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I don't think that the stigma really helps that much. Because some people are really into shame.
I mean, one of my favorite parallels in looking at psychological and behavioral relationships is between how we think of sex, and how we think of food. It can really tell you a great deal about a person.
So if a grown adult CAN buy a whole cake and eat it even if they know it will make them unwell or gain weight or whatever...how is that individual's impulse control? What is it about people on diets who sneak and cheat on their diets or announce to everyone that they are breaking their own rules and then wallow in guilt about it?
Part of the problem is, when you watch porn on your phone there's not even a remote possibility of being shamed. Back in the old days you had to go to a XXX theatre or in the "back room" at the local video store to get some porn. There was always some risk of being seen. Nowadays shame is off the table. Nobody is ashamed of anything anymore.
Part of the problem with buying a whole cake and eating it is living alone in the first place. Living with a family or even a roommate might stop that behavior or provide a reason to self-regulate self-destructive behavior.
Part of the problem is, when you watch porn on your phone there's not even a remote possibility of being shamed. Back in the old days you had to go to a XXX theatre or in the "back room" at the local video store to get some porn. There was always some risk of being seen. Nowadays shame is off the table. Nobody is ashamed of anything anymore.
Part of the problem with buying a whole cake and eating it is living alone in the first place. Living with a family or even a roommate might stop that behavior or provide a reason to self-regulate self-destructive behavior.
Well, there are also a lot of us who just flat out won't be shamed for a damn thing. I'd say that I am one of them. Maybe because I was raised without religion, or because at a pretty young age I learned to disregard what most authority figures demanded of me because they were moody and capricious, so being rewarded or punished had more to do with what somebody's mood was, than what I did to deserve anything.
I don't make my decisions much based on shame. It is not the center of my ethical reasoning. I don't avoid doing bad things out of fear of getting caught and getting in some kind of trouble, or out of fear or deference to some authority figure. To me, shame is pretty useless because I see tons of people just doing bad stuff and then beating themselves up pointlessly over it, but not changing their behavior. And the question of right and wrong is not in other people's little opinions, or in stigma, it's in the question of harm.
Which is why I don't actually believe that porn is, in and of itself, always wrong...except insofar as harm caused. Non-consensual stuff first and foremost, then damage to the function of the excessive user in ways that constitute self-harm (if they end up wanting to enjoy partnered sex and struggle to, as I've seen in multiple cases), and then in unrealistic ideas about sex. Which I think could be less of a problem if people just figured out how to talk, and listen, to one another. Stigma and shame just shuts that down.
In fact, stigma has caused a lot of people in mainstream dating to fear disclosing information that they are ethically bound to disclose. Like having an STI or being married. It's one big reason I prefer my community, being generally people without much use for sexual stigma they are honest about such things by and large. The culture of these groups places a high premium on the concept of informed consent.
But...fact is, some people just like that sort of thing. Sometimes it is the auto-erotic asphyxiation, probably more often it's the feeling of power exchange. But, sadly, people don't learn the right information to be safe, or have conversations with a partner, before they just DO this stuff sometimes. And far worse, are the ones who do it because they think it's expected or their partner wants it, and they aren't actually into it at all...and that could be the man or the woman (assuming we're even talking about straight people anyways.)
Notably...guys? If a woman asks you to do something like this, or any act, and you are not comfortable or don't feel sure that you can do it safely...say no. You have consent rights as well. You can say no.
Part of the problem is, when you watch porn on your phone there's not even a remote possibility of being shamed. Back in the old days you had to go to a XXX theatre or in the "back room" at the local video store to get some porn. There was always some risk of being seen. Nowadays shame is off the table. Nobody is ashamed of anything anymore.
Part of the problem with buying a whole cake and eating it is living alone in the first place. Living with a family or even a roommate might stop that behavior or provide a reason to self-regulate self-destructive behavior.
There was a sex shop in the next town everyone knew about when I was growing up and finally I made my boyfriend take me there. I just had to see it. It was the kind of place you didn't want to be caught in back then. lol. There was no internet so you only got to see some of those things in the back of magazines but here they were on the shelf. And hundreds of magazines and videos for every fetish. And the booths in the back. I felt very naughty going in there and course being the only girl in the store. Boy have things changed.
Paul Reubens (PeeWee) was certainly shamed when he got busted at the theater. I felt bad for him he was only doing what guys do at those places.
These days so many young men live at home, and they have no shame about the porn. Their parents know, they don't try to hide it, they are almost proud of it. It has become normalized enough that a lot of young men talk about masturbation the same way they used to talk about having sex with girls. It's weird to me, it's nothing to brag about, it seems unhealthy to obsess about it while at the same time denigrating women. The two often to go together.
There was a sex shop in the next town everyone knew about when I was growing up and finally I made my boyfriend take me there. I just had to see it. It was the kind of place you didn't want to be caught in back then. lol. There was no internet so you only got to see some of those things in the back of magazines but here they were on the shelf. And hundreds of magazines and videos for every fetish. And the booths in the back. I felt very naughty going in there and course being the only girl in the store. Boy have things changed.
Paul Reubens (PeeWee) was certainly shamed when he got busted at the theater. I felt bad for him he was only doing what guys do at those places.
These days so many young men live at home, and they have no shame about the porn. Their parents know, they don't try to hide it, they are almost proud of it. It has become normalized enough that a lot of young men talk about masturbation the same way they used to talk about having sex with girls. It's weird to me, it's nothing to brag about, it seems unhealthy to obsess about it while at the same time denigrating women. The two often to go together.
Yeah I always thought that the shaming of Paul Reubens was BS. What, just because you interact with kids means you cannot be an adult in a completely compartmentalized separate space in your life? Jeez. I continued to like & support his work regardless.
When it comes to some of the ehm...items...sold at such places as you describe, I just always have this vision in my head that brings me joy and delight, of someone assaulting somebody with one of the long, woobly ones, you know...they are just so silly looking! And they actually did it in this scene in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, where the woman is wielding them like nunchucks or something and I was so happy. It is my favorite movie ever, now, for so many reasons.
Reminds me of the Norm MacDonald bit on autoerotic asphyxiation. "Think about risk and reward here".
Obviously like most kinks there's no real rational basis, it's just that people turn off their brains when sex gets involved and let their instincts and passions take charge.
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