your views on modern day porn consumption

[Esquilax]

That said I think it is a shame if young people don't develop the capacity to find stimulation through the exercise of their own imagination.  I have no problem with masturbation, in fact I suspect it is important.  My only concern is that porn may render them passive and less involved.  Ultimately, I see nothing wrong with porn for adults; my only concern is for the developmental aspect.

Now I'll see if I can follow where this has led.  Once again you bring up a fascinating and complex question.

So, lemme tell you something about creativity as a kid. When I first started writing, when the world was young and strange, nameless things roamed the earth, my first output was... let's say derivative and leave it at that. That's the way it goes, I gather, for a lot of kids first starting out in artistic media: they begin by replicating what they've seen before, then embellishing on that, and then creating their own works with varying degrees of originality. When I started writing erotica, the same was true: I only discovered the stuff I was really good at portraying when I widened my porn consumption to those specific genres.

To those inclined to be creative, absorbing media does not engender passivity, what it does is give you new tools and verbiage. It widens your creative aperture and equips you with new things to toy with. A lot of great art, writing, movies and so on exist because the creators saw and built upon the specific media context they were raised in, or even because of specific individual works. Star Wars exists because of the old adventure serials Lucas grew up with, for example. Creativity can be a response to what came before, not merely something that exists in the absence of it.

I can't imagine why porn would be the one exception to that.