Pornography: The Misunderstood Pleasure
Everywhere you turn these days it seems that people are bashing on pornography. Just the other night I was watching the Glen Beck show on CNN, and he was doing a special on this supposed “epidemic” and was following along the same lines as the rest of the self-righteous people in this land who want something they can blame for all the problems we are facing.
Porn is not the problem.
The majority of the cases you read or hear about where someone did something evil or vile, i.e. rape, murder, child molestation, whatever one of the first things that the investigation seems to look for is whether or not the criminal looked at porn. That is always blamed as the reason for their behavior. I am not here to say that is does not have an effect on people. If you are already a messed up individual, grew up in a sexually repressed home where any mention of anything sexual was totally taboo, than yes, porn may have a negative effect of you. But if you understand what it is you are looking at and watching and the taboo can be removed then it can be an excellent source of pleasure. The news never tells this side though. They won’t tell you about how the murderer grew up in a home where he was neglected, beaten up, and not shown any love at all. They will just tell you about all the evil porn found on his computer.
What about all the failed marriages? Often times couples site porn addiction as the main cause of a failed marriage. How many times have we seen this scenario? One of the partners (usually the man) is caught looking at porn behind his wife’s back. He begins to uncover fantasies never before even considered and over time becomes a much more sexual person. He begins to want to explore new ideas and new frontiers in sex and this freaks her out. Maybe she comes from that oh-so-common American background that “porn is the root of all evil” and all that. So he is becoming enlightened and she can’t handle that. She begins to look at him as disgusting and deviant. This causes resentment from him towards her and furthers his secret surfing of porn. He is trapped in a web where he can not get enough. His secret sexual appetite is growing as his open sexual relationship with his spouse is shrinking. Eventually he gets desperate enough that he goes out and fulfills his needs someplace else, has an affair, and the end result 9 times out of 10 is a divorce and a destroyed family.
Now I realize that this is a pretty general story and that there often times is much more going on that what we know. Maybe there were other problems. Maybe he couldn’t handle the new appetites he was developing and they consumed him. There are many different things that could contribute to the failure of the marriage. But the blame almost always goes to the porn, and the man is almost always portrayed as a freak sicko. This is what I am trying to prevent, and I look at this scenario in a whole different way.
What if the stigma was taken out of porn? What if there were adult movie theaters in every town that were just as common as the regular movies? Of course there would still be age restrictions and such, but the point is what if pornography was taken out of the shadows and back alleys of American and accepted as a part of the human experience? Mankind is, after all, a sexual creature and we have been for as long as we have existed. So why should we try to suppress this natural urge and deny our natural selves?
It is my suggestion that, generally speaking, if we were to do this and take away the taboo and mystique of porn then a lot of the stigma attached to it would go away. If you tell your child that he is not to open that box but then walk away, leaving it within his reach, what do you think he is going to do? But if you told him what was in the box and took away the mystery, he wouldn’t be near as interested in it. Porn would be the same way. If the mystery and secret of it were to be removed than a lot of the problems associated with it would also go away. I am not naïve enough to think that all problems would go away, but let’s go back to my original example and look at it from a different perspective.
Suppose the man had actually been looking at porn since he was a teenager but nobody knew. He knew, deep down inside, that he would be laughed at, scorned and ridiculed for this exploration of his sexuality because porn was evil. He had been trained his whole life to believe that this was so. He had been trained to try to suppress his carnal self and control his sexual appetites. This made his dirty little secret that much dirtier in the back of his mind, and as a result nobody knew. His single biggest fear was someone finding out.
So growing up her followed along the path laid out before him by his parents and society. Eventually he married a beautiful woman and they began a life together. For the first little while he was still able to hide his true side from his wife but eventually she began to notice little things. You see, his little secret was so “evil” that he could not even be open with his wife about it. She began to notice things though, and eventually she found out. This leads them down the path we talked about earlier.
But if he could have just been honest with her up front about it, if that stigma of evil and bad was not there and had not prevented him from having to hide his true self, she most likely would not have even married him. After all, would they still even be compatible? He would have found someone more like himself, someone who better understood him and his craving and desires, and they would have been much better off. You see, it wasn’t the porn that destroyed his marriage, it was the secret. It was society’s perception of how evil and vile it was that caused him to keep it a secret and that lead to his failed marriage.
The secret, not the porn, is what destroys marriages.
And I know that the majority of people out there my question if there are even any women out there who would be compatible with a guy like this, and I am here to tell you that there are. They are just living in secret, hiding their true selves for the same reasons that the man does. You can’t recognize them from the outside. They don’t wear signs that say “I am a sexual, porn-watching freak” but they are there. If the stigma was taken away and people were able to come out and be themselves it would surprise society just how many of them are out there. I know. I have met many of them.
How do I know this? Because I have been looking at porn for as long as I can remember. I remember sneaking peeks at my uncles playboys when I was as young as 8. And, like the gentleman in my story, I hid my secret fantasies from the world for many, many years. I lived my life in constant fear of being found out, of being ridiculed and being condemned for something that was as natural and normal to me as eating and sleeping. It is an integral part of who I am. My wife knows this. She didn’t when we first got married and it led to some very rough times between us, but we have come through it and are doing great. She even enjoys it with me from time to time now, and we have opened new sexual horizons together that 10 years ago we would never have been able to discuss.
Like anything else, though, porn can be addictive and it can lead to deviant behavior. I compare it to alcoholism. I enjoy a drink every now and again. When I go to parties I may even get drunk. But I know my limits and I know when to stop. I control the alcohol, it doesn’t control me. Porn needs to be the same way. Use it, enjoy it, but don’t overdue it. Self mastery is important in every aspect of life, and it is only through this that we can enjoy the pleasures of this life and embrace our true human selves.
Porn is not the problem.
The majority of the cases you read or hear about where someone did something evil or vile, i.e. rape, murder, child molestation, whatever one of the first things that the investigation seems to look for is whether or not the criminal looked at porn. That is always blamed as the reason for their behavior. I am not here to say that is does not have an effect on people. If you are already a messed up individual, grew up in a sexually repressed home where any mention of anything sexual was totally taboo, than yes, porn may have a negative effect of you. But if you understand what it is you are looking at and watching and the taboo can be removed then it can be an excellent source of pleasure. The news never tells this side though. They won’t tell you about how the murderer grew up in a home where he was neglected, beaten up, and not shown any love at all. They will just tell you about all the evil porn found on his computer.
What about all the failed marriages? Often times couples site porn addiction as the main cause of a failed marriage. How many times have we seen this scenario? One of the partners (usually the man) is caught looking at porn behind his wife’s back. He begins to uncover fantasies never before even considered and over time becomes a much more sexual person. He begins to want to explore new ideas and new frontiers in sex and this freaks her out. Maybe she comes from that oh-so-common American background that “porn is the root of all evil” and all that. So he is becoming enlightened and she can’t handle that. She begins to look at him as disgusting and deviant. This causes resentment from him towards her and furthers his secret surfing of porn. He is trapped in a web where he can not get enough. His secret sexual appetite is growing as his open sexual relationship with his spouse is shrinking. Eventually he gets desperate enough that he goes out and fulfills his needs someplace else, has an affair, and the end result 9 times out of 10 is a divorce and a destroyed family.
Now I realize that this is a pretty general story and that there often times is much more going on that what we know. Maybe there were other problems. Maybe he couldn’t handle the new appetites he was developing and they consumed him. There are many different things that could contribute to the failure of the marriage. But the blame almost always goes to the porn, and the man is almost always portrayed as a freak sicko. This is what I am trying to prevent, and I look at this scenario in a whole different way.
What if the stigma was taken out of porn? What if there were adult movie theaters in every town that were just as common as the regular movies? Of course there would still be age restrictions and such, but the point is what if pornography was taken out of the shadows and back alleys of American and accepted as a part of the human experience? Mankind is, after all, a sexual creature and we have been for as long as we have existed. So why should we try to suppress this natural urge and deny our natural selves?
It is my suggestion that, generally speaking, if we were to do this and take away the taboo and mystique of porn then a lot of the stigma attached to it would go away. If you tell your child that he is not to open that box but then walk away, leaving it within his reach, what do you think he is going to do? But if you told him what was in the box and took away the mystery, he wouldn’t be near as interested in it. Porn would be the same way. If the mystery and secret of it were to be removed than a lot of the problems associated with it would also go away. I am not naïve enough to think that all problems would go away, but let’s go back to my original example and look at it from a different perspective.
Suppose the man had actually been looking at porn since he was a teenager but nobody knew. He knew, deep down inside, that he would be laughed at, scorned and ridiculed for this exploration of his sexuality because porn was evil. He had been trained his whole life to believe that this was so. He had been trained to try to suppress his carnal self and control his sexual appetites. This made his dirty little secret that much dirtier in the back of his mind, and as a result nobody knew. His single biggest fear was someone finding out.
So growing up her followed along the path laid out before him by his parents and society. Eventually he married a beautiful woman and they began a life together. For the first little while he was still able to hide his true side from his wife but eventually she began to notice little things. You see, his little secret was so “evil” that he could not even be open with his wife about it. She began to notice things though, and eventually she found out. This leads them down the path we talked about earlier.
But if he could have just been honest with her up front about it, if that stigma of evil and bad was not there and had not prevented him from having to hide his true self, she most likely would not have even married him. After all, would they still even be compatible? He would have found someone more like himself, someone who better understood him and his craving and desires, and they would have been much better off. You see, it wasn’t the porn that destroyed his marriage, it was the secret. It was society’s perception of how evil and vile it was that caused him to keep it a secret and that lead to his failed marriage.
The secret, not the porn, is what destroys marriages.
And I know that the majority of people out there my question if there are even any women out there who would be compatible with a guy like this, and I am here to tell you that there are. They are just living in secret, hiding their true selves for the same reasons that the man does. You can’t recognize them from the outside. They don’t wear signs that say “I am a sexual, porn-watching freak” but they are there. If the stigma was taken away and people were able to come out and be themselves it would surprise society just how many of them are out there. I know. I have met many of them.
How do I know this? Because I have been looking at porn for as long as I can remember. I remember sneaking peeks at my uncles playboys when I was as young as 8. And, like the gentleman in my story, I hid my secret fantasies from the world for many, many years. I lived my life in constant fear of being found out, of being ridiculed and being condemned for something that was as natural and normal to me as eating and sleeping. It is an integral part of who I am. My wife knows this. She didn’t when we first got married and it led to some very rough times between us, but we have come through it and are doing great. She even enjoys it with me from time to time now, and we have opened new sexual horizons together that 10 years ago we would never have been able to discuss.
Like anything else, though, porn can be addictive and it can lead to deviant behavior. I compare it to alcoholism. I enjoy a drink every now and again. When I go to parties I may even get drunk. But I know my limits and I know when to stop. I control the alcohol, it doesn’t control me. Porn needs to be the same way. Use it, enjoy it, but don’t overdue it. Self mastery is important in every aspect of life, and it is only through this that we can enjoy the pleasures of this life and embrace our true human selves.
posted by The Idahoan at 9:46 AM
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