[soulofmischief]

The conflation of sexuality and pornography is one of the most harmful Puritan ideologies to persist into modern American culture. Speaking as a recovering Catholic who grew up in an extremely sexually repressive household.

As far as gender and sexuality specifically, nearly every aspect of what I did and said was analyzed and judged as "gay" or "not gay" by my guardians, gay also serving as a proxy for non-masculinity... and thus I could not for example have long hair (as apparently only gay men have long hair, and routinely pointing out that Jesus himself had long hair frequently led to punishment or physical abuse). From music taste to choice in friends to choice in language or books, to how I dressed.

In fact, I was told that men are never supposed to cry or show weakness, and my grandfather would quite literally beat the living shit out of me on a very frequent basis from the age of five, savagely beating me with metal objects and whips and belts, anything he could get his hands on, proclaiming that I would continue to get beaten until I stopped crying and took it "like a man". This was a routine part of my cult training as a child, getting beaten until my insides were dried out from crying and I physically could not cry anymore; until my diaphragm was convulsing from the pain. If I'd been found with a book like Kobabe's Gender Queer, I probably would have been put in the hospital.

I wouldn't wish my experience on the most evil of men. I absolutely understand why many who experienced gender violence in their youth simply decide to leave the entire concept of gender behind. Personally however, my path has been to unapologetically be myself and help other young men understand that they can embrace and define masculinity in whichever way they choose. To take back the reigns of masculinity from violent, sexually represeed psychopaths. The number of pissed off parents racked up along the way is just a measure of my success in this endeavor.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>The conflation of sexuality and pornography is

Visual depictions of hardcore sex acts where penetration is clearly visible = "sexuality". One wonders if anything at all can be pornography with your definitions.

[soulofmischief]

Again, not all sexuality is pornography, and an inability to recognize that does not serve as evidence toward the contrary.

According to Oxford,

sex is "sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.",

and pornography is "printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings".

If you are erotically stimulated by even the sight of sexual organs or sexual activity, that is a problem you need to deal with, but please do not project your perspective onto others. Many other people are able to look at such things and understand the message being conveyed. Nuance between words is not something we can just hand-wave away when it doesn't suit our argument. Sex and pornography are categorically different things.

It's shameful and sexually repressive to teach people that any form of sexual activity is pornographic. Or that children should wait until they are out of the house, away from parental supervision, to learn even the most basic things about sexuality. It's incredible to me sometimes to think about how much things have shifted back and forth in the last 100 years. In the 80's, you'd often find PG-rated movies containing nudity or sexual references. What happened, why have we slid back?

You would've had a hard time in my high school Sex Ed class, which I personally thought was still too censored and Puritan-influenced.