I'd like to point out that right wingers make this exact same argument as well and people can't bullshit me on this particular one because we've all seen it here. Graphic cartoon depiction grosses me out therefore make it illegal.
The result is the same, but at least the right’s reasoning is not insane. “It grosses me out” is considerably better than “it’s violating the fictional character’s right to autonomy.”
A) Right-wingers do not make the exact same argument. I don’t know, specifically, if you’re talking about Matt Walsh and his ilk being anti-video games, or if you’re talking about the anti-loli people, or something else, but in none of those cases are the proponents saying “the drawing itself can’t consent.”
B) The argument that people usually make—on either side of the aisle—is “allowing depiction of this thing normalizes it” or “looking at this type of content warps your brain in some way” (or both). Again, that is not the argument being made here. The argument being made here is that you are victimizing the fictional character itself. That is categorically different. I’m not saying either is necessarily correct, but they are inarguably different.
C) When you lump these two arguments together and engage them on not on merit or lack thereof but instead on “it annoys me when either side says something is bad,” you are actually arguing against having cultural standards at all. As soon as you (erroneously) declare that the logic is “this grosses me out and should be illegal” while not engaging with why the objector is grossed out, or whether their concern of harm is rational, you open the door to any manner of obscenity to be allowed, because after all, just because it grosses you out….
Here’s an uncomfortable question for you: What if at least some of this concern about obscenity from the right is correct? I know, because I have seen you comment on other threads, that you are not totally unaware of how awful modern dating and the relationship between the sexes currently is. I think almost everyone here would agree that the casualness of sex and the rise of hookup culture has been disastrous. That the understanding that women will now play the field before settling down has made it so that the majority of women believe they are entitled to a top male, at minimum. Well, at the same time that all these new societal understandings rose, the bar for obscenity dropped to the floor. All media now features women in outfits that would have been scandalously revealing not that long ago. It is easy, common, and not considered particularly shameful for people to substitute porn and titillation for the fulfillment of their sexual desire.
It’s not a conclusion I’m certain about and it’s not a conclusion I relish. I, too, enjoy seeing sexy women. If there were a switch I could flip without worrying about knock-on effects or cultural shifting, I’d probably freeze things permanently at the 80s movie glory days, where it wouldn’t be too rare to see some breasts but you wouldn’t have a bunch of ugly women and gays front and center. However, while I enjoy these things, I think it would be irresponsible to not be willing to entertain and investigate the idea that perhaps such bountiful titillation does have negative effects, and that historically we’ve been a lot more constrained in these things for very good reason.
You seem to have no such compunction. The fact that you can look at the rise of obscenity and the fall of normal human relationships occurring in tandem, but still recoil, reflexively, from even the suggestion of standards; that you will not engage with why you think a particular standard may be wrong or go too far, but instead inaccurately lump all of them together with the most blatant insanity; that while living in the rotting husk of a once-thriving culture you still so consistently play “BOTH SIDES” in what seems to be opposition not to specific policy but to any attempt to assert something as culturally unacceptable; these things make me think you are a fool, a hapless coomer, or an infiltrator, and I can’t say that any option is good.
I'm not a fool , a hapless coomer or an infiltrator.
I'm a regular dude who consumes titillating media after my daily duties are done as a form of entertainment.
Once work and chore time kicks in, I turn off my PC and continue acting like a boring inoffensive normie with boring safe interests, boring safe opinions and boring safe values.
The fact that other have a problem with that is ON THEM, NOT ME.
Prohibition on mass scale of any kind is never a solution because there are individuals who have enough self-control to indulge in fantasy without bringing it into reality.
The solution is always to control those who cant control themselves and the mark of those who cant control themselves is a public freak-out. This does not apply to me and people like me.
Example: You don't prohibit selling off alcohol to everyone, you prohibit to those who are alcoholics and cant control themselves.
I really don't know why you wrote a wall of text for this because it was completely unnecessary but I did read it and the answer to this wall is very simple. It's not porn, video games or any other form of medium that's responsible in the slightest for the total break down of gender relations, it's feminism.
Feminism is the root cause for a lot of problems between men and women and it is feminist/marxist professors that have instilled in women not only the idea of women's liberation being "You can sleep around as much as possible and not have anyone judge you or they're a bigot" but also their constant vilification of men, particularly white men as being part of the white patriarchy. This has lead to western women having a ridiculous body count by the time they hit their 20's and has completely chased many men like myself away from the idea of having a relationship at all because we know how these women view us.
The reason I react the way I do when people attack porn and other media is because I view it as a cop out and avoiding the real problems of dealing with the feminist institution which too many people on the right even to this day are far too cowardly to call out openly for what they've done to young people especially.
Until you guys address the fucking glowie op against men and women alike ( Because as much as I get fed up with western women they also are technically the victims of this ) this problem is never going to go away. Sex and sexy women as a visual concept has existed for centuries. Before porn there were brothels and dancers, did that cause the collapse of the nuclear family? Of course not, if you actually study history. This phenomenon of a total breakdown between gender relations has been far more recent and artificially produced.
I certainly won't discount the role of feminism as causing great harm, and I'm not in the camp of people that are saying "men just need to man up" or anything like that. Women's legal and social privileges would be foolish to ignore, and even if you find a good woman who wants to be a housewife, the economic reality is that supporting a family on one income is difficult and will require some definite sacrifices. I wouldn't ever wish to argue with any of that, because I agree with all of it.
The issue I have with you is that you're sitting in a culture that has been dragged way way way to the left over the last several decades, and yet you seem to reflexively point at people trying to shift back to the right as going too far in exactly the same way as the people continuing to sprint left. If you want to say "no, I don't think [porn, etc.] is a problem, I think that can actually stay where it was shifted to, it's just most of everything else that needs to go back right," I'm willing to listen to that, but it doesn't seem like that's really what you're arguing. It seems less like you're putting forward cogent reasons for why it's okay, and more like you're just upset someone is contemplating cutting it off without even understanding their objections.
The fact is as much as right wingers love to bleat on about porn psychologists everywhere haven't actually been able to link it to anything much like with any other media that gets demonised. If anything there's a study that's made the rounds where they actually point out that high access to porn etc. also reduces sexual crime which right wingers never want to address because it destroys their narrative and it's not me just shitposting about this it's a thing.
The issue of people getting too involved with video games and porn is something that I can agree with but again back to the psychology aspect. It's been proven that this really is a catalyst more than anything else rather than an actual root cause. It's like how people who delve way too much into drugs and alcohol are resorting to that as an escape from actual problems they have in their lives. A lot of people recognise that, but right wingers refuse to.
Something which you have sussed out correctly aside from it being mostly wrong is that I come at this from the MRA perspective partially. I simply don't trust the right to fix this because they keep proving themselves utterly useless and incompetent. They hyper focus on porn and yes as you pointed out tell men to 'man up' while giving women protected status all over again and doing nothing to help men.
So yes of course I'm going to point out all these problems the right has even if it leads people especially the people I want to get annoyed with me to get annoyed. Men's mental health is a real issue and I'm fed up of the political factions out there that want to downplay it at every turn because neither side wants to admit what they've done to men as a whole.
You'll note as well how unsympathetic I am towards women having to deal with the troons invading their single gender spaces. That should give you an idea of where I am on the political spectrum when it comes to this so forgive me if I don't exactly trust the right these days when it comes to this sort of thing.
This is totally the time and place - in 2023, in the West - to worry about hypothetical right wing authoritarianism. We’re neck deep in a neo marxist control grid, but we better look out for those religious kooks who haven’t had real institutional power for a century.
Also, no, the right wing argument for censoring sexual media is not “the same”. It’s still a bad argument in many cases, but arguments don’t become identical by virtue of being also bad. The first order principles underlying the arguments are completely different.
I smell a classical liberal. Hopefully you’re still young.
Yep, I'm from that generation as well which is why I haven't forgotten either, it's one thing if the right remain chill and leave my video games and other hobbies alone, but they've been getting aggressive lately and I won't allow that.
I'd like to point out that right wingers make this exact same argument as well and people can't bullshit me on this particular one because we've all seen it here. Graphic cartoon depiction grosses me out therefore make it illegal.
The result is the same, but at least the right’s reasoning is not insane. “It grosses me out” is considerably better than “it’s violating the fictional character’s right to autonomy.”
A) Right-wingers do not make the exact same argument. I don’t know, specifically, if you’re talking about Matt Walsh and his ilk being anti-video games, or if you’re talking about the anti-loli people, or something else, but in none of those cases are the proponents saying “the drawing itself can’t consent.”
B) The argument that people usually make—on either side of the aisle—is “allowing depiction of this thing normalizes it” or “looking at this type of content warps your brain in some way” (or both). Again, that is not the argument being made here. The argument being made here is that you are victimizing the fictional character itself. That is categorically different. I’m not saying either is necessarily correct, but they are inarguably different.
C) When you lump these two arguments together and engage them on not on merit or lack thereof but instead on “it annoys me when either side says something is bad,” you are actually arguing against having cultural standards at all. As soon as you (erroneously) declare that the logic is “this grosses me out and should be illegal” while not engaging with why the objector is grossed out, or whether their concern of harm is rational, you open the door to any manner of obscenity to be allowed, because after all, just because it grosses you out….
Here’s an uncomfortable question for you: What if at least some of this concern about obscenity from the right is correct? I know, because I have seen you comment on other threads, that you are not totally unaware of how awful modern dating and the relationship between the sexes currently is. I think almost everyone here would agree that the casualness of sex and the rise of hookup culture has been disastrous. That the understanding that women will now play the field before settling down has made it so that the majority of women believe they are entitled to a top male, at minimum. Well, at the same time that all these new societal understandings rose, the bar for obscenity dropped to the floor. All media now features women in outfits that would have been scandalously revealing not that long ago. It is easy, common, and not considered particularly shameful for people to substitute porn and titillation for the fulfillment of their sexual desire.
It’s not a conclusion I’m certain about and it’s not a conclusion I relish. I, too, enjoy seeing sexy women. If there were a switch I could flip without worrying about knock-on effects or cultural shifting, I’d probably freeze things permanently at the 80s movie glory days, where it wouldn’t be too rare to see some breasts but you wouldn’t have a bunch of ugly women and gays front and center. However, while I enjoy these things, I think it would be irresponsible to not be willing to entertain and investigate the idea that perhaps such bountiful titillation does have negative effects, and that historically we’ve been a lot more constrained in these things for very good reason.
You seem to have no such compunction. The fact that you can look at the rise of obscenity and the fall of normal human relationships occurring in tandem, but still recoil, reflexively, from even the suggestion of standards; that you will not engage with why you think a particular standard may be wrong or go too far, but instead inaccurately lump all of them together with the most blatant insanity; that while living in the rotting husk of a once-thriving culture you still so consistently play “BOTH SIDES” in what seems to be opposition not to specific policy but to any attempt to assert something as culturally unacceptable; these things make me think you are a fool, a hapless coomer, or an infiltrator, and I can’t say that any option is good.
This comment was a massacre.
I'm not a fool , a hapless coomer or an infiltrator.
I'm a regular dude who consumes titillating media after my daily duties are done as a form of entertainment.
Once work and chore time kicks in, I turn off my PC and continue acting like a boring inoffensive normie with boring safe interests, boring safe opinions and boring safe values.
The fact that other have a problem with that is ON THEM, NOT ME.
Prohibition on mass scale of any kind is never a solution because there are individuals who have enough self-control to indulge in fantasy without bringing it into reality.
The solution is always to control those who cant control themselves and the mark of those who cant control themselves is a public freak-out. This does not apply to me and people like me.
Example: You don't prohibit selling off alcohol to everyone, you prohibit to those who are alcoholics and cant control themselves.
I really don't know why you wrote a wall of text for this because it was completely unnecessary but I did read it and the answer to this wall is very simple. It's not porn, video games or any other form of medium that's responsible in the slightest for the total break down of gender relations, it's feminism.
Feminism is the root cause for a lot of problems between men and women and it is feminist/marxist professors that have instilled in women not only the idea of women's liberation being "You can sleep around as much as possible and not have anyone judge you or they're a bigot" but also their constant vilification of men, particularly white men as being part of the white patriarchy. This has lead to western women having a ridiculous body count by the time they hit their 20's and has completely chased many men like myself away from the idea of having a relationship at all because we know how these women view us.
The reason I react the way I do when people attack porn and other media is because I view it as a cop out and avoiding the real problems of dealing with the feminist institution which too many people on the right even to this day are far too cowardly to call out openly for what they've done to young people especially.
Until you guys address the fucking glowie op against men and women alike ( Because as much as I get fed up with western women they also are technically the victims of this ) this problem is never going to go away. Sex and sexy women as a visual concept has existed for centuries. Before porn there were brothels and dancers, did that cause the collapse of the nuclear family? Of course not, if you actually study history. This phenomenon of a total breakdown between gender relations has been far more recent and artificially produced.
I certainly won't discount the role of feminism as causing great harm, and I'm not in the camp of people that are saying "men just need to man up" or anything like that. Women's legal and social privileges would be foolish to ignore, and even if you find a good woman who wants to be a housewife, the economic reality is that supporting a family on one income is difficult and will require some definite sacrifices. I wouldn't ever wish to argue with any of that, because I agree with all of it.
The issue I have with you is that you're sitting in a culture that has been dragged way way way to the left over the last several decades, and yet you seem to reflexively point at people trying to shift back to the right as going too far in exactly the same way as the people continuing to sprint left. If you want to say "no, I don't think [porn, etc.] is a problem, I think that can actually stay where it was shifted to, it's just most of everything else that needs to go back right," I'm willing to listen to that, but it doesn't seem like that's really what you're arguing. It seems less like you're putting forward cogent reasons for why it's okay, and more like you're just upset someone is contemplating cutting it off without even understanding their objections.
The fact is as much as right wingers love to bleat on about porn psychologists everywhere haven't actually been able to link it to anything much like with any other media that gets demonised. If anything there's a study that's made the rounds where they actually point out that high access to porn etc. also reduces sexual crime which right wingers never want to address because it destroys their narrative and it's not me just shitposting about this it's a thing.
The issue of people getting too involved with video games and porn is something that I can agree with but again back to the psychology aspect. It's been proven that this really is a catalyst more than anything else rather than an actual root cause. It's like how people who delve way too much into drugs and alcohol are resorting to that as an escape from actual problems they have in their lives. A lot of people recognise that, but right wingers refuse to.
Something which you have sussed out correctly aside from it being mostly wrong is that I come at this from the MRA perspective partially. I simply don't trust the right to fix this because they keep proving themselves utterly useless and incompetent. They hyper focus on porn and yes as you pointed out tell men to 'man up' while giving women protected status all over again and doing nothing to help men.
So yes of course I'm going to point out all these problems the right has even if it leads people especially the people I want to get annoyed with me to get annoyed. Men's mental health is a real issue and I'm fed up of the political factions out there that want to downplay it at every turn because neither side wants to admit what they've done to men as a whole.
You'll note as well how unsympathetic I am towards women having to deal with the troons invading their single gender spaces. That should give you an idea of where I am on the political spectrum when it comes to this so forgive me if I don't exactly trust the right these days when it comes to this sort of thing.
This is totally the time and place - in 2023, in the West - to worry about hypothetical right wing authoritarianism. We’re neck deep in a neo marxist control grid, but we better look out for those religious kooks who haven’t had real institutional power for a century.
Also, no, the right wing argument for censoring sexual media is not “the same”. It’s still a bad argument in many cases, but arguments don’t become identical by virtue of being also bad. The first order principles underlying the arguments are completely different.
I smell a classical liberal. Hopefully you’re still young.
I'm a Voluntaryist, also it's not hypothetical, I've vented about these people trying to take advantage before and they're both fucking cringe.
Cringe is the enlightened centrist who thinks our current predicament wasn’t predicated on his preferred worldview.
Ban porn then, see where that gets you.
Right and left are both shit on the fictional content front. It's just the left is in power so most of the institutional censorship comes from them.
Still won't forget the amount of times they called fps games 'murder simulators'...
Yep, I'm from that generation as well which is why I haven't forgotten either, it's one thing if the right remain chill and leave my video games and other hobbies alone, but they've been getting aggressive lately and I won't allow that.