Let's talk about porn
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Let's talk about porn
We need to talk about porn.
Society has a fairly relaxed view about porn, with an attitude prevailing that, “porn does no harm,” “it fills natural urges” and “offers a healthy release of stress for men.” But is this really true – are we in denial about the true harm of porn and its ubiquitous nature?
We could consider the pornification of our society – in music videos, television and on all our social media channels – and the insidious harm this causes to our perception of relationships and how men view women, and how younger and younger boys view girls.
“Kids under the age of 10 now account for 22% of online porn consumption among the under 18 age.”[1]
- Take a moment to consider the ramifications of such a statistic and what this means in terms of relationships and behaviour.
Has porn taken over the world?
The acceleration of technology in the last 10 years has seen the proliferation of screens everywhere. In the past we had very limited computers, and before that magazines. Now we have laptops, tablets, smartphones and even watches with screens, and they are often on our person 24/7. This screen time fix has fed porn – and often hardcore porn – to the masses, to all ages, to schoolboys as young as 6, and to every remote corner of the globe. No more “dirty videotapes” like in the 80’s and 90’s. Porn is a hit, swipe or flick of the screen away.
And boy it gets hits! Porn is the most searched entity on the Internet, far outstripping anything else – “Every second 28,258 users are watching pornography on the internet.”[2]
Porn is readily considered a part of man’s natural urges, but we should look deeper. Anyone who views porn craves what all of us crave – love – and if that is true, and we observe the enormous spread of porn on the internet, then we are collectively starving ourselves of love and intimate connection and replacing it with something far, far less fulfilling. How does our porn obsession really sit with us on this planet?
Last year alone, 91,980,225,000 videos were watched on Pornhub. That’s 12.5 videos for every person on the planet.[3]
Is porn pollution?
We think of pollution in terms of carbon, but what if pollution is found in every unloving behaviour we engage in? Could we consider that porn leaves an energetic footprint and though perhaps unseen, is spread across the world with every view? Just how polluted is our world from this unseen but strongly felt energetic choice?
Imagine if a visitor to earth were to investigate our human nature. What would their impression and findings be? We might very well be polluting our world with unimaginable amounts of the most loveless, violent and degrading material this planet has ever witnessed – and passing it off as normal.
And that visitor might also ask, why the strong desire for something ultimately so unfulfilling? For being honest, every person who has indulged in porn can tell you how unfulfilling it is, how empty it leaves you. It is quite often why it has such an addictive nature . . . just one more page, one more site, searching for something you will never find there. Searching for a replacement for the intimacy that only committed, honest, heartfelt relationships can give you – relationships that must start with ourselves firstly, with recognising that we need to value and care for ourselves as our starting point.
Has there ever been a bigger lie than the one that considers porn part of “man’s natural urges”?
And what of hardcore porn, a hugely searched entity? We don’t like to openly discuss the fetishes and violent tendencies that many get off on, because if we did we might actually have to accept we are collectively unwell, and actually making ourselves quite lonely. As a society we are missing something and our barometer of wellness is on a very low setting. We view paedophilia as sick, and of course it is deeply disturbing, yet we turn a blind eye to other aspects of violence found in the hardcore porn industry, the human trafficking (modern slavery), the rampant abuse and the ruthless exploitation of women that abounds. We sweep the ugliness of these factors to the side as nothing more than an inconvenience to our argument that porn is harmless and natural.
If one view of a porn site contributes to the trafficking of a ten-year-old child into the sex slave industry, isn’t that one view more than we should deem acceptable? Isn’t it time for an energetically responsible approach to the harm of porn?
Could we just fully accept that porn does harm!! It is a step away from our intelligent, beautiful loving selves. We surely must, for who we are and what we want is not found in degrading sex acts performed by strangers. We all have so much love to give, because that is ultimately what we are made of; a love that is compassionate, caring, considerate, kind, tender and sweet – qualities that are deep within us all, and yet none of these qualities are in porn.
We have a choice to make: we can detach from truly feeling and remove ourselves from our natural state, or we get honest, get real and admit to what it is we want to experience, and why porn can play no part in a fulfilling, intimate, love-filled life.
Porn does harm – no question – just not in the obvious abuse we observe in those involved in the industry, but on a personal level, whereby every person engaging in it is hooked into a show that is draining and degrading. We all want more, and really it is for us to ask ourselves the question of why porn is our go to, and what it is we are really in search of instead.
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Connection, Feelings, Intimacy, Making love, Pornography, Relationships
