Speaker A
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? And 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, and that's the realization of the myth that you're embodying from the Yion perspective. It's a very, very serious question. The fundamental human myth is Cain versus Abel, and 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? And then the next question is, who do you want to have the upper hand? Is it God and Abel or Satan and Cain? And that's a question that's just as germane to non-believers as it is to believers. And 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's only two possibilities, isn't there? You shouldn't be so embarrassed. And 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, and Freud made much of that, a too oppressive superego. And 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, Thornhill 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 enabled us to reduce the impact, at least in the West, of infectious diseases. And 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. And 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. And so that would be a multitude of partners. So sexual shame is there for a reason, and it's not a trivial reason, and it's not just going to go away because we may wave 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? And 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 column A 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, and 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. And I suspect you know that, or you wouldn't be asking the question. And 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, wittingly 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. And we all know that too. That stabilizes our families. It stabilizes our societies. It stabilizes our psyche. And so anything you do that isn't in service of that goal is likely to be counterproductive, and 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 do you have any advice in 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 use of porn and masturbation is undermining your sense of yourself and providing you with a bar 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? And 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.
