> Fewer teenagers have early sex than in the past (in a recent study, 24 percent of American ninth graders had sex; in 1995 about 37 percent had), and arrests of teenagers for sexual assault are also down. But you don’t have to believe that porn leads to sexual assault or that it’s creating a generation of brutal men to wonder how it helps shape how teenagers talk and think about sex and, by extension, their ideas about masculinity, femininity, intimacy and power.
I am tired of seeing issues framed this way: "Despite the objective evidence, my ideology drives the view that it must be making men brutal and compromising women's power"
> For years, Gallop has been a one-woman laboratory witnessing how easy-to-access mainstream porn influences sex. Now in her 50s, she has spent more than a decade dating 20-something men. She finds them through “cougar” dating sites — where older women connect with younger men — and her main criterion is that they are “nice.” Even so, she told me, during sex with these significantly younger nice men, she repeatedly encounters porn memes: facials, “jackhammering” intercourse, more frequent requests for anal sex and men who seem less focused on female orgasms than men were when she was younger. Gallop takes it upon herself to “re-educate,” as she half-jokingly puts it, men raised on porn.
This article seems more like activism than inquiry to me. The foot feels heavily on the scale. I believe the topic deserves better than this.
>I am tired of seeing issues framed this way: "Despite all objective evidence, my ideology drives the view that it must be making men brutal and compromising women's power"
The paragraph you quoted is literally saying "although evidence suggests porn does not increase assault, no matter what you believe about it it helps shape the views of people who watch it on sex and gender" which is the most obvious, tepid, noncontroversial statement that is devoid of any framing at all. You are literally complaining about an example the author uses of an opinion she does not have. The primary complaint you should have about this paragraph is how contentless it is, not some weird claim about how the statement that media effects culture is somehow malicious framing.
>Seriously, NYTimes? This is activism, not inquiry. I'm disappointed.
Yes, how dare someone who writes about a topic have actual experience with it that informs their opinions. I think it's actually far worse to have a "detached, impartial observer" (which of course does not exist) writing about a topic on which they have zero relevant experience. Which is pretty much standard operating procedure with NYT. How many articles are there in NYT from media elites pretending they understand the poor? Countless. This article is a refreshing positive change.
In general intuition is a tool that can be used to help uncover things, but should not be used as a basis for a view by itself. You might be inclined to call the following the most "obvious, tepid, noncontroversial statement" "It's self evident that you shouldn't expose people with bacterial infections to something that comes from the blue green mold that emerges on rot." Of course as you might know, I actually just described penicillin. Our tendency to think our knee jerk intuition is something that can stand alongside data is undoubtedly a big part of what caused it to take years for penicillin to come to be accepted, even after the results were published and shared.
Oh I certainly agree. And in general, beware anyone who uses the phrase 'common sense' - it turns out it is often not so common, not so sensical, or both.
But the notion that media influences culture (for which there is overwhelming evidence not only scientific but in the form of every for-profit organization that has a marketing division, and which is even a truism - media IS culture) being stated in the New York Times in 2018 is like taking a paragraph in a Nature article to explain yes, the moon exists.
So the men you meet on a hookup site (and particularly, a hookup site for people you’re unlikely to choose to build a life with) are less romantic than the men you met organically?
Moreover, people with a very specific fetish. What she did is that she gathered some personal experiences with men who are into older women and compared it with what she remembers happening 30 years ago. This is actually more a study about her rather than online porn.
It's specifically saying that the evidence is that it doesn't do the things you mentioned but that one still might "wonder how it helps shape how teenagers talk and think." It doesn't seem to be the author whose ideology is driving their view here.
It’s a common reporter shtick. “Here is objective evidence that supports one view. Without disclosing that I have an agenda, I’m going to present completely anecdotal information to support a contrary view.”
Once you recognize the pattern, you see it in articles everywhere.
You're doing that HN thing where someone cherry-picks a couple of segments from the article, wraps them in a bit of leading commentary, and pastes it at the top of the comments for everyone who skipped reading the piece to attach their agreement to.
I didn't think it was possible to choose a position for a comment appear in. I do learn new easter eggs about HN from time to time like formatting. Most of my comments start in the middle or bottom from my questionable memory.
"You might think that {something} would cause {the outcome that fits my, and the audience's agenda/preconceptions}, but the data doesn't show that. However, it's reasonable to ask if there's something going on, right? Also, feel free to quote the first sentence in clickbaity titles and social media posts! If you repeat it enough times, it will actually become truth :)"
I am tired of seeing issues framed this way: "Despite the objective evidence, my ideology drives the view that it must be making men brutal and compromising women's power"
> For years, Gallop has been a one-woman laboratory witnessing how easy-to-access mainstream porn influences sex. Now in her 50s, she has spent more than a decade dating 20-something men. She finds them through “cougar” dating sites — where older women connect with younger men — and her main criterion is that they are “nice.” Even so, she told me, during sex with these significantly younger nice men, she repeatedly encounters porn memes: facials, “jackhammering” intercourse, more frequent requests for anal sex and men who seem less focused on female orgasms than men were when she was younger. Gallop takes it upon herself to “re-educate,” as she half-jokingly puts it, men raised on porn.
This article seems more like activism than inquiry to me. The foot feels heavily on the scale. I believe the topic deserves better than this.