Defeat Lust & Pornography Colossal man being tempted with anime porn.
Defeat Lust & Pornography 4 minute read

3 Reasons Anime Porn Is Bad for You

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Today, there are a lot more people out there speaking out against pornography on the grounds that it really isn’t a very healthy industry. The more they read the stories of the women and men in pornography, the conditions of their work, the use of drugs, the physical pain, the instances of shady behavior among porn producers, the manipulation, the sexual abuse (both on and off camera), and the spread of STDs, the more people are saying, “If porn is this abusive, I don’t want to endorse it.”

Even when women consent to this lifestyle of abuse, people are still saying, “Look, I don’t care if she’s consenting to being abused. A woman who has forgotten her own dignity does not give me a green light to treat her as an object.”

For more, see Is Porn Bad?: 10 Things To Consider Before Watching

Introducing Hentai

For many people, this is one of the reasons they enjoy other kinds of pornography that don’t involve live action filming. One genre of porn really corners the market on this, and it’s called hentai.

Hentai is the western label given to anime pornography and is derived from the Japanese word for “perverted.” Over the last generation, hentai has become some of the most popular pornography in the world. In fact, cartoon porn is currently among the most searched for niches of porn on certain Internet devices.

What do we say to this? Is cartoon pornography a more ethical option for porn consumers because it doesn’t involve live action actors?

Less Bad ≠ Good

First, if we find a form of media where women are not physically harmed or degraded in the making of a specific kind of media, this is a good thing. However, it’s also important to note that just because something is better than something else in one respect does not mean it is therefore “good.” Smoking a carton of cigarettes every day might be better than smoking 10 cartons, but smoking one carton should also not be labeled as “healthy.”

3 Reasons Cartoon Porn Is Still Bad

First, anime porn is infused with the same messages and values as live action porn. 

It’s all about the degradation and objectification of women for the masturbatory pleasure of men. The female figure portrayed is nothing more than an object for male pleasure. Women are still portrayed as powerless—either powerless over male advances or powerless over her own sexual euphoria that compels her to be used. Anime porn is marketed and sold with messaging as its live action counterpart.

Second, anime porn is just as addictive as live action porn.

Addiction to porn—any kind of porn—is known by the American Society of Addiction Medicine as a “behavioral” addiction, where someone is pathologically pursuing neurological rewards their brain gives them when they engage in certain pleasurable behaviors. All kinds of porn addiction, regardless of whether the actors on the screen are filmed or drawn, are harmful to us because they warp our normal sex drive into something unhealthy and compulsive. Porn might feel pleasurable, but it’s ultimately the enemy of real satisfaction.

Third, anime porn is in some sense worse in its messaging that live action porn because the characters are completely malleable.

Artists can make make the characters look exactly the way they want. Every fetish can be fulfilled, no matter how unreal or bizarre. Artists and consumers can pleasure themselves any kind of abuse and dull their consciences doing it. They can just tell themselves “No one is really getting hurt.” Because the films are animated, this has a disarming effect on the viewer. The consumer needs not practice any compassion for the character because she isn’t real. She’s just a lifeless scribbling of ink.

Hentai pornography is known showing the gross mistreatment of women through horrific acts of bestiality and even images of children having sex. Can we commend the makers and consumers of this material because they aren’t using real people—“I don’t like it when real children are abused, but I really like to get off to images of cartoon children getting abused.” Is this virtuous or healthy to shape our libidos around this kind of material?

Don’t be fooled. When people justify this kind of material, they’re often asking the wrong question. They’re often saying, “Who isn’t abused in the making of this pornography?” The real question they should be asking is, “Who is abused in the making of this?” The answer is: the viewer himself.

  1. DiogenesTheCynic

    I’ve never read a bigger pile in my life! There is nothing wrong with a healthy porn consumption, just because YOU are mentally ill does not mean that porn has a negative impact on the lives of others.

    I myself enjoy indulging in TASETFUL and ROMANTIC stories of an erotic nature. As does my wife, who enjoys hentai comics even more than I do.

    Just because the market is rife with degenerate, unrealistic depictions of sex that degrades women (and sometimes, men), does not mean that this represents the ENTIRETY of the hentai market. Not all hentai is problematic, again, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Keep bashing those bibles though you absolute FRAUD. I wonder if you tell the young adults you meet about the CENTURIES of religious dogma that led to the countless deaths and mistreatment of minorities, women, and children…I wonder if you tell them about the absolute LAUNDRY LIST of heinous crimes of the catholic church….really gets that gnoggin jogging huh?

    Your existence is based on a lie. Therefore, you lie to others for a living, to distract yourself from reality. Keep lying to yourself you sad, enjoy preaching while you can! Because let’s be real, SATAN is going to put you to work for living a life of deception. He will make you complicit ignoring the crimes of your faith.

    What an empty life you live. Go ahead and continue judging humans for being human, keep on pretending your life has meaning. Meanwhile, us normal folks will live honestly and carve our own meaning in life. Your belief system is no different to that of a cult, and frankly, you morons only serve to make the rest of the world laugh at this point. What a joke!

    • Keith Rose

      Hi Diogenes, thanks for your comment. We disagree, obviously, but love your passion! There’s lots of peer-reviewed evidence indicating that porn of all kinds has seriously damaging effects on people. You might want to check out this article, Brain Chemicals and Porn for more info.

      Blessings,

      Keith

  2. Aly

    I swear. This is like. wow. okay so, yes. porn can be addictive and therefore unhealthy, that I agree with. there are definitely ways to consume this media safely, without fear of addiction, such as time restrictions, and blocking specific content. But I say this in a sense that all porn CAN be bad, but there are some that definitely aren’t. Things like fetishes and bdsm happen in what we call as “porn” quite often, and not just in hentai. Yes, because the illustrators and authors can draw and write literally anything, then there are bound to be fetishes. But if you view that content and you don’t want to develop those fetishes (which if you don’t care then by all means go for it, who am I to dictate your life?), then that’s your fault. If you can’t restrict yourself from watching things that would be considered inhumane and you don’t want to watch, then you are the problem. Just because it’s out there, doesn’t mean that all of a sudden it’s not your fault if you watch it. Many people such as myself enjoy this, and only this media. As a sex-repulsed asexual, this and self stimulation are the only ways to feel sexual pleasure, but I only do this, like once a month, or every two months. I can control myself, and make sure that what i’m watching doesn’t get out of hand, and if it starts to go off the tracks, then I stop for a while and try to find things that I can enjoy that I know are what would be considered “normal”. Plus, if you can’t enjoy real girls anymore because you’ve watched to many fictional girls get assaulted, fetishized or raped, well, sorry but that’s on you buddy.
    Make choices for yourselves.

    • Francois Bedard

      I’m 20 years old and just started getting interested in the morality of porn and hentai. I’m exceptionally interested in the opinions of actual pornstars (male and female) as well as doujin artists (also male and female).

      I’m not going to pretend like I’m an expert or anything, but what I can do is speak from experience.

      First of all. I discovered porn at an early age (to early in my opinion, I didn’t even know what masturbating was yet). It didn’t take long for me to get addicted to the stuff (anime or real, I didn’t care). To conclude this little segment, I actually started watching WAY LESS porn after I learned how to masturbate. It practically cured my FIRST addiction.

      Anyway, after I started watching porn less frequently, I started putting more thought into what I wanted to watch. What drew me to hentai (anime porn) and doujinshi (manga porn) wasn’t the excuse that it was more morale correct in any way (I still didn’t care at that point). I liked how the characters depicted (animated or drawn) are more then just pretty faces; They have names and personalities, something I just don’t feel when watching regular porn.

      With that said, time to give my answer to the big question; Is hentai bad and is it bad for you. My answers are ”it depends” and ”it depends”.

      IS HENTAI BAD?
      First of all anime porn is EXTREMLY divers, even more so then regular porn, so it’s unfair to group them all together and label them as good or bad. I’m not going to lie, anime porn can get truly immoral.

      That said, these hentai are fare from my favorites. The vast majority of the time, I actually enjoy reading/watching wholesome hentai featuring happy and healthy sexual contact between characters how actually love each other.

      IS HENTAI BAD FOR YOU?
      Time to bring up my second addiction. When I was only 15 or 16, my grandmother and grandfather both died within a few months of each other and a year before that, my great grandmother died. To top it all of what I’m only going to describe as a ”custody problem” made everything worse. I just couldn’t handle it all and started consuming an excessive amount of anime porn in an attempt to forget about my problems.

      I started fighting with my family (which lasted 4 years) and convinced myself it was because my they didn’t approve of anime porn. Whit that in mind, I tried to stop watching anime porn, sometimes for weeks at a time, but it never made anything better. Only after I faced my problems and dealt with them, did reducing my consumption of hentai (anime porn) actually do anything.

      TO CONCLUDE, hentai (anime porn) can be absolutely vile and degrading, but it can also be as beautiful as a nude painting or an explicit sex seen in a romantic novel. Also, anything can be a bad thing when consumed addictively. My personal experience with addiction leads me to believe that it’s more of a symptom of a much larger issue.

      PS: I’ve been using hentai (anime porn) and doujinshi (manga porn) together because a lot of anime porn is actually adapted from manga porn.

      I’m actually really curious about what you have to say. Am I a sadistic pedophile how should be behind bars, or does what I have to say carry merit. Either way, I what to hear other peoples opinions.

  3. stillknow

    I had an issue with being able to voice my ideas, being blocked or circumvented all the time, as if omeone from the future knew each time and came back into that time to stop me from posting, i guess this post might also get nixed, but the main concern is what are we doing all this for, either play or work, it all has to be for something…..so porn is to relax? unload? why because we get so stressed? Lets talk about releasing this stress another way and now sex is just for procreation. end of problem.

  4. yaright

    Hi all, I have a problem when it comes to porn, so I try to watch cartoons instead thinking it is less of an issue, yet too many times I still feel like i did something wrong, is it the act of watching, condoning or masterbation that is the problem I dont know, but i have found that pornhub modifes itself to your liking, then offers ever more intrusive or extreme versions of what you were watching before like it knows what you want and offers it to you. I offer this advice to anyone watching, dont for as long as you can, then do it, forgive yourself, then dont watch it for as long as you can, i used to watch it 3 times day, now down to 1 time per month…about…. anyways, ive improved, but still need lots of work…i am hoping we can all find what we are searching for or need, either redemption or saving or a mate, but i know i am no longer supposed to be doing what i am doing, just slowly limiting it down to what i can.
    Thank you God love you God

  5. Iprayforgod

    Bruh i think everyone who watches porn know it’s bad regardless of what happens in it. You aren’t changing anything.

  6. Weeb-Sama

    Entire blog just seems like a bunch of hypocrisy, excuses and personal viewings rather then general research for every section and tag of hentai. Next time please give legitimate reasons rather then you just sugar coating real porn. After all, the live action is always worse.

  7. Debra

    If a woman chooses to appear on an adult film/magazine or lend her voice to a animated pornograpic film it is her choice. And as an American citizen I (or we) should respect her decision in doing so. For that matter, most of thies actors already have a correir in the adult entertainment. So for them this (Especially with their close on) is very easy for them. The voice acting I mean.

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