i dunno if i can give any actually good advice, but other than the usual "just use your imagination" type statements i would recommend to just switch to erotica or even erotic drawn art from based or uncringe people (usually gay people) (lots will still draw straight stuff too, though. commissions and importantly, given their inherently consensual nature, gift art of people's characters)
i feel like if your goal is to stop giving money to abusive industries than the fastest way to do that would be to just replace that industry entirely in your life, instead of trying to go through the longer process of quitting it entirely and still relying on that industry in the mean time.
If you want to quit for self-improvement/health reasons, all power to you but I find the actual benefits of abandoning any erotic content altogether quite suspect. There's a lot of studies that are funded by questionable sources, based on misunderstandings of how brain chemicals work, and plenty of findings that could be much more readily explained by the misogynistic messaging of 99% of pornography in existence. Plus most conversations, especially scientific ones, seem to completely ignore queer or alternative communities or even just individuals who produce erotic media. Either that or purposefully pretend like they don't exist. This paragraph I only specifically point out because I see a lot of pretty intense self-hatred from professed porn addicts (specifically, the kind that view porn a lot, not the kind that do so compulsively to the detriment of other things in their life) and a lot of it either seems like kinkshaming themselves or a misdirection of the issue from their discomfort with misogyny and dehumanization, to their own sex drive. I don't think it's healthy to be harsh on oneself when it comes to this.
I would recommend reading Sexed Up by Julia Serano, altogether it makes a pretty good model for how sexualization works which is very helpful if you are concerned about it and especially if you are concerned about sexualizing others. Though in this case specifically it is relevant how it actually gives a solid basis to analyze the problematic elements of the porn industry in a way that doesn't accidentally have a bunch of scatter fire on other innocent groups of people in the way that most mainstream critics of it end up doing. The general social consensus seems to be that "the pornography industry is bad because pictures of sex are bad" which is a pretty blatantly incorrect statement that also, very conveniently (and probably why it is the current opinion with the most media attention) ignores the actual material ways it hurts the workers in that industry as well as the actual ways it causes harm socially.
Applying Serano's concepts of sexualization, as well as derivitization, with even just a basic marxist analysis gives a shockingly clear picture of the actual nature of the porn industry as well as it's incidentally symbiotic relationship with both patriarchal structures and the parts of capital that produce it.
I actually want to make a post about the last part I mentioned here, but I'm unsure if it's better as a funny communist website post or an actual publication at this point.
I actually want to make a post about the last part I mentioned here, but I'm unsure if it's better as a funny communist website post or an actual publication at this point.
You should, we have the effort comm for posts like this.
forms of NSFW content discussion
i dunno if i can give any actually good advice, but other than the usual "just use your imagination" type statements i would recommend to just switch to erotica or even erotic drawn art from based or uncringe people (usually gay people) (lots will still draw straight stuff too, though. commissions and importantly, given their inherently consensual nature, gift art of people's characters)
i feel like if your goal is to stop giving money to abusive industries than the fastest way to do that would be to just replace that industry entirely in your life, instead of trying to go through the longer process of quitting it entirely and still relying on that industry in the mean time.
If you want to quit for self-improvement/health reasons, all power to you but I find the actual benefits of abandoning any erotic content altogether quite suspect. There's a lot of studies that are funded by questionable sources, based on misunderstandings of how brain chemicals work, and plenty of findings that could be much more readily explained by the misogynistic messaging of 99% of pornography in existence. Plus most conversations, especially scientific ones, seem to completely ignore queer or alternative communities or even just individuals who produce erotic media. Either that or purposefully pretend like they don't exist. This paragraph I only specifically point out because I see a lot of pretty intense self-hatred from professed porn addicts (specifically, the kind that view porn a lot, not the kind that do so compulsively to the detriment of other things in their life) and a lot of it either seems like kinkshaming themselves or a misdirection of the issue from their discomfort with misogyny and dehumanization, to their own sex drive. I don't think it's healthy to be harsh on oneself when it comes to this.
I would recommend reading Sexed Up by Julia Serano, altogether it makes a pretty good model for how sexualization works which is very helpful if you are concerned about it and especially if you are concerned about sexualizing others. Though in this case specifically it is relevant how it actually gives a solid basis to analyze the problematic elements of the porn industry in a way that doesn't accidentally have a bunch of scatter fire on other innocent groups of people in the way that most mainstream critics of it end up doing. The general social consensus seems to be that "the pornography industry is bad because pictures of sex are bad" which is a pretty blatantly incorrect statement that also, very conveniently (and probably why it is the current opinion with the most media attention) ignores the actual material ways it hurts the workers in that industry as well as the actual ways it causes harm socially.
Applying Serano's concepts of sexualization, as well as derivitization, with even just a basic marxist analysis gives a shockingly clear picture of the actual nature of the porn industry as well as it's incidentally symbiotic relationship with both patriarchal structures and the parts of capital that produce it.
I actually want to make a post about the last part I mentioned here, but I'm unsure if it's better as a funny communist website post or an actual publication at this point.
You should, we have the effort comm for posts like this.