spiderandme

[spiderandme]

so, i’ll also speak from (embarrassing) personal experience here and say that this orgasm-as-operant-conditioning idea also doesn’t ring true for me, but only because of the focus on orgasm. cumming has nothing directly to do with porn addiction proper, which is about entering and maintaining a sort of numbed blissed-out headspace. it’s that headspace which can easily end up requiring more and more hours spent on more and more hyperstimulating material to induce.

so yeah, i can try to counter your “i’ve never experienced anything remotely like that in response to the things that turn me on” with “well i have and lots of other people say they have too, so there,” but it’s probably more persuasive to point out that while yes, physical pleasures like eating decadent food or cumming don’t generally produce this effect, again, porn consumption is not a purely physical pleasure (i know that it’s kinda passé to delineate between mental and physical but like, detrimental porn consumption can perhaps be defined specifically by the fact that it has ceased to be a masturbation aid, is what i’m saying). maybe a more apt analogue here would be the way particularly stimulating genres of music or film end up having their defining features more exaggerated over the years as audiences need bigger explosions and louder bass drops (or yknow whatever) for them to keep hitting like they used to. and no, “action movie addiction” is not a thing by any useful definition of “addiction,” but here i do think there’s a seed of truth in the post you’re rebuking in that human psychosexuality is in fact a uniquely hijackable biological engine (even if human orgasm perhaps is not).

generally i do think that “porn addiction is a thing” and “compulsive overconsumption of porn is indicative of larger issues in need of addressing” probably shouldn’t be treated as incompatible truths. like, we’re generally able to talk about addictions to gambling or social media or retail without losing sight of their psychological and societal preconditions (though i get the sense you may have a thing or two to say about that lol), i’m not sure why it has to be different for pornography. i do get that we’re in a cultural moment where heteropatriarchical sex-negative worldviews are on the rise and often underlie porn addiction alarm-sounding and so there’s a sort of cultural imperative to counter that narrative wholesale, but like, i question the net usefulness of treating the phenomenon being observed as totally illusory?

i think there are definitely facts and nuances i’m not accounting for that would lead to me amending my thoughts on all this (would genuinely love to hear some) but for the moment those are them

So like, it's obvious to me reading the comments on my post that anti-porn people are largely like, afraid of porn. Like the concept of a sex video is really spooky to them. They're not making thoughtful critiques of the porn industry, which is genuinely a really fucked up industry, they're mostly just spooked by the concept of a sex video and what it could Do To You If You See It.

I said this in another post, but it's like, the difference between "a ton of coffee is produced using slave labor" (valid, important criticism of the coffee industry) and "coffee turns people into raving coffee addicts who forget how to interact with anyone because they're so obsessed with their coffee" (objectively not true, insane viewpoint).

It's literally just sex videos. They really cannot hurt you.

[spiderandme]

(cw: sexual assault) the pedophile -as it is understood outside of academic circles- is a mythical creature. the idea that a complete stranger who kidnaps and sexually assaults kids is their biggest threat is absolutely insane; not one case of CSA (child sexual assault) in a hundred looks like that. CSA is committed almost uniformly by adults in a preestablished position of authority (such as family, family friends, clergy, or teachers) and in a way that a victim who doesn't know what sexual assault looks like will be left unsure what happened to them. without knowing concretely how sex and sexuality works, would you be able to tell the difference between molestation and the various other forms of unwanted physical touch and abuse kids are regularly subjected to? would it even seem that different? but parenthood and the submission of youth to adults as institutions are threatened by the reality of CSA. adults need to justify their ownership of children through an imagined outside threat constantly held at bay through their diligence. the truth - that putting yourself in such a position of authority over children directly enables abuse (including sexual abuse) - is thrown aside.

[spiderandme]

on your mark (1995) is an essential piece of the hayao miyazaki filmography!!

[spiderandme]

be at peace 💜

The Beach Boys's Brian Wilson sits alone in a church. (c. 70s)

[spiderandme]

“music isn’t art” as a rebuke of a critique of fanfic writers’ bad opinions is so unhinged as to be somehow genuinely refreshing i love this

Shut up, musician. How dare you tell painters and writers how to interact with their fellow painters and writers, you dirty musician. Go sample Milton Nascimento for your groundbreaking new genre. Make folk music that is actually for realsies authentic and not exploitative for real this time. Make another cover of Tom's Diner. That's all you musicians know to do, gobbling and shitting the actually good music that came before. Oh what an inspiring culture of covers and collabs and remixes, here's the enlightened musician to teach us poor stupid painters and writers about the evils of ip law! Don't make me laugh, I see right through you. Go hack the spotify servers and leave us true artists alone, freak

presented without comment

[spiderandme]

this “this disabled painter learned to maneuver a paintbrush with their mouth, other disabled people have no excuse” shit is so absurdly ableist oh my GOD anti-ai warriors stop making embarrassingly awful and offensive arguments challenge 2025 impossible

chatgpt is useful

yeah the gaslight mediocrity machine is useful for gaslighting and medicority

[spiderandme]

literally why on earth do they draw faces like this it speaks to a deep spiritual unwellness i feel

crime frankenstein, without a doubt. next question

[spiderandme]

[spiderandme]

sinkdog's dream

[spiderandme]

i almost do this at least once a week

inspired by a friend misspeaking

[spiderandme]

okay to be fair it is accurate to say the difficulty curve is fucked but it feels like the game suddenly goes from way too easy to just about right so i guess i’m just not very inclined to complain abt it

accumulating a dangerously large catalog of thoughts on pokemon diamond and pearl

[spiderandme]

will say that some of the stuff it gets criticized for is ummm not valid. “there’s a sudden big level jump leading up to the pokemon league wahhhhh” yeah they made the end of the game hard on purpose actually!! “i’m suddenly so underleveled that repels aren’t even reliably working wahhh” okay so fight the wild pokemon until you level up!! play the video game!! the fact that a well prepared team of level 50s can only just barely eke out a victory against cynthia is good and goes hard actually

accumulating a dangerously large catalog of thoughts on pokemon diamond and pearl

[spiderandme]

i do think there’s a sort of accidental genius in the way its narrative and region design don’t gel on any level. it creates this mystifying impression that sinnoh does not in fact exist for the purposes of this particular story, which probably drives home that ancient vibe more effectively than anything the game actually does on purpose. kinda rocks!

accumulating a dangerously large catalog of thoughts on pokemon diamond and pearl

[spiderandme]

nearly everything that makes this game good is just basic pokemon formula shit, when you get into the particulars of how it dresses up that formula it’s mostly confounding jank as far as the eye can see. mediocre pizza is still pizza etc

accumulating a dangerously large catalog of thoughts on pokemon diamond and pearl

[spiderandme]

accumulating a dangerously large catalog of thoughts on pokemon diamond and pearl

[spiderandme]

THE MATRIX (1999) | dir. The Wachowskis

[spiderandme]

the framing of generative ai as "theft" in popular discourse has really set us back so far like not only should we not consider copyright infringement theft we shouldn't even consider generative ai copyright infringement