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alexandra_k said:
People typically accept that phobias are acquired by people pairing fear with a specific stimulus (spiders or snakes etc).

People typically accept that fetishes are acquired by people pairing sexual response with a specific stimulus (shoes or minors or whatever)

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Right. My point was that these associations are acquired long before watching porn! And I'll use myself as an example (sorry if this falls under the category of too-much-information!). I'm sexually aroused by themes of domination/submission, and very specifically by teacher/schoolgirl scenarios. I've been aroused by these since roughly the age of 9. Certainly I'd never seen porn at that age. But I found that I was fascinated by the power differential between teachers and students and that had a profound effect on my sexuality. I didn't understand it at the time, but I understand it as an adult. The porn that falls into this category is for those of us who always had this particular bent to our sexuality. Fetishism starts early in life. It's not a result of what you see as an adult (unless I'm strongly different from the norm, which I doubt). Now perhaps if small children were to watch porn, it could change their sexuality. That's quite possible, and I'm all in favor of keeping pornography away from small children. But I don't think it's teaching adults to respond sexually to stimuli that didn't already excite them.

Just my thoughts on this. I hope my dialogue doesn't offend (I've marked this with the trigger).

Sidony