[Bill_Nye]

Question of the Week

Is pornography immoral?

Last week, I wrote an article arguing that the University of Wisconsin should not have fired Joe Gow, the longtime chancellor of its La Crosse campus, for making pornography with his wife.

I took no position on the morality of pornography.

Rather, I pointed out that Americans are divided about porn––a 2023 Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe it is wrong, while 39 percent believe that it is morally acceptable––and argued that diverse societies are better off agreeing that one is judged at work only for what one does at work than constantly arguing about which off-the-clock behaviors are bad enough to justify termination.

Today, I want to solicit your viewpoints on pornography itself, specifically legal porn (given the near consensus that child pornography, which is illegal, is also immoral). Is producing porn a good, bad, or neutral act? How about consuming it? What about porn that features AI-generated images of fake humans?

Read more at: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters ... al/677194/

[Yaqum]

Rampant sex work is a symptom of poverty and inequality. If you've got a problem with it, cure the disease instead of trying to treat the symptom.

Otherwise, we should just let it be and confer it the same respect and consideration as any other job.

Asking whether it's moral or not is meaningless without context.

[Pants-of-dog]

It depends on context.

A loving couple filming themselves in the privacy of their bedroom is not immoral.

An industry that takes advantage of the poverty of young women to film them and then use this to make money is immoral.

So, while context is key, the vast majority of porn is immoral, but it is not necessarily so.

[wat0n]

Not immoral if done by consenting adults.

[Yaqum]

An industry that takes advantage of the poverty of young women to film them and then use this to make money is immoral.

True, but that sentiment can be applied to any industry. Sex work isn’t unique in this regard.

[Pants-of-dog]

True, but that sentiment can be applied to any industry. Sex work isn’t unique in this regard.

Yes, the inherent exploitation is not confined to porn.

[Truth To Power]

Read more at: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters ... al/677194/

Maybe first you should define porn. Good luck.

[Bill_Nye]

Personally, I think porn is moral if it is created/consumed by willing adults. In other words, no women who are being pimped/trafficked and on the consumer side that it doesn't have a negative effect on the psychology of the consumer. What concerns me there is the fact that the average age of first viewing of pornography is 11 years of age.

What’s the problem?

Is the fact that 68.4 percent of adolescents reported viewing pornography at some point in their lifetimes a cause for concern (Wright et al., 2020)? There has been an ongoing debate for decades about the potential pros and cons of pornography—yet the bulk of literature reveals that for adolescents, such exposure can be harmful (Rothman, 2021). For example, adolescent pornography exposure has been linked to permissive sexual attitudes (Doornwaard et al., 2015), dominant or aggressive sexual behaviors (Wright et al., 2021), self-objectification and body comparison (Maheux et al., 2021), and the development of pornography-influenced sexual scripts (Bryant, 2010).

In addition, the average age of first pornography exposure is between 11 and 12 years old (Kraus & Rosenberg, 2014; Rothman, 2021). Adolescents at age 11 may or may not have a cognitive understanding of sex and healthy sexuality. For those that do not, exposure to pornographic videos (especially videos of violent, forced, group, or brutal sexual acts) may be traumatic. These youth may not have an accurate view of sex by which to contrast what they see actors performing in pornographic videos. They may not have a schema (or mental representation or category) that informs them that what they are seeing is unrealistic, unethical, illegal, or abnormal. The lack of healthy sexuality may make pornography exposure distressing or disturbing as children try to assimilate what they have seen (“Is this what sex is?”).

reference: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... y-exposure

[Hakeer]

I take the Libertarian position on this, but I can see a view of morality where consumption of porn is immoral if so excessive that it has negative side effects like other addictions (alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, etc.). The moral principle is that deliberate self-harm is immoral. For example, I recall from my early childhood religious training that Christians consider suicide immoral.

[Unthinking Majority]

Not immoral if done by consenting adults.

Agree.

Anything online can be abused or fed into an addiction. Social media, gaming etc. But generally there's nothing inherently immoral with these things, or porn. Some can seek to exploit people for money, like many things, and that's where the immorality creeps in.

[Deutschmania]

As others have mentioned , first I feel that we must define what is meant by pornography . If we are to use my working definition , that pornography is hardcore sexually explicit material that serves to debase and objectify people , especially women , such as described in the literary work , by Andrea Dworkin , entitled "Pornography: Men Possessing Women" , which can be read in full here https://archive.org/details/PornographyMenPossessingWomenAndreaDworkinPdf/mode/2up , then I would assert that it's always altogether ethically wrong . If however one simply means softcore erotica , while I myself don't see the point of watching others act out simulated sex scenes , and positions , anymore than I find any sense in watching other people eating , in regards to what's referred to as food porn , as shown below , I do not feel that it's abusive , and/or degrading in quite the same way as hardcore pornography . I think that these additional videos , on the topic of sex trafficking aligns with my own view, over all .

[Bill_Nye]

Calls to ban 'harmful pornography' are rife—here's what teens actually think about porn

[Puffer Fish]

Rampant sex work is a symptom of poverty and inequality. If you've got a problem with it, cure the disease instead of trying to treat the symptom.

This is hilarious. Trying to blame all problems on "poverty and inequality".
In this situation, I think that's absurd. You're acting like women have no choice and are being forced and arm twisted into entering the pornographic industry, even though these pure and good women would never have wanted to expose and sully themselves to the world unless they had to do so to survive.

[Yaqum]

Trying to blame all problems on "poverty and inequality".

There’s a direct correlation between levels of sex work and poverty. The fact that you don’t know this shows that you shouldn’t even have an opinion on the matter.

[Puffer Fish]

There’s a direct correlation between levels of sex work and poverty. The fact that you don’t know this shows that you shouldn’t even have an opinion on the matter.

The majority of that correlation would disappear if you adjusted for race/ethnicity in the statistics. (And drug use)

Anyway, the pornographic filming industry (which is the actual subject of discussion here) is a little bit of a different beast from the ordinary sex industry.
I'd imagine poverty plays less of an influence in the porn industry than it does in the sex industry.

[Yaqum]

The majority of that correlation would disappear if you adjusted for race/ethnicity in the statistics.

A plainly racist and ignorant sentiment.

Anyway, the pornographic filming industry is a little bit of a different beast from the ordinary sex industry. I'd imagine poverty plays less of an influence in the porn industry than it does in the sex industry.

Not necessarily true. The majority of women who get into porn either have worked or do work as prostitutes as well.

[Puffer Fish]

A plainly racist and ignorant sentiment.

Really? What makes it ignorant?

Do you make the claim that the statistics would not support my assertion?

The majority of women who get into porn either have worked or do work as prostitutes as well.

I challenge this claim of yours. You're welcome to provide any links to statistics or studies that might support your claim.

While I'll grant you the rate of pornographic actresses who have formerly prostituted themselves in the sex industry is probably far higher than the normal population, I'd guess it still might only be 10%.

[AFAIK]

There's ample evidence of women being bullied and coerced into doing porn in both Japan and the USA (the 2 biggest producers). In and of itself I consider porn to be amoral. The way the industry conducts itself is clearly immoral, which is sadly the case of all commercial entertainment.

[Verv]

There's ample evidence of women being bullied and coerced into doing porn in both Japan and the USA (the 2 biggest producers). In and of itself I consider porn to be amoral. The way the industry conducts itself is clearly immoral, which is sadly the case of all commercial entertainment.

I think pxrn is never amoral. It's a bad idea to mess up your dopamine levels and to begin acquiring strange tastes and expectations from your future wife/husband by consuming that stuff...

But here is pretty much the most important point of them all - there is ample evidence of women being coerced and bullied into it, and when that is not the case, it is often women who are both desperate for money and survivors of SA that are trying to reclaim some part of their life...

So, even when it is not coerced, it is often being made by people with no options, substance abuse issues, or mental health issues stemming from trauma...

Perhaps that is not so true with "solo" stuff, but I think it would be very difficult to find a normal woman with a normal mental health profile that would completely destroy her social status and mating options for a few thousand dollars.

... Which is another reason why consuming it is wrong - it is putting money into that industry. Even when you are not paying, you are still generating clicks & views that fund the advertisements.

I also think there is a greater spiritual war going on in the world, and by consuming it they are feeding the power of dark forces. Of course, that's completely unpersuasive to the secular.

[Pants-of-dog]

The majority of that correlation would disappear if you adjusted for race/ethnicity in the statistics. (And drug use)

This is honestly a ridiculously stupid thing to say.

The fact that women are pushed into sex work because of poverty is not affected by race or ethnicity.