Contemplating..
I’m thinking about making this year porn-free as well. Not that I’m really looking at porn – in fact, at this point, the procedure to get at my porn collection is about six commands long, because I wanted it in a encrypted volume so that no one would have to deal with it in the case of my untimely demise*. (I like strange porn – no, nothing illegal – and I wouldn’t want for example my parents to have to deal with my tastes in porn as they were cleaning out my ‘puter after my death). I can’t remember the last time I looked at porn on the computer, but it was probably >1 month ago. However, a friend of mine is going porn-free and I thought, well..
Kayti has some interesting points about porn. The problem with porn isn’t the receiver, it’s the transmitter. People making porn could be in one of several buckets:
a: It could be something that was shot just for one person, and after the relationship broke up the person broke trust and put it on the ‘net, for any number of reasons. I know people who have done this for revenge. Or the person could have just inadvertantly put it on the net.. for a couple of days many years ago, there were naked pictures of me and Vinnie on the net because I forgot they were in a ‘roll’ I put up publicly. My long term solution for this has been to be MUCH more careful, and no similar incidents have occured since then that I’m aware of.
b: It could be commercial porn, in which case you don’t know how well the actors are treated and how happy they are with their jobs. They might be getting shot in return for drugs they’re addicted to, or coerced in any number of other ways. Or they might be happy, well ajusted, well paid talent. But there’s no way to know, so by supporting commercial porn (even by looking at it, even if you don’t pay for it) you could be supporting the hurting of people.
c: It could be amatuar porn made by someone who deliberately wanted to make amatuar porn and is made happy by it – like, it’s their hobby. If so, then all is good and well and look and enjoy.
Problem is, I see no way to differentiate just by looking between these buckets. Well shot amatuar porn looks like professional porn, and amatuar porn for one person looks like amatuar porn for the world generally.
In the meantime there’s also the issue of me looking at porn and closing out the rest of the world while I do it, and all the ‘classic’ reasons why people don’t like porn. And there is such a thing, I’ve been told, as porn addiction.
So, I’m considering strongly making this a porn-free year. That’s not hard to impliment, since I’m not looking at porn right now. And I feel like it might make Kayti happy.
* = (I know that planning for death when your <30 is kind of silly, but what can I say.. a lot of my friends have died / made the Jump, and my recent behavior with nitrous made death seem a possible end.) In the matter of planning for death, I need to prepare a living will and a dead will. I don't plan on doing these all official-like and through lawyers, instead I'll go with the theory that I'm dead, so if you all ignore my wishes, so what? The living will is mostly just to make sure that you all don't bankrupt anyone trying to keep me going, and you all don't prolong my life 20 years but leave me in misery.
April 8th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
All of your issues with porn also apply to nearly every other consumable on Earth. 🙂
April 8th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Many of my friends have contracts with other friends, called ‘cleanups’ — in the case of person 1’s death, person 2 shows up with signed authorization from person 1 to remove certain items before relatives get there.
I personally don’t like to look at a woman, or man, in a sexual manner unless I think that’s welcomed by the person. Since I cannot get that permission from a picture, I don’t look at porn.
April 11th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
I was going to make a very similar point. Many people don’t like their jobs. Certainly most people working retail or food service do not. That doesn’t mean one should be restaurant-free.