It seems as though we are going backwards. We were doing so well in realising that all human beings are worthy individuals with emotional and intellectual depth, yet now so many of us don’t seem to see any problem with society encouraging many to reduce themselves to sexual objects. How is this rationalised?

edit: typo

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    You can be sexual and engage in pornography without objectifying yourself or others.

    The better question is why we continue to allow our society to demonize sexuality. Own your sexuality. Fuck the church.

    • spider@lemmy.nz
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      6 months ago

      Own your sexuality. Fuck the church.

      Speaking of which:

      For instance, in 2000, a jury in Provo, Utah, took only a few minutes to clear Larry Peterman, owner of a Movie Buffs video store, in Utah County, Utah. He had been charged with distributing obscene material for renting pornographic videos that were displayed in a screened-off area of the store clearly marked as adults-only. The Utah County region had often boasted of being one of the most socially conservative areas in the United States. However, researchers had shown that guests at the local Marriott Hotel were disproportionately large consumers of pay-per-view pornographic material, accessing far more material than the store was distributing.

      source

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      6 months ago

      This. It’s sinfully taboo and consequently deliciously titillating and commodified for exploitation. Cut it back to just a normal human action and a lot of that goes away

  • SporadicSpiral@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Sexual peccadillos [+ religion] have dethroned kings. Can’t threaten a person w/ revealing their bedroom secrets if no one gives af.

  • ULS@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    It’s marketing. Emotion, sex, and religion are the best ways to sell and manipulate people.

    It’s all so soulless. I don’t think it’s sexuality or porn that’s inherently bad, it’s the people who fake their genuine self for money that are bad. Although, like with anything, limits for the voyeurs are healthy too.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Prostitution is often referred to as the “oldest profession.”

      It’s as simple as that, sex sells.

      Also, people are more sex obsessed in more sexually restrictive societies. One could argue the “sexual awakening” of the US is because of prior restrictive attitudes towards sex which are still prevalent and treat sex as more dangerous than violence.

  • ivanafterall@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    What could be more normal than the thing at the literal center of your being, as a human? Both literally and figuratively. It’s literally the center of your body. And sex is literally the thing that makes us exist. Practically every animal does it. And we should be ashamed of it!?

      • ivanafterall@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        If you’re never having it and you want to be, that sucks. I found myself in that position years ago. I was pushing 300 pounds, unhappy, etc… It was a series of events and actions that helped me work through the issues, but the big two for me were psychedelics and a keto diet.

        I have no idea if that’s relevant to you–your situation may be totally different. But if yours happens to be similar, I would just say to you that it’s 1.) really, truly possible, 2.) it’s really hard, and you might backslide some before it clicks, and 3.) it’s totally worth the painful effort.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      6 months ago

      Sex is important for most people but if it’s the “literal center of your being”, you have problems. It’s not like eating or breathing. And there’s nothing uniquely human about it.

  • Poggervania@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    If you think porn and sexuality being normalized is a bad thing, you should reaaaaaaally think hard on your beliefs for a minute.

    Sure, there’s the objectification of both men and women that pornography produces - that is a bad thing, but that’s not solely form porn either. Marketing ads love to objectify people (especially women) for an extra buck or two, and those are practically shoved in our faces openly every single day. Social media is basically just a gallery of this shit too if you’re just looking at whatever garbage the platform feeds you based on trends and what not.

    Porn itself isn’t bad, and sexuality is arguably as important as both intellectual and emotional depth are because we’re humans and we have that primal part of our brains still. Yet in the US, for example, both of those things are worse than, say, a violent film. To me, that is the messed up part here.

    • kux@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Sexuality being normalised isn’t a bad thing but have you seen the state of porn lately? the front page of any given porn tube site is such that you cannot have a wank in peace without seeing abusive ‘taboo’ stuff mostly around incest and women being spat on and strangled. I can’t believe that this is some agenda being pushed, they produce this content according to demand. This is to say nothing of the even darker stuff with revenge porn and trafficked teenagers etc. Porn can be fine if ethically produced, the current state of it is fucked up

      • Helix 🧬@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        Did you think for a second and realise that some women enjoy being spat on and strangled? Just search for male porn in the same category and be amazed some men and nonbinary people also like to be spat on and strangled. Stop kinkshaming.

        • kux@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          Stop kinkshaming

          No. Getting off on abuse and degradation is despicable

          • Gabu@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            Have you considered that your opinion is effectively worthless? You’re 1 in 8 billion.

  • donuts@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    We were doing so well in realising that all human beings are worthy individuals with emotional and intellectual depth, yet now so many of us don’t seem to see any problem with society encouraging many to reduce themselves to sexual objects.

    Human beings, like most other animals and plants, are fundamentally sexual beings.

    It’s good to value emotions and intellect, of course, but even before all of that comes the primitive basis of sexuality, sensual and sensory pleasure, and the propagation of species. Sex (with others or by yourself) is just as much a natural and core part of the human experience as eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on, and embracing sexual freedom and sex-positivity is in no way incompatible with emotional balance, intellectualism, or any other meaningful pursuit.

    As such, masturbation or pornography aren’t inherently bad or problematic in any way.

    There are absolutely potential problems surrounding pornography, like human trafficking, but those issues are separate things that can and should be treated and handled as distinct. We have the tools as a society to deal with human trafficking and sexual violence, and we can do it without throwing sexual freedom and bodily autonomy under the bus.

    In my view the last thing we should do as a society is to continue to engage in mindless sex-negativity, which has a long documented history of direct ties to the persecution of women and LGBTQ+ sexual minorities, as well as needlessly shaming people (sometimes to the point of inflicting real psychological damage) for exploring the full space of sexual possibilities by themselves or with consenting partners. Like everything else, ethics, responsibility, moderation and legality are things to consider, but you can do all of that while still being sex-positive and open minded about personal sexual liberty.

    Changing the way you think about and practice sexuality (your own, others, and in general) allows you to know yourself and others in a more intimate, authentic and human way.

      • donuts@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        I wasn’t trying to imply that. I’ve edited my post to reflect that I’m speaking generally. Sorry.

        Personally I think that asexual people also benefit from sex-positivity and an honest discussion about the wide variety of forms of sexual expression. When we stop treating sex as some dirty taboo thing, and when we start accepting that everybody wants something different out of it (or maybe doesn’t want it at all), I think it becomes easier to understand that all different kinds of people exist with different relationships to sex. That’s not only OK, but a good thing.

        A lot of social ills have come from the idea that people who express different forms of sexuality are wrong, gross, bad, sinful, mentally ill, etc. The sooner we move past that flawed and harmful concept, the better, in my opinion.

  • MiserableConstruct@beehaw.org
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    6 months ago

    It seems like you are assigning your own beliefs and values on things and then claiming that people who don’t share them are at a deficit. AKA a dumbass.

  • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Normalized???

    It’s still literally rated as less family friendly than watching blood and gore murder.

    If anything I’d argue that sexual repression is still going as strong as ever in some places. In some cases to unhealthy amounts.