In the first one or two of Totoro's posts I pretty much interpreted it as moralizing too, although since she has explained it more thoroughly and it's changed how I read the first ones. I'm glad everyone else read it as reasonable and respectful, because, honestly, I felt we were perhaps both a bit reactionary at first - certainly I felt that way.
There were particular phrases I was reacting to, (as I quoted later), but since she has made it clear the focus is on what works for her, and what she believes works those close to her, which I totally get.
I, for example, have absolutely no problem with homosexuality in principal (obviously), but, having tried it, it simple doesn't work for me. Practicing it would not bring me happiness.
LeO was on to something when pointing out some consider anything connected with sexuality to be "sex", and some don't.
I don't see any of this as being remotely "sex". I would definitely not be willing to have any form of physical contact with any of my fans, not for any price.
And I don't feel any conflict between enjoying the purely physical sensations of sex sometimes, and having it be a meaningful expression of deeply felt mutual love at other times, any more than I feel a conflict between mostly eating healthy and sometimes enjoying ice cream. Many people feel there is a conflict there, and if they choose to never engage in the former, I have no problem with that - so long as they aren't claiming it's inherently wrong.
I do believe that the claim that it is inherently wrong is bad for all of humanity. At first I thought Totoro was making that claim, and that's why my response was long and perhaps strongly worded, but she has been pretty clear on that point since then.
I still have some reservations about the definition of ethics and on how the possibility of regret should inform our choices, but I felt we had come close enough to understanding to let it go where it was.
I actually thought this was a good example of well reasoned and reasonable discussion,
which is exactly why I have most of my online conversations, on every topic, on this forum. It seems to defy the standard of internet making people more prone to disrespect than real life interactions for reasons which are not entire clear to me.
I seriously considered this- I was just concerned that someone would record me or take my image and it would end up on sites all over the place. If there were some certain safeguard against that happening then I would do it in a second. I mean, it's not any more degrading than half the service industry jobs I've had- plus if I'm home I'm pretty much lounging in underwear either way, so...
The only safeguard is that there are over 35 MILLION pages of porn on the interent (and that's only including the ones with the term "porn" specifically in the page, not "nude" or "live cam"). If you then consider the individual images on all of those pages, you are easily going into the
hundreds of millions of total images. So, unless you make a very serious effort to market yourself as a porn star, you are, at most, one or two in a few hundred million.
But someone here said that a coworker did randomly find her online, and made a snarky comment (she didn't say whether or not she had admitted to anyone that she was doing it at all, or whether she put honest info on her camming page making her easier to search - you have the option to claim on your profile that you are from where ever you want, to fudge your age and height and weight, and even to block all viewers from your any city, state, or country, if you are concerned your parents or boss or whatever might be watching your show)
It could happen.
Then again, you could let a partner take a naked picture of you, the two of you break up, and they post it online. Or someone could be on a cliff filming you on a nude beach. Meh. I know in our culture this tends to be a bigger deal for women than men (which is a terrible double standard, and on behalf of all men, I apologize), but unless you are in a very strict religious community, people would get over it, and life would go on.