| This is the answer but nobody wants to hear it. Porn is now opium for the masses. This is not a moral or religious questions. It is simply biological. Besides the dopamine issues, I think Ian Mc Gilchrist 's work on the 'divided brain' , gives a lot of supporting evidence that materials such as porn are by their nature the domain of the left brain hemisphere. That is ME making connections here. Pronography is created by this attention to the world that sees things in parts ("boobs", "ass") -- which is what left hemisphere does. The right hemusphere sees things in broad / inclusive attention (eg. a man or a woman; not a collection of arms, legs, etc). And then look at the explosion of anxiety and social awkwardness, difficulty to hold eye contact, depression etc. Then look at how aggressive and abusive people become online, as well as the lack of restraint that people now show in chatrooms particularly on Twitch. People will just flat out call a young woman streaming a "whore", or "bitch"; etc. You can argue these are unhappy people / mentally ill etc. I think the bigger picture is clear from McGilchrist's model of the brain. I think we see it happening everywhere in society. The loss of attention, the extremely reactive social interactions online, the almost religious belief we have in simple words like gender pronouns, ... to me those are all signs of a culture which is losing balance.. and more and more heavily shifting into the left hemisphere's attention (ie. see the world in collection of parts and pieces instead of as wholes). Also you have seemingly more innocent things like extremely geek conventions, explosion of fetishes online.. While we're there. Fetishes. Does anyone seriosuly believe these exist "naturally"? Fetishes are created by the mind. And what do they all have in common? We're seeing the left brain hemisphere at work again. They are always about objects. Things. Parts. Like feet, boobs, ass, and what have you (those are the mildest ones!). Anyway I could go on and on. I think the left/right brain hemisphere model, corresponding mainly to two modes of attention, is very very consistent, both with meditation, practices such as yoga, the rise of mental illness especially in the western world, the rise of geek culture, the rise of isolation, etc. The big question of course is the chicken and egg situation. Which is the cause? Does porn dissociate people? Or do dissociated people come up with porn? As we see with the body, it's both. But I think we're in a spiral here, unless we care for our sanity. The thing is, it's a complex situation. If porn disappeared off the internet we wouldn't see immediate or obvious changes. Though I would bet we would see some meaningful improvements to how men and women relate. I think the signs are out there. |
Anyway, on the original topic, as an American living in Germany, I really appreciate how relaxed people are here regarding nudity. I agree with a point other posters have made: the drumbeat of the fears and predilections of the dominant culture finally overwhelm the native one. Germans are pretty stubborn though, and carve out better lives in the diminishing yet still robust delta between their own ideas and imported ones.