[Added by mods- Content Warning: Sensitive Topic] What do you think about pornography from Autistic perspective?

That is so true 

Mostly ai deep fakes that stuff is so wrong and infact it’s also classed as illegal distribution by laws that actually relate to drawn images and also it’s fraud too I believe 

porn sites are Basicly people seeking validation via video or picture likes 

That is true, the way websites promote the wrong things is getting ridiculous now  

It’s a very grey area to I guess like is it legal in the  sense the people at retreated right snd consenting I sure hope so 

but actually illegal stuff will always get felt with promote on a proper website as for thr dark web im not stupid enough to use that crap 

I don't have a problome with porn at all. As long as it's legal then that's fine, I know it can be an addiction for some people, I was bit addicted to it for a little bit, But That's all past now. I think there are alot of weird topics and catorgories in porn these days, but everyone has their own thing and stuff that they like, 

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Thank you, sorry for the late reply. I have been searching for more answers around addiction and autism especially so that’s really helpful gives me a lot more food for thought. 

How sad that so many women have such trauma about sex, but it's hardly surprising when between 1 in 5 according to one estimate and 1 in 3 women will have experienced sexual violence of one sort or another. I'm not sure that it's just a generational thing, maybe 10 or 20 years down the line these now young women will say they were deeply uncomfortable and did it for approveval from a partner and now see that there was a level of cohersion?

From my own experience, of doing something because my partner wanted to try it, is the pressure to keep doing it and do it everytime. It's like having xmas dinner everyday, it's xmas dinner because it's special, everyday is more egg and chips and I think it's the same with sex. 

Stuart333 said:

I wonder how much money is really in it.

The online market will be worth about US$78 Billion now and  US$118 Billion by the end of this decade according to this article:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/online-adult-entertainment-market-exceed-100000487.html

Stuart333 said:

Do people pay for much,

Yes. There are a lot of people who pay for, often, speciality interests. These can be down to the subject matter, genre or even the people themselves.

Only Fans had a $8 Billion turnover for 2024 for exampe.

Typically they work by releasing teaser videos to the larger free sites (the hub ones) in the hope of persuading people to subscribe to get more content focussed on their area of specialisation.

I believe almost a third of all internet traffic is for this subject material and it is the driver for most internet development over the last few decades so it is a pretty important subject.

When you say 'market'. Do people pay for much, or just look online for free?

I wonder how much money is really in it.

Stuart333 said:

Porn is primarily a visual experience. There is no romance, cuddling, or emotional content

There is some content, mostly aimed at the female or couples market that includes romance and emotional conent. As this audience is a minority then there is correspondingly less content of that nature.

It is all demand / supply driven and the market now is massivly diverse so there is no easy labelling any more.

Porn is primarily a visual experience. There is no romance, cuddling, or emotional content.

This primarily appeals to men who are more visually aroused. Women normally need more.

Sex for men has fewer consequences, so can be more impulse driven.

We are talking about averages, there's a great spread among individuals of course.

So there is a gender difference.

Most art focuses on the female form, because smooth compound curves are attractive to the eye. It is no coincidence that attractive car designs have a waisted look and compound curves. This seems a male thing.

The focus of attention in porn is normally the female nether regions, which women don't seem to find attractive. I don't know about lesbian, or bi people. Men, I think do find it attractive, they are hard wired to do so.

I also think porn is used for information. For what to do to each other for pleasure, albeit there is a lot of acting, which some may not fully realise. I think the problem is if people start doing things they don't want because they think it has somehow become normalised.

TheCatWoman said:

Is there a gender difference, are women more likely to be turned off by porn as a gut reaction, but feel they have to engage with it and act it out to please their partners? Is this a hetronormative thing? How do LGBTQTI people feel about it, do they feel respresented or excluded?

These are really good points.

I find the differences are largely generational as I know consumption by primarily hetero females is much higher amongst younger women that it ever used to be, but this could be a function of availability and social acceptability.

There are a load of interesting stats (some quite worrying too) on this site: https://worldmetrics.org/porn-usage-statistics/

Hopefully the spam filter here lets this through.

The stats relevant here are:

• Approximately 64% of men and 18% of women watch porn at least once a week
• 87% of young men and 31% of young women report watching porn in the past year

I know quite a lot of gay men through my wifes work (fashion designer) including one who was a gay porn star and they are quite open about their consumption of porn which seems quite a lot higher than hetero males.

I don't know any of the other letter groups well enough to discuss this subject so that is where my personal experience ends.

The hetero women I know and who have talked about doing things for their partners all seem to my untrained eye to have degrees of trauma around sex. These conversations are typically after a few glasses of wine at a party or dinner when inhibitions slip but there is a lot of shame around many aspects of sex for the older generations that I just don't see with younger people.

The autistic teenagers I help are quite open about the subject but they are autistic so are not as representative of the wider population as my other friends groups.

Do we see it differently or are we more able to be honest about what we see? Looking at porn through an autistic lens could mean we're more able to express disgust without judgement or pleasure which may be seen as problematic and in need of management as we're often seen as not knowing when to stop, not knowing boundaries etc. Are we comparing how ASC people and NT's view porn and what the norms of the different groups are?

Is there a gender difference, are women more likely to be turned off by porn as a gut reaction, but feel they have to engage with it and act it out to please their partners? Is this a hetronormative thing? How do LGBTQTI people feel about it, do they feel respresented or excluded?

Checking that you have found this NAS main website page about addiction:

www.autism.org.uk/.../addiction

Smoking, nicotine, releases dopamine.

I started smoking around 20, somewhat daftly,  but stopped by 35.

I observed a number of things, how additive it was, how it made me feel, how hard it was to stop.

The interesting bit was how I quit. I tried to stop because I thought I should, but always failed. 

But one morning I suddenly thought all these diseases that other people get that will happen to me. You always think it will be someone else. As soon as I thought that I stubbed out the cigarette, left a packet on the mantlepiece and two boxes of cigars. The cigars have been untouched for  over 20 years.

I've not had one since.

I've always thought it strange I could turn it off just like that.

The addiction can also dangerously become routine, not having whatever you have is a huge change not just in how it may temporarily relieve any negative emotions when you do have it but also avoiding the overwhelming confrontation of emotions when it leaves your system. Autism and addiction seem to live off of each other like parasites feeding one another’s desires. 

Have a look at the embrace autism link, it is a 2 part article. There a links to the sources. 

It's interesting to consider whether our desire for routines, repetitive actions and stimming are all related to certain brain chemicals. Either moving them up or down 

Are they soothing or coping strategies, or reward strategies.

Well, that’s something I was interested in finding more about; the link between autism and addiction. I really do hope the powers that be put in more and more research into this. 

Porn can release higher levels of dopamine than actual sex.

Autism is increasingly understood as involving dopaminergic dysregulation, particularly in the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways—networks that are also centrally implicated in the development of addiction

embrace-autism.com/.../

I wonder if this was the reason for the question.