This is so frustrating to read.

> I challenge all naysayers to do that. A few can do so without much effort, but the vast majority can't. This reality is opposite of the lie that most will claim.

I have done this, and nowadays I don't even look at 1/100th of the porn I used to five years ago, e.g. all the porn I look at nowadays is a little of the person I might be sleeping with if I'm far away from him/her, and whatever random porn might be linked on random IRC channels I'm on (usually for amusement than arousal). Nothing really prompted me to change my porn viewing habits. But of course, then you will shove me into the "few" that can do this without effort. So what's the point of even answering that. :p

> Companions feel inadequate compared to the airbrushed, artificial bodies their companions lust after. Porn users perceive the subjects of their pornography in an abnormally sexualized light and it diminishes their emotional and intellectual sensitivity.

On one hand, I don't disagree that modern day mainstream non-amateur porn is ridiculous and artificial, it's almost become a total turn-off to me, minus a couple people like Sasha Grey, someone I never felt was really glamorized to that extent. But that does not mean that people are expecting airbrushed perfection, or that people feel inadequate compared to porn. I feel fat and full of stretch marks and a desperate need to exercise (stupid asthma issues right now) to get rid of all this flab on my body and I can never manage to get the perfect bikini shave down, but when I am sleeping with my current partner, and when I was with most of my former partners, I feel sexy, confident, attractive. Around him and what we do together, I get this amazing sense of sharing something so glorious, taking pleasure in pleasuring each other, happiness, stress relief...name anything good, and I've probably felt it. And I don't expect him to be perfect, I know he's got his own flab to lose, his own shortcomings, his own interests and fetishes that I might not be into and vice versa...and I know he's not 9" (or where the idea that "bigger is better" even came from). But I don't consider that to be a bad thing just because I saw (on some days) several hours of porn where there were perfect people doing everything I could possibly think of that I was into. Plus, half the stuff I've seen are so ridiculously unrealistic. In the heat of passion, are you REALLY going to be contorting bodies into that kinda position? Nope.

And I know every single person I have ever slept with has watched plenty of porn at some time or another and some still do. Yet none of them have gotten the idea that real sex is like the porn they watch. Because porn can only show so much, and if you don't realize it yet, you will once you actually sleep with someone.

(Oh oops, is this where the "you're promiscuous, clearly porn did that to you" part comes in?)

> Pornography has a large negative effect on its users. That's absolutely true and no amount of studies, hopes, oblations, snarky comments, or any other thing can change that.

"I'm right, you're wrong"...yes...how well that has solved arguments. Porn has been good to me, gave me an outlet for my sexual frustration (oh I never imagined I'd be talking about that on HN...), gave me something fun to watch and to make, gave me pleasure in one way or another. It hasn't made me skanky or promiscuous or hating on healthy relationships or preventing me from having them. It hasn't hurt me and it hasn't made me hurt anyone else, unless your idea of hurting people is safe, sane, and consensual fetish acts. There are far worse things in life, in my life? Maybe how I started playing WoW... :P

Personal anecdotes, yes, but hey, if we're all offering up our personal opinions and unsupported thoughts here...