Asklemmy

When you stop having a realistic view of porn. If you are using it as a simple pleasure and exploring sexual expression, there's no issue.

If you see you are using it too much, and is causing you problems, you may need to be aware that you are developing an addiction like any other.

If you start purposefully avoiding it even at the cost of your own comfort and stress relief, saying things like "porn wrecks your mind and sexuality", you are entering the current conservative, frustrating young people to manipulate them territory.

Porn doesn't wreck your mind if you're a sensible person?

What are we talking about here? Easily impressionable people with no frame of reference? They're susceptible to everything. Well-adjusted people with prior information? They're susceptible to neither.

To conservatives, any porn viewing is a "porn addiction." That's their line.

Porn addiction is not on that line, not even close.

Bolshe morality? What in the samhill is that?

Porn wrecks your mind?

Porn stops your sexuality? Wtf.

The real question is do you recognize you're in some rabbit hole and that you shouldn't assume even your starting framework is agreed upon by most other people.

Edit: your edit only makes me wonder if you're satisfied with the algorithm funneling you to this sort of content and how your viewing habits reinforce it. Why wonder about people who think porn stunts their sexuality (still wtf?!?) when you can be watching literally anything else? Any idiot can post a YouTube video, doesn't mean you have to watch it.

When you start proselytizing your feelings about it including through seemingly bad faith posts on the Internet that beg the question.

Both notions are pretty far out there tbh. There is nothing wrong with ethically produced pornography.

I maintain that what people mistake for porn addiction is just depression or possibly ADHD. Constant masturbation is a series of easy dopamine hits. If you quit cold turkey without making any other changes, you'll probably just replace it with social media or gacha games.

Conservatives: all glimpses of porn are automatically upgraded to ADDICTION.

Progressives: all porn actors are automatically upgraded to HUMAN TRAFFICKING VICTIMS.

you support ADDICTION and HUMAN TRAFFICKING

"metapornography" is a term new to me.

I'd expect some sort of extra interesting sex education thing. But they're on about softcore porn or people looking attractive?

I think most people absorb a puritan idea of "removed" from society. Even like liberals, queer people, and sex nerds (people into kink) will have a version of this. For the right, it's usually a very misogynistic idea about how female sexuality and anything gay is evil. And this is usually what makes conservatives want to quit porn, though sometimes they won't admit it and they'll talk about like their essence or whatever.

So like you don't need to quite porn for the right reasons, you can just do it. But maybe spend some time thinking why you want to do it, and if it's because of some idea of removed or shame then you should also think about it you really want to hold those ideas, because they will ultimately make you just as miserable as the porn did.

It is very simple. When you are worried about yourself and your own actions that is normal. When you are concerned about what others choose, that is conservatism.

Somewhere in the middle