Philosophy Now Forum

So check it, RE, and don't you presume there should be some rule-system just because there are cases of excess.

reasonvemotion wrote: Images of the man and the woman having sex were discovered by his "real" wife. This man's marriage collapsed because of this unreal yet real sexual encounter.

This is nonsense. Sex in a marriage is many things. It is passionate and innocent, it is dominating and submissive, it is angry and joyful, it is serious and playful, it is all of the emotions that are within the marriage and reflects all of the emotions that are between the couple.

If the man in this marriage preferred a sterile virtual sexual relationship, then the marriage was already in trouble. Marriage is not about sex, it is about emotion. If he really wanted sex without emotion, I don't know why, but suppose it is possible, then she could have let him have it. (Maybe bought him a nice soft glove.) On the other hand, if she could discover the emotion that he was missing from viewing the porn, then she had the choice of sharing that emotion with him in reality.

Gee

I see from that remark you have little or no respect for the male sex and to put the "natural" coupling of a man and a woman in the category of dog like behavior seems to encapsulate this.

Respect has nothing to do with it. Alligators are a higher form of life than amoebas, and women are a higher form of life than men. It's neither good nor bad, it just is what is is. Coupling is not dog like, the way men think about coupling is dog like. That is, if we see it, we want it. Primitive, but part of the system nature has developed.

Women are a higher life form than men? Is that an "if you say so" or do you have proof of that statement.

No, and the point isn't that important to me, so I'm willing to concede it. It's just how I feel about it. I'm sexist, in a generally cheerful way. I don't blame or hate men, I just know we aren't as sophisticated as our lady friends, that's all.
It's not our fault, it's just how it is, imho.

Indeed, yet you presume women would not indulge in virtual sex. Plenty of women do.

I was being respectful, and assuming you don't, until you inform us otherwise.

I don't wish to 'defeat' porn, I don't believe I have stated that.

Ok, fair enough. Then what do you want?

I do realise, as I said in a previous post, it can be likened to crack cocaine or alcohol addiction.

Eating can be likened to crack cocaine or alcohol addiction, as evidenced by the growing number of obese people.

I have no interest in Catholicism and yes, I do agree with you, it is a game.

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Perhaps it's me that has too much Catholicism on the brain. Yes, that's probably it.

Religions can be accused of being "exaggeratedly proper" regarding sex, but there is a method in their "madness". They may warn us against sex, but it is out of an active knowledge of the power of desire.

Ok, fair enough. I agree that is the attempt being made.

My point is that the desire is far stronger than any moralizing medicine can change. I'm not arguing for or against desire or porn, I'm just pointing out that as porn becomes more realistic, more people will be drawn further in to it, and I don't see how anyone is going to change this.

Further, I believe this issue is much larger than porn. Porn is just the preferred virtual destination of one group of people. Other kinds of virtual realities could be just as distracting to other groups of people. As example, while some people spend hours a day viewing porn, others spend hours a day watching game shows. What's the difference in terms of addiction and distraction from real life etc?

Religions would not think sex was bad, if they didnt appreciate how beautiful it is and that it has the ability to get in the way of some important things, like religion and our lives.

Yes, I agree it has the potential to get in the way of other things which might be more important and rewarding etc.

Even if we dont believe in a God, a degree of suppression is seemingly needed for our species to adequately function as a half way ordered society.

Is this what you're arguing for? A degree of suppression?

We have to work, commit to relationships, care for our children, hence we cannot afford to allow our sexual urges to express themselves without some restraint. Online or offline. If left unchecked it could have some undesirable repercussions.

I don't disagree. What I'm asking you to consider is....

It seems inevitable that virtual realities of many different flavors will eventually be more compelling and satisfying than real world experiences. This isn't a futuristic theory, when we consider how much we already spend staring at screens. Right now, in this moment, you and I are choosing a virtual conversation partner over a real world conversation partner.

Your concern about porn is noted, but porn is just the tip of the iceberg. If you'll expand your vision a bit, you'll find much more to worry about. And I agree it's quite concerning, but I don't see any way to stop it. It's not just sex, virtual realities offer "you can have whatever you want". How will the real world with all it's compromises and limitations ever compete with "whatever you want"?

The real world is toast, we're all headed in to the matrix.

The real world is toast, we're all headed in to the matrix.

"Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines that live off of the humans' body heat and electrochemical energy and who imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix".........

reasonvemotion wrote:Real freedom doesn’t mean the right to do anything whatsoever, does it? Does it mean being given access to everything that is necessary for a flourishing life – and, it follows, being protected from many of the things that ruin life. This issue could encompass internet porography.

For some, internet pornography has replaced real life experiences. Men are finding it increasingly difficult to establish real relationships with women as they are losing their confidence and the ability to relate face to face with women and women have to compete with unrealistic images of what is expected from a woman. There was the case of a newly married man who had an online "affair" with his avatar GF on Second Life.

http://secondlife.com/whatis/?lang=en-US .

Images of the man and the woman having sex were discovered by his "real" wife. This man's marriage collapsed because of this unreal yet real sexual encounter.

The question is whether there are situations of having too much freedom, to the extent that it destroys things we really care about.

Who is "we", in "we really care about"?

It seems to me that you are, once again, generalising your own idiosyncratic moral position and imposing it onto others as if they are not capable, or qualified to be able to make up their own minds about their own life-path.
I have to say that such nay-sayers as yourself have always accompanied new innovations in technology that have altered the relationship that humans have had with their social reality.

Novels were attacked for offering alternative realities from Scriptures. Cinema was criticised for taking some of the ground from reading books, as well as radio - replacing live music, and replacing reading due to stories being read out on the air. Then TV and its range of genres, characterised as the 'idiot's lantern'; the soap opera criticised for replacing 'real life'. Records, Video, Tapes, CDs, DVDs, have all come under the scrutiny of those resisting change.
Then the mobile phone for destroying commitment, making everything so instantly cancellable, or so easily arrangeable - making the ownership essential, for fear of losing any kind of social life.

Now people are exploring a range of safe sex options using the Internet, where you don't have to buy flowers and chocolates.
I do not think your example, above, is common, nor typical. If you want to think about how the Internet is changing lives, you need look no further than Facebook, which makes public to all acquaintances all activities that one would more likely to have only inflicted on closer friends. People spend lots of time on such social media, that they rarely get face to face.

I have to ask what kind of a marriage was it that collapsed so easily due to this innocuous activity?

I'n not sure what you think "Second Life" is, nor how you would choose to define "pornography", but I think you need to do a little research on either or both, as I think you have got your wires a bit crossed here.
As far as I know "Second Life" does not involve any porn.

reasonvemotion wrote:Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines that live off of the humans' body heat and electrochemical energy and who imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix".........

This forum is a primitive form of virtual reality. We have chosen to spend time here in this matrix, instead of spending that same time in the real world. Why?

In the real world, most of our friends probably don't want to discuss obscure philosophical nerd topics for hours. We find this limitation of the real world unacceptable, so we go looking for another environment where this limitation doesn't exist.

In this environment we've found, we are in control of our own experience. If I drone on endlessly about virtual reality, as seems likely, you don't have to listen politely as you might feel required to do in the real world. At the very moment I start to bore you, you can scroll right on by, or skip the thread altogether. You're in control of your own experience.

What we're doing right now here on the forum is the equivalent of porn. Real people have been converted to virtual representations so that we have more control over our experience.

We've never seen each other's faces, and don't know each other's names, and neither of us care. We're entirely content to drop most of the qualities of the real world, so long as we get what we want.

We aren't being captured by a race of evil machines, we are willingly diving headlong in to the matrix, because in the matrix we become God-like.

If you want to understand porn, you'll have to explore those experiences where you wish to be God-like.

What do you really want? That's the question that the virtual world presents us with. It's a profoundly different question than "what can I get?" which is what the real world is built around.

reasonvemotion wrote:Viewing hard core pornography can play havoc with our ethics. I am not advocating people should give up their freedom of choice to bow down to a stern authority, but maintain a limit for the sake of our well being. In moments of clarity, we should recognise that a liberty not subject to any restriction can trap us and with internet pornography we should limit what people consume.

Literally thousands of pornographic providers are exploiting the male gender. What is on offer on the net at a click of the button, far out strips Playboy or the Marquis de Sade. People are influenced by what they read and see and things dont go over heads. Humans are passionate and tossed about by hormones and desires and the wrong pictures may send them down the wrong track.

The side effects of porn are revealed when men find normal sexual stimuli insufficient and women have to perform like their pornographic counterparts. It has gone way beyond Playboy and the effect it will have on children is worth contemplating.

How does this sort of "exploitation" differ from all other types? I subscribe to PN, do you think I should restrict my reading of the magazine? Maybe if I did not buy it I would spend less time on site?
You don't think I might actually be "influenced" by what I am reading do you?

There is a sort of honesty in trash porn that never existed in Playboy. Playboy promoted a false, usually white, usually blonde, always 36-24-36, candy coated chinchy, and "made-up" beauty, that placed women on a pedestal that men could only dream of. Women were not real, but the object and essence of a standardised female form always available, not never attainable. Neither attainable for men or women.

The subject and range of activities and practices is not limited to the taste of one man pornographer, or one woman pornographer.

Porn is not far more democratised and open-minded. I cannot see that it does any more harm that the huge harm that Playboy did in re-inforcing the male-female stereotyping of the 1960s that held women down and excluded them from professional and social development.

I doubt either one of you could offer a balanced view of this thread.

The Voice of Time wrote:

I watched lesbian porn movies since I was something like 10-11 years, as a cause I have problems seeing the logic in fucking. I prefer being one of the girls (that is, playing the role of licking) or watching two girls. Simple cause and effect to me. Nothing to do with *nature* as such.

Chaz Wyman wrote:

You are right about fucking - it does not make the best sex.
Trouble is that SoB thinks sex is for reproduction.
Fucking is about the most boring thing you can do - all that grunting and exercise.
It's must better to enjoy all the senses - including talk, smell, taste, touching, snuzzling ...ad infinitem...

Criticism of Second Life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Due to constant development, and as an open environment accessible by almost anyone with access to the Internet, a number of difficult issues have arisen around Second Life. Issues range from the technical (budgeting of server resources), to moral (pornography), to legal (legal position of the Linden Dollar, Bragg v. Linden Lab). In September 2006, there were also issues with customer security.

reasonvemotion wrote:I doubt either one of you could offer a balanced view of this thread.

The Voice of Time wrote:

I watched lesbian porn movies since I was something like 10-11 years, as a cause I have problems seeing the logic in fucking. I prefer being one of the girls (that is, playing the role of licking) or watching two girls. Simple cause and effect to me. Nothing to do with *nature* as such.

Chaz Wyman wrote:

You are right about fucking - it does not make the best sex.
Trouble is that SoB thinks sex is for reproduction.
Fucking is about the most boring thing you can do - all that grunting and exercise.
It's must better to enjoy all the senses - including talk, smell, taste, touching, snuzzling ...ad infinitem...

Criticism of Second Life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Due to constant development, and as an open environment accessible by almost anyone with access to the Internet, a number of difficult issues have arisen around Second Life. Issues range from the technical (budgeting of server resources), to moral (pornography), to legal (legal position of the Linden Dollar, Bragg v. Linden Lab). In September 2006, there were also issues with customer security.

Tell me what exactly is the moral (porn) issue? Who has brought it up as an issue?
I would imagine that it is people that you would run a mile from in terms of moral outrage.

And how dare you claim the 'balanced' view, and re-post an out-of-context remark by me?

reasonvemotion wrote:I doubt either one of you could offer a balanced view of this thread.

Since you are not bothering to address particular issues raised you have only yourself to blame.

Even if we dont believe in a God, a degree of suppression is seemingly needed for our species to adequately function as a half way ordered society. We have to work, commit to relationships, care for our children, hence we cannot afford to allow our sexual urges to express themselves without some restraint. Online or offline.

If I understand it, this seems to be the point reasonvemotion is trying to make.

It's surely hard to argue against "a degree of suppression", isn't it? After all, we already accept a degree of suppression without much complaint. Few of us are arguing everyone should walk around naked all the time, or have random sex with every other passerby on the sidewalk. Most people already accept that some limits to sexual expression are appropriate.

Reasonvemotion seems to be arguing for an editing of current social/sexual standards, but hasn't yet articulated what standards she wants instead, or how such a "degree of suppression" should be enforced, and by whom etc.

To use her own example, I'm not sure how an affair on SecondLife actually limits one's ability to work, commit to relationships, or raise children. Wasn't it the wife who ended the marriage, not the husband?

Men are finding it increasingly difficult to establish real relationships with women as they are losing their confidence...

There could be some truth in this. One explanation for why men may lack confidence in having real world relationships with women is that men have been so successfully domesticated by women that we're no longer real men, but a shadow of our former selves.

I would argue real men are a half way point between women and the animal kingdom. Many millions of years of evolution have designed us to fight (thus weeding out the genes of weak men) and fuck (make as many babies as possible).

Because men are basically stupid, women have succeeded in domesticating us, just as one would a wild dog. I think what often happens is that when women succeed in stamping out every last inch of wildness from their men, they wind up disappointed with the overweight guy in slippers who spends the weekend on the couch watching sports and/or porn, fantasizing about being a real man.

and the ability to relate face to face with women and women have to compete with unrealistic images of what is expected from a woman.

I suspect this is the heart of women's unease with the availability of online sex, it's competition. As example, what women wants to live next door to a brothel?

I might quibble a bit with the idea that it's just physical image competition that they should be worrying about. Utterly gorgeous chicks with no personality don't make very good porn stars.

The real competition is convenient access to infinite variety. Even guy's with totally hot looking wives most likely still check out porn.

Even if we dont believe in a God, a degree of suppression is seemingly needed for our species to adequately function as a half way ordered society. We have to work, commit to relationships, care for our children, hence we cannot afford to allow our sexual urges to express themselves without some restraint. Online or offline.

Obviously no one is wanking in public, but there is no doubt that history shows that suppression of sexuality is far more harmful then permissiveness.
What people do in their private time is their choice, and it is healthy to pursue any outlets for the expression of their sexuality, providing they do not cause others abuse is okay by me.

We hear enough from the godly who want to 'cure us' - of homosexuality, pornography, desire, fornication, masturbation, alcohol, cannabis, enjoying ourselves, having fun, living a normal self fulfilling life, making up our own minds, and MINDING OUR OWN BUSINESS.

Obviously no one is wanking in public,

WFT??? You want to limit wanking in public??? What are you, some kind of Puritan prude???

but there is no doubt that history shows that suppression of sexuality is far more harmful then permissiveness.

But it's never one or the other, but finding some balance point between the two. Perhaps the best complaint about reasonvemotion's post is that she hasn't yet articulated where she wants to put the dividing line, or how she would enforce the degree of suppression she refers to.

What people do in their private time is their choice, and it is healthy to pursue any outlets for the expression of their sexuality, providing they do not cause others abuse is okay by me.

Let's take a single guy, nobody else involved. Doesn't RE still have a point? Isn't there some limit to how much porn is healthy? We can argue about how much is too much, but isn't there some point when we can agree that things are out of balance? You know, if a guy really is using porn to turn his back on real women, he surely is missing out on something important, right? I agree it's his choice, but would that be a wise choice?

I think I agree with most of what you are saying Felasco, except blaming women for the alledged emasculation of men. I see it differently. Young men today are fearful of the looming responsibilities they may have to shoulder when they relinquish their adolescence. They see the world as problematic and it is, so in a sense one can understand why this is happening. Youth is being glorified and men are clinging to this to stultify the natural process of adolescence to manhood.

We are being blasted everyday telling people the key to happiness is "more", when in fact "moderation" would be the wiser choice. What I am advocating on this post is not to return to the days of "sex is a dirty word", what I am trying to establish is the "power" of sex may be maintained if there was some venerability and respect attached to it, which can't be when it is available all the time. With porn in our faces 24/7 it is bringing sex down to an animalistic level, devoid of emotion, spirituality. People are just orifices to use when the need arises.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

Felasco wrote:. Doesn't RE still have a point?

As far as i know neither Bible has any word to say about pornography - so on this point, NO, RE has no point.

Felasco wrote:.
Isn't there some limit to how much porn is healthy?

Possibly. But that is a personal determination, like how much cake is healthy, or how much exercise.
Religion is not relevant to this question.

Felasco wrote:.
We can argue about how much is too much, but isn't there some point when we can agree that things are out of balance?

No, "WE" cannot.

Felasco wrote:.
You know, if a guy really is using porn to turn his back on real women, he surely is missing out on something important, right? I agree it's his choice, but would that be a wise choice?

The idea that you use porn for that reason is absurd.
I think there is a real value to porn enabling a man to manage his libido rather than go cap-in-hand to women begging of the crumbs of her sexual table to satisfy him, but I don't think this equates to "turning his back'. A well managed libido is an essential state to be in whilst you are getting to know a woman. Other wise its all about sex.
Come to a woman with a hard for her and you never get to communicate. RvsE has got it all wrong.

If reasonvemotion feels that is happening then maybe the fault is with her and not the men she meets.