Thursday, December 15, 2011

Civili(ty)zation on the Brink


Pornography is an industry that thrives on turning on certain sexual physical appetites innately held in reserve within the mature human body. This is dangerous for society and destructive to the individual.

Sexual impulses along with the drive to survive and to eat are some of the most powerfully motivating forces bottled up in the human body. Along with eating, it is also one of the most pleasurably motivating drives to satisfy.  Regardless of whether you believe in God or are Atheist and subscribe to the evolutionary purposes of natural selection in designing and instilling these powerful, almost overwhelming, and controlling influences wired into our corporeal frames, no one can argue that these passions are real, and real powerful. Within the pathways of carnal sensation the pleasure elicited from stimulating the sexual response cycle carries a gravity which attracts all mature individuals with a healthy functioning body to be drawn back to it, if not at some level to be enticed. However, fully functional Human beings do carry the capacity to reason and to self determine their actions in this regard, notwithstanding. This ability for higher executive brain functions distinguishes us from animals and sets us apart as the dominant creature on this planet.

We have the potential capacity to choose and determine our actions.  In many instances we understand or are cognizant of our choices and attendant consequences, and irrespective of our own drives, have the capacity to dictate how our lives will unfold in a great many important ways. This ability sets us far apart from any other organism on the planet.  However, inherent with the ability to choose our actions and behaviors we also carry the ability to do things that cause us to lose our strength and capacity for rational choice. In allowing our impulses, urges, and appetites to rule us we give up rational and cognizant decisions and give place for base and inherently instinctual impulses designed to merely satisfy a growing and out of control appetite. This state places us in a vulnerable position to also be controlled by others that may realize that we are incapable or unwilling to withstand certain stimulations and are crafty enough to exploit that knowledge for their purposes and at our expense.

Being in control and losing control to natural urges is not inherently like flipping a switch on and off, although demonstratively it may appear so when it happens. There is a range from the one polar, in-control, to the other polar, loss of self control, which must be traversed, and the distance between those polar points is dictated by the habits we have formed. Much like the majority of abilities developed in life our capacities are dependent on innate foundational genetic inheritances and the work of hardening the plasticity of neuronal structures into a given circuitry that functions to quickly determine behavioral responses developed over time as a result of practice, experiences, and desires. The greater the practice in losing self control the faster the loss of control happens when the appropriate stimuli is presented. At the extreme of this scenario is an individual that no longer returns to a weakened state of control but is fully controlled by appetite. Like a person that has been set on fire seeks anything to quench the flames, and stop the burning, these individuals seek to feed an appetite that becomes bigger with every meal. They actively seek out not only stimuli that further whets the appetite but also any and all means to satiate it. This downward spiral has societal implications. Herein, a person fast-tracks down a road that eventually pits them against the norms of society, decency, and the laws set to protect the moorings of civilization. Almost nothing becomes more important than filling the appetite. This downward spiral draws thresholds of deteriorating self will which when breached account for the dramatic and drastic differences displayed by otherwise normal and recognizable individuals in their demeanor, behavior, and personality. Ruled by passion individuals truly lose themselves. They are no longer individuals that can control themselves. They are individuals that are controlled by their baser impulses and become a danger to themselves and to society at large. In this state these people do not think of being decent and civil with other individuals. They do not think on the rights and freedoms of others. They do not care for others but only wherein it suits them to appease the appetite within.

This extreme is the extreme. It accounts for many that are incarcerated on account of being threats to society. But many of the people that support the mutli-billion dollar porn industry are not at that level. The problem arises that in supporting this pernicious business, the unsuspecting or uncaring individual, which may or may not ever get to the worst extreme possible, allows, by support of the establishment, for an ever increasing number of weaker minded individuals to fall deeper into a perverted (twisted) state of mind that facilitates a loss of conscious in other matters like lying, stealing, cheating, rape, and infidelity. In essence the porn industry is a cancer upon civilization. Allowed to thrive it will enslave the mind to appetite on an individual level. Allowed to flourish it will kill the host civilization. Over time its citizens will lose all those qualities that make them civil to begin with. On the inward path of sensual discovery, functional and natural passions will become distorted. Crime rates will rise. Cheating and lying will become the norm. Divorce rates and infidelity will sky-rocket. Economies will start to falter. Confidence and trust in our neighbors will plummet. Ultimately violence will become common and the nation will falter in the necessities for protecting itself from outside aggressors. In short the troubles we see in today’s world is following suit to that of the moral decay that brought about the social and political weaknesses that made Rome of yesterday susceptible to be thrown down.   

Does the fact of this reality make physical pleasure and gratification inherently wrong? No, but it does mean that the expression of these powerful attitude restructuring powers must be done in a manner that does not become deleterious to self or society.  What it means is that the individual must regulate and control the environment and circumstances but most importantly the motives of when and how they allow themselves to tap into these powerful currents, as opposed to allowing it to control them. Power it seems always has the option to be used for great good or great evil. Nuclear reactions can be used to light tens of thousands of homes in a city or it can also be used in a bomb to decimate that city. It matters how we choose to implement and use the power we have.  

Physical Intimacy for this reason is best explored and bridled in a controlled setting, in an environment where there is mutual respect, safety, and love, and in a circumstance where it is used as a tool to give and receive love, appreciation, affection, acceptance and feedback for the purpose of deepening the relationship as well as enjoying one another.  Maybe that’s why sexual relations are often referred to by the term, “knew” their spouse, in the Bible. This paradigm is notably different from pleasuring oneself alone, or at the expense, or manipulation, or worse, coercion, of another. The difference becoming one method is meant to enrich a relationship and bond through open knowledge of how to pleasure each other in a freely given and gratefully received manner, fostering love, union and open communication, in effect endearing each other to one another. In essence this perspective literally means serving another through pleasuring them by the physical act of love. It is giving in nature, and not taking, as the other method so clearly demonstrates. The other method is meant to fulfill a selfish and motivating appetite that relegates each participant as an object in an effort for personal stimulation, devoid or on a less than equal level of honest concern or relation. These acts as well as self stimulation create a cycle of objectifying oneself and others manipulating words, deeds, and feigning feelings and commitments, in essence lying to oneself and others for the pleasurable appetite filling payout but without the reality of a deep, bonding, and abiding relationship. Is it any wonder that on the whole people that break up after being sexually active and spouses that have married and divorced both demonstrate the same signs of depression and battles for sense of self worth? Is it also any wonder that physical intimacy is most fulfilling in long term married couples? Doesn’t this make sense? How else can someone truly come to know the varied and many specific ways that bring joy and pleasure to an individual but through getting to know them over repeated experiences throughout time? And wouldn’t the fact that someone is willing to learn and get better in those methods for your enjoyment make you feel not only more fulfilled on the physically gratifying level but also on an emotionally grateful and consequent love level?

Bottom line!  Choose love over lust. The porn industry peddles lust. Lust makes people burn on the inside until they get to a point where they cause civilization to burn from the outside. If you are not against it, then you are unwittingly, or worse, knowingly, undermining the ability for society to work together civilly interdependent with one another. Instead you will be fostering an environment and advocating for a less civilized and animalistic world order. One which can only lead to chaos and a crueler world diminished of love. Say NO to porn!! And let others know that it’s NOT ok!!           

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