s a lot like “Mothers Against Drunk Driving”. Every Politician fears being the lone dissenter on a “for the children” bill; No judge wants to seen as soft on “children accessing porn”.
Porn may be “transforming how people relate to sex and themselves”. The anti-porn movement is working to rip away digital privacy, trying to destroy LGBTQIA+ lives, and will squash free artistic expression. Think of any work of art that ever includes nudity, or ever depicts sex - through text, imagery or video. Now imagine defending its “artistic value” to an armed soldier who stormed in your house, or being badgered by a prosecutor in front of a judge and panel of 12.
“Anti-porn” or “Anti-kids accessing porn” legislation are the legislative equivalent of setting off a firecracker in your mouth to stop a toothache. I remain baffled every time I see support for this from “progressive” online spaces and voices, especially considering that we are living under the Republican regime, Right Now.
I remain baffled every time I see support for this from “progressive” online spaces and voices
It’s just people not using their brains, everything is just viewed at its surface level with no deeper analysis ever conducted. They are the sort of idiots that think that Starship Troopers is profascism.
I understand your point of view. These conservative law-makers are hiding their true intentions, but you’re only allowing yourself to think about porn restriction in the lens of current day right-wing politicians. The intent to put more restrictions on porn is not a one way street.
Your analogy to banning artistic freedom is like saying putting restrictions on alcohol is a slippery slope that’s going to eventually have you explaining to a soldier why you have kombucha.
There are so many variations of porn. Some porn is dangerous to be consumed by children and even adults, especially when consumed compulsively through addiction. Maybe not dangerous to straight cis men, but dangerous to almost the entire half of society. I believe that is why it’s so hard to put any restrictions on porn. Straight cis men are clutching onto their undiagnosed porn addictions as hard as they can and using right wing laws to make hasty generalizations about porn restriction leading to the Islamic Revolution.
Not enough to warrant uploads of your fucking license.
Also I really think its kind of goofy so many people are upset about porn when kids are exposed to violence in the media all the time.
Not that I think violent video games are the devil, my first memory of a game was GTA III lol, but I think seeing violence is probably worse than seeing sex.
At least if you take the American Puritan mindset out of it.
Either we chill the fuck out, or the next logical step is every rated ‘M’ game purchase or rated ‘R’ movie will require a license in a digital copy of your drivers license. Who knows, maybe next it’ll be req’d for age-restricted social media content.
If you don’t want your kids watching porn don’t give them unfettered internet access.
If your a first worlder below the age of 45, and don’t know how to do that, that’s probably on you for not being able to intuitively use UX after decade of using computers in school and the workforce. Yes I expect modern humans who’ve been exposed to computing their entire life to use basic smartphone features, no hitting the pretty icons in the right order is not hard
If that you find that to be challenging god help you in raising an entire human child.
Yes, I mean, one is (ideally) about two (or more) people enjoying time they have together in an intimate way, the other is about hurting one another maliciously. I certainly prefer one of these things to be more prominent than the other
There is a discussion to be had about stuff like objectification and porn that doesn’t depict people like, consenting, and such, but at least in an ideal I’d much rather have media that focuses on pleasure and love than hate and suffering
Violence isn’t the only problem though. The way women are treated is not realistic or healthy in much of porn. It creates unhealthy expectations. Kudos if you’re watching exclusively healthy sexual relationships in porn.
I’m just saying there’s something good in restriction, not the way in which it’s being implemented. I think games like GTA are bad too. There’s also plenty of violence in porn. Towards the women so maybe you don’t perceive that unless it was towards men.
Parental controls are only effective if all parents control. Should alcohol and guns have no restrictions and be up to parents to control? Exactly.
Even if you love porn and grew up exposed to it as a kid, you gotta admit that there are psychological effects on avid adult viewers and more on minors.
No you don’t. That is right wing propaganda completely unfounded by science. That porn addiction nonsense so many Americans babble about is a product of that propaganda, and doesn’t actually exist.
I understand and agree with what you’re saying. I think people should need licenses to have kids, but that’s a different story.
The conflict that this often boils down to is that the digital world does not emulate the real world. If you want to buy porn in the real world, you need ID, but online anything goes. I love my online anonymity just as much as everybody else, but we’ll eventually need to find some hybrid approach.
We already scan our faces on our phones all the time, or scan our finger on our computer. How about when you want to access a porn site you have to type in a password or do some biometric credential?
I think 50% or more of the resistance of restricting porn is really just that people really love porn and are ashamed of what they view. There’s a whole other social psychology that needs to change in regards to how we view sex and I agree with more education.
Do it like this: you have to go to a notary and show your ID and they don’t scan it or anything, but they then authorize you to create an account with biometric credentials. Now only you can use that account to watch porn online. Hybrid approach.
Not sure why you’re getting down voted. Porn can absolutely become a behavioral addiction.
I used to work at a place where we had a lobby guard that watched porn on his phone all day (sound off). Not sitting there trying to jerk it, it was a compulsion. He would just be watching it while talking to other people, standing by the door…it was weird. He eventually got fired because he genuinely couldn’t not watch porn.
That being said, I’m a huge privacy advocate, and while there are actually ways to anonymously be on a website and verify age, that’s not how anyone is doing it. Things like signing up for an account on a site and scanning your ID are just abysmally stupid. There’s a zero percent chance that this system as is doesnt lead to data theft and possibly even extortion.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single suggestion of a way to implement age verification that isn’t a privacy nightmare. Oftentimes they literally just want a credit card number, the assumption being that a child would never be able to get hold of such a thing.
In some of the worst cases they actually want a passport or other government ID sending to some organisation that would verify you. With all the fun potential data breaches that that would ensue.
Most of the time these rules never get off the ground because privacy advocacy groups basically sue over it and win every time.
That’s more or less what I was implying/thinking, there’s not really any good way to implement it. Canada almost ended up implementing it and possibly even going as far as to ban porn, but thankfully Poilievre ended up losing the election including losing his own seat.
You go onto you state gov website and get a token that just says “this is an adult.” Nothing else. Token lasts 10 minutes.
Cut and paste into the site. They authenticate without saying who theu are, back to the gov site, “yo, this legit?” State says “looks like something we would do.” State keeps no records of WHO validated the token, just that it was a legit token.
Not at all, this is well established technology already in use all over the place.
When countries use digital IDs, they are able to carve out validating individual aspects of an identity. Just address, just over 18, just class of driver’s license, etc.
So the State has a website/wallet where the user pulls a token from the State, basically a fancy hashed OTP/Login code.
The website, which can’t derive your identity from the code, sends the code to the state API and can’t ask more than “is this hash legit” and the State API doesnt need to say more than “yup.”
Where can things go wrong? The State can ask to know who needs the token. Or even demand to know, and log what sites use it. The state can contract this out to a vendor that logs it all, making data theft far more risky.
It all depends on his the state builds requirements.
You get a cert which is cryptographically signed by your government. They can prove its signed with the governments root cert, showing that its someone over 18, but not who.
That being said the key identifiers will probably still be attached to you in some government db, just not on the porn site.
Though the government could force the pornsite to hand over any logged ids. Some people would say that’s private, as they trust the government not to do stuff without a judges warrant.
As a trans woman relying on HIPPA to not be put on a list of those on HRT, lmao yeah fucking right. The christian taliban will connect the dots the first chance they get.
I’d advocate for us to update our ID systems to be able to verify age without the risk of data theft or extortion, but that’s not really relevant to this conversation, just kinda talking to the void
I totally agree. Everybody is misinterpreting what I’m saying into being an advocate for the ways they’re implementing the restrictions. They need a punching bag. I get it. I’ll be it.
But some people here don’t want to admit porn addiction exists. That’s a sign that it is a problem.
The problem isn’t just addiction though. The access to and normalization of violent porn to adults and especially children is damaging to society. Maybe people don’t care because it mostly effects women negatively.
Am I the only one that thinks there’s something positive to stricter control of pornography?
Even if you love porn and grew up exposed to it as a kid, you gotta admit that there are psychological effects on avid adult viewers and more on minors.
Think about what was available as a kid, too. Wait 10 min for a 3 minute to load or just search pics. Now it’s a completely different overstimulating world that transforming how people relate to sex and themselves.
I was sex-negative until recent years due to Catholic conditioning mixing with unlabeled asexuality. Seeing the rising movements against porngraphy has driven me to veer strongly sex-positive, especially after the 2024 USAmerican election.
An “anti-pornography” movement is incredibly dangerous because it can leverage that label to steamroll through anything “for the children” and ward off all but the strongest and loudest criticism. It’s a lot like “Mothers Against Drunk Driving”. Every Politician fears being the lone dissenter on a “for the children” bill; No judge wants to seen as soft on “children accessing porn”.
Porn may be “transforming how people relate to sex and themselves”. The anti-porn movement is working to rip away digital privacy, trying to destroy LGBTQIA+ lives, and will squash free artistic expression. Think of any work of art that ever includes nudity, or ever depicts sex - through text, imagery or video. Now imagine defending its “artistic value” to an armed soldier who stormed in your house, or being badgered by a prosecutor in front of a judge and panel of 12.
“Anti-porn” or “Anti-kids accessing porn” legislation are the legislative equivalent of setting off a firecracker in your mouth to stop a toothache. I remain baffled every time I see support for this from “progressive” online spaces and voices, especially considering that we are living under the Republican regime, Right Now.
It’s just people not using their brains, everything is just viewed at its surface level with no deeper analysis ever conducted. They are the sort of idiots that think that Starship Troopers is profascism.
I understand your point of view. These conservative law-makers are hiding their true intentions, but you’re only allowing yourself to think about porn restriction in the lens of current day right-wing politicians. The intent to put more restrictions on porn is not a one way street.
Your analogy to banning artistic freedom is like saying putting restrictions on alcohol is a slippery slope that’s going to eventually have you explaining to a soldier why you have kombucha.
There are so many variations of porn. Some porn is dangerous to be consumed by children and even adults, especially when consumed compulsively through addiction. Maybe not dangerous to straight cis men, but dangerous to almost the entire half of society. I believe that is why it’s so hard to put any restrictions on porn. Straight cis men are clutching onto their undiagnosed porn addictions as hard as they can and using right wing laws to make hasty generalizations about porn restriction leading to the Islamic Revolution.
Also, congrats. Happy safe and healthy jerking.
Not enough to warrant uploads of your fucking license.
Also I really think its kind of goofy so many people are upset about porn when kids are exposed to violence in the media all the time.
Not that I think violent video games are the devil, my first memory of a game was GTA III lol, but I think seeing violence is probably worse than seeing sex.
At least if you take the American Puritan mindset out of it.
Either we chill the fuck out, or the next logical step is every rated ‘M’ game purchase or rated ‘R’ movie will require a license in a digital copy of your drivers license. Who knows, maybe next it’ll be req’d for age-restricted social media content.
If you don’t want your kids watching porn don’t give them unfettered internet access.
If your a first worlder below the age of 45, and don’t know how to do that, that’s probably on you for not being able to intuitively use UX after decade of using computers in school and the workforce. Yes I expect modern humans who’ve been exposed to computing their entire life to use basic smartphone features, no hitting the pretty icons in the right order is not hard
If that you find that to be challenging god help you in raising an entire human child.
Yes, I mean, one is (ideally) about two (or more) people enjoying time they have together in an intimate way, the other is about hurting one another maliciously. I certainly prefer one of these things to be more prominent than the other
There is a discussion to be had about stuff like objectification and porn that doesn’t depict people like, consenting, and such, but at least in an ideal I’d much rather have media that focuses on pleasure and love than hate and suffering
Um, there is plenty of violence in porn…
That’s mostly what I was referring to in my latter paragraph, yes
But the important takeaway is that it’s not the core of what pornography is
Violence isn’t the only problem though. The way women are treated is not realistic or healthy in much of porn. It creates unhealthy expectations. Kudos if you’re watching exclusively healthy sexual relationships in porn.
I’m just saying there’s something good in restriction, not the way in which it’s being implemented. I think games like GTA are bad too. There’s also plenty of violence in porn. Towards the women so maybe you don’t perceive that unless it was towards men.
Parental controls are only effective if all parents control. Should alcohol and guns have no restrictions and be up to parents to control? Exactly.
No you don’t. That is right wing propaganda completely unfounded by science. That porn addiction nonsense so many Americans babble about is a product of that propaganda, and doesn’t actually exist.
Wow. You don’t think porn addiction exists? Said like a true porn addict.
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I understand and agree with what you’re saying. I think people should need licenses to have kids, but that’s a different story.
The conflict that this often boils down to is that the digital world does not emulate the real world. If you want to buy porn in the real world, you need ID, but online anything goes. I love my online anonymity just as much as everybody else, but we’ll eventually need to find some hybrid approach.
We already scan our faces on our phones all the time, or scan our finger on our computer. How about when you want to access a porn site you have to type in a password or do some biometric credential?
I think 50% or more of the resistance of restricting porn is really just that people really love porn and are ashamed of what they view. There’s a whole other social psychology that needs to change in regards to how we view sex and I agree with more education.
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Do it like this: you have to go to a notary and show your ID and they don’t scan it or anything, but they then authorize you to create an account with biometric credentials. Now only you can use that account to watch porn online. Hybrid approach.
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You show your ID and a notary enters their credentials to allow you to create an account with your fingerprint or FaceID.
Your ID doesn’t get saved. Your biometrics are only saved in the way that your iPhone saves them for a password.
Work with me. What’s a solution that would be acceptable for you? Get creative.
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I’m convinced this was written by GPT. We disagree on how good or bad porn is for society and the youth, so the rest doesn’t even matter.
Not sure why you’re getting down voted. Porn can absolutely become a behavioral addiction.
I used to work at a place where we had a lobby guard that watched porn on his phone all day (sound off). Not sitting there trying to jerk it, it was a compulsion. He would just be watching it while talking to other people, standing by the door…it was weird. He eventually got fired because he genuinely couldn’t not watch porn.
That being said, I’m a huge privacy advocate, and while there are actually ways to anonymously be on a website and verify age, that’s not how anyone is doing it. Things like signing up for an account on a site and scanning your ID are just abysmally stupid. There’s a zero percent chance that this system as is doesnt lead to data theft and possibly even extortion.
How would that work? I’m not well-researched on this particular topic, so I’m curious how that should work.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single suggestion of a way to implement age verification that isn’t a privacy nightmare. Oftentimes they literally just want a credit card number, the assumption being that a child would never be able to get hold of such a thing.
In some of the worst cases they actually want a passport or other government ID sending to some organisation that would verify you. With all the fun potential data breaches that that would ensue.
Most of the time these rules never get off the ground because privacy advocacy groups basically sue over it and win every time.
That’s more or less what I was implying/thinking, there’s not really any good way to implement it. Canada almost ended up implementing it and possibly even going as far as to ban porn, but thankfully Poilievre ended up losing the election including losing his own seat.
Tokenization is the easy solution.
You go onto you state gov website and get a token that just says “this is an adult.” Nothing else. Token lasts 10 minutes.
Cut and paste into the site. They authenticate without saying who theu are, back to the gov site, “yo, this legit?” State says “looks like something we would do.” State keeps no records of WHO validated the token, just that it was a legit token.
Same way that routers connect to VPN services.
How does the state verify that you’re an adult and therefore should have a token?
This solution simply seems to be kicking the can down the road
Not at all, this is well established technology already in use all over the place.
When countries use digital IDs, they are able to carve out validating individual aspects of an identity. Just address, just over 18, just class of driver’s license, etc.
So the State has a website/wallet where the user pulls a token from the State, basically a fancy hashed OTP/Login code.
The website, which can’t derive your identity from the code, sends the code to the state API and can’t ask more than “is this hash legit” and the State API doesnt need to say more than “yup.”
Where can things go wrong? The State can ask to know who needs the token. Or even demand to know, and log what sites use it. The state can contract this out to a vendor that logs it all, making data theft far more risky.
It all depends on his the state builds requirements.
Key signing maybe?
You get a cert which is cryptographically signed by your government. They can prove its signed with the governments root cert, showing that its someone over 18, but not who.
That being said the key identifiers will probably still be attached to you in some government db, just not on the porn site.
Though the government could force the pornsite to hand over any logged ids. Some people would say that’s private, as they trust the government not to do stuff without a judges warrant.
As a trans woman relying on HIPPA to not be put on a list of those on HRT, lmao yeah fucking right. The christian taliban will connect the dots the first chance they get.
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Who under the age of 18 will have money to buy these, and who would be willing to sell them for the pittance teenagers would be willing to spend?
Especially if these get rotated out regularly via a system wide program.
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Oh no I wholeheartedly agree age verification isn’t the wrong answer, I was just playing devils advocate on the technological side.
Parents should be parents, it governments shouldn’t be getting I. the way of you being just another ghost in the machine.
I’d advocate for us to update our ID systems to be able to verify age without the risk of data theft or extortion, but that’s not really relevant to this conversation, just kinda talking to the void
I totally agree. Everybody is misinterpreting what I’m saying into being an advocate for the ways they’re implementing the restrictions. They need a punching bag. I get it. I’ll be it.
But some people here don’t want to admit porn addiction exists. That’s a sign that it is a problem.
The problem isn’t just addiction though. The access to and normalization of violent porn to adults and especially children is damaging to society. Maybe people don’t care because it mostly effects women negatively.