Is porn watching harmless?!?!

An open letter, response to professor Simon Lajeunesse

Porn and masturbation addiction

Porn watching seems harmless, at least at the first sight. It seems harmless to many women as well, because female gender does not get as exited watching porn. In her book, “Peace between the Sheets” [now updated as Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationship], Marnia Robinson has explained beautifully why “normal” love making can provoke mood disorders, social anxiety, hostility and distance between the partners, especially in men!

Conventional sex is good only for producing children, but are we using it only for that purpose? No, of course, and we should not. Sex and love ought to merge if we want to call ourselves Homo sapiens – sentient beings. Love making has levels, and they “end” somewhere in the endless eternity of our Selves. Nowadays science rediscovers the universal truths hidden in the ancient experience of many systems for self development – yoga, tantra, dao, so on. Science rediscovers those practical truths using all this rigorous and objective methodology of the scientific research. The Tibetan “drops” and “winds” are translated into scientific language into neurotransmitters, hormonal reactions, neural nets changes and neural system signals transmissions.

During my studies in psychology and cognitive science I realized that one should not accept someone’s opinion just because he/ she has some titles before his name. Being a professor and PhD sometimes demonstrates only long a term of serving some University – no more, no less. But, of course, when the common person sees the title "Professor," his inborn herd instinct makes him believe unquestionably in the leading authority.

Why I am writing this? Let us see how the land lies. The young teen boy undergoes tremendous hormonal/ biochemical changes, wakening his libido. Our hypothetical youngster lives in the social context of widespread free porn broadcasting – 24/7.

The official authorities who guide him through his sexual, but also love, maturation, i.e. the doctors, say: “masturbation is perfectly harmless, just do it, it is completely normal, there is no evidence it causes any harm or weakness!”

The young boy has already watched porn since his early childhood – porn is now available since having the first desktop or laptop, which happens at earlier and earlier age. So far, so good.

In psychology know well the stages of psychosexual development – till about seven years of age, there is normal child masturbation. But from seven till 13-14 years the child passes thru the so called "latent stage" and has no sexual appetites at all – unless they are artificially roused prematurely. But the child is not ready for that – neither its mind, nor its brain and hormones.

Today the child watches the porn anyway, and tries to masturbate, performs hours of frictions in front of the computer monitor at this very fragile age. At this age, between 7 and 14, kid must also establish his social and intersexual values, norms, to form his mental constitution, beliefs and character.

The computer and porn watching, which seize the young and unprepared consciousness, becomes a third parent, even more influential than the two biological ones. The child forms the beliefs that the other gender and the world itself are made for unscrupulous narcistic, egocentric use.

The computer does not put any norms, standards and guidelines in front of the developing psyche. Combined with the games and films, full of aggression and killing, the picture of the contemporary kid becomes clear. We just have to observe the behavior of the children at very young age around us and we can not be blind to all the vulgarity and violence, growing together with the kids. But they are not guilty – they do not produce and allow all this pornographic abundance, game and movie violence.

The real disaster commence in the puberty. Let us trace the life of our young boy. He steps into his teen years and of course, undergoes immense hormonal explosions. He has computer and unlimited free access to live porn movies – directly online, without need of downloadings – just one click away… And of course, his mind, and the brain behind it are being mightily confined to sexual images.

All men know how powerful is sexual desire in the teen years – and of course, masturbation is normal to some extent. But with the help of contemporary technology and with the blessings of the experts and governments, this otherwise normal teen masturbation every now and then becomes uncontrollable. It is like giving free heroin to drug addicted. Every teen boy is very susceptible to any sexual stimuli.

In a normal society, teen years would be used for channeling the sexual energy, so it can work for the benefits of the person himself, and for the whole society around him/her. After all, the sexual force is the same force behind love, volition and happiness, but in its raw state. It needs to be transformed, channeled.

Always, through the course of time, teen years have been the time for exaggerated masturbation. But nowadays the masturbation in the teen years is not only prolonged and made more frequent – it is practiced to the point of complete exhaustion, directly overstimulated through intensely arousing pornographic movies.

This early sexual overstimulation causes earlier start of the sexual life – even at 12 and less years of age. Although it sounds bad, those youngsters who begin their sexual life earlier, have better chances for psychological stability and therefore, for social and professional realization in the long run, if they learn how to channel their sexual desire for greater ends – most of all the boys, of course, because they are far more affected by the pornographic bum.

The others just get hooked to their drug – masturbation in front of the next porn movie. And not just porn – one can watch fetishes, grandmothers, children, violence and so on - explicit sexual intercourse. For a man, this is worse than a drug – it just grabs the brain and squeezes it to the last neurochemical drop. It squeezes the life of the compulsive masturbator as well.

Now, let us say that our teen boy is a fully grown man. He has finished some university, works at something, maybe he even has relationship… But despite his honest and severe efforts, he can not cut off his masturbation habits, and touches himself and ejaculates every convenient time. He has tried millions of times to overcome his addiction – but it is so strong and so deeply engraved in his brain circuits, that he is helpless.

The hormonal pendulum has had great impact on his character shaping and tosses him from irritability, anger and hostility to withdrawal and challenge avoidance. He thinks that this is his normal self and his normal character – but such a man does not even know himself. He has just been a victim of porn. And overcoming this dependency requires enormous efforts and inspiration – the best way, of course, is sacred sexuality. It heals the hormonal wounds and thus the character and social, professional and interpersonal interactions. Of course, all I have written above is very general – one can write a novel on the subject!

My brief message is: do not believe in the experts' titles. Trust honest science, your own experience and the experience of those who have already been on the same track – since ancient times until now!

Orlin Baev, psychologist and psychotherapist
Bulgaria, Sofia

Be Healthy!!!