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Well, that will be meat of our disagreement then. I believe that people should be allowed to destroy their own lives, and that people should be permitted to profit from that desire.

I'm not saying it should be outlawed though. It might have been this very thread where I laid out my philosophy regarding religion and legislation.

Damn straight you're not, I brook no threats to my porn empire.

G-baby will not win.

We all know that if there are victims, either of bullying or corporate exploitation, I will blame them.

I am the only one that thinks Sasha Grey is extremely unappealing? I've never seen her porn but I have seen pictures and she seems so 'meh'. Her claim to fame seems to be doing a gang bang while being peed on and trying to come across as an intellectual at the same time.

I'm not a fan of hers, either.

I think those of Sasha Grey's ilk just seem to get pushed to the forefront due to their willingness to do more extreme things than some girls who might be more attractive but have a bit more consideration for the state of their nether regions.

Ahtman wrote: Her claim to fame seems to be doing a gang bang while being peed on and trying to come across as an intellectual at the same time.

We'll make her a MOD ASAP.

generalgrog wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:It still just seems like you're justifying the negative actions of one industry by pointing out that other industries are bad, with a little "hurrr Americans are sexually repressed" sprinkled in for flavor.

That's exactly what he's doing, because he doesn't want anyone to focus on the idea that

A: Porn is bad

and

B: Jacking off to it is bad.

He want's us all to feel good inside about this facet of immorality in our culture. He's a classic enabler.

GG

You're gradually moving the goalposts. You repeatedly claimed that masturbating leads to sex and porn addiction. They simply don't, yet you won't engage with the facts. The idea that masturbation causes some addiction it just flat out wrong. There are a lot of problems with the porn industry that are extensive enough for another debate entirely, but you don't need to pile up made-up accusations on porn to make a case against it. So moving from saying "masturbation is bad" to "masturbating to porn is bad" isn't the same thing at all.

Brother-Thunder wrote:They are walking into that studio, taking their clothes off, and doing dirty things of their own volition. There is very little exploitation there.

This is certainly naive. That is the nature of exploitation, people consenting to something they wouldn't normally do because of desperate circumstances or a mental state incompatible with making well judged decisions *is* exploitation. If people were *forcing* women to have sex, well there are laws against that.

When you find the poorest of most desperate people and pay them a pittance to do long days of manual labour knowing the alternative for them is starvation, that is exploitation. You don't say "Well those little kiddies went to the shoe factory to work 12 hours a day to earn half a cup of rice of their own volition, so it can't be exploitation".

Mannahnin wrote:The existence of seemingly well-adjusted people like Sasha Grey, Zak Smith, Kimberly Kane, etc. Makes it a bit of a trickier question.

I wouldn't focus on a minority of cases to hand wave issues with the wider industry though. There seems to be a bit of that on this thread too. Because of books like "diary of a call girl" some people think prostitution has a degree of glamour and is good money. But again, the high class escorts are in the minority however well publicised, the bulk of prostitutes are in appalling circumstances. So focusing on a handful, or hypothetical cases where people could aspire to be in porn doesn't really change the argument that a lot of people in porn are there for other reasons. And I say 'people', because it's not just women, but men too who find themselves having to perform in ways they would not choose to. A lot of gay porn uses straight actors because they are paid to do the work not because they actually want sex with a man, and that is probably true of all professionally produced porn. A person's natural attraction and even sexual orientation is second to being paid.

There are a few unrealistic attitudes towards the nature of pornography being stated around here, there's a lot of unpleasantness in the industry and a few examples that contradict this should not allow people to convince themselves the industry is actually pretty ok. The reason this thread diverted into this debate was because generalgrog repeatedly claimed a link between masturbation and sex/porn addiction which is just nonsense. He doesn't like pornography, and there are valid reasons for that, but he seems to think that masturbation is bad because it causes addiction to it.

LOL. That dude near the end never gets laid, in mmore ways than one!

But whatever. Theres these guys who stand outside a MacD's in my town with posters saying the end is near and kak. When this stuff happens just laugh and be glad by doing what they do in regard to sex there will be less of them as evolution goes.

GeneralGrog wrote:

That's exactly what he's doing, because he doesn't want anyone to focus on the idea that

A: Porn is bad

and

B: Jacking off to it is bad.

He want's us all to feel good inside about this facet of immorality in our culture. He's a classic enabler.

GG

While I agree with dogma in that claiming porn is bad because it's exploitative is a fallacy simply due to the fact that many other industries that are also exploitative. Porn just gets singled out because it's an industry that offends Christian sensibilities and prudishness.

But let's do what you want, and focus on your claims that a) Porn is bad and b) Jacking off is bad, as that's really the direction you were coming from, yes? This thread started as a discussion about masturbation, so hopefully you're still claiming that masturbation in general is bad as opposed to only masturbating to porn.

But on the first stance, yes porn has a negative side, and there will be some bad people who exploit their workers. But if you scroll back a page or two, I gave you a nice reply that showed how it really does not make sense for any intelligent porn producer to exploit his income stream. It's simply much better business sense to make them happy, and keep them that way. However, statistically in an industry as large as porn there will be cases where actors are abused. But people are abused in the office too, it's a fact of life, and you're singling out porn because it's an easy target. The evidence you've provided so far as far as 'porn is bad' is a series of individual testimonies gathered by an anti-pornography group. Ignoring the fact that this group has an obvious skew, the point has to be made that these are individual cases. There are lots of questions we need to ask about that before we can accept it, namely: "What actual percentage of people begin doing drugs BECAUSE of being in porn, as opposed to doing drugs for different reasons while just happening to be in porn at the time?" Correlation is not causation, and showing people in porn do drug/smoke/drink isn't enough. You need to show that porn CAUSES people to do drugs, otherwise I can easily show you that people in the music industry do drugs, drink too much, and smoke. Does that mean music is bad, and as you called it 'a facet of immorality'?

Now onto your second point. That masturbation is bad. You have no evidence for this, and we've provided you evidence that masturbation for males is in fact healthy, and (as the article said) men should be encouraged to masturbate as masturbating multiple times a week can lead to a significant drop in the rate of prostate cancer later in life. You claimed that masturbation leads to sexual addiction, but we've shown that excessive masturbation is more often than not a SYMPTOM of sexual addiction instead of being a cause of it. What other evidence do you have that masturbation is bad for you either health wise of mentally, and more importantly...I'm allowed to give myself cancer through smoking, and I can destroy my liver with alcohol....why can't I destroy my with masturbation too (if that's even the case, which I highly doubt)?

Finally, you claim that these are both 'facets of immorality'....sure, they're immoral from your point of view, which is not the point of view of everyone. But why should your point of view be the one everyone has to live by? Yes, I know you have not called for banning porn and masturbation, but your rhetoric so far seems to say that you would be alright with such a ban coming into existence, as it would remove these facets of immorality from our culture. However, I can't argue against that without being guilty of tossing up a strawman, so I simply have to say that morality is in the eye of beholder, and I for one believe that it is perfectly moral to film two consenting adults having sex, then selling that tape for money. Why is that wrong? I fail to see why it is so ridiculouslly evil. Dogma has already showed why the exploitative argument makes no sense, and I above have shown why the drugs and alcohol argument is also invalid. So why is porn evil, GeneralGrog?

I'm just going to inject another group here that has done "research" into finding the details here.

Did you guys ever see Penn and Tellers BS? they had a show dedicated to this topic?

ChrisWWII wrote:But if you scroll back a page or two, I gave you a nice reply that showed how it really does not make sense for any intelligent porn producer to exploit his income stream. It's simply much better business sense to make them happy, and keep them that way.

I don't know how many places you have worked, but there are quite a few businesses where they treat you like gak because of how easily you can be replaced. The USPS comes immediately to mind.

Your argument is predicated on the idea that it would be difficult for the porn industry to find other damaged humans to exploit after the current crop either gets too old or decides they've had enough. I would submit that it's not.

reds8n wrote:

Ahtman wrote: Her claim to fame seems to be doing a gang bang while being peed on and trying to come across as an intellectual at the same time.

We'll make her a MOD ASAP.

She's smarter than your average bear. For a kid as young as she is, she seems to have her head on pretty straight. Whether she's attractive is a matter of taste. I thought she was pretty good both in Entourage and in that Soderbergh movie she did. A little flat, but not bad.

This thread has been reported for flaming/trolling and private warnings given. Lets steer close of those shall we.
I can't see the reason for this thread but Mannahim has recently posted so I guess we'll keep open.

dogma wrote:
Stop drawing inferences, you are very, very bad at it.

Stop with the parrot ok. You think I am bad at drawing inferences, fair enough, point noted, lets move on.
If there was any truth to what you wrote I might be concerned.

dogma wrote:
Analytical talent requires that one be able to separate himself from the information he is reviewing, and you are apparently incapable of such a thing.

Actually I can and do do this, you just seem unable to detect it. Others can and comment as such, even those who disagee with my world view. There is no oblication for anyone here to regard this topic, or most others, dispassionately. There is no reason to demand me to be any different.

dogma wrote:
Maybe its simply the way you engage with religion that prevents you from objectively considering anything of even oblique association, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that your 'style' as regards religious information shouldn't be generalized to all information.

The evidence is there, you just dont want to see it, its easier for you to just troll me instead. I have come to accept that as a course hazard. The way I 'engage with relgion' is simply from a different paradigm to yours, feel free to disagree, but lack of agreement does not mean a lack of objectivity. If you cannot handle a difference in opinion thats your problem.

I think we have had this through dogma.
You dont like what I am saying, fair enough, you are entitled to your take on the subject. In that case get on the topic or get over it.
Please dont come back with another ad hominem, its getting stale.

Okay, I think Fraz is right that we seem to be largely done here.

Any more new thoughts which don't involve judging or casting aspersions against other posters?

Hmm, reading this I keep reading women exploitation but what about men? Yes women can and do and will get it worse but think about it. Seriously, anyone with some amateur film experience can attest to how long it takes to set up shots, get things goings and the delays caused by Murphy's Law. Then consider the guy has to stay aroused without coitus because, well, it would ruin the schedule and cost more money while everyone has to wait for the 'Minute Man' to get back to attention. And it's not like he'd be by himself either. There would be easily 6+ people in the room waiting and I can't imagine the stress that would cause.

I think that's a really good explanation as to why web cam girls/sites are so prevalent now as all a girl needs is web access, lotion and a smile. If even that much, it's can be more like a private dance: no touching and money up front.

OK we're done now. This is way beyond PG 13. The mods can PM on the private board if there is a reason to re-open it.

And at this point I'd just like to add: