Asklemmy

You can be sexual and engage in pornography without objectifying yourself or others.

The better question is why we continue to allow our society to demonize sexuality. Own your sexuality. Fuck the church.

In what way do you see embracing sexuality as contradictory to being a whole human? Can you give examples?

Normalized???

It's still literally rated as less family friendly than watching blood and gore murder.

If anything I'd argue that sexual repression is still going as strong as ever in some places. In some cases to unhealthy amounts.

If you think porn and sexuality being normalized is a bad thing, you should reaaaaaaally think hard on your beliefs for a minute.

Sure, there’s the objectification of both men and women that pornography produces - that is a bad thing, but that’s not solely form porn either. Marketing ads love to objectify people (especially women) for an extra buck or two, and those are practically shoved in our faces openly every single day. Social media is basically just a gallery of this shit too if you’re just looking at whatever garbage the platform feeds you based on trends and what not.

Porn itself isn’t bad, and sexuality is arguably as important as both intellectual and emotional depth are because we’re humans and we have that primal part of our brains still. Yet in the US, for example, both of those things are worse than, say, a violent film. To me, that is the messed up part here.

How is being sexual reducing oneself? Its a glorious, natural thing.

It's marketing. Emotion, sex, and religion are the best ways to sell and manipulate people.

It's all so soulless. I don't think it's sexuality or porn that's inherently bad, it's the people who fake their genuine self for money that are bad. Although, like with anything, limits for the voyeurs are healthy too.

To the extent that sex workers are objectified, it is a direct result of misogyny, which teaches that it is acceptable to treat women as objects, and capitalism, which teaches that it is acceptable to treat workers as objects. At the confluence of these two industries we find pornography.

That said, I believe it is possible to do sex work in a way that is liberating and not objectifying, and in my opinion the hyper-fixation on the objectification of women in pornography is itself a result of misogyny in our culture. Every industry objectifies and mistreats workers, so why do we discuss this issue so frequently that the term objectification is practically exclusive to pornography and related contexts? In my view it is because patriarchy requires women to be “pure” and “unsullied” by sex so as to maximize their value to men. The issue gets subconsciously mixed into genuine concerns for the well-being of sex workers. Together these impulses often lead to paternalistic and unhelpful “solutions” like arresting sex workers, or FOSTA and SESTA which claim to be for the protection of sex workers but according to the vast majority I’ve heard speak on this issue are extremely harmful to their livelihood and wellbeing.

Same reason anything else is. It’s big money. Porn is a multi billion dollar industry.

As for why “extreme” porn is so “normalized” I think it’s more because it’s stigmatized ironically. Have you ever had an in person conversation about why there’s so much step family porn? No of course not because then both people would be acknowledging they watch porn for one. So the social factors that would guide things are totally absent.

Sexual peccadillos [+ religion] have dethroned kings. Can't threaten a person w/ revealing their bedroom secrets if no one gives af.

Another question - you said things are going backwards. When do you feel that things were better, and what made that time practically better in terms of not objectifying people?

What could be more normal than the thing at the literal center of your being, as a human? Both literally and figuratively. It's literally the center of your body. And sex is literally the thing that makes us exist. Practically every animal does it. And we should be ashamed of it!?

We were doing so well in realising that all human beings are worthy individuals with emotional and intellectual depth, yet now so many of us don’t seem to see any problem with society encouraging many to reduce themselves to sexual objects.

Human beings, like most other animals and plants, are fundamentally sexual beings.

It's good to value emotions and intellect, of course, but even before all of that comes the primitive basis of sexuality, sensual and sensory pleasure, and the propagation of species. Sex (with others or by yourself) is just as much a natural and core part of the human experience as eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on, and embracing sexual freedom and sex-positivity is in no way incompatible with emotional balance, intellectualism, or any other meaningful pursuit.

As such, masturbation or pornography aren't inherently bad or problematic in any way.

There are absolutely potential problems surrounding pornography, like human trafficking, but those issues are separate things that can and should be treated and handled as distinct. We have the tools as a society to deal with human trafficking and sexual violence, and we can do it without throwing sexual freedom and bodily autonomy under the bus.

In my view the last thing we should do as a society is to continue to engage in mindless sex-negativity, which has a long documented history of direct ties to the persecution of women and LGBTQ+ sexual minorities, as well as needlessly shaming people (sometimes to the point of inflicting real psychological damage) for exploring the full space of sexual possibilities by themselves or with consenting partners. Like everything else, ethics, responsibility, moderation and legality are things to consider, but you can do all of that while still being sex-positive and open minded about personal sexual liberty.

Changing the way you think about and practice sexuality (your own, others, and in general) allows you to know yourself and others in a more intimate, authentic and human way.

It seems like you are assigning your own beliefs and values on things and then claiming that people who don't share them are at a deficit. AKA a dumbass.