[arp242]

I don't think you can really compare staying up late to sneakily watch a (typically soft-core) porn and things like that to always having this content being pushed on you with a device always in your pocket every day.

It's really a matter of degree and scale.

[Spivak]

I guess but I had unfiltered access to the internet starting around this age and it was fine.

There were two stages of my life, too young to understand or have any desire for sexual content, and old enough to want and seek out sexual content. At 13 I was well into the second stage and it's super weird how we pretend that tweens and teens aren't horny as hell despite all of us having lived through the hormonal onslaught.

Looking back having access to stuff beyond extremely sanitized softcore porn was extremely healthy. I learned from a young age that sex was a thing people did for fun, it wasn't super serious, and desires I had and were ashamed of were completely normal and honestly kind of vanilla.

[afro88]

Sure, but go to one of the main porn websites and you're shown extremely hardcore content on the front page, in video thumbnails. Often there's something "rough", probaby something about step siblings, and in most cases the actors are being exploited or quite possibly trafficked.

I agree with your sentiment though. Removing access to pornographic material isn't the answer. But these days unfiltered access comes with a different set of issues that likely have negative consequences on development of a healthy attitude to sex.

[kredd]

You have a point, but my guess is it's simply a numbers game. I remember everyone in middle school sharing explicit, gore, "rough" LiveLeak vides in our school-wide MSN group chats. Probably a percentage of people suffered because of it later in life, but at that point still not everyone was connected to the Internet. Even if the percentage of people that get negatively affected stays the same nowadays, the absolute numbers are bigger, so it makes it to the headlines more often.

[mock-possum]

That’s pretty much exactly my experience and my opinion as well -

I knew what I wanted, I figured out how to get it, I never had a moment’s hesitance at the time, and I’ve never had a moment’s regret now as an adult. I sought out sexual material when I became interested in it, the same way I sought out sex when I became interested in it. I can’t even imagine what the adults in my life could have possibly done to stop me.

[doublerabbit]

Meanwhile I encountered the wrong, extreme side of porn at 15. And it spiraled from there. It really caused me issues in my twenties and its only now in my thirties that I finally feel I can start to bury the ashes. I'm on track, I've eliminated what I was obsessed with and still fighting the last of the demons.

I'm not who I was and it's been an insane hard task to change myself. I understand why people don't. That's what I have to remind myself every morning.

During my twenties I was easily wanking 5-8 times a day, I couldn't get enough. I existed within a fandom, the hint is in my username, which is now a thing of the past and I have nothing good to say about such fandom! But, still feels like my horny switch is glued to on. I've even been mulling over the idea of castration just to ensure I have no libido.

God forbid, I was a creep and my mind, psyche was an horrorshow. It was only when I accidentally took a heroic dose of an psychedelic I saw who I was. During the psychosis the devil on my shoulder and where I was to stay in the after life. I hit rock bottom, one step away to the point of no return.

My parents tried, I beat their system. I moved out after college and then had my own place with no restrictions.

Porn is no joke.

In true crazy, I even documented the episode somewhat. old site, so no ssl et cetera, exists for legacy.. /face palm

http://pixc.pl/argh/blogs/paws_palace.html

[mock-possum]

I mean… no offense man but it sounds like your problem wasn’t porn, your problem was you.

[doublerabbit]

Debatable.

The problem did originate from porn. I didn't know what was right and what was wrong, I was naive. And unfiltered internet access, I was a rogue. I could talk all day about warez, CC gens, botnets. I'm just luckily I've had a solid family environment. The internet was my social outlet then.

My maturity age was a lot lower than to how old I was. And because the internet was not a commodity in 2000 and really the wild west, what could folk do? I was just a cowboy who took all the wrong paths. Kept taking the left rather than right and hid it well. No one knew the dangers of the internet back then, nor knew how to navigate the dark side. As well not having the maturity required.

Prior to this, I was kicked out an school subject for "hacking" and discovering a Windows 98 DCOM exploit. I wasn't allowed to touch any computer apart from one. It may of been that I also got pissed off with another student and sabotaged his coursework under the school's news paper account. A true uprising of an menace.

I bought a BB gun at school, started showing it off till someone reported me. I had no intention to do anything with it. This is in Europe, I just thought it was cool. Already having the rep of "hacker boy" some older year student reported me, I got in trouble and then someone randomly pulled me aside handed me a CD-R copy of Quake 3 Arena.

It kept me occupied but sadly never saved my soul as after college went to university, had my own dorm room, when I got my own place I was too hooked to porn and in other area's. The twenties was all mistakes but, made through it just.

And here I am now mid-thirties, job, mortgage and someone who even surprises myself. Still working stuff out, most at work don't understand me. I have near to zero friends, but regardless, myself is making great progress.

I was dealt the wrong set of cards and took all the wrong paths. And I've flipped them, both physically and mentally.

[avgDev]

What do you mean by "it wasn't super serious"? Sex is seriously some serious business.

Pornography definitely caused issues for me. It isn't an accurate representation of a healthy sexual relationship.