Hooked on Porn
I have been writing articles for my upcoming sex education website paying special attention on outlining my articles on porn. While I will attempt to provide some useful info on a category of 13,000 products that fail to come with instructions, I do not plan on selling porn. Not that it wouldn’t be a great cash cow but I haven’t made money from porn online so far so now is a great time NOT to start. I feel that in a sea of ’sex products’ pornography is the one commodity that adds absolutely no value to consumer’s life. And it’s going to be quite interesting to write how porn fails to deliver on all levels and go through the long list of misinformation that is propagated by porn.
Yesterday I watched BBC3’s 2007 special Teens Hooked on Porn (it is available on Youtube) and I was quite shocked. For the past year I have been keen to progressively kick one of my partners into sex rehab after realizing that his addiction to online dating sites and porn is keeping him back in all areas of life. I was shocked to see these 16-year-old boys progressively destroy their potential for life enjoyment though abusive use of pornography. How sad it is to discover sexuality as a packaged product rather than the old fashion way (secretly making out in the shed!?) When you think about it, us girls still had to put up with old gropey pervs who made inappropriate comments when we were growing up (in the 80’s) altering our perception of adulthood, sexuality and men. And it sucked. When boys tap into pornography they are inviting the same kind of ideas, short-circuiting their brain before they even develop their ability to socialize with their peers and girls. What I have been discovering over the past 5 years of talking about porn and asking questions is that porn is very harmful to men in so many ways.
So about a month ago I realized that I did not want to enter into a lifelong commitment with someone whom I feel is on the road to personal destruction. And I am not talking here about how his addictions are fucking up any and all chances for us to have a normal relationship but how it is first and foremost making him his worst enemy. Sex addiction is tricky because it would appear that it has very little to do with sex and a lot to do with socio-affective anxiety. I live for the day I can take him along when traveling around the world to document that happy, joyful, sad and shocking state of sex around the world today, however, at this stage he would not be able to deal with this and not because of the topic of sex, because of the issues of violence, hate, anger, misogyny and bullying that surround the commercialization of sex as a product.
I was quite surprised that rather than walk away he has made every effort to address the situation seeking a therapist for weekly sessions and going to SAA group 2-3 times a week. He even deleted all his online dating accounts and porn and has maintained sobriety for over a month. While I am very impressed, it is most interesting to talk about it and see his outlook change from a culture of outside validation to a state of inner satisfaction with accomplishing a bunch of stuff he had put off. Because that is the issue here… not HOW he spends his time (he could be wasting time gaming or drinking… it’s all the same) but the fact that he makes a concerned effort to accomplish things that are important to him and that is what fills the well of self worth, creates joy and attracts interaction with other joyful people.
More and more I feel that addiction to porn or reliance on less mindfull entertainment like video games, movies/TV and online memes is a sign that someone has fallen into the soul killing downward spiral of :
Loneliness and Boredom
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
