Transcription
With regard to sexuality, you said that it is a good question to ask yourself: who is in control? Well, yeah, that's the question, isn't it? You know, if you're masturbating to pornography and the consequence of that is an immediate influx of guilt, then you have to ask yourself who's in control.
That's a really important question. Who's in control? That's what terrified me about developing some psychoanalytic acumen. Because once you realize that you're a house that many spirits can and do inhabit, and that many of them aren't you, and that many of them aren't working towards the purposes you might want yourself to be working to, that's the realization of the myth that you're embodying.
From the union perspective, it's a very, very serious question. The fundamental human myth is Cain versus Abel. So who are you? Are you Cain or Abel? Well, the answer is you're both. And then the question is, well, who's got the upper hand?
Then the next question is, who do you want to have the upper hand? Is it God and Abel or Satan and Cain? That's a question that's just as germane to non-believers as it is to believers. Isn't that remarkable and appalling and overwhelming and terrifying all at the same time, if you have any sense of what it means?
So if your behavior is embarrassing you, well, there are only two possibilities, isn't there? You shouldn't be so embarrassed. I suppose the voice that says yes to all expression of human sexuality would say that your guilt and shame is merely the detrimental hangover of an oppressive patriarchy that's judgmental in its attitudes towards sexuality.
Well, yeah, well, what would you use judgment to differentiate if it isn't sexuality? So I don't think that argument goes anywhere. You have to consult your own conscience.
Like, I know the conscience can become an oppressive force on its own. That's the indwelling of the great tyrant, you know? Freud made much of that—a too oppressive superego. I've certainly seen clients whose expression of healthy sexuality was inhibited by a too rigid superego. That can definitely happen.
But that doesn't mean that all guilt about all forms of sexual expression constitutes a superego run amok. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there was some relationship between the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which, according to Randy Thornhill, by the way, who's perhaps the world's top biological thinker on this particular topic, believed that the liberalism of the 60s was a consequence, at least in part, and in large part, I should say, of the hygienic revolution of the previous six decades and more.
That revolution enabled us to reduce the impact, at least in the West, of infectious diseases. Because we were much less prone to the transmission and receipt of infectious diseases, we could afford to be more liberal by the 1960s. So we got more sexually liberal. And what happened? AIDS.
I say that without prejudice. And what's the most effective means of facilitating the reproduction of a deadly virulent agent and its propagation through the population? Unrestrained sexual behavior. So that would be a multitude of partners.
So sexual shame is there for a reason, and it's not a trivial reason. It's not just going to go away because we may waive the magic wand and make the patriarchal oppressor vanish. And that's not going to happen either, by the way.
So if you're ashamed about your sexual behavior, then you have to ask yourself: is the shame wrong, or is the sexual behavior wrong? And I'm asking you. I'm not judging your behavior because what the hell do I know about you? I have enough trouble with my own behavior.
So, you know, this is on you. Is your shame what you should be dispensing with, or the behavior? And you know, it might be a little a column and a little column b because life is never simple.
But if you don't feel ennobled by your porn-related masturbation, then perhaps that means it's of questionable utility. I certainly don't see it as a stabilizing social force. I don't see it as something people do in public and brag about.
And I know that sexual behavior is private and should remain that way, but you get what I'm driving at. So look, I think people shouldn't lie, especially to themselves.
I think repeatedly engaging in a behavior that you judge yourself to be morally reprehensible is a form of performative contradiction, which is the acting out of a lie. I suspect you know that, or you wouldn't be asking the question.
So, you know, what should you do with pornography? Well, you know the answer to that, and so does everybody else. Everyone knows it's not good. It's not good for those who produce it. It's not good for those who participate, willingly or unwittingly, because there's plenty of them in its production.
It's not good for its consumers, or certainly not the highest good. And what's the highest good? Sexuality incorporated within a functional intimate relationship bound by vows of mutual celibacy. We all know that too.
That stabilizes our families, it stabilizes our societies, it stabilizes our psyches. So anything you do that isn't in service of that goal is likely to be counterproductive. I suspect it's your own psyche, your own soul, telling you that.
So if your sexuality, if your sexual behavior isn't an expression of your highest being, then it isn't serving you in the deepest sense. You're serving it, and that's what your shame indicates.
So get out there and find a partner and commit to her or him. Do you have any advice on what to do with porn and masturbation? The less porn, the better. That's my advice.
But let's make that more specific. To the degree that the use of porn and masturbation is undermining your sense of yourself and providing you with a dearth of motivational reasons to get out there and engage with a real partner, then it's definitely not in your best interest.
And that's what your conscience is telling you, you know? It's the expedient at the expense of the meaningful, obviously, right? Obviously, there isn't any more obvious manifestation of the expedient at the expense of the meaningful than pornography and masturbation.
And that's hardly a heroic path. So maybe the less of it, the better. I'm aware, by the way, of this statistic showing that the introduction of pornography into a community doesn't raise but lowers rape probability.
I think that's a separate discussion from this, but I just want you to know I'm not ignorant of that.