Pornification in Society

Nowadays, with the advent of the internet, porn has become accessible to everyone with a digital device and internet connection. Riding the wave of rapid pornification, businesses make use of sexual objectification to advertise all kinds of products, and the porn industry has become a widespread menace, exploiting people and even children. Children are exposed to porn and perversion at a young age, and often become desensitized or addicted. Even other aspects of the entertainment industry have been affected where women are objectified and sexualized—examples being scantily-dressed women with huge chests in video games and anime (in anime, these grossly perverted depictions of women and perverted scenes are referred to as "fan service", and whole genres of implied porn and actual porn known as "hentai" have cropped up).

Porn has entered the mainstream as well, through such shows as Game of Thrones—where porn is glorified and used to gain viewers with shock value, all under the pretext of artistry (it is impossible to differentiate between "artistic" scenes taken from this show and what is classified as porn).
We see a satirical take on this absurdity in this video:

Franchises with no substance such as Fifty Shades of Grey have also popped up, glorifying BDSM and feeding off of people's lust like gladiatorial combat of old which brought out people's other inner demons of violence and blood lust. And as if the tradition of showcasing women based on their bodies in so-called beauty pageants wasn't bad enough, women are made to feel more self-conscious than ever with new fads like "bikini bodies" with swimsuits being designed skimpier and skimpier, while men sport T-shirts and shorts on beaches.

This state of affairs is bad but it's rapidly getting worse with more far-reaching effects. Restrictions and prohibition on porn is lax, same as how it is when it comes to prostitution and brothels, and the anti-porn movement is just starting out (check out "Porn Harms" page on Facebook). The more the porn industry and its related businesses grow, the more it becomes harder to stop; the situation we now see with the meat industry which has become one of the wealthiest and most powerful industries on the planet with vast financial resources and political power, so much so that it can influence and dictate laws.

Children and teens start watching porn and having sex because of peer pressure and it changes them forever, with very bad consequences on all aspects of their lives. Superficial and failed relationships, teen pregnancies, abortions, unwanted children, overpopulation, rape and more problems are rampant. Sometimes, young children display perverted behavior as a result of exposure to pornified media and sex. An example of this is a post on the MedHelp community by a mother who has witnessed sexual behavior between her 7-year-old daughter and 8-year-old nephew, excerpts of which are below:

...after discussion I had learned that my nephew had been touched by his older brother and a friend before he came to live with us. He had also mentioned that he has watched movies with sexual scenes in it before he moved with us as well. 

There may have been a time where she [daughter] has seen something on the television...for example, she would be sleeping in her room while my husband and I would be watching a movie where there happens to be a sex scene and she just so happened to walk into the living room to ask for something and seen the TV... 

...the one time I had caught her [daughter] humping a pillow and I had asked her where she learned that from and she said me and my husband. Please understand that she has a tendency to walk into my room half asleep to crawl into bed with us. She had probably tried to do this but we were obviously in the middle of something [sex].

Talking to people about their perceptions of both porn and sex when they were first introduced to these, I have come to see a pattern—they initially viewed them with disgust before becoming desensitized, one even reporting how he vomited upon seeing porn for the first time. These practices eventually become a part of their lives because both porn and sex are addictive, and they struggle in later years, unable to control it. There is even therapy for bad cases. On NoFap on Reddit, we can see how hard young people are trying to quit watching porn the same way smokers try to quit smoking. In this The Guardian article titled Life without sex – it's better than you think, the author writes, "arguably, sex is an addiction. Break the cycle and, over time, the physical and psychological "need" for sex lessens – you can do without it, hard as that may be to believe."

There are many people who want to speak up against porn and are disinterested in or disgusted by sex but they have no voice in this society, and mainstream media does not often bring out these stories because they would much rather jump on the pornification bandwagon to please the majority of the audience and gain popularity. Also, people are afraid to express views which are contrary to the social norms or what is regarded as "cool" by their peers—not to mention, society suppresses them by deeming such views to be abnormal; for example, a negative view of sex is regarded like a disease that needs to be treated. Go through this The Guardian article, "Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex" and what asexual people have to say: "15 Confessions Reveal What It's Like To Date While Asexual".

As for me, being a young person myself, I have for some reason, never been indoctrinated into things regarding sex. I retain my initial reaction to it upon discovering it as a child—disgust and incredulity that good, decent people actually behave like this.

I foresee that in the future, with society sinking into more and more corruption, people getting messed up with even more pornification of the world around them, we would have a massive crisis which would then result in the anti-porn and celibacy movement truly flourishing.

What is Veganism and what is Celibacy?

This is a rapidly advancing world, with new technologies sprouting up every year and information being shared across the globe among millions of people. When considering the state of things in the past, when there were no such things as human rights and women didn't have the power to vote, we have come a long way as well towards building a better, more peaceful world.

Yet still, we are far from perfect. And when it comes to veganism and celibacy, which seem pretty straightforward to me now that I am a celibate vegan, many people are confused and do not know what these are about, because most of us are raised in societies where the opposites are the norm.

So I will simplify these and put them in a nutshell to fit into this introductory post.

"Veganism is a way of living which seeks exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."

To explain the definition above, it means that veganism is about nonviolence—not causing deliberate harm to others (all sentient beings, which includes humans and nonhuman animals capable of suffering)—which is the least that we can do, and what we must all strive to do when living together on this planet. The "far as is possible and practicable" refers to accidental harm that occur when we live; for example, a mouse may have been accidentally killed in the process of harvesting grain, we may run over an animal when driving, or the plant-based dish ordered at a restaurant may contain traces of animal products through cross-contamination. Sometimes, there are not even clear scenarios of black and white, and it's shades of grey, and just by living, we inadvertently cause harm, which are all covered by that phrase "as far as is possible and practicable".

Vegans therefore, boycott businesses that make profit off of animals, reject the commodity status of animals and acknowledge that animals should not be exploited for human purposes; the same way it is wrong to use human slaves.

Next, what is celibacy? Celibacy is often confused with abstinence, which is not engaging in sexual activity until marriage. Celibacy is a conscious choice to not engage in sexual activity with no such time limit. Definitions of celibacy on the web state that it may mean refraining from marriage as well—not necessarily the case. Celibacy simply means not having sex, whether it is within marriage or without.

Now if veganism is practiced by a minority at the moment though growing rapidly around the world, celibacy is even more rare, mostly practiced by priests and monks, so much so that most people associate it with them, and do not give it a second thought.

I intend to talk of all things regarding celibacy, why it's important and more, as well as draw parallels with the situation with the other "revolutionary" and "extreme" and "self-depriving" practice in the world today—veganism.