this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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In what way though? We see all kinds of sexual and suggestive displays everywhere in media because “sex sells”. I guess you and the people up voting you don’t use Instagram, which is essentially what Twitter is now trying to emulate via this rule change.
But it’s not? Every visual form of art has some kind of sexualized content. Go literally anywhere (online or off) and it’s there. The reason why the more overt and pornographic content is behind NSFW is because it’s titillating. Experiencing prolonged bouts of arousal is mentally exhausting and often leads to depression or worsens it, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10813043/#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20a%20higher%20and%20hyperstable,3%2C7%2C8%5D.
It’s why looking at porn all day is not mentally relaxing, necessarily. Some people also find overt sexual displays distracting as all they want to do is focus without being stimulated into another direction. That said, there are plenty of video games, movies, art forms, music experiences which explore human sexuality. They’re fun because it’s stimulation at a time when you’re in the frame of mind for it.
I feel a lot of times when people talk about “something is like this” what they’re really saying “my experiences show that something is like this”, and that to me just indicates they need to broaden their experiences.
We’re missing sex positivity in modern US society with respect to women’s reproductive rights and acceptance of different sexual orientations or gender identities. We’re not missing sex or sexualized content.
You are misunderstanding the meaning of the paper you linked; it is not referring to sexual arousal but rather the psychological state of hyperarousal aka the fight-or-flight response. These are two very different meanings of the term "arousal" and are not at all interchangable.
I am not misunderstanding it, heightened emotions = arousal, and sexual stimulation leads to heightened emotions
You are misunderstanding it. Don't worry though, yours is a common misunderstanding! So common, in fact, that the Wikipedia article on arousal starts with, "not to be confused with sexual arousal".
In psychology, "arousal" is a technical term and not all arousal causes harm. In fact, many forms of arousal are quite healthy. Being awake, for example, is a type of arousal and most people stay awake for 16+ hours per day without issue.
Now, you are correct that sexual arousal is a type of arousal, but there is no reason to believe that sexual arousal would cause the pathology of arousal that is discussed in the paper. In fact, the specific section you linked refers to "hyperstable arousal regulation" which refers to a tendency for a person's level of arousal to remain too constant over time rather than varying appropriately to the situation they are in. And on top of all that, causation is not indicated. There is no reason to believe that the arousal is causing the depression rather than the other way around.
I know :) I’ve done research in affective psychology. I was connecting the thread from arousal (in general) to sexual arousal. I think my follow up post shows that logic in a pithy one liner
Got it and thanks for clarifying. I also amended my last comment since I had a bit of extra time to read the study more thoroughly. I'd be quite interested to see which way the causation goes. Although I suspect that hyperstable arousal may be a symptom of depression rather than a cause of depression, I have heard that the intense adrenaline rush of skydiving may alleviate depression for some people. To me this suggests there may be a way to break out of that hyperstable arousal state by intentionally reaching a state of extremely high arousal, perhaps ending a bout of depression early.