I am 40 and I think I’ve been deeply damaged by porn. Now I’m ‘sober’ as it were, but have come round to the view that its prevalence is so harmful for relationships and young people.
I’m not against it per se. If people like it and can use it healthily then perhaps that’s OK.
Pre-internet, people’s access to it was much less and involved them actively going to a shop or newsagent or whatever. The embarrassment must have put most people off and limited demand.
Now demand is huge. The industry is massive, and ever more participants in it are harmed as producers chase customers and performers need to do more extreme things.
So AIBU to think that we should go back to a situation where people have to actively opt in to be able to access adult websites? Bring back an embarrassment factor. I sometimes wonder whether this would have the knock on impact of reducing the demand for nude selfies etc that teenagers get into because there would just be less nakedness generally on peoples screens, if you know what I mean.
Age verification is all well and good but I wonder whether we should make it much harder for people to access porn.
I know that my life would have been better without it.