Comment by macintux
2 months ago
Porn is considered a highly private activity for many reasons: societal disapproval, religious prohibitions...heck in some countries, watching gay porn is potentially a death sentence.
2 months ago
Porn is considered a highly private activity for many reasons: societal disapproval, religious prohibitions...heck in some countries, watching gay porn is potentially a death sentence.
I get wanting to keep illegal activities unknown to the authorities, so I'll concede that.
But in the context of this thread, where a company was threatening to do this in a developed democratic country, that is not an issue, is it?
Societal disapproval can be divided between people you interact with and strangers. Why would anybody what strangers think of them, particularly when those strangers would have to been rummaging into porn watching databases to begin with?
As for coworkers, friends or family, why would they be interested in learning about your porn habits again? And if they bother you about it, wouldn't you want to rethink whether you want to keep them around? Personally, I don't keep in touch with people who seriously judge my life choices -- and that has only happened once, so it's not such a big deal either.
>But in the context of this thread, where a company was threatening to do this in a developed democratic country, that is not an issue, is it?
Along with some other parts of your comment, I can only ask, are you really that naive? Governments can change, laws can change, societies can become more sinister, along with their governing institutions. Look no further than the United States right now for something of a haphazard example, but many others from history and the modern world abound.
It's not about a given context not being risky, it's about a fundamental right to have one's own private business respected firmly, so long as it doesn't materially or physically harm others, being entrenched enough that it's hard to remove even when the state and society go bad.
The same goes for your last comment: Defending one's privacy on nothing more than how supposedly unlikely it is that others would be interested in your personal habits is a downright stupidly bad idea, and yes, it can easily turn into a big deal if something changes.
Would you be willing to share your full name and your porn browsing habits? Here, to everyone reading this thread?
You are making the same argument as somebody else on this thread, as if this was some sort of a gotcha.
I don't go around talking about my porn watching habits for the simple reason that I am sufficiently attuned to social customs to understand that nobody has any interest in them.
You can't be shamed for something you are not ashamed of. If a porn provider made them public for whatever reason, it would not bother me one iota. So, I am asking, genuinely, why would anybody care.
So far the replies are things like "do eet!! lOLLOL" or "it can get you killed", so I have lost interest at this point. After some thought, I guess that some people are unquestioningly ashamed of their sexual preferences, which is sad. Living your life without the burden of shame is much better, as any queer person can tell you. There's nothing wrong with what you like.
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Ah, the myth of the 'developed democratic country', as if our societies are somehow enlightened enough as to not collect material to hang us with should the need arise to silence us.
As recent events have proven we cannot be sure that a bunch of religious conservatives won't come into power.
I am a member of a leftist political party in my country and I have no doubt that if the fascists get their hands on the membership database I'm shipped off to a prison camp.
Yeah, that is something I can understand. Same sort of reason I am scared of my (otherwise boring) reading habits becoming public.