I have been inspired by the recent blog ‘Pornography, Internet & Sex – An Insight into a Distorted World’ and my thanks go to the author for having the courage to start up the conversation on this topic. Nearly all men that I know have been affected by pornography at some point in their life, but it is a topic that bears too much shame to talk about properly – shame that we have been part of it and shame that we have contributed to the abuse of women in this way. Yet the fact is that the author of the above blog is right when he says that porn is something that controls us. It is a drug, a form of addiction, and one that is more common than we care to admit. Like any person in denial, I never thought I had an issue with porn. I was not a serial or frequent user, more an occasional if not rare recreational user, as many people like to explain themselves when defending their use of addictive substances. Yet, when I started to really question my attraction to it, I realised that my occasional foray into porn was having a huge effect on my life…
It is time that we are able to openly talk about the effects of porn on men and women alike, because men too need to be able to talk openly about what is going on here if there is to be true healing, as we are just as affected. As men it affects our ability to experience true love and intimacy with women (and other men) in ways that we don’t even realise. It taints our perception of what is real and what is not, but that is only the beginning. In the end, it owns us. It affects our dreams, our ability to see women in truth, and our ability to connect as men to our own feminine essence (which I can attest does actually exist underneath the hard exterior that so many men think is them).
Why is porn so addictive? What is it that we seek from women when we do this – is it just sexual arousal, or is it intimacy? And if it is intimacy, is that sense of intimacy best described as the ability to be affectionate with another? Maybe, but is it deeper than that? If it is just that, then why do married men do it in such large numbers when they have so much opportunity to be affectionate with their wives? From work, I know that the most serial users of porn are nearly all married men.
As for myself, I began to realise a while ago that seeking porn enabled me to feel like I was being intimate without needing to feel ‘burdened’ by the so called responsibility of being in a relationship. I felt ‘free’ in my experiences with porn. So what did that say about my relationships in life, if that was the case?
In the end I came to realise that I found it difficult to be truly intimate in my relationships because of the perceived burden I associated with them – the burden of being the provider, the bread winner, the strong supportive man, the protector etc, etc. I subconsciously associated the stress of being the provider with my relationship and it took me a long time to dare to admit this, even to myself, because I knew it was not “right” to have such feelings. My refusal to look at this openly made me start to subconsciously resent my partner in the long term. It was after realising this that I began to understand that the temptation and addiction of porn was that it served as an outlet from this stress; a place where I could pretend to experience the intimacy I secretly craved, without the burden of a relationship.
Yet this realisation was not enough to stop me looking at pictures of women posing seductively and wishing I was with them. Although it helped me to understand my attraction to porn, it did not free me completely from its addictive clutches. In order to do that, I needed to go deeper. Eventually I started to question what it was that I was seeking in women in general – what was it that I wanted from them that I could not find in myself? It was then that I realised that I wanted that stillness, that gentle-ness, tenderness, open-ness and vulnerability that women tend to show more easily in the world – characteristics that are drummed out of men by society from a very young age. So, I started to look for those characteristics in myself, and when I did, I began to realise that they are actually there residing within me – EQUALLY SO.
When I discovered this, something curious happened. I began looking at women very differently, as though a veil had been lifted from my eyes. Interestingly, as I increasingly honoured this side of myself, I came to realise that in many respects I was more connected to my female side than many women I observed. I noticed how many women in the world ignored their own female-ness as well, and as a result had become hardened in body and mind, just like the men.
Maybe this is why women are also now turning to porn in increasingly large numbers on the internet – fact. Maybe they en-masse are also starting to miss a way of being that once upon a time was much easier to connect to for women than it was for men, and so now they too turn to porn to fill the hole. Maybe now, intimacy is an expression that is becoming equally suppressed in women.
But the real evil of porn is that it comes laced. True, it does bring relief from stress, and it does SEEM to deliver a feeling of intimacy with a woman, but when you really connect to TRUE intimacy (i.e. intimacy within self) you realise just how short of the truth you were being sold. You were being sold the cheap lookalike watch, but more than that, you were being sold something way more insidious, something that easily becomes very addictive over time. Because in the end, PORN OWNS YOU. It starts to affect the way you look at women in the street, your dreams, the way you look to have sex, the expectations you have from your partner. Eventually – if you do it for long enough – it even strangely starts to affect your libido in real life, as is talked about by a scientific researcher.
When I began to connect with myself more strongly, I went back to porn to see what it was that had dragged me in. I looked not at the bodies of the women, but their eyes, to see if they had what I was feeling deep within me, and it shocked me. Because, if you look deeply into their eyes, they all have the same look, and they all look at you the same way. Their eyes are empty, with a desperation for attention that screams out at you. But underneath that, you see something else. It is like something else is looking out from behind their eyes, as though they too are owned by something, something that leers at you, something that reaches out and says “I’ve got you now and I’m not letting go”. I am talking here about the energy of porn, and it affects both men and women equally.
Not sure what I am talking about? Society has other names for it – seedy, unclean, creepy, sticky – the kind of feeling that makes you want to have multiple showers to cleanse yourself when you have been exposed to it. I had always felt this energy from porn before, but not before I had been seduced by its addictive allure, and only after I had used porn for my own means, and the excitement it offered had subsided. Of course, it was always then accompanied by the guilt and shame that followed after having being fooled again. Now I was seeing it from the outset, and it repelled me.
When I stayed connected to those “feminine” qualities that I could now feel so strongly within me, I could no longer get aroused by the images I saw – I only felt saddened. I saw then not naked women promising to fulfill my fantasies, but young daughters and mothers and sisters, slaves to an energy that now owned them, who were desperate for the attention of men – conversely, falsely hoping that men could bring them what they were missing in themselves.
So there it is. Having said all of that, Porn itself is not the problem, nor the real evil here. The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls. We drum it out of them, tell them to harden up, don’t cry, grow up, be strong, don’t complain when it hurts. Yet deep down those qualities of fragility, tenderness, and vulnerability remain in every man, no matter how hard they have tried to bury them. And when they do try to reconnect to them, society tells them that they are being sissy, gay, soft, pathetic, a whinger.
In a peculiar sort of way there is a perverted honesty about the man who turns to porn as relief from the world around him, as an escape and a refuge from the hardened man he has become. For if he is willing to be reflective for a second, it tells him that something is missing in his life. For me, it was safe, and allowed me to experience the intimacy I so craved without having to open up to the world, or challenge the protective layer I held as a man. And it asked nothing of me in return – or so I thought. Yet when I did challenge who I was, and connected to the beauty that was within me, I was able to finally see the true nature of porn – an addictive, ugly lure that falsely offers to replace something that we deeply miss within ourselves. For me, I realised that what I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child. Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold.
By Adam Warburton, Pottsville, Australia
Related Reading:
Pornography, Internet & Sex, An Insight into a Distorted World
The Harm of Pornography
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
This is a very interesting blog to read Steve, because I heard the other day that people who use porn are actually craving true intimacy which is something that is lacking in society. We are all born sensitive and delicate; you just have to be in the presence of a new born baby to know this. But these feelings are bludgeoned out of us from the start. Boys especially are encouraged from an early age not to cry and to toughen up. When we are able to reconnect and reestablish the beauty that is within us then we find that the energy of addiction has no hold over us any more that we have freed ourselves of its sickly temptations.
Thank you, Adam, for this reminder of my natural fragility, tenderness and gentleness. The way out of porn seduction is indeed to return to that state of being intimate with oneself and having a relationship with oneself first. Avoiding going deeper with oneself and with another is one aspect of why men like to watch porn. But also to get a quick relief from the stresses in life and also to feel the fulfilment of not being rejected, or being able to have power over a woman- is an even darker aspect that is revealed in the theme. For often repugnant acts are portrayed in porn that purposefully subjugate and make the woman submissive – symbolising the subjugation of the sacredness in us. Porn is definitely one of the most damaging tools in the world that destroys men and women, and is the killer of true intimacy and integrity. It also reflects for me the perversity of the energy that purposefully separates us and uses us as game pieces. I can also feel what it does to our thoughts and feelings, how restless and agitated we feel when we are in the throes of porn addiction. This feeling is far away from the described stillness and holiness that makes us feel truly fulfilled and the true form of being.
I have heard from conversations that I have had that ‘porn’ is becoming more and more hard core and subjugating of woman. My question has to be is this because we are finding more and more ways to block or run away from ourselves because we don’t want to feel or admit that we are actually very sensitive human-beings that crave the love that we refuse to give ourselves? The cravings are getting stronger and stronger to reunite with the love we hold within us and to offset this we go further and further into denial and so we are becoming more and more extreme in our behaviours to offset what in truth cannot be off set and that is our return to God.
The energy of porn laces more than just nude images, I often feel it around models fully clothed in advertising, the lure is there to use another body for self interest. What’s great about this article is it’s not condemning or judgmental, just honest to explore and uncover what’s underneath, and sharing that also offers the reader a true healing. Thanks Adam for sharing the truth here.
So much has changed when we let go of these controlling interests, as the way we walk and talk now carries a true energy and this is now reflected for others to also feel, so then the deep-humble-appreciative-ness that we can hold as a man or woman becomes a power-full way of living as it is with all young children!
Having been sexually molested at an early age porn always seem like a forbidden fruit as my life was turned upside down by the reality that was so confusing because of not knowing my sexual orientation. So my dreams became about confusing messages with women having a penis and testicles. Today thanks to the Esoteric Healing I have received, the dreams have gone and I now hold myself as a Truly Loving man.
Porn affects both men and women in a miriad of ways – “it affects our ability to experience true love and intimacy with women (and other men) in ways that we don’t even realise. It taints our perception of what is real and what is not, but that is only the beginning. In the end, it owns us.” – When we stop to feel this, it offers us an opportunity to make a true change and explore further the hold it can have on us and how to let it go and come back to a natural way of being in relationships – after all intimacy is natural to us in the true sense of the word – showing who you are and all of who you are with no holes barred.
Intimacy in its true expression is not supported in our current society and world. We are naturally intimate beings, and when this expression of ourselves is shut down for whatever reasons, we do harden and abandon our natural tenderness and openness and instead adopt a hardness, a closed off approach and in this disconnection we can then choose to use another and abuse another as well as ourselves, rather than honour another and ourselves for the truly delicate and sensitive beings that we are.
Henrietta I agree with you when we close ourselves off from ourselves and humanity then in this disconnection there is every indication that we are more abusive as we lack understanding towards ourselves and others. We are not in charge of our bodies any more it’s as though something else has taken control and we have become the bystander. We are not evil it is the evil that we allow through by being closed off from ourselves.
Thank you Adam for this blog, to often men think that watching porn is innocent and are not aware of the addictive nature and what energy is truly playing out here. I recently spoke with a man about his realization that there is a strong drive and need in him and then feels guilty and bad about it afterwards. To be able to speak about this was for him a great support and a start to uncovering in himself where this is coming from just as you did for you.
I agree Richard, it is crucial to give space to boys, young men and old to feel and sense what arises within them and not bury it. Every boy and man is naturally gentle, sensitive, tender and fragile within even though they may be in protection and carry a hardened body.
Yes Adam, I can vouch a woman that knows her beauty and radiance can smell pornography a mile or many miles away but the more she claims her natural glory and sparkle within, the less she becomes affected by it. She has understanding and says ‘no’ to playing a game that keeps and destroys a man and woman from truly knowing who they are.
In the world of addictions, we move first and choose. Once we settle into our choice, we are owned by it (them). We need it (them) to go about our life. It becomes our point of return, of confirmation, of identification. It brings meaning to life. It is a miniscule all that shows us our capacity to reduce life to a point and make it our everything.
The world is full of addictions, like we are being controlled by an unseen force.
Porn—just nominate and cut it. It once crept into my bedroom when I first dated someone I deeply love. And the simplicity was, porn can never compare to the level of true intimacy we have experienced in that bedroom and beyond. Simply saying that has cut it, as Truth was felt.
i love this simple sweetness you bring it back to. Porn cannot compare with the tenderness and openness we are naturally capable of.
This is fascinating. And it is sad that pornography cannot be always seen for what it is, and that people, men and women, can be so taken by it – a self feeding industry that looks to have no end and is stretching its tendrils out beyond the false reality of the flat screen and in to the daily reality of life as sex-trafficking is becoming more and more fervent throughout the world.
Having read this before something new stood out to me and that was how men look at women when porn has influenced them. What also occurred to me is that more boys and girls are looking at porn at a younger age these days, so what would the quality of their relationships be for the years ahead.
Porn is no different than any addiction – once you go there it can pull you in and take a hold.
The feeling of being responsible for your partner and shouldering the burden of providing for them must be a huge kill joy, and would definitely impact on being able to enjoy intimacy with them. Clearly you will not feel light and loving with someone who you feel the pressure to support them, feeling like they a weight to carry. This could lead to resentment, lack of appreciation and also feeling you deserve some relief from this ball and chain. What a huge setup for men in relationships to look elsewhere for intimacy.
“But the real evil of porn is that it comes laced.” – You are sold short of the truth, and tricked (allowed by yourself) so that you do not seek the real deal. Hence it cannot but affect you in your relationships with self and all others. Now this is not a pleasant realisation!
Brilliant expose Adam, and great to hear a man’s perspective written with honesty and having come through to the ‘other side’ so to speak! What a healing as a woman to read what you have written and to understand all the intricacies at play with pornography.
You hit the nail on the head with this blog Adam porn is essentially seeking connection and relief without intimacy. It is essentially wanting or craving another, the sexual desire, but without any notion of love. For me it denigrates the act of making love into purely a physical sexual act rather than the union of 2 which when love is made the vast difference is felt and you would never want to nor imagine going back to sex let alone porn.
Brilliant to read this again, I can understand on a much deeper level what you are sharing here now that I have returned to being more intimate with myself by reconnecting to my true inner qualities. Porn is so rife and it feels confronting to come across, the level of abuse inherent in it is easy to feel, however your words have offered a very true understanding of why people seek it. It helps to take the judgement and shock out of it. I can also understand how the socialisation of men and the burdens they feel can lead to resentment of women and the subsequent escape into porn.
Brilliantly exposing the true evil of porn. Thank you, Adam. What I am getting from reading this is how a half-baked honesty that stops short of self-responsibility can act as justification to our ill-choice. It offers a degree of understanding to why we do what we do, but if we distract ourselves away from the true issue that lies underneath, we are giving our ill-behaviour a license to be – for it to create its own industry that foster the same in others.
Why is it that articles like this that bring to our conscious awareness the true beauty and inner essence that resides in every man is not ranking high on google? Could it be that once owned, grabbed by porn that it hurts so deeply to extricate self from this path that the blinkers get put on and the behavior continues in a way that we absolutely know is not true? Whatever the reason, this article and others like it are the guiding lights offered to anyone who wishes to stop this behavior.
Porn is a form of addiction. No question about this. This form of addiction may not be the only one a porn addict may profess. Yet, other people have their own forms of addictions that may not be seen necessarily as addictions either. We have to start calling things by their real name. Only when someone acknowledges that has an addiction may trace it to its root cause and understand what is going on, where does the addiction comes into play and what does it talk to.
It’s very interesting Adam that the more you became aware of and connected to your own vulnerabilities the more you could see through the facade of porn with both clarity and understanding.
Yes, it is important to bring understanding and awareness into what is the purpose of the addiction, ‘I began to understand that the temptation and addiction of porn was that it served as an outlet from this stress; a place where I could pretend to experience the intimacy I secretly craved, without the burden of a relationship.’
Even just hearing about the types of images available on the internet secondhand from others has at times made me gag and feel sick and disturbed. The fact that these images exists affects us all whether we view them or not as we can feel the creepy slimy energy that comes through the many that do view them.
Yes it is only through claiming our own inner qualities that we stop needing others to satisfy us in anyway.
You are quite right that Porn is an addiction and a very harmful one at that. Reading about porn induced erectile dysfunction, it was clear the downward spiral these men had entered into when starting their relationship with Porn. They became anxious, had feelings of shame and trouble having relationships with women. When they stopped using porn, they couldn’t believe the difference it made to all these symptoms that they had come to think of as who they were.
In recent times there has been a lot of exposure on sexual assault and abuse by priests, celebrities and massage parlours. Yet what of the culture of sexualising people in so-called normal ways such as pornography? If we do not address what leads someone to use pornography we will not even come close to recognising how to truly stop sexual assault and other crimes. In other words, it never starts with the extremes…
“what was it that I wanted from them that I could not find in myself?” This is a question we have to honestly ask ourselves when we have a need for someone else to make us feel complete.
“Porn itself is not the problem, nor the real evil here.” this is a huge realization, for the real problem is our inability to connect to that which is of truth, to actually go deep and let go of the hurts that keep making us look for relief in order to function in life and embracing our fragility and true intimacy within ourselves.
Francisco Clara there is always more for us to discover about our true fragility and true intimacy within ourselves. This is an ever deepening discovery of ourselves. We scratch around on the surface of life without understanding that there are depths of qualities to us that we are in total ignorance of.
Thank you for writing this blog Adam as to me you bring the actual point to the fore, that we are craving the intimacy and loveliness we knew as a child but have lost in life through it abusive way being told how to be as a men, but actually the same for women too. In that view we actually cannot go ‘to war’ against porno, although the excess might need action from us, but ultimately have to rediscover in ourselves that intimacy and loveliness that is still there and always will be.
This is a beautiful piece of writing from a deeply connected, feminine, tender man. Great insights on how and why we use porn and the path that leads there from the suppression of those tender, feminine qualities in boys leading to hardening and disconnection (and the equivalent now in girls too) to that safe intimacy which porn offers to fill, but at a price of owning us. This is such a commentary on our societies and how we live that we quash that tenderness in each other and a great showing that everything is connected.
Adam a great blog in realising how the lack of true connection to the tenderness men have available to them can result in men feeling a lack of intimacy, yet society is set up to make men dismiss that connection in favour of being hard and being seen as strong, when women truly embrace their own tenderness it encourages men to connect to their tenderness too.
This is such a brilliant read – the insights that you share here Adam are priceless – thank you.
Thank you for sharing so openly here that the thing we all miss is the intimacy with ourselves, that we know so well, yet have let the circumstances of our lives bury.
Such an insightful article into a problem that is impacting our societies at greater and greater levels. It is now commonplace to have children not even in their teens download porn from the easily available internet world. Such is the desperation that society has en masse for not being met in the love and warmth we so crave. Porn will continue to be one of the go-to substitutes to fill that gaping hole, until we decide to look within us, and reconnect back to the tender, exquisite and ‘womanly’ qualities we so crave – men and women alike.
We get drawn to porn because there is something missing in our lives, so essentially the porn is a symptom of something going on for us. You can blame the porn, but the real problem is the fact that we have to turn inwards to see why we are attracted to it in the first place.
Absolutely Henrietta, the Porn industry is one of the many ill symptoms that point to the fact there is something deeply disturbing in the way we live and interact with each other. We have so many markers showing us that as a society we have failed, but somehow we seem to think that if we can just tweak this or that then everything will be okay. I wonder how bad does life have to get for us before we say enough is enough?
“The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls. We drum it out of them, tell them to harden up, don’t cry, grow up, be strong, don’t complain when it hurts. Yet deep down those qualities of fragility, tenderness, and vulnerability remain in every man, no matter how hard they have tried to bury them. And when they do try to reconnect to them, society tells them that they are being sissy, gay, soft, pathetic, a winger.” – Well said Adam, and in a similar way girls also need to have this tenderness fostered and encouraged as otherwise the same pitfall of porn will affect them too, as you have mentioned in your blog.
Definitely a topic worth talking about, I can feel my resistance that in turn adds to the pool of denial. It’s time to get a little uncomfortable so truth can come.
A great in-detailed summary of porn. Covered it all! The only way I feel to respond or comment is to be myself via an honest appraisal on my feelings and otherwise knowing of porn.
I can feel how I give myself over to life – that reduces my intimacy and openness. We are built-in to receive what’s next in life but instead we close off and react why how our openness and tenderness has not been received before when actual fact when I am in my fragility (and I am a big man), this is what the world men and women are craving. It’s just that the energy of porn is coming through many to create the offset of emotions that denies this equisite beauty when in fact when this inner-delicateness within yourself is truly honoured it is embraced. As Adam openly expresses it must be embraced by you first which may feel confronting to start with ..
I love how you went deeper with choosing to understand what was attracting you to these pictures, ‘what was it that I wanted from them that I could not find in myself? It was then that I realised that I wanted that stillness, that gentle-ness, tenderness, open-ness and vulnerability that women tend to show more easily in the world – characteristics that are drummed out of men by society from a very young age. So, I started to look for those characteristics in myself, and when I did, I began to realise that they are actually there residing within me – EQUALLY SO.’
Porn is attracting a younger audience which is really sad and disturbing. Great to have this subject exposed for the harm and destructive nature it has, ‘porn is something that controls us. It is a drug, a form of addiction’.
The effects of porn are now more widespread than ever before with the internet and media propagating it like a rampant weed. Porn harms people, it takes away their tenderness, intimacy and inner connection. There is no other way to say it.
I have found that intimacy is what we have misunderstood in a big way. Your blog is sharing with us the energy that perpetuates a behaviour that shuts down that intimacy completely. Even though the act itself is physically incredibly intimate, there is no real connection when one, other or both are imagining a picture when engaged in this most intimate act. There is so much harm in the energy that shuts down the ability to connect deeply with another, to allow yourself to be completely open with another.
Thank you for this honest blog Adam. You have opened up a topic that really needs to be spoken about. Thanks for sharing and going deeper to explore the issues that trigger porn addiction and how it changes our behaviour towards each other.
Porn, like anything, can only work if their is a demand for it. It is like sugar – promising so much, addictive and it keeps people coming back for more because they get the initial rush, then the crash, and then they want more. Deal with the ‘why’ you need it, and the demand drops away, therefore the supply isn’t needed.
“…I saw then not naked women promising to fulfill my fantasies, but young daughters and mothers and sisters, slaves to an energy that now owned them…” – by being willing to explore what porn was to you Adam, it was like a veil being removed from over your eyes so you could see what was really there. Not woman who were sexy and appealing, but women who were themselves craving something that they had known possibly in their early lives, and were so desperately missing.
Porn is in great support of keeping intimacy out of our lives as through the eyes of porn we can only see the other person as a sex object that has to fulfill our needs and to bring us relief. While this is far from the truth of who we are and that what people actually can bring to us, it is amongst us in many ways and with an intensity that to me is increasing every year only to offset that what is continuously being asked of us, that is to build deeply intimate relationships instead.
the way porn has infiltrated into all aspects of our lives through the medium of devices, film, tv, computer games and the internet is robbing our children, and adults of the potential for true intimacy and relationships – at what price for the future of our communities and the health of everyone.
Love this blog, it is our sensitivity and feminine quality that holds us in our own strength. And gives us the opportunity to see the truth of what pornography is offering us. A very false and creepy energy, that is implying intimacy but is far from providing that. As nothing can fill the void that is left than our own choice of coming back to our true qualities.
It’s interesting that couples see porn as a way to get intimacy and connection within their own relationship, but from what the author has written here, this seems highly unlikely seeing as the men and women are owned by an energy that is not about connection. So using porn in this way will never deliver the quality of connection that couples crave within their relationships, but will only add a feeling of separation and dissatisfaction with each other, not forgetting feeling guilty, empty, let down.
‘Because in the end, PORN OWNS YOU.’ This is very true Adam… porn uses you far more than you use it.
so much is here for us to consider. and the rise in porn amongst women, men, and now even children spells disaster for the future of our relationships, and the abuse of all in this deeply destructive energy. Like with so much the world offers, it offers a false cheap and corrupted imitation of the truth we naturally seek, and sells us drastically short. The true connection intimacy and love starts with ourselves, and only then can we bring true honouring and intimacy with another, so lets not to continue to seek outside of us from emptiness and need but rediscover we hold all the love and love for all already within.
Dear Adam, a stunning read on your relationship with porn. Deeply honest, brave, insightful, engaging and offers the reader much to consider. It is quite amazing when you take the time to get honest about something that you are addicted to, and explore the reasons why and take it as deep as you can go, then you return to it and see it in a whole different light when it no longer has its hooks in you.
As a human race, we are all trying to fill up so many holes in so many ways – porn, drama, icecream, chocolate, alcohol and drugs, hard work, no work, sport, charity work – the list is endless. I loved that it was your connection to you, and in this case learning to connect to your femaleness, that ceased your attraction to porn. For each of us, and our own stories, we need to find what it is for us that has got us hooked, then do what is needed from there. Universal Medicine and their healing modalities and presentations are an incredible support to do just that – combined with your own willingness it is a power-full combination. Thank you Adam for taking the time to share this with us all.
It’s only when we see it without the veil Adam that you amazingly described is when we see the truth, the truth is Porn is an abuse of women, and Men enjoy hiding in this to get intimacy they aren’t getting in real life.
Connecting with those feminine qualities within us really is a way to save ourselves from the addiction to porn, because like any addiction if we just try and change the behaviour then we have nothing within us to go to that we trust, but when we are connecting more with ourselves and the delicateness and preciousness of others than porn simply doesn’t fit and is not satisfying.
Adam, I have no words to describe the blessing we have received after reading this blog..its HUGE. The whole need of pornography and the energy behind it is exposed. We are more free to feel and think after the awareness and clarity you brought to us. More free to be our feminine selves and claim our feminine parts (men and women). I am stunned – as at the same time I know that by this blog you helped us clear for good the illusion about pornography, if truly grasped and accept and initiate that which you have exposed.
Younger and younger children are these days being hooked into porn. It is such an addictive, harmful and rampant energy we really need to take a much deeper look at our society and question what is going on here and what is the wider ailment that is leading to this choice?
Reading your last line: “I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child” so what does that say about younger and younger children turning to porn and not getting to experience their loveliness. What is going on with our society and our children?
Ultimately the thing about porn is – I am not sure we are truly aware of just what we are letting in when allowing ourselves to be caught in its clutches.
If we are willing to truly see the energy of porn as you’ve described here Adam, and how “…in the end, PORN OWNS YOU.” we can unravel so very much, and not only about porn itself. For how much are we bombarded in our everyday lives with images, products and more that are designed to ‘hook’, designed to allure and tempt us with something that promises us something – a moment of ecstasy, a getting off on something, a reward, a promise of a better life…?
We are wise to look beyond the ‘surface offering’ and what then may ‘own us’ – and be willing to learn about the energetic consequences of saying ‘yes’ to something that at times, equates to (metaphorically) inviting the vampire over your threshold and into your home… Once that’s occurred, you are no longer in control. Until that is, you decide to reclaim yourself from why you said ‘yes’ in the first place.
Brilliantly and so openly stated and shared Adam Warburton, thank-you.
Our willingness to see beyond the surface of porn and into the deeper layers you have described is key here – for it reveals how much we truly miss connection with ourselves and the power of real love and intimacy in our lives.
It has been my experience that as I took more time to take for myself in the choices I made, things unrelated to the act of watching porn or even considering sex, the desire to watch porn disappeared from my life. So for me porn had that energetic hold when I was seeking something to fill an empty feeling, what is an energetic hold it could be asked, I would say it is when you do something to fill up a part of you that feels unsetttled and unhappy with your lot, there is a hole for that creepy seedy feeling to take hold. The more we care for ourselves the less room there is for such a desire to arise as it can never match what it feels to create intimacy with yourself in how we live. And as men and women, I guess it is how open and free of fear we are to create intimacy in all aspects of our lives, not just in the bedroom, but in how we relate to ourselves and other people.
I have known men who simply do not believe that there are men who don’t do porn and who are not interested in it. They would say that the men are lying to me, to me this shows how ingrained this choice is and often multigenerational. So it makes articles such as this one so important and for men who are making other choices it is so important to speak up and share why you have made your choices, not form dogma but loving and respectful choices for yourself and women.
I have known men who simply do not believe that there are men who don’t do porn and who are not interested in it. They would say that the men are lying to me, to me this shows how ingrained this choice is and often multigenerational.
Goodness there are so many points I would love to pick up here – the energy of porn, what comes through the women and the men, but I was struck by what causes that separation in so many to valuing intimacy with the person actually in their life. “I found it difficult to be truly intimate in my relationships because of the perceived burden I associated with them” This makes absolute sense and I see it in so many relationships. Yes with the partner, but also relationships and connections between parents and children, teachers and students – the connection is sometimes complicated and messy because of the perceived burden of responsibility to be a particular way or fulfill a particular need.
A brilliant expose of the underlying reasons for porn. We can look at it on the surface and see it’s seediness, the abuse inherent in the industry, the exploitation of the people who work in front of the cameras, the attention-seeking and need of approval and we can react to this, demanding it be shut down, outraged that it is going on at all. But in reality are we not all responsible for the pornography industry in the way we perpetuate the absolute lie that we have to toughen up to make it in this world? In doing so we abandon our natural ways of being that Adam has so beautifully discussed, and in doing so, further cement the foundations of pornography.
There is so much to discuss here I agree. We are now in a time where pornography is rife, young men and women are being so influenced by imagery that just isn’t natural or normal. They are influenced then in their behaviours and how they treat one another. Then you overlay social media, how prolific it also now is for people to share such pornographic pictures there also. When are we going to say this is not loving and fosters behaviours that are damaging relationships, not only with ourselves, but with everyone.
Great topic to open up and explore. The effect of porn is devastating to relationships yet many may not realise the effect it has. Opening up the conversation is a very supportive way to delve into this mucky area and uncover many of the layers around it.
What a beautifully honest and holistic understanding of porn being brought here. Reading the last couple of paragraphs I got an image of the child catcher in the 1960’s film and how the energy tries to steal the beautiful qualities that we have. Like with all addictions we have lost our connection to these beautiful qualities to some degree and go for something we think will replace them. We get tantalized by some aspect of what’s being offered and ignore the denser, more yucky aspects of what we’re doing including the energy we are absorbing and proliferating by partaking in whatever it is. It’s only as we become more re-connected to who we are are we able to see beyond the hooks of what is attracting us to whatever it is and see the truth of the situation.
‘ I saw then not naked women promising to fulfill my fantasies, but young daughters and mothers and sisters, slaves to an energy that now owned them…’
Where else could one read such open and honest conversation, supporting us all to build our awareness and understanding of the world and its events. God bless you all.
So true Brendan, when we are feeling the emptiness and void inside from the choices we make, it feels so awful that often we seek to fill this void with things that are from a false energy that drains us and drives us to do things we would not do when we are truly connected to the fullness of who we are.
Thank you Adam for this brilliant blog. This is a topic I imagine a lot of people would like to avoid but it affects many of us and we need to talk about it to understand what is truly going on. The only time I can remember seeing porn is in a movies when a character is watching it as part of the movie’s story and I could feel how hooking the energy is, just like what you’ve shared. When we raise our children to connect to their tenderness, vulnerability, their femaleness and who they are, then they are able to see right through this hooking energy that is in porn, in drugs or other addictive mediums and entertainments. Also I feel that the responsibility comes back to us, being willing to look at how are we in relationship with ourselves and with people?
You show clearly how porn is not just something we do but that it is a contract we make. We are missing something and want to fill it with something, in this case porn, and thus we go and ‘buy’ it. So there is always an exchange of something, a give and take when we come from a need. And this is how we learn life to be. But there is another way where we can come from our fullness that simply is and gives without the need of anything in return.
I love that by allowing yourself to look what laid beyond the need for porn you discovered more about yourself which in return opened up your awareness of the world around you, giving you a whole new insight/perception. It shows that with the willingness to be honest and caring about ourselves we can let go of the many behaviours we have adapted and step out of our own shadow so to speak.
Great understanding Brendan, if we are empty inside and wanting something to come in – we can choose anything. Some activities seem to be a bit more obvious -done in daylight and public and can even look healthy, but the motivation behind can be the same.
A stunningly written and deeply honest exposure of a poison that is willingly consumed at great cost to ourselves and our relationships let alone to society. There is no doubt that it taints our perception of what is real or not and as such causes great harm to many due to the love and connection that is denied when these images are played with or aspired to.
What you’ve called out in this article Adam is what needs to be at the heart of any conversation or activity to put a stop to the endemic use of porn. Porn is the symptom, the appalling end result of man and woman choosing to disconnected from their essence, and hence from the intimacy that we then seek outside of us.
I had not really understood or appreciated the hold porn can have and why it is so hard to stop the addiction or the lure. Thank you for sharing your experience so honestly.
Like any additions it is a vice to a condition… in this case the condition is feeling like the qualities men and women wish to express are bottle necked by the expectation of society.
Although it is very important to address pornography straight it is not the root cause just like alcohol isn’t for alcoholics.
“…I realised that what I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child. Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold.” What a testament to the power of connection, and of how this could restore any man or woman in any kind of addiction.
Porn exists to fill the hole we create when we do not live true to who we innately are. The key here, as Adam so clearly presents, is not to stop porn as such but to address the emptiness that draws this energy in. When we are able to re-connect as men and women to our incredible sensitivity, stillness, openness and delicateness, we begin to live from this fullness thereby relinquishing the need to be ‘filled’, be it by images, foods, beliefs and or other various distractions that are designed to keep us away from accessing the deep well of truth we all have access to within ourselves. The truth here being that if we live full of who we truly are then we cannot be filled by all that seeks to oppose our expression of this.
Thank you so much for writing this brilliant blog Adam and bringing a depth of wisdom and understanding to a topic that most of us tend to either ignore and/or sweep under the carpet.
Porn is one of those common yet very hush hush and taboo subjects. For me the effects I see of it as essentially making people into physical objects ones that we should be able to use and do anything with. It takes away all aspects of the person or the connection with them. It warps all sense of reality and whilst it can lead to you wanting more physical connection with others it does so in a very not connective way. We are soo much more than just our physical bodies and when we connect to this with ourselves and with another then we will get to know what making love is truly all about.
Thank you Adam for exposing the energy behind porn and revealing the root cause of why people fall for it. This article is beyond value for mankind as it offers liberation and a return to a truer way of being.
The wisdom, insights and honesty in this blog is stunning. It is an article worthy of being published in a major magazine or newspaper.
This is such an amazing blog Adam, thank you. Deeply healing for all men and women the way you write with no judgement but a great honesty, clarity and openness.
Ultimately porn is not the issue, just as alcohol abuse is not the underlying issue but a symptom that is telling us that there is something deeply wrong with the way we are approaching life. Porn per say is not evil – it is what it is. It’s just nudity isn’t it? Don’t be a prude, they say. Until you read it energetically of course, and you don’t need to be a master to do that. It does not take much to register that porn feels sleezy, and when you use it, it always leaves you feeling kind of dirty afterwards, and even ashamed. There are those who say this is because we have been conditioned to think of it like that, and that there is liberation in using it. But that view point in essence comes from a reaction to the imposing dogma of organised religion, which has imposed on us that porn is evil and that its use is a sin. But there is no understanding in that tenet, only repression – thus the reaction we see today where people say porn should be part of a healthy sex life. The truth is that if we allow ourselves to be honest about how we feel, we will see that porn itself does not feel true, and that those feelings that I pointed out earlier are actually pointing to a much deeper truth – that porn in itself is not representative of some kind of sexual liberation but in itself a cage and repression of a different kind. For it is a repression of our ability to understand and live true intimacy with ourselves and with another, let alone a repression of women by selling the illusion that all they have to offer a man is their body.
Porn controls us because it controls our movements. We do not move freely, we move under the auspices of our eyes that seek anything and everything that resemble that which has grabbed us. So, our movements only aim at returning to it. That is why is so difficult to stop it. It requires to reeducate ourselves completely in how to move.
An insidious detail about porn is until we once again reach a point of clarity to connect to our inner heart. We will not look for that missing love, joy and intimacy in our lives because it is happily being cannulated by the sweet taste of rejectionless lust and desire.
Porn may turn into an addiction by those that consume it. No doubt about this. To me, though, porn, is however, a second degree addiction. The first addiction human beings have is not feeling the fact that we live in a world of energy and everything that comes with it. Trying hard not to feel this creates countless tensions for us that require searching for avenues that can help us to confirm us away from us and away from others. Porn is one of the chosen ones.
Well said Adam, porn is common place and generally accepted yet it is usually hush hush and hidden because we all know there is something not right or sleazy about it. No one really wants to admit their relationship with it. As you said it owns you. The problem I have found is that is cuts you off from women in general giving thoughts of a sexual nature rather than seeing each womens true beauty. For me sexiness have nothing to do with the nakedness of a women but rather the look and depth in her eyes, the ways she carries herself and none of this is found in porn.
In a relationship I had many years ago my partner wanted to watch porn with other couples. It was extremely uncomfortable for me, and I would leave the room, if not the house. For many years it didn’t occur to me that the reason I disliked it so much is it is fundamentally untrue, a blot on us as a human race that we debase the act of love making turning it instead into a physical act that honours neither the participant nor the audience.
“it affects our ability to experience true love and intimacy” this shows that looking outside of ourselves prevents us from connecting to what we are seeking. When we experience true love and intimacy with tenderness within ourselves this is there to share with another.
Thank you Adam for this honest account about your experience with pornography. What you show with this is that if we look at our behaviours and addictions with honesty and without judgement we will find what lies beneath and are able to let go of these behaviours.
Adam, thank you for this stunning piece of writing about porn addiction. It is honest, insightful, brave and well needed. You could almost take out porn and put in what ever you are addicted to. To truly look at an addiction and to question the many layers as to why/how you are addicted to it and then also build up the self-care and self-love for yourself to return and then look at the addiction again and to see it for what it truly is. It is too difficult when you are owned by something, to see it clearly and to see what we are lacking/missing from our lives that we are seeking in the addiction. You are inspiring to me to get real about a few things for me.
It is great to be opening the discussion on pornorgraphy, how much it has proliferated in our society today is a sad indictment of where many are at with such a lack of intimacy in the world, with each other and ourselves.
I love this article on porn Adam. I particularly love the point that you make about porn owning you. Like any addiction this is the end result; not only are we owned by our addiction but we are a slave to them. This and the ever growing addiction to porn has a devastating impact on relationships and then determines what becomes the norm in our society.
Adam, Thank you for your honesty, deep understanding and the ability to share this openly. I have come to understand porn for what it is after reading your blog. I didn’t like it and I didn’t understand it. I could feel it left both men and women less some how.
It goes to show that if one area is closed to express in its natural way then the vent for it is created in an unhealthy way.
This has help me understand the behaviors of many other situations too. Thank you Adam.
If a man understood his true innate nature, porn simply would not exist. It is but a side effect of a much greater problem – that men do not understand how truly sensitive they are.
Great article Adam in exposing the evil of porn and that ultimately exposes the lack of self-love and true intimacy we have with ourselves. Something is definitely not working here within our society and the fact that more and more women are watching porn tells us this. You are right it is not talked about enough and needs to be so thank you for being one of the people that have started the discussion. We are getting more and more sex on live reality tv shows now as well, only yesterday I was reading about something that was going on in a show in the UK and just by reading this and seeing pictures of the program I could feel the insidious energy behind it. As you share when you looked at it again after connecting to yourself and saw ‘slaves to an energy that now owned them, who were desperate for the attention of men – conversely, falsely hoping that men could bring them what they were missing in themselves.’
I remember the feeling of being owned by porn. It affected the way that I looked at women, and the way that I made love to my partner. I had created an unobtainable fantasy of what sex and partnership was supposed to be like which was completely devoid of reality, and only led me to feeling frustrated with myself and resentful of my partner. Letting go of it from my life has allowed me to truly feel the connection with another that I had previously replaced with a cheap knock off in porn.
Porn has become such an everyday part of men’s lives (along with an ever increasing number of women’s), and has infiltrated so much of our pop culture, that we now have to speak openly and honestly about what the effects of it are. It cannot be denied, or a little secret that men keep under their beds. It is no longer a secret, and the damage it is causing is no longer one either.
The crazy thing is porn is seen by many as a normal thing, in the paper or magazines on the tables at building sites etc.. But it is not normal, loving or supportive for people in any way. I have used porn as a relief from life but did not in any way feel empowered to change my life as a result of it – rather the opposite!
I love that you are brave enough to discuss this taboo subject. It’s about time some of us talk about it, as it is a multi-billion dollar industry that has grown 40% since 1997 and it is affecting us all. I could argue that I have never used porn, except for when one of my boyfriends put it on when we were drunk and young and we ended up laughing the whole time. I have however compared myself to the woman I see involved in pornography and used ‘normal’ images that are not porn but are so suggestive that they may as well be. I have used these images, underwear and swim suit catalogues ect ect… as a source of stimulation and all the while thinking that somehow I was better or different but in truth it’s the same and the addiction comes about for the same reasons, a lack of intimacy. With pornography it is more obvious, but with these other ‘normal ‘ images there could be even more shame, as its even more hidden and we have the potential to be less honest.
Porn lurks beneath and sometimes on the surface of our societies, but its hold over our lives is not really assessed. Kind of strange when you consider that the vast majority of our world wide web is made up of viewing porn, and the insidious and unseen relationship between genders is affected deeply by our acceptance of porn in our lives. A quite horrible use of the internet, and if you were to look down on planet earth and be able to see the energetic outplay of this porn addiction it would not be pretty. Porn will not go away in a flash but it feels that a first step is to accept what it is we use porn for, which Adam has highlighted clearly. Real honesty will show that porn does not take us anywhere good, only into a spiral of shame and or an illusion of intimacy. Something that because it doesn’t provide it, means we crave it even more.
It’s so true Adam, sadly pornography is a cheap imitation, an image or look alike of the real thing – a mirage that is completely barren of all true love and intimacy created to only feed the emptiness reflected in the eyes of the girls you described, and of those who seek it.
Thank you, Adam for this very personal sharing. The lack of self love and true intimacy for both men and women contribute to this very profitable industry.
Fantastic contribution, the underbelly of pornography and what really happens to us when we succumb to its lure and promises.
Adam I love your honesty and how you share that as men pornography ‘affects our ability to experience true love and intimacy with women (and other men) in ways that we don’t even realise. It taints our perception of what is real and what is not’. In this day and age sharing wisdom and truth like this is absolute gold.
Adam, what a fascinating insight into the world of porn you have ‘brought to the table’. It clearly exposes addictions for what they are. For when they have their hold on us, we are unable to see them for what they truly are and what impact they have on us. But when we choose to step – even slightly – away from them and start to look at what you are involved in, with as much honesty as you can muster, you can start to see more clearly. The addictions hold lessens slightly so the truth can be seen. And then when you have stepped away fully and see it for what it actually is and see why you needed to be part of it, (as you so masterfully done and shared with us), it can no longer own you. No ongoing addiction support program needed – you are free.
Everyone who has ever looked at porn will be able to relate to what Adam has written here. It is more a question of whether we are willing to go there, it is quite beautiful in a way to accept that men are looking for that intimacy, that safety that they haven’t found in their lives. We need to accept that how we condition men is an ill serving way of living, there is nothing to be gained by toughening little boys up, it does not create resilience or strength, I know for my own future and service to others that I must become more comfortable with honouring the sensitivity and fragility of young boys, for it is only when we allow all to act as who we innately are, that we can reduce the illness and disease that has become our norm.
We can only blame society for so long until we realise that we actually are society. In other words, the world of men will change by the hands of men and no other, and it will happen when we start to accept and take responsibility for the fact that the comfortable norms that we apply to the way we live our life, simply don’t serve us as we imagine they should.
Yes Adam, the extreme behaviours we see are the sharp end of the stick but the behaviour of us all as men, every last action determines our future. We can either step towards gentleness and honouring of our sensitive nature, which is our natural calling, or we can continue to live the lie that we are tough and unbreakable and reap the consequences of that, which as it stands is increasing levels of diseases such as prostate cancer.
A brilliant look under the bonnet of porn addiction to reveal the very simple truth that, as with all other addictions, it’s used to bring short-term relief from the emptiness that’s there as a direct result of having tenderness and delicateness drummed out of our choices of options when young. We can’t experience true intimacy with another until we have claimed it in, with and for ourselves.
Thank you so much Adam for bringing this subject up for discussion. Working with young families I have noticed a marked increase in the use of porn, mostly but certainly not always by men. The impact on family life is huge. Unless the woman becomes a willing participant with her partner it’s like there is a huge invisible line drawn down the middle of the relationship. The male staunchly justifies his use of porn and is adamant it is harmless and puts an ultimatum to his partner that if she doesn’t like it, he will go and obtain sexual gratification elsewhere. Meanwhile women take on the shame and blame themselves with the perception that they are somehow deficient and inadequate. As you say Adam – the real evil goes back a long way to how children, especially boys but increasingly girls, are raised. The more awareness is raised regarding nurturing children to embrace their natural qualities, the more people will freely make the choice to not use porn.
Equally what has to be considered is the other side of the coin – how do we raise our girls to the point where they think that they need to garner such attention buy producing the very porn that then supports the industry. After all, if a woman does not perform, there is no porn to look at. And so, it is too easy just to look at porn as being a gender driven issue, when there are actually two parties contributing to its proliferation – each for different reasons of course, and this is what needs to be understood.
Thank you Adam Warburton for writing about this subject that very few would dare to and I am thankful as I want to share something with the world and this feels a safe website to do this. Your blog is real, heartfelt and simply profound. Your honesty is amazing.
BBC Radio 2 last week had a debate from a news story. In brief university professor acting in porn movies which were going out to the masses. He was with young girls 40 years his junior. There were some saying where are our morals and others saying well its ok as he is no harming the students he teaches. Leading a double life is acceptable in our society, so whats the problem.
A final phone in – older lady from the general public, no credentials who asked the radio presenter if he did porn. He said he does not answer any personal questions. When she asked does he do child porn – he instantly said NO.
Interesting.
My question Where is our moral compass?
Could it be possible that the presenter does do porn so he could not say an Absolute No?
Could it be possible that the porn industry is not being abolished as those who make the law are doing porn?
It is time we started digging deep and asking these questions.
Ben, great questions, although the true issue does not lie with the legalisation or criminalisation of porn. I agree that on a surface level, we should definitely look at the ease with which porn can be accessed, especially by our children. We are now living in a society where children are being exposed to the sexualisation of their bodies from as young as 6. Any child with a mobile phone (which is most of them) is now able to access hard core porn images as readily as an adult – and that is definitely cause for concern.
Deeper than that, however, is the need to deeply question as a society what drives our thirst for porn. What makes a woman want to bring attention to herself in this way, and what drives a man to find satisfaction from a visual image? These are the questions we need to deeply ponder as a society, the true answer to which not only will reveal what lies underneath our obsession with porn, but many other forms of supposedly less sinister entertainment that we use as society as an escape from the mundaneness of everyday life.
Thank you Adam, this is very revealing for me, and can feel the deep hold porn can have on us. It is a supposedly “safe” haven for the intimacy we miss… But it is far from safe with a very luring and deceiving by empty energy that is wanting you to stay in this emptiness.
There has been a massive imbalance created where all around us filtering in through every medium the message is that fulfilling sexual needs is more of a priority than intimacy and connection.
Thank you Adam for daring to go deeper, to be honest and reveal what drives the need for porn and the energy behind the porn industry.
You raise many good points Adam. The fact is that if we merely look at porn as a sexual satisfaction we will never deal with this societal problem.
The deeper points you have raised are a great place to start.
It is true there is nothing tantalizing about porn when you feel the loveliness of yourself. There is just no way to watch porn from that.
Yes it is our lack of willingness to see that makes us blind – this is the trick and a nasty one too. No reason to continue from blindness any further – only to step up and see clear again. Let’s go Sandra Williamson
Maybe there is truth to the saying that porn will make you blind…(sorry, could not resist that one).
Absolute amen to that.. simply because I know it has the absolute effect of blinding people – simply because it is lies fed by its own source. This source is the absolute addictive, restless, and unreal portrayal that is hiding behind this form of stimulation. It is nothing more nor less than evil. Thank you Adam, I am glad you are no longer blind.
Truth is there are many things that blind us – porn being only one of the more obvious ones. We are as much blinded by the false light as we are blinded by darkness.
Also, Adam, this blog has revealed me how much I did not want to see in my life and how I had chosen to shut myself off feeling the effects of real happenings in life such as porn. I can feel that in this way I have chosen to blind myself from truth and so have not been able to see truth all the way in all the areas in my life. It is incredibly shocking how it works – that once you shut yourself of from feeling something, it makes you feel less clear and aware of all the other things in life. This is what I feel and become more understanding of now. And so to trace that I had never truly want to see all things, just fragments. It is time to be wise and see everything in life if this means that it is not nice I make a commitment to see and feel it. At the same time to appreciate that truth in myself and the love I can hold within myself. Thank you very very much Adam, you make our world in truth rich by your honesty and purity.
I agree Danna with what you share. I am appreciating in the more love I hold within myself supports my own solidness of who I am in the world then the more I open to up to people. This supports a greater opening up to observe the truth of peoples choices and be honest with myself that very harsh and horrible things are happening and are screaming to be addressed. Not wanting to see, feel and own the truth of this supports it to continue. This is a responsibility I am also now willing to commit to.
Incredible powerfull blog Adam, my deep appreciation for being so honest and sharing openly were porn is truly about. I found it absolute inspiring how you chosen to see what is truly going on and expose your need for porn in the past, and that this was simply possible by you connecting to you and that loveliness you once felt as a child..The message of power than revealed to us : Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold.” This is fantastic! This is really amazing, I love how this addictive allure is simply demished by the love one accepts in their life. This to me fully exposes that porn is not love and that porn is simply an possesive energy we choose once we leave our connection to ourselves (love) behind. I ponder more deeply on this blog and subject, there is so much more to say and feel.
Thank-you Adam for giving me an understanding to the ‘need’ for porn for so many men comes from them missing their tender, gentle, vulnerable qualities. You have opened this subject up for men to be aware of the hold and evil allure behind the pictures and given them an opportunity to seek deep within themselves the true answers as to why porn has such a hold on them and how it gives a false reality in regard to females and making love.
Thank you Adam for your honesty and for explaining the perceived burdens that can taint a relationship which is easily relatable to. Once the stillness has been connected to the rest flows from that but we have to make the conscious choice to re-connect.
Thank you so much Adam, for this deeply honest and honoring blog your wrote, that helps to understand the connection between the addictive impact of porn and the way our society is interacting with what we miss painfully inside. It is so important to understand these connections as you have described them comprehensible in detail. It is so important to understand instead of ignoring or judging it. Your blog It will help men and women, it will help our society, to get to the root causes and therefore becoming able to change the common aided dependency. How beautiful is the key to stop the addiction. Thank you again for bringing this topic forward into our awareness and hearts.
Adam, what a powerful and very personal sharing- one that needs to go out there for all men and women to read. What a revelation for our society- how our boys are moulded and are encouraged to hide and bury their innate and divine sensitivity is setting them up to harden their bodies, not feel any self love and to seek intimacy with women in the pages of a book or magazine, or on film or video. And the fact that women are now seeking their intimacy in this way as well is a truly sad reflection on how far we are disconnected from our own divinity.
“The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls.” Thank you Adam for bringing this awareness. Porn can be a comfort to not have to engage in life and expose our hurts allowing such a lesser version of ourselves to exist instead. So many facets to this topic and it’s great to read about.
well you don’t need to communicate with a computer screen for one, or be vulnerable, or be delicate, or tender, or let it know how you feel.
Porn is indeed a false and insidious lure into that what we miss inside ourselves, I can feel how I changed to a more sensitive and still man, that has changed the way I look to women dramatically.
As a senior woman I have never understood nor felt comfortable with what pornography represents for me. I felt it as a threat and total disregard for one half of humanity. This blog goes a long way to explain the addiction as a yearning for intimacy, for true connectedness.
If men gave themselves and each other permission to express their delicate side more often, the craving for porn would eventually disappear, for he would realise that all the connection he is deeply seeking through another is already deep within. Porn itself is not a true seeking for connection, however, and thus why you have never felt comfortable with it, for you have obviously seen the truth of it. It is, rather, a bastardised and twisted form of seeking intimacy in a way that does not require one to be intimate. Crazy I know, but true.
Porn begins with a disconnect from the innate loveliness within us and then can manifest as a needy look, a yearning to be liked, to be noticed, even if that recognition is a slap or rejection in a comment. It is powerful what you share Adam about how everyone who indulges in porn, both actors and viewers, are owned by an energy. This is key to understanding how disrespect for females included the female aspect of ourselves as men that we disconnect from at an early age.
Great blog Adam about pornography, as you say, a topic that needs to be discussed more openly, freely and definitely with more honesty. I have worked a lot of my life in quite male dominated corporate offices, where the talk has at times been very rude, crude and offensive. Porn or talking about it was quite main stream, what they look at, when they look at it etc. I would always shrug it off, especially when I was in my early 20’s as I didn’t have the connection with myself and foundation within to stand up to what was being presented and discussed. But it did make me feel uncomfortable, especially the fact that I didn’t call out that it felt awful. It does have an effect of men greatly, but as you say, also women all over. Thanks for shining a light on this very important topic.
I sometimes think that women in the corporate world do not understand their true power, so belittled have they been by a male dominated culture for so long. It only takes one woman to stand up and call out the irresponsibility of such behaviour, and most men will respond – sheepishly so – but they will respond. I have seen this happen many a time in the building industry, when a woman on site via her natural presence pulls men up to be more of their caring, tender selves. But it does take a woman to stand tall as a woman, not a woman who tries to out man the man. The latter approach, of course, is flawed, and destined to fail.
Adam, I had not appreciated how much pornography was affecting men, and how by freeing oneself of this addiction men are able to live much fuller lives. Thank you for having the courage to step up and talk openly about this, because we all deserve to know the inside details of this part of societal life and the affects it is having on our men.
Thankyou Shami, very much, but it really did not take courage per se, rather just a willingness to see beyond the shame, judgement, and attraction and deeply question what was really going on. The answers to life’s most complicated questions are often quite simple, if we free ourselves of our own expectations and investments in how we want life to be.
This is such a beautiful description of what lures so many men into this empty vessel of excitement and implied intimacy.. It is the lost connection to that what we have in common with all women, which are those qualities that have been thrown out and said to be not manly at such a young age. It is great to be really able to observe what is causing the attraction to such an awful and seductive energy.
This is a really honest blog and pornography is something we need to discuss instead of keeping it quiet and feeling shameful about; which in turn then has its hold over us. Pornography very much distorts what is real and takes us far away from connecting with ourselves and knowing how to be truly intimate with others. You mention how the female qualities (gentleness, sensitivity, tenderness, beauty and sweetness) are not fostered in boys as they grow up but I also think these are not truly fostered in young women either. Instead it is more about being tough, show you are okay, don’t show or express your feelings. I used to be like this when I was younger showing the facade of ‘I’m okay’ and tough not knowing how to truly connect to me and live this consistently. The porn industry is abusive and feeds off abuse, this has been exposed by ex-porn stars with shocking stories about what goes on. But I feel it is not just the porn industry (or this industry is filtering into others) like music and media. Recently well known designers had an advert that suggested gang rape with intimidating men around one woman. This advert was complained about and cut, but my question is what were the marketing people even thinking about in creating this? It is the same energy as porn. Our view has been very distorted, we definietly need to sober up, wake up and call out with what is going on. One way of starting this is to have discussions which you have started here.
Thank you so much Adam, your experience and explanation here of porn is invaluable. For myself, feeling what you were speaking about in the emptiness of the people’s faces that are involved in porn, it would seem to be a no-brainer that we would cringe and close the screen when seeing such a thing – and yet it still holds allure to so many. You have described this allure and where it comes from so clearly. It is so important to understand this as porn and the whole industry certainly does not make sense. We need to be fostering and supporting men to live more of the tenderness they are from a young age, so they do not feel they need to harden and shut down their own gorgeous tender and feminine qualities that are so innate. This can start with each of us, by fostering these qualities in ourselves to be there as a reflection for any young boys we may meet.
Interesting that there are very few responses to this, so well written and honest article about pornography. It seems the topic is still too difficult for the majority of us. I know for me that I still struggle to recover from the incredibly deep hurt and betrayal I have felt that every relationship I have been in has been destroyed by pornography. Adam makes some great points and there are lots of valid reasons why men (and women) turn to porn but at the end of the day it completely destroys trust and intimacy when in reality your partner is being sexual with someone else and then bringing that poison to you.
Very true Belinda. It is a very destructive force, and all the more reason why the underlying causes of its use need to be understood more completely. A man addicted to porn is a man who has lost connection to his own true innate worth, and a man who cannot appreciate the worth of his partner, daughter, or mother, and that is the unfortunate truth of the matter.
Discovering that your partner is “doing” porn can have a devastating effect – I know women who have felt betrayed and cheated on and also expressed “how am I going to compete with that?” The reality is you can’t compete with porn because it not real – it is acting, illusion and staged. We have the ability to distinguish that soapies are not real and that they are ridiculous parodies of life. So why do we fall for trying to imitate porn? How have we become so disconnected from truly intimate and loving relationships? For me the change came when I made the choice to accept nothing less than love in all areas of my life not just the bedroom.
Adam – gorgeous to read how you saw women in a different light after saying no to porn. It was on the rare occasion i was exposed to porn growing up, and I instantly thought that was how men expected women to look – so put it right into my ‘perfection’ bank – and thought i needed to look a certain way to be attractive. It doesn’t only effect mans idea of a woman, but also a woman’s idea of herself. Porn keeps us so far away from the reality of love and intimacy and really does stop us being loving.
So very true. These days it has even affected the image women have a what “ideal” genitalia looks like – so much so that there is now a thriving plastic surgery industry specialising in laviaplasty surgery to improve their appearance – crazy, crazy, crazy.
Yes – absolutely. We have managed to ‘glamourise’ the very parts of our bodies that for a woman, are all about self-love and self-nurturing. But as soon as we go into comparison about how we should look, we give our power away to a warped reality instead of truly stepping back and saying ‘perhaps my body and how I feel about it is so unwavering that something so unreal cannot affect me.’
This is an article that warrants wide publication – so raw in its exposure of what goes on inside the mind and body of a man using porn. It is free of blame or guilt, just an honest portrayal of the unspoken hurt under the activity that we either politely ignore or decry. This has been tremendously insightful for a woman who had partners who used porn. My reaction was to shut myself down from those men, nursing in my own feelings of hurt and rejection. Their obvious attraction to the women in the videos was fuel for my self-loathing. What a cycle I entered into in those relationships, a dance of multiple rejections and hurts compounded by silence and the pretence that nothing was going on. A bad joke on all concerned. Never once in those days did I look at the use of porn from the perspective of those men -not in sympathy, just straight up honesty, with the willingness to understand.
Adam thank you for your insightful expose on what porn truly is and how it affects us. It deeply saddens me to feel how little boys (and girls) are rejected for their natural gentleness and fragility, this as you state, is the true evil here. In our desperation to find this sweetness again we seek it outside ourselves somehow feeling that which is within is taboo and off limits, so we look to replace it. This very act of accepting something much much less than the glory of who we truly are is in truth incredibly painful and takes us further away from that which we seek. It is time for us to honour the tenderness we ALL are so the need or desire for porn becomes obsolete.
I am struck by the fact that porn is an addiction like any other, addictions are behaviours we use to cope with what we don’t want or like to feel. I have had to learn that intimacy is not only sexual but from a deep, honest, playful connection with myself where vulnerability is celebrated because it is never abused and that needs to be by me to me before I can bring that to any other area of my life. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t used porn, I have used many other addictions to hold that at bay
I love what you are sharing here Adam. It makes logical sense to me that you say ‘seeking porn enabled me to feel like I was being intimate without needing to feel ‘burdened’ by the so called responsibility of being in a relationship’. Your words give a very valid explanation of why some people are so attracted to pornography. Great blog.
Adam, your willingness to reflect so deeply, to truly understand the underlying energy and to share so clearly, is a true service to humanity – thank you.
Finding a porn DVD in the player one day was a life changing moment for me. It was the shock and deep hurt I felt that lead me to honestly feel the depth of the emptiness within me. Directly or indirectly if we aren’t responsible for how we feel inside and project this onto another who is equally as empty, are we pushing them to fill up from the outside?
Adam, thanks for starting this very important conversation about porn. The porn industry is so huge on this planet and it’s time to address all the issues, which causes the porn industry – the bad quality of energy, the lack of intimacy…
…the fact that men are confused with how it feels and what it means to be a man today when women themselves, often considered the gentler sex, have become so hard, competitive, more aggressive and lost in their own connection with who they are naturally.
Powerfully said Adam. Porn is a filler. A cheap and dirty filler for the emptiness that should not be there in the first place. If we truly meet ourselves first through connection with our true tenderness and strength within us and allow a woman to meet us in that, then there would not be any need for porn at all. Being truly met is far far grander than any porn any day.
So true Joshua, that there would be no need for porn if we all meet ourselves first and are full of ourselves as it is the feeling of emptiness that drives us to all distractions from life such as porn actually is. Using porn actually distract us from living who we truly are and use this to escape from the responsibility we have in life to make life about evolving back to the glorious being we innately are and not about experimenting and the continuous creation of the misery life that porn actually brings.
Well said Nico, if we think porn is good then imagine what it is like to live the love we truly are which is a million times grander
I agree Joshua, but many of us are yet to be truly meet and are lost and longing for connection. Those of us who have re-discovered this connection have a huge responsibility to never hold back and let others in so they too may feel this within themselves – once again.
Wow Adam, I love your honesty and willingness to leave no stone unturned in where Truth can be brought. This is such an important topic, and you really have hit the nail on the head. Men and boys are essentially ‘screaming out’ to be the love and tenderness they felt as babies, as are women. We are all after the same thing yet live in a society that is constructed to foster the opposite at every turn. We need more men like you Adam (that I know there are) to have these conversations, and start spreading the word that what is going on out there is so not ok, and there is another way. This, will be world-changing.
Hear, hear Amelia. Yes, we do need more men like Adam who has the courage to express the truth that we all know deep down so these conversations can finally be had.
Well said Amelia. As Adam shared ‘Porn itself is not the problem, nor the real evil here. The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls’. True equality is fostering both our male and female qualities equally and anything less causes an imbalance.
Thank you Adam, for brining this to this forum. I have certainly noticed how porn and the sexual objectification of women can be used by men as a way of avoiding feeling true intimacy. As you rightly point out this intimacy starts with themselves.
Adam, thank you so much for sharing your know how around porn. I found it super interesting to hear your view on it. It was a great point you made that women are becoming harder, less intimate and so are turning to porn more as well. It makes sense – rather then allowing their own intimate connection with themselves they search for it from somewhere else.
Yes Emily, Adam’s article shows how super important it is to encourage both young boys and young girls to maintain and continually develop a connection with the natural qualities of fragility, tenderness, and vulnerability.
Today my awareness of the incredible ill effects of pornography has been raised to a new level of shocking. A medical report on the radio states YOUNG women are now going for genital cosmetic surgery. A significant reason sited is because their anatomy isn’t matching up to what their partners are seeing in pornography. It is partly driven by the partner’s expectations and comments that have young women seeking surgery. Doctors are now being equipped with briefing packages so they can have the discussion. These ladies don’t have the information about their anatomy to even discuss or know what it is they want. One case study mentioned a woman went to Thailand and woke with a clitiours-ectomy. Why isn’t this ‘trend’ making front page news, what has to happen to people before people stand up and say stop?
There is no doubt that porn presents a completely false image of intimacy, body image, sex and way of relating with both men and women. However, porn will be around as long as men and women continue to remain guarded and unaware of their own true delicacy, and so whilst, yes, we can and should stand up and call out porn for what it is and what it does to society, more importantly we should look to encourage both men and women to learn to treasure themselves more deeply. For without that foundation in society, porn is always going to find a foothold, for it provides a remedy of sorts for that which we truly miss – a truly intimate relationship with ourselves and with life.
Adam your voice needs to be on the national and international stage. You have a lot to say and a powerful and accessible way of saying it. We do indeed need to treasure ourselves deeply otherwise – porn or any other vice – will always have its foot hold. I learnt a lot from reading your blog today and how important this conversation is to be had.
I agree Sarah your sense of what Adam can bring to the world is spot on. Adam has a level of connection with the issue and everyone to make this a relatable and totally open discussion. We all play a part somehow, somewhere in the fact that pornography exists. Adams part is to make the conversation as simple and accessible as possible so we can all feel where it affects our lives.
Great point Adam, focusing on how bad and wrong porn is does not address the actual issue, it only serves to cement people in the guilt and shame of their addiction. Encouraging both men and women and children ‘…to learn to treasure themselves more deeply..’ is the only true way forward.
Thanks Hannah. The truth is that porn as an addictive behaviour is in truth no different to any other addictive behaviour, in that we use it to hide that which we do not want to feel. Once we understand this fact, and turn our attention to what is really going on, then the addiction no longer becomes the focus of the healing process.
Very solid points Adam. We can cry out the harms of porn, as legion as they are, but it is the foundation that needs building – the intimacy with self and the willingness to be open to true intimacy with others. Without this foundation, pornography will always be around, just concealed in desperate corners, occupying an underground that still holds sway over us.
The whole point of this article is that we tend to look at porn on a sliding scale of morality, treating porn on the lower end of the scale. The problem with looking at life this way is that it prevents us from seeing and understanding that there are other “good” vices that actually hold us back from knowing who we truly are, but that we fail to look at, for we compare them to those behaviours that we consider to be evil, such as porn, drugs etc. But ask me what the difference between someone who is addicted to porn and someone who is addicted to chocolate and I will tell you that in essence there is no difference. Both stem from a need to dull that which we do not want to feel, and thus both behaviours serve equally in that regard. If we then consider the teaching by Serge Benhayon that evil is simply that which separates us from our true selves, and if we then consider that the only way to know ourselves in truth is to feel life in its entirety, then we can see that anything that numbs us is, in fact, by this definition, evil. And, therefore, there is no sliding scale of morality at all to consider when life is seen this way.
And what Adam of the person addicted to their good deeds and their charitable acts? Are they not in essence caught in the same cycle of seeking to salve the inner emptiness through something outside themselves? Perhaps this is a step too far for many people to take…the scale of morality exposed in all of its emptiness.
True Rachel. Behind nearly all “good” acts is a self serving agenda. Very rarely is charity undertaken with no self serving interest at all, and rarer still is it done with the understanding of what is truly needed to assist another. Sympathy does nought but to embed one in the powerlessness of their own choices, and it ignores the fact that in truth we are our own saviour.
The awareness raising and honesty in this blog is very appreciated. It’s assisted me greatly to understand that there are forces that come with porn that goes beyond the actual people involved. It’s becoming clear that people participating aren’t so very aware because by their own account there is an emptiness wanting to be filled. Porn is an insidious and ugly energy when understood for what it is and where it comes from.
Thank you Adam for bringing this topic to the fore. Porn is widely used in our societies and is from all times and therefore it is being accepted a one of these cravings we all feel are not ok, but are needed to provide relief from the stress we live with, the stress from being disconnected from our tenderness. I can share the same experience as you have, that porn has no hold on me anymore and can clearly see for what it is since I have allowed my tenderness and femininity in me to open up and be part of my life.
“But the real evil of porn is that it comes laced” I totally agree with this sentence Adam, porn addiction provides such a relief for anyone craving intimacy and just general tension from life, it is glamourised and once you are hooked it owns you only until you choose to reconnect with the gentleness with yourself. Thank you
Adam this is a deep sharing that I must say I would never have known about. Thank you for explaining what you have learned and been brave enough to share , I have been quite judgemental in the past of those who do become addicted and distracted by Pornography.
Thank you Adam for your honest sharing and fathom out this topic. Your blog inspired me to write also one about my own experiences with the harming energy of porn and especially how much it owns us if we say yes to it. And it blinds us for the true intimacy we are original longing for.
Adam thank you, this deeply honest account of your personal insight into porn is revelatory. I found myself feeling a profound sadness around the fact that we have lost so much connection with ourselves and each other that when we have the choice between expressing how we feel, (opening up the possibility of intimacy) and, closing off and reverting to porn, so many in increasing numbers chose the latter. Its crazy that in our yearning for stillness, gentle-ness, tenderness and deep connection we turn to something that provides the extreme opposite.
Thank you Adam this is exquisitely open, honest account exposes all and more of the true meaning behind the word PORN. Raises the question, how willing are we, men and women alike, to acknowledge for ourselves when something is missing in our lives.
Good question, Giselle. We are so often unwilling to really look at the fact that we are missing something, let alone at the fact that this usually comes from something that we do not give to ourselves first and therefore do not find anywhere else. Loving and appreciating ourselves is the key to start the engine and the result will be that we will not need distractions and fillers like porn anymore.
So true Michael, it is a beautiful moment to come to when the choice to be honest is made, from there the unfolding of what is and what is not true can begin to naturally be our focus, and our support in choosing what is loving.
WOW Adam, the in depth reflections in your blog brought tears of recognition to my eyes. I could feel how when we truly connect to ourselves and drop the protection, hardness and retreat of the mind, the truth of the World magically opens up. That we are all intimately connected to each other in humanity and we need to commit to our deepening connection to our essence so that we can really take care of each other.
Having been addicted to Porn, I have experienced the energy of it owning me and the huge impact it had on my life, relationships and the way I objectified women.
It infiltrated like an insidious fog, silently descending un-detected over a village at night, polluting my thoughts actions and the way perceived relationships should be and how women should look.
I desperately wanted intimacy and to feel close to another, but deep down I was missing me and the tender, joy-full little boy that I turned my back on many years ago.
Thank you Adam, in deep appreciation of raising the topic of porn and the much-needed conversation needed to be had about this epidemic addiction.
Thank you Thomas and Adam for your heart felt honesty and the willingness to open up about the effects of porn on your lives and your relationships. From what you have shared I can feel the tender little boys who you both once were, and who are still part of the beautiful, tender men that you are today. I know that there are many like me who appreciate so very deeply that you are continuing this much needed conversation.
Absolutely Ingrid, a very much needed conversation, and thank you Adam and Thomas. It feels almost courageous for you both to be so honest about your own own tassel and addiction with porn as the relationship many men have with porn these days seems like the relationship a heroin user has with heroin with a desperate need and hurt underlying the relationship. To speak out about this and expose it for what it really is about I have to admire, as the subject obviously has an extremely sensitive undertone and being able to feel the gorgeous delicateness in men these days is something the world needs more of and they deserve to feel within themselves once again.
Yes I agree Ingrid, thank you Adam and Thomas for starting the conversation and for bringing such a deep understanding to the addiction and how it can hold you.
Thank you Thomas and Adam. Your willingness to openly discuss this is so needed, and appreciated. Without the openness, porn remains a part of society that largely goes unquestioned. It needs to be, as it does damage so many.
Yes Amelia, we always need to be questioning things such as porn otherwise nothing will change, it will continue to propagate harm and cause young people to have a distorted picture of what being in relationship can mean, and the intimacy and love that is actually craved will be further away than ever.
Porn is everywhere as sex sells and it has been infiltrated into every day life step by step to normalize it and make it part of our daily diet. There is no difference between pop-stars and porn-stars the lines are super blurred and the mainstream body image for young women today is that of a porn star. Self objectification is huge and most people belief that it is a free choice, but as you perfectly describe it is an energy that pulls you in. Today young people are learning sex from internet porn and they play out porn in their early relationships normalizing abuse and desensitizing themselves to what true intimacy and relationships are. Porn is abuse and fostering violence against women and negating men to truly connect to their tenderness and sensitivity. As you rightly say Adam we have to offer specifically boys to live their sweetness and tenderness so that they can build a loving relationship with themselves and from there with others.
You are right, if you look around porn has been injected into magazines about health, billboards, advertisements and so much more. As Adam said Porn owns us, we are seeing that with the normalization of it through these adverts etc.
very true Ben. At the very least, porn gives us a false ideal of what relationships and sex is all about. Yet it is not porn that is the real evil. It is simply the end result of what happens when one gives up on their own connection.
Thank you Adam, for your very honest and exposing story into the world of porn. It is beautiful to read that you have found what men are really looking for when they become involved in that seedy world. Your deep intimacy with your self, finding your tenderness, fragility and vulnerability that has always been there, is beautifully reflected in your life.
This is an incredibly intimate and powerful description of pornography and its affect on men, and consequently women. What saddens me is that so many women have adopted an “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em mentality” when it comes to porn use (that is only one example of where women have followed men blindly down a treacherous garden path).
At no point did we question what it was really doing to men (other than a few moments of relief and good times), and what had been done to them that made the usage of porn so normal and so acceptable.
So here we are living in a society in which porn is OK, men use it, women use it, our kids access it, it is the source of our teenagers sexual education. It is very interesting to see now that there are movements arising in which people want to restrict access to porn…to ban it…
however prohibition has never worked. Ever. As an example, even in countries where it is a criminal offence to have alcohol, people still have it on tap and thumb their nose at the law.
And even if we imagine we could ban pornography, we are still not dealing with the root of the problem that you have presented here Adam. Get rid of porn (if that is even possible) and you still have empty people, bereft of love and deep appreciation their sacredness.
When people are inspired to look deep within themselves, to feel the essence of their being they will never reach for pornography again.
And Adam…please keep writing. Do not stop. Your voice needs to be heard on this and so very many other issues.
Thank you Adam for building on the earlier article on porn. The use of porn affects us all and always brings with it the opportunity to ask deeper questions as you have written. As a woman, when I see the pornographic pictures of women in magazines I feel less. I used to question myself about what was wrong with me that I didn’t look, act, pose like that, that men did not find me ‘exciting’. I realise my whole view of intimacy and relationship was skewed and that deep down I was wanting to be loved and met for who I truly am. I have carried this belief about myself ‘not being enough’ for most of my life and have come to know that the pictures, ideals etc are not true. These old beliefs over-ride and blocked the re-connecting to my innermost. I truly appreciate this open discussion of this sinister energy and the confining and limiting effects of comparison. The freedom it brings having these undermining and false influences exposed feels amazing, like a heavy cloke has been lifted from me. This brings answers to the many questions (as a woman) I have been afraid to ask.
This is a subject that needs open discussion for as this article explores porn has a deep and insidious hold upon us. The article also exposes the cause of how porn is able to hook us, “I realised that what I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child. Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold’.
Thank you for being so open and honest. Discussions like these are needed. It is clear to me that porn and true intimacy do not go together. Recently doing research at work I read an article who spoke of their female friend who is a doctor in a well to do London suburb who was seeing all these girls who had trouble with their bottoms and sitting down from anal sex, it went on to say how many boys see girls as just objects which porn is the clear feeder of.
HI Vicky, that is horrific to hear and indicative of the false expectations that teenagers are experiencing as a result of an over-exposure to porn. It is indeed a de-sensitising medium in more ways than one.
I wonder about the number of young women and men who are not seeking medical help for trauma and injury as a result of aggressive sex.
The other health problem is the rise in sexually transmitted disease in young people. They are seeing unprotected sex on a screen, so it must be OK…right?
Are we willing to be honest about these problems, or will we keep pushing our heads deeper into the sand? And are we willing to look at the root? Not the porn, but the fact that we are so empty and devoid of care and love that an appetite for porn is created?
Wow. When you wrote that, after connecting with your own qualities of tenderness and stillness, Adam, it was though a veil had been lifted, and that you then saw women completely differently, I felt a a veil lift – off of my heart too! How powerful are the words you have written here, not only exposing the super sleazy energy of porn for what it is, but also unveiling the truth of why men ( and now some women, alas! ) also use porn as a way to avoid the responsibility of genuine intimacy ……with themselves!
Carving your own path through this and then sharing it so openly and honestly in this way offers a graceful opening for others to do the same.
Truly awesome. Thank you, Adam.
Thank you for writing this blog Adam. I now understand so much more as to why people turn to porn. I feel this beauty and loveliness inside me that you described in the end of your blog, and I can understand that without this amazing feeling in my heart I would be able to watch porn or see it as ok for others to do. But now, with knowing this loveliness that is me, there is no way I would now be lured into it. Such a great realisation.
Great article Adam on an, for everyone, important topic. What you describe about women being more into porn is a very alarming signal of the lacking of true intimacy for women too. We only have to look at the huge ‘succes’ of fifty shades of grey to get an impress on how significant this topic is for women.
I only started looking at it myself. I never was a fan of porn, but did watch it occasionally with a partner and found myself very tolerant and ‘free’ for being ok with it. So there has been a lot of denying what I felt there and didn’t want to look at my own part in it.
I agree, Monika: being amiably agreeable and tolerant of our partners’ use f porn is not the way forward for us: we collude in its continuation if we don’t call it for what it is an that it is not acceptable to us in any way, shape or form. All down while sharing the understanding of its nature and offering a loving alternative, of course, in exactly the same way that Adam has done here.
The way you described porn as being sticky, creepy and requiring multiple showers afterwards I can totally relate to Adam. Not just in the content but even sex has felt like this to me. Like stroking a dogs fur the wrong way it just makes my whole body cringe and tense up. But now I am wondering after reading this blog is that has that experience coloured all potential relationships? That energy of porn is not who the person doing the porn is deep down inside, but if I hold onto and tar all close relationship potentials with the same brush of back then not allowing myself to see the person beneath the act (both myself and partner at the time). So even if we no longer have anything to do with porn does it leave a mark, a scar, a taint on us that we carry with us? I would say yes it does from my own experience in how I relate to men now. I great eye-opener, thank you Adam.
Leigh, my experience is that porn affects at the very least our perception in so many ways. It affects the way men look at women, it affects the expectations men have around women, and it affects men’s ability to be intimate on so many levels. And these ideals and beliefs stay engrained within a man well after he has stopped watching porn. It is not porn that we need to renounce, but rather the ideal we have as men that delicateness and intimacy are not manly traits. If we can claim these traits within ourselves more readily, then the allure of porn will not hold sway – http://www.unimedliving.com/men/lifestyle/porn-addiction-what-are-we-missing-out-on.html
Adam it is really supportive to hear that it’s not a pointing blame at pornography but a responsibility of creating and fueling ideals and beliefs on ‘manly traits’. Both genders have equal responsibility to support boys and men to be complete with their delicateness and intimacy, as naturally as they develop muscles and grow hair.
It also affects women by comparison. We know that our bodies do not match those portrayed on a screen and if our sense of worth is already low it takes a greater battering.
And again, when we have no sense of self, we also learn to “turn the same tricks” as seen on the screen – a frightful expression, but to compete for our partners attention we feel we have to mimic. Very quickly the type of sex enacted in porn becomes the only way for two people to be together intimately. How this will play out as porn becomes more violent I cannot conceive.
And of course with every act we carry out, pretending to be someone else, fantasising about someone else, we drift further and further from ourselves and real intimacy.
Thanks Adam, a real eye opener – I have only had one relationship where a partner liked and used porn and I knew instantly when he had used it as I felt like he had been cheating, even though I did not know at the time he had used porn, but the energy was there in between us something was different.
This is simply a brilliant blog on porn. It covers so many of the aspects of what has gone wrong with us that porn is becoming more and more a part of men’s and some women’s lives. The craving of intimacy is something that I can feel strongly relates to the reach for the porn hit. Like Adam, I have always been attracted to the feminine qualities in women and it is quite a revelation to realise that as a man we can find those same qualities within us. From that revelation the intimacy with ourselves definitely changes how we see women or how we might consider porn and what is really on offer; that is something I have certainly experienced.
Thanks Adam for ” bravely going where no man has gone before”.
This is a really big subject that we all feel has been really taboo. Porn was something that I have done on and off for many years. I was even in relationships where we would watch it together for fun and to ” spice things up”. Part of it was a bit of rebellion against a Catholic boys education that hammered us with “sex is evil” and so the opposite of that was adopted in reaction. Porn was seen as a way to say, “hey look – sex is natural and it’s our right to explore and between 2 consenting adults we can “enjoy” anything we want”
But you are so right. The lack of real intimacy with myself, and therefore with others really left a great big hole that porn could never fill and like any drug we are using to escape what we are really feeling the more I used it, the further away from what I was really looking for I got.
There is a hollowness and emptiness with porn that is deeply wounding to us as men. It steals from us the willingness and ability to allow ourselves that sacred, tender, caring intimacy we are truly capable of being. In fact it is who we are meant to be. It removes us from our care, our warmth, and it prevents us from letting in the connection with our partners that we really want.
It is deeply healing to read you unpicking the seductive and addictive nature of porn, the effect it has on our lives and the reasons why men turn to it. The connection you have to your tenderness and vulnerability is a blessing to us all and the awareness you share through your honesty is divine… profoundly exposing what lies beneath.
Wow Adam, this is a very powerful, revealing and honest blog. You have exposed so much truth behind porn that I have never really paid attention to. What you have shared is so true and it enables me to realise why people can become completely addicted to it. Whereas I couldn’t understand it before and at times I was judgmental of the users. Your blog is exposing the source of porn addiction and this can be applied to other addictions too. To truly understand what drives it and why we have addictions, you have shared beautifully in your blog. Thank you Adam, this is truly amazing.
Thanks Chan. Judgement only serves to embed our perceptions of what we expect the world to be, robbing us of the chance to develop true understanding as to what is really going on underneath the surface of all things.
The damage pornography is doing to our society is way underestimated. We have early teenage girls who are suffering from major health problems as a result of anal sex ( which is “normal” these days), these girls feel that it is their duty to give in to the boys demands. These demands may be common but they are not normal demands of a teenager, they are coming from porn. The brazen openness of the sexually explicit comments, requests, demands are something I witnessed in my drug fuelled life fifteen years ago, it is now happening amongst the majority of teenagers on a daily basis. What is disturbing is that porn is everywhere we look and it is being glamourised.
Thank you Tony for raising this awareness of the damage pornography is coursing. This is a concern what you have shared and so awesome that you are bringing this matter up. It is disturbing that porn has become sensationalised and used as advertising and sold as being cool or the trend. The harm it courses is so easily hidden and extremely horrific.
Sex is used to sell anything and everything, from ice cream to real estate and the reason it is so popular is because we all want intimacy.
I love your sharing and I love the honesty in it! It is a shameful topic for most of the people but much needed to talk about! Thank you for being so open and revealing the truth about porn.
Thank you so much Adam for shedding the light on such an epidemic in today’s society. No wonder with what you have shared, that more and more children are turning to porn, with the shutting down of feeling their natural tenderness inside.
I have always felt the affects of porn, how it feels like there is three in a relationship instead of two, manipulating the very essence of each person and the relationship. Your honesty has really opened my eyes to how, when we are left to truly feel what is there, we are all (men and women) naturally sensitive, beautiful, fragile and deeply enjoy intimacy with ourselves and in relationships.
I agree Aimee and Adam when there isn’t an inner connection with self, and the want to fill it with what seems like the solution is very strong. The pull towards porn is very manipulative and catapults you away from feeling a connection first – it is the antitheses of what it is we truly and dearly are wanting to find and feel.
Very amazing blog Adam! Porn is an activity that hooks you because it talk straight to a need to which brings satisfaction in exchange for owning you. And, as you well say, owning you means precisely that OWNING you. This is important to be stressed since people tend to think that they are in control while the reality is that they have lost it big time. Something that owns you is something that shapes your view of the world and such view of the world is an impediment for joy. I really loved when you talked about connecting with your feminine side and how this allowed you to see porn as a game that is not fun at all for anybody.
wow what a powerful blog, thank you. The fact that porn is so easily accessible and has become such a widespread problem, is just a reflection of what is going in society. There is such a huge lack of intimacy and we are missing ourselves. We are dealing with a problem here that needs to be addressed and talked about. This blog is a great start.
I agree Mariette. Porn is something we avoid talking about and yet it is so widely used. We are all exposed to it and this blog exposes insidious energy behind it and so much more. An open, honest and much needed conversation is definitely a must. I feel that we need to bring this awareness to our young children and to not be afraid to talk about porn with openness and understanding.
This is something that is not new in our human history. We had porn in the age of Pompeii or at least used and saw woman in the same light. With the obvious damage it can do it is revealing that we now have it MORE accessible than ever by people of nearly every age!
Your honest sharing and understanding of porn takes the debate to a whole new level. This is a must read for anyone who wants to join the conversation.
Thanks Rachel, and therein lies part of the problem – that we debate such topics, rather than discuss them in a forum where everyone is unified in their intention to discover the truth free of the encumbrances of their own biased perception, and therefore open to contributing in a way that builds towards a one unified truth.
You have hit this nail straight on the head Adam. We debate as a way of resolving out issues. This keeps our arguments very clever, very intellectual and completely detached from reality. As long as we keep debating about porn we will have it in our lives and a lot of people emotional about either keeping it or getting rid of it, each side of the divide believing they are right….and the harm and what it reveals to us about ourselves is ignored.
Indeed Mary, what has to change is the way in which we bring up children. Today they are so often treated as a status symbol that should fulfill what Mum and Dad have always wanted to be – that is so horrible and cruel. And the different way could be so simple: love them and let them be who they already are.
What an amazing insight into the energy of porn. No mater how lured in by it we are, we can feel that yucky energy that is there behind the scenes. I loved your observation that way more women use porn now and how this could be because we have lost our natural inner stillness and are energetically becoming more and more like men.
A “How to Guide” for Men came across my work desk. Curiously I literally fanned the pages just to glimpse at what type of content was included. What popped out was a little unexpected. It was an article on Porn. I thought surely they aren’t promoting this so read on. It was re-assuring to discover it was an expose on how false the industry is. The information was the facts to debunk any of the glamour that people may be attracted to. It included all the filming tricks to make it appear stamina beyond normal and make-up and prop tricks for enhancing body parts. There is the pain and discomfort the actual people who perform are in and so on. It completed with the fact that the man who had the job of filming (just one of them, apparently there are a few) didn’t have any sexual relations for a month after as it was all too awful.
Great to see that there is true information being printed to raise awareness that all that comes though the media is not real.
Hi Sandra, I would love to see this “How to Guide” if you still had access to it. Education as to the reality of the industry is definitely needed, but it will not be until we start to encourage men to develop a true relationship with themselves based on intimacy, and encourage women to grow up understanding that their true self worth comes from within that the porn industry will die a natural death. It is after all only a side effect of the fact that as men and women, we do not yet know our own truth self worth.
It is always worth remembering that porn is an industry that is fed equally by men and women, both voluntarily complicit in ensuring its survival, for it serves a need for both.
Thank you Adam for such a deeply honest blog. I have always felt a repulse towards porn so have never felt into it. It has always felt gross in my body to watch. Your blog is an inspiration and invitation for men to go deeper into the “addiction” of porn, and feel what you discovered. It feels another band aid we put over our hurts that needs to be removed.
This article so powerfully goes to the heart of the issue with porn, that I suspect it won’t be fully appreciated for a long time to come. Yet here it is, leading the way, as Harry has rightly stated.
“Yet when I did challenge who I was, and connected to the beauty that was within me, I was able to finally see the true nature of porn – an addictive, ugly lure that falsely offers to replace something that we deeply miss within ourselves. For me, I realised that what I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child. Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold.”
Having the courage to look beyond anything we use to replace something we deeply miss within ourselves, and actually admit that this is the root of what is going on, is the hallmark of someone who is willing to truly consider that what we do in life impacts not only upon ourselves, but ripples out to all others. The ‘culture’ of porn is enormous, and growing in use – yes by women also big time. And it is most certainly worth addressing… is this what we truly want to bring to our precious children as an ‘acceptable way’ of being when, and as, they grow up? Could true intimacy with oneself and others actually offer something far, far more rich and joyful in our lives, if we are willing to go that bit deeper, and look beyond the superficial ‘lure’?
Thank-you Adam. As your wife, I know that you live what you have written 100% in full, and all that you have dealt with and seen in regards to the truth of what is going on with porn, has enabled our own relationship to deepen beyond measure.
Thanks for your honesty in exposing something like pornography which many men would find it ashamed to talk about openly. I certainly fell for the lure of pornography and it was something that I deeply was ashamed of. Because yes it does taint the way you see relationships and intimacy. And I like the way you said it was like a veil was lifted off your eyes when you decided to feel the truth about pornography. I also felt this and that yes we can recover our deeply sensitive nature as men like you shared. I now consider the fact that I watched porn as something that is NOT a part of me, because I have truly healed the addiction to it. This is important for people to claim because sometimes we can be hard on ourselves for what we have done in the past which we know was not true. You are an inspiration Adam so thanks for leading the way.
Hi Harry, yes shame serves no one. There is nothing shameful about saying that we have used porn, but we could be more honest as to why we do. As men especially, we need to let go of the self judgement that stops us being honest with what is really going on. We need to look at the use of porn for what it is – simply a solution that we use to hide the misery stemming from the fact that we are afraid to embrace intimacy in our lives. Porn is simply a refuge, and condemning men for using it rather than seeing it as a red flag that the way we are living is not true serves nobody.
Beautifully put Adam and Harry… beating ourselves up or judging what we have done in the past serves no-one and only keeps the hurting cycle going. You have both so openly looked deeper and brought honesty with where you were at, when making certain choices and feeling what was really there to be felt at the time. Awesomely inspiring for anyone reading this blog and all the comments, but also whenever you share your tenderness and gentleness with those around you.
Adam this is such a great piece, something everyone would benefit from reading as it exposes so much about porn, the way it is used, why it is used and the underlying issues that have led to it becoming such a norm within society. You are spot on about the fact that as a society we do not allow men to claim their true sensitivity and set them up to not know what true intimacy is. This is also the case for women, who now must abandon their gentleness and stillness to compete with men in the world. It feels articles like this are so very needed to expose what has become such a norm and that in truth keeps us from connecting to who we really are.
This is a brilliant piece of writing Adam and even more brilliant to open up the conversation. I just felt so sad reading this, seeing how normal it is to bring up young sensitive boys and turn them into hardened men. You’re right, this is the underlying issue because any man who feels his sensitivity and knows the true strength of his tenderness, would not be able to engage with the energy or porn. He would know true intimacy because he already has this with himself.
Thanks for your honesty Adam, it allows for such insight. I can feel how everyone is affected by porn, even when you yourself don’t use porn. It is a societal problem that hides and never really gets talked about.
Thank you Adam, thats an awesome sharing of not only what porn does, but how to connect to yourself and cut the addictive energy of it. A great reflection that I never heard about as you shared it from your own experience. Your experience has to be out there and shared big time!!!!
Well said Adam, all of it and beautifully deconstructed to reveal ‘the real evil of porn is that it comes laced.’ We can only be hooked if we have hunger. We can only have hunger if we have emptiness. And we can only have emptiness if we have neglected the fullness of our love and are looking for a substitute. Perhaps this is what allows us to be ‘owned’ – played for less then the love that we are.
Wow Liane, this has really clicked for me – choose love or choose a substitute… so simple! Thank you
Beautiful Liane, it comes down to our own choice, choosing the love we are in full or choosing another energy to bring something to fill that void, be it porn or something else, even a so-called ‘relationship’ that we know is not true but use it to fulfil our needs… What I got from Adam’s blog is the harm that gets multiplied to all partners and all people, blighting every relationship with every woman, or man. It is shocking to realise its pervasive influence and that society today is ‘normalising’ it, which is just another way to not face that there may be something deeper that is amiss and needing to be looked at.
Yes Liane, nothing has any power to hook us if we are living the fullness of who we truly are – simple.
It is so stunning how pornography hooks you looking like the safe space where you can experience intimacy without having to open up or run the risk of getting hurt or rejected – and without having to be responsible. No wonder, that it is so addictive.
I did not realize how it slowly started to control me over time in the way that it completely changed and limited my views of men and how my partner should have to be and to behave. For everything there was strict rules in my mind – if anyone would not cope, I could wallow in the unfairness of life.
Finally seeing the choices I made for what they were in-truth and taking my responsibility has been a very healing experience.
It allows me to feel that seemingly ever deepening beauty and connection of making love instead of having sex.
Thank you anonymous for this revealing blog about the impact of porn on us all. I become aware of the ubiquity of porn in its different form of appearance as we (most of us, men and women) already are reborn with this kind of theme, grow up in a pornographic addicted environment / society and have to become deeply honest first, to stop the seemingly “normal” and make new choices. Life worldwide is so lanced with the loveless pornographic view on men and women and on relationships (if obvious or perfidious) that it is important to conceive the whole dimension and ramification of it in order to heal oneself, develop true love and therefore establish a loving way for us and the next generations. As you, dear anonymous man and many people you know around Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine, have started to do.
Thank you for having the courage and honesty to start the important conversation about pornography Adam. It was my past experience that it becomes an energy that owns you, and like all addictions, in order to be satisfied by it I had to increase my input, by looking at more porn, and more extreme porn, as I grew numb to the affects. It has been a celebration to not be owned by this energy and re-turn back and connect to the tender man I am, feeling the intimacy with myself.
Thank you to Serge Benhayon and the practitioners of Universal Medicine, for assisting me with this.
This article nails it Adam! Like my use of many recreational drugs the occasional use of porn was similar in its seductive and addictive nature. The deep fulfillment that can come from real and true intimacy is indeed what we crave the most but when our life is void of such we try and seek it from porn. This can be the insidious trap because whatever intimacy we think we’re experiencing with porn quickly disappears after we’ve watched it and we are left feeling even more empty than before. This is when it owns us because like an addictive drug it then preys on our weakened and even emptier state to lure us back into seeking another fix. Like you say it is not until we reconnect to and nurture the lovely beauty inside ourselves that was so natural to us as an innocent child, that we see the true ugliness of porn and its false seedy offerings.
Adam thank you for your awesome blog. The way you express here really exposes the true evil behind pornography but an evil that can only own us if we are desperate and lacking in some way. It is natural for us to be intimate with another but live in a world that does not foster that, that doesn’t value our naturally tender and gentle ways so we walk away from that all the while longing to have it back. When the day comes that we begin to honour these qualities in our young and ourselves pornography will no longer have the power it currently does.
An awesome article that gives us a deeper understanding about pornography written honestly and with no holding back. For me, I appreciate very much the sharing from a man’s experience of porn and how it relates to us as women and men. Thank you.
We as women love attention! I have craved attention for as long as I can remember from men but by discussing this need for recognition openly and truthfully with an Esoteric Practitioner has supported me enormously.
Adam I’ve learnt a lot from reading your blog about the energy of porn and about men. It has given me a deeper appreciation for men in general and I can feel that the more I can just be me around men, with no veils, no hooks, no trying, that then allows a man to just be him in his beauty and tenderness. Then we can feel ourselves as equals.
Once I accepted men hold the same beauty as women, I began to feel them as equals.
When reading this I can feel the deep hurt we men and women suffer, when we learn to harden ourselves. And, as you have written, the evil consequences this can have.
Thank you Adam for your honesty and truth on exposing the true nature of porn and my attraction towards it. Your revelation has allowed me to understand why I had need for porn and how it did once control me.
Wow Adam. Thank you for bringing to light the real truth of porn and your experiences with it. My own experiences are not to dissimilar to yours and can look back at how porn was supposed to bring that extra something to my relationship but in truth it was actually taking away the chance of building a deeper level of intimacy with my partner and with myself.
Something that concerns me regarding pornography today is that it has become such a “normal” part of our lives, it is something that we are just expected to accept. I recently had a friend tell me they were on a train and the person sitting next to them was openly watching porn. I also remember watching a popular TV show, where one of the characters thought she saw her husband masturbating to sharks and so she bought a shark video to watch and have sex with him as her way of saying “I am a great wife, look what I am prepared to do for you” – even though she clearly did not want to do it. This is shocking to me. For many today there is a belief that we are expected to like porn or at least consider it to be OK, and if we don’t we are considered prudish and unadventurous. So what is going on?
Great question Caroline. “What is going on?” To me the normalisation of porn and in conjunction with the many adult shops littered around our neighbour hoods is that humanity is so lost and thinks it needs the outside influence of porn to spice up their relationships instead of being honest with themselves and each other in how their relationships are truly lacking if not completely void of true love.
In re-reading this article I was struck by the thought that porn is often introduced into relationships to bring couples together, to add some spice, try something different, to increase stimulation or arousal etc. However, in my limited experience, in being put under pressure to try porn or add it like an ingredient to make the relationship better, it did in no way shape of form allow me to feel intimate with my partner. Now, looking back it was intimacy that was the missing ingredient for my relationships.
I loved how you found the core of the responsibility of the relationship as the issue, something that many would not even consider or relate to. What a wonderful expose for men to consider for themselves.
I agree as a women I see the emptiness in the eyes of the women on the billboards.
I find it personally so sad to see my sisters like that lost and hoping for love…..in any way they can find it. Generally through the exposure of the human body not for the woman she truly is, her smile, her laugh, her personality, her warmth, shine so much brighter…
I am blown away by the openness shown by so many in the above comments. It’s a huge a tribute to them that porn addiction no longer exists in their personal lives due to the changes they have made in how they connect with themselves, and hence others, especially women. It is considered a taboo subject in so many facets of our society, yet as many before me have pointed out, it is becoming more and more pervasive in our lives. This has really helped me reflect on and understand different aspects of the subject. Thank you all, especially to those who started the discussion.
Very good article Adam, thank you. I particularly liked your point that essentially, Porn is the symptom, not so much the problem (although of course, we do have to deal with it and call it out). To heal any of the damage caused by porn, it is necessary to heal the hurt that led to the use of it.
Yes agreed Janene, it is a great place to start by saying that porn is not it, and it definitely needs to be called out for what it is. However, simply knowing that it is “bad” and calling it out as such brings absolutely no healing or ability to say no to its allure. It is only when we see the overall game that is being played that we start to free ourselves from its clutches.
Porn serves men and women equally. Women get the attraction they so crave, and men, oblivious to the fact that they are actually being used as well, get addicted to the relief that it brings them. But this is why in truth it is a symptom, for if women claimed themselves in full and understood their own true self worth, there would be no one to showcase, and if men opened their hearts and allowed themselves to drop the wall, they would too understand that porn is no substitute whatsoever for real the intimacy that is available to them 24/7.
Adam, I appreciate your honesty and depth. In Soviet Union I even didn’t know about porn. Nobody talked about it, this subject was shameful to discuss. Imagine how surprised I was, finding out that my ex-husband was using porn all the time even at work? I couldn’t understand it – we had been married, making love a few times every day – and he used porn on the top of it!
It makes perfect sense to me after reading your article – he had so many hurts and such a rough upbringing so it was difficult for him to go deeper and look at this addiction. I couldn’t support him because I didn’t know how to deal with it myself. I couldn’t suggest for him to look into a women’s eyes and see what’s there. This addiction played a big part in destroying our relationship.
It would be great if your article could be printed in porn magazines, to support others too. Thank you for sharing, deep understanding and game changing.
I absolutely agree with the message here. Having slowly but surely, via choosing to feel and be closer with myself, created more intimacy with myself, I’ve felt the attraction of porn fade away. Once it faded completely, even walking down the Street in Byron Bay starts to make you observant of the attention seeking nature of semi-bare tourists. Great article.
This blog was great to come back to and reread. You offer so many sights and much understanding as to why porn is so addictive for men and the problems relating to it. “Porn itself is not the problem, nor the real evil here. The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls.” As parents and educators we have a real responsibility to support boys to express their tender ways. We haven’t yet really felt how damaging it is when we don’t honour boys in this way.
Yes I too wanted to say a big thank you again for the insights you have given here and the clarity as to the root of this issue. As Rachel above has quoted, the evil is that we suppress in boys their natural tender qualities and shocking too that women are increasingly doing the same. How as a society can we then turn round and judge men for the ways in which they seek relief from this? With more honesty, allowing and understanding it is possible not to be filled with revulsion and horror but to be open to discussion and healing without shame. Thank you again for what you have shared. This is truly ground breaking and it is a conversation that we all need to have. As a society we desperately need to be aware of the pitfalls of hardening against our true natures.
Well said Michelle I agree. This blog and comments is allowing me to be more honest and feel the pocket of un-comfortableness I have on this topic.
A beautiful article Adam, honestly exposing the truth about porn and a great sharing from your experiences. You have offered a greater understanding and presented from the honesty of your experience the effects and the truth behind the craving for pornography and the way to move out of its grip and back to love. Thank you for sharing.
Adam thank you for giving such insight and deep understanding of Pornography and the energy behind it. How in connecting back to those inner qualities that are always there meant that ‘ the addictive allure of porn had no hold ‘ .
Thank you Adam for this very frank and open expose of porn and the impact it can have on peoples lives and relationships.
Thank you Adam and this is at the root of any human malaise – that deep disconnection from the love we knew and felt inside of us as children. What amazing insight you have and a much needed sharing. I have never come across anyone who has written so openly and honest about pornography and even goes as far as exposing the energy behind it. It is only because you have chosen to go there and explore your desire for true intimacy that you have been able to let go of the hold you felt pornography had on you. Thank you.
A brilliant expose and exploration into what porn means for society and how and why it becomes addictive for people. I can feel how porn and sexualization has impacted on my life and others around me. It is the way that it is accepted and its increasing use that is truly concerning. Great that this article challenges this and gets to the root of what it motivating it. Thank you.
Wow, Adam, this article blew my socks off! What an amazingly candid presentation of the truth in terms of the real evil behind the empty gazes in the pornographic images. Thank you for exposing that it is the intimate relationship we miss with ourselves that attracts us to porn, which is equally true for women as it is for men.
I am blown away by the depth of wisdom that Adam shares here. It offers me more insight into the truth about boys and men than pretty much anything that I have ever seen or been told before. Bring on the time when no one can look at porn without seeing ‘not naked women promising to fulfil …. fantasies, but young daughters and mothers and sisters’ and thus not be, in any way hooked by or attracted to it, and bring on a time when the tenderness of boys is celebrated.
This was very enlightening Adam as my only experience of porn is when others have turned it on in hotel rooms and I always felt very uncomfortable and left the room.
Hi Rachel, great comment. It is a subject that is brushed aside. We as a society have come to accept it as part of our lives, but as Adam shares, we are not looking at the way it is affecting our youngsters who then grow up to be the adults. It changes how young boys view women and how young women view themselves. This is a topic that does need more open discussion especially in our schools.
I agree Debra, this topic needs much more open discussion especially in our schools. Adam has helped to identify the deep ill seeded, insidious effects porn has on our relationships with each other and ourselves. With pop videos and media representation of women and men becoming over sexualised and in many cases quite pornographic it is well and truly time this problem is brought out into the open.
A super powerful blog Alan. Thank you for your honesty in exposing the truth of what goes on with addictions to porn. A great conversation to get started as we see this rising all over the world.
“For me, I realised that what I was missing was that feeling of loveliness that I knew so naturally as a child. Once I connected to that, the addictive allure of porn had no hold.”
This line says so much, thank you again Alan for your honesty.
Such an insightful and honest article, thank you Adam. With the use of smart phones our young now have an easy and unregulated avenue to porn, making this evil a part of their everyday ‘normal’ landscape which seems crazy and makes no sense to me.
Thank you Adam, for making such important points on this difficult subject. I agree with Kevin that porn seems to have an evil energy. You are spot-on about looking into the expressionless eyes of the porn participants. I have always wondered what they think about when they are posing. If porn is addictive to the user, what effect does it have on the porn performer? It is difficult to imagine that they have loving, caring relationships themselves.
The premise of pornography seems to be, that you will be aroused by other people
performing vicariously that which you desire yourself but for whatever reason,
can’t access.
Whereas in real life, arousal can be followed by joyful consummation
and in a loving relationship, deep heart-felt contentment; In a pornographic situation
this is not the case. To use a food analogy, you’ve eaten the meal but remain hungry.
Could this be where the addiction comes in?
Porn has also affected me: I was once with a man who was owned by porn and at my lowest point I felt utter disempowerment, exhaustion & self loathing. At the beginning of our relationship, I tried to get it out of the house… but after a while gave up out of a need to be in the relationship. I could feel the horrible energy of it in our house and in our bed… which I also felt when we had sex.
Thank you Adam and others for bringing porn out into the light as an opportunity for us all to SEE its harm and heal from it.
Porn definitely needs to be brought into the light and shown for exactly what it is, destructive and highly disrespectful. Porn is an addiction that deeply harms society yet we have yet to truly see it for this. We seem to keep going as if it is acceptable when we all know deep down it is not.
Samantha. I agree with you that porn is destructive and disrespectful to both male and females. It needs families to speak about it to their children, and the dangers of it.
It also needs a ban on magazines promoting porn, and TV stations closed down that promote it.
We all need to take responsibility for our actions or porn will still go on.
Samantha indeed it does as it is becoming more and more widespread and accepted as ‘normal’ even though so many who use porn know that it is a (poor) substitute for what they truly want – that true connection. I know I felt this, but unfortunately due to my own emptiness also felt it was ‘better than nothing’ at the time. By allowing it to be ‘normal’ and not calling it out, we then don’t see whats really going on within the relationships we are in. When I was younger myself and my friends thought “Because others use it then it’s ok”… it felt like it was abnormal not to use porn! I understand now that 8 year old kids are starting out on porn via the mobile phones; this means that perhaps the next generation of adults may accept more extreme forms of porn as normal. It shows it’s time to really address what is going on and put a stop to the cycle that is behind this.
I feel a huge appreciation for all those of you who have commented so openly about the pornography in your lives. I recently felt the power of owning up to this issue for myself. I realized that I have avoided dealing with this entire area of my life and it was really capping me. Naming that I have been using sex and have allowed porn in my life as a way of getting the intimacy I needed has shifted me in a big way. I feel it is an incredible healing every time we get honest with our selves about those things we most want to hide. There is no hiding from our love…love always knows when something is not love!
I got chills a number of times reading your article Adam. So much truth in your words. All things I too have felt. I have given in to porn and then fallen for it’s tricks myself. I can see from the comments that it is this kind of HONESTY that will begin to heal the insidious harm pornography is spreading to everyone. I want to see these words in magazines real soon…it is high time!
Perfect Jo: “it is an incredible healing every time we get honest with ourselves about those things we most want to hide. There is no hiding from our love…love always knows when something is not love!”
Great and horrific point you make Rachel. Is it now so accepted as a norm that a Head-master isn’t alarmed when a 9 and 10 year old are looking at porn? For these boys and so many like them, porn will be their first “intimate” relationship with women. And as this blog so eloquently expresses that will do deep lasting damage. Even though I haven’t looked at porn for over 10 years and have done much of what Adam describes in creating truly intimate relationships with myself and with women, I can still feel the traces of porn in me. That is how damaging it is.
Dear Adam Warburton
Your article is absolutely needed for everyone to read and feel what you are saying.
I have learnt so much and I really get it when you talk about the energy of porn owning you and this is sad and awefull – a real trap. I agree with Kevin McHardy in his comment that this subject needs to be brought out in the open as it affects everyone in the household.
Ignoring this ever growing industry cannot continue and your article is a start.
I am deeply inspired by your openess and depth of honesty to write about such a secret subject that society does not like to talk about AND put your full name.
Well done Adam, we sure need more real gentle men like you in our world.
Great article Adam on a subject that does so need to be brought out into the open. Porn comes in with a pure evil energy and we/society all need to understand that watching porn brings that energy into the home which affects all in the household, not just the individuals watching or using it. When I was a teenager there was only the magazines, but now with teenagers growing up with the internet smart phones etc. it is even more easily accessible and for many has become an accepted thing. Taking responsbility, and looking at why porn is needed in the first place, is the only way to begin addressing this growing addiction.
Beautiful Adam – you have torn the lid off a very taboo subject and really got to the core of why we get hooked in. Your sentence “the true nature of porn – an addictive, ugly lure that falsely offers to replace something that we deeply miss within ourselves” offers us a deep healing, for as you say, once we connect to our tenderness within, the truth of pornography is revealed to us and we simply no longer need it to find relief or intimacy, as it just cannot compare to what resides within.
An amazingly truth-full and very in depth coverage of such an important topic. It is great to hear your personal experiences and then feel and hear the consequences of such explorations. It highlights how one so called innocent choice can grab hold of you and take you in a direction you’d never have dreamed of. It’s scary how porn is so accessible particularly across the web and how far reaching the damaging effects are for all involved.
WOW Adam, you have written with such love, truth and power.
Almost every point you made felt revelatory and ground breaking, but I was particularly struck by your observation that perhaps women are turning to porn in such large numbers because they too are missing intimacy and in particular THEMSELVES.
Like everyone says porn comes with that feeling of being “dirty” and “guilty” which of course makes people feel even more disconnected from themselves and therefore desire more porn and so the vicious cycle continues. And now porn is so rampant in the playground and circulated amongst younger and younger children that it is becoming “normal” and of course still yukky.
It is a breath of fresh air when a strong and powerful man like you so eloquently expresses the other side, and that for many men and women it is becoming increasing normal to be and live in a lovely and tender way – that we do not need to fight our way out of the vicious cycle but rather re-connect to the preciousness we always carry within and then the viscous porn cycle loses its hold and the truth is revealed.
Thanks Adam, for getting that one out of the closet for us all to discuss and ponder on, well done.
Great article. There is a powerful revelation in the part you wrote below:
“When I began to connect with myself more strongly, I went back to porn to see what it was that had dragged me in. I looked not at the bodies of the women, but their eyes, to see if they had what I was feeling deep within me, and it shocked me. Because, if you look deeply into their eyes, they all have the same look, and they all look at you the same way. Their eyes are empty, with a desperation for attention that screams out at you. But underneath that, you see something else. It is like something else is looking out from behind their eyes, as though they too are owned by something, something that leers at you, something that reaches out and says “I’ve got you now and I’m not letting go”. I am talking here about the energy of porn, and it affects both men and women equally.”
This is so true! you describe here so well when, if we truly stop and are willing to see and feel things for what they are, an emptiness is revealed, with something that has filled it up, devoid of the warmth, safety and expansiveness of LOVE. Like a display fridge full of creamy, colourful desserts, apparently inoffensive and loving, but in fact very empty and ephemeral, just substitutes for what we deeply long for: true LOVE and connection. It is fantastic we can experiment to feel this in our own skin, not needing to be psychics or gifted. We all can, if we allow it to!
Thank you so much Adam for just completely hitting the bullseye on this incredible description of the reality of porn and why we as men have used it. My experience with it has paralleled yours in many ways, albeit with the difference of mine being more intensely addictive and frequent up to 3 years ago when I was started taking Universal Medicine courses with Serge Benhayon and began to see that I was really looking for the true intimacy that I missed in my life (as you so eloquently described). But what was so confirming for me while reading your piece is that now that I have tapped into that gentleness, tenderness, and true connection with myself, the death-grip that porn held on me has gone away very effortlessly and the resentment that I had felt in my relationship has been replaced with a deeper intimacy involving openness and honesty.
What I have noticed now though is that the energy of porn permeates much more than just the hard-core magazines/movies, but has extended it’s separative tentacles into virtually every aspect of public media and can be felt even by looking into the seductive eyes of a woman fully clothed in a grocery store checkout line newspaper or magazine. These things must be addressed as they lay the groundwork for young children to be hooked by this energy of porn if they are not being met in full and nurtured to maintain those feminine qualities (whether boy or girl) that keep them connected to their true loving selves. Adam, you and the original person who posted the article on porn here have really laid the foundation for us all to continue to open up and discuss this topic in a way that is unprecedented in the world today.
I am blown away Michael Goodhart that you can be so deeply honest as is Adam who wrote this article. You are willing to put your name and not hide and that really says a lot to me. To say you were intensely addicted and all this has now changed is deeply inspiring.
I admit that I have been avoiding the ‘Pornography’ section of this blogsite mainly because I felt the world would see my name associated with this word.
I no longer feel this and I have learnt so much by just reading these articles.
Adam and You Michael are bringing topics like this to the fore so we can all learn and have a deeper understanding why things happen. This is the start to healing and putting a stop to what we all know is not our natural state.
with deep Appreciation.
Thank you Michael for your great honnesty. Beautiful men like you, Adam and Anonymous are exposing that porn is everywhere and not openly talked about and you are laying the new foundation and a new marker that will help to stop the evil of porn.
Awesome article Adam Warburton. What an important conversation to have.
Great point Rachel! This shows how much shame there is around porn, nobody dares to talk about it or discuss it. Great thanks to you, Adam for inspiring this discussion, which is clearly so needed as Rachel is sharing.
Adam, you’ve raised some excellent points about the true nature of porn.
There were times in my life when I ‘did porn’ and times I didn’t. I’ve realised that the state of my relationship had an influence on viewing porn; when I was in a loving relationship, the porn stopped.
Now I could rattle reasons off why – loneliness, frustration, feeling unloved and so on, but that’s an excuse. The truth is, I lacked self-respect and love for myself. I used porn as a relief…yet the irony is that it made me feel dirty, guilty and ashamed.
As I reflect deeper, I see that by choice, I was using porn to stay separated from my true essence. I blocked out my natural tenderness and stillness. Yet now I see that for a man to admit to tenderness is a sign of strength; to not do so is a sign of weakness (a flip over society’s expectations).
Today I see a woman’s beauty through her eyes…and that’s a hellava lot better than where I used to look!
Once again, I am inspired by yet another man commenting on this amazing blog about their experience with porn. Thank You Rod Harvey for not hiding your name. This says a lot to me and I was not aware that porn made you feel dirty, guilty or ashamed. I just thought men who did this were perverts and loved it. To read these words and feel them has certainly helped me to say the least.
I know this conversation here is for more to read and us speaking our truth is the start to inititating change.
I reckon most men would feel the shame, guilt and dirtiness of porn, I certainly did. It is an interesting point Rod makes about the quality of the relationships he was in and how that would affect his interest in porn. There is certainly something quite deep we go looking for when we view it, I am glad, maybe even relieved that I now understand the harm it does and would never now go near it. I have a lot of admiration for Adam for openly addressing this as it is not an easy subject for us men to talk about. The widespread accessibility of porn and its damaging effects on impressionable young boys and girls makes it something we can’t just ignore.
Thank you Adam for sharing this, bringing awareness to that insidious energy that runs through pornography. This blog inspired an awesome breakfast conversation today. 🙂
Adam, thank you for this awesome and insightful article, which is both groundbreaking and taboo shattering. You have opened up a subject for discussion that no one really understood and virtually everyone felt uncomfortable addressing, and your initiative could not be more needed than it is now, with the spead of the poison to younger and younger children.
Thank you Adam for taking this to the next level. It is as you say vitaly important to look at it from the angles you have provided in your great article. And as you say both men and women are affected. If the grown men, the fathers and fathers to be, are willing to become as honest and open as you are then their sons will be raised in a way that will someday make porn obsolete in this world.
Adam, thank you for your sharing and honesty. Porn is not something that has been in my life that I am directly aware of. The addiction to what takes me away from knowing, being with and taking responsibility for myself and therefore my impact on others has though. You reminded me of all the different ways in which I can become hooked on that which lures me away from my self-care and self responsibility…they are just less visual but nonetheless harmful.
Adam, thank you for your wonderful post. I especially love the part where you said “Eventually I started to question what it was that I was seeking in women in general – what was it that I wanted from them that I could not find in myself? It was then that I realised that I wanted that stillness, that gentleness, tenderness, openness and vulnerability that women tend to show more easily in the world – characteristics that are drummed out of men by society from a very young age.”
I had never thought about why people look at porn that way before, but now that you have mentioned it….it is so true. The other reason is the need for intimacy….in-to-me-see…
Thank you for this Adam it is a very powerful and healing piece which exposes so much. It is great to bring light to this subject which adversely and insidiously affects so many men and women.
Thank you Adam for the depth of honesty and your strength of courage to give an understanding on the reality of how porn works.
This feels like a ground-breaking blog to me, Adam. Because you have presented it from a true stance of observation and a willingness, without judgment, to get to the bottom of why people do porn, so much has been revealed. It is as if the energy of porn is created to act like a ‘loop’ – once hooked, it takes people into an empty cycle that can never be exited until there is some kind of reflective moment or wake-up call happening.
You have presented such a beautiful unfoldment to come to the truth that when you stay connected to those tender, nurturing ‘feminine’ qualities you could no longer get aroused by the images you saw – you could see exactly the way this energy was working and that every woman was somebody’s daughter, wife, sister. Thank you so much for recording this. This is true brotherhood – when this truth is known no one can be used for one’s own so-called benefit. I have found myself sometimes ‘using’ shop assistants just to get the product I want (and get it quickly) instead of meeting that person, receiving them, standing in true relationship with them. This can be seen as an equally misled way of being as doing pornography.
Another (amongst many) great points that have touched me is your discussion of the ‘perceived burden’ of the responsibility of relationships (as opposed to the ‘freedom’ of porn) and the stress felt over this, leading to lack of commitment. This awesome realisation applies to so many situations in life – equally applying to my addiction to ‘hiding away’ from the world because of all the hoops, form-filling-out, and hard work needed to be ‘registered’ out there.
And you have clearly stated and exposed the evil motive underneath all of this – that the innate feminine qualities in both men and women have been discouraged, drummed out of us, and ridiculed. Any and every possible thing (porn, women’s magazines, sport, culture, education, media) is used to hook us away from the rhythmic, harmonic truth available to us and present in our bodies. We would know too much then from the truth of feeling, and the world as it is would be turned around!
Thank you for an awesome blog.
The damage of porn to both men and women is undeniable, from how women feel they are being constantly looked at and expected to perform to how men are controlled and manipulated by it. Both men and women have played roles in the exchange of harm through this energy, driven from their own sets of needs.
And when the reason for the use of porn is put so simply – as you say, the missing of one’s feminine essence, their connection to their own tenderness, fragility and stillness – it makes the addiction no longer the issue. We are then just left with the sad reality of how men are tragically misled in every way to live far from feeling, connecting to or even knowing their true natures. We ARE all equal and long for the same qualities that are found within us. Amazing blog Adam – thank you.
Thanks so much Adam for the depth expressed in this article. I related to how I avoid intimacy with my self and my own partner by becoming absorbed in mental activities like watching TV or study at times. Its crazy that on one level I avoid the one thing I crave; intimacy and connection with the beauty and loveliness of who I am. Your writing pointed to the energetic fact that we allow ourselves to be owned by the energy of these activities such as porn etc. It makes me wonder about what I fear so much about connecting to who I truly am?
This is a great question, Jenny. What has made us so hurt that we are unwilling to be open to real life relationship and intimacy, and prefer instead to get off on watching empty and loveless staged sex acts? Is it a sign that the majority of adults (and even teenagers) in society have already given up on love? For me, this is why the work of Universal Medicine is so crucial at this time, to bring us back from the brink of giving up and settling for much less.
Adam, your article opened my eyes. My experience with porn is extremely limited. I’ve only ever seen it, as in touched it, maybe three times. Of course, it is easy to see (impossible to miss) at every check out aisle in the supermarket or at the newsagent, but I try not to look! My personal experience is limited to finding one of my father’s magazines when I was about 9, finding one of my son’s magazines when I was about 49, and discovering that my 7 yr old grandson had typed the word “butt” into google and landed on a full blown porn site. And so….I thought that porn, basically, did not affect my life. After reading your blog, I’ve realised that porn affects the very fabric of the society I live in. My eyes have been opened to the reality of its insidious infiltration into the makeup of humanity. Thank you for your honesty and great insight into this topic.
What a great point you emphasise here Gayle in that ‘porn affects the very fabric of the society I live in’. Whether it affects us directly or not, we are still affected – whether being surrounded by it, having it in our own relationship, or knowing someone who has it in theirs. It’s time we as a society begin to have more open discussions about the true and widespread effect of porn and to be willing to address such issues of intimacy (or lack thereof) that Adam has raised in this blog.
Yes it affects us all and therefore we all have a responsibility to address it and challenge it. In the past I have had a reluctance to say anything for fear of being called a prude etc but I have often felt uncomfortable with comments etc I have heard and not called it out so therefore I have chosen to be part of the problem and have thus contributed to the current explosion of porn all around us.
Thanks Adam for lifting the veil on why men and women choose porn. As you said no child when they are little says they want to grow up to be a porn star. You have opened up the opportunity for real healing to take place when we take the time to look inside of ourselves as to why we crave such choices in the first place.
The truth rings out loud and clear in your words, Adam. I especially loved where you say, ‘Porn itself is not the problem, nor the real evil here. The real evil is that as a society we do not foster these “female” qualities that are naturally inherent in small boys in the same way we do with girls. We drum it out of them, tell them to harden up, don’t cry, grow up, be strong, don’t complain when it hurts. Yet deep down those qualities of fragility, tenderness, and vulnerability remain in every man, no matter how hard they have tried to bury them. And when they do try to reconnect to them, society tells them that they are being sissy, gay, soft, pathetic, a whinger.’
I see this happening all around me in my everyday life. It’s definitely time for us as parents, friends, relatives and in our work, to be open to the opportunities to cherish these beautiful qualities children of both genders innately have, so they grow up knowing this loveliness is always there inside them.
Great article Adam, and deeply healing for men and women. The effect of porn is widespread. It makes us feel we have to be a certain way in bed with our partners, resorting to tricks and devices…rather than simply being ourselves, and being open and intimate. How sad that many young people are getting their “sexual education” from pornography! It also confirms and entrenches false ideals of what makes a woman beautiful, what makes a man a “real man”….all of it crap.
Thank you for your stunning honesty, that obliterates any shame, and brings this addictive substance into the light for open discussion.
Well said, Rachel, Adam’s honesty in his article is stunning and so true. Porn transforms the beautiful act of true lovemaking into a performance, and as you commented, leads to tricks and devices, not a true expression of our feelings.
Wow, Adam the article you have written goes deeper into the harm that pornography perpetuates but deeper still into the ‘cracking open’ of why we choose to use it in the first place. Missing that fragile, tender, delicate nature inherent in all men, being pressured to perform in a society that actively destroys that beauty has consequences for both sexes. This is huge. Thank you for writing this and allowing such an addiction to be properly understood.
Thank you Adam, for honestly expressing your experience. I relate strongly to what you’ve shared and it feels awesome to finally be beginning to talk about this openly.
The most powerful part of this blog for me is the clear statement that its not about pornography, but why we would ever choose to use it in the first place. How does it truly make us feel? How does it affect our every day and how we relate to others and to life? What is it in us that would ever settle for an image or a ‘snapshot’ when we can share warmth and tenderness with another human being?
And as you say, what if that tenderness and femininity is actually in US all along? What if that is simply what we’re saying when we use pornography, that I miss making love to me?
“I saw then not naked women promising to fulfill my fantasies, but young daughters and mothers and sisters, slaves to an energy that now owned them, who were desperate for the attention of men – conversely, falsely hoping that men could bring them what they were missing in themselves.”
Bravo Adam. You have a standing ovation in stillness here. Extremely important observations made for both women and men equally so, and the depth of opportunity for reflection here is without comparison.
Adam a powerful piece that brings in the fact that pornography is an issue for men and women. By us having conversations together we will break the hold that pornography has on us or over us, and the veil and secretive nature of it will lift. The conversations and the sharing around this topic feel important. They lessen the hold of pornography, they expose why we used it or allowed it in our relationships, they uncover what it is that is underneath – as you could say that pornography is used as a ‘medication’. We are using it to make us feel better, to fix something or to hide something.
As you beautifully wrote, the fact is that we have shut ourselves off from innately knowing and feeling that we are lovely, fragile, sensitive, naturally tender, nurturing and caring and if we connect more to this then the need for relief, from ourselves, will not be something we look for.
Thanks Sally, the world has always known that pornography was not true, but it has only ever been talked about in reaction and in black and white terms of good and evil. Thus all we ever hear is people either defending its use as sexual expression, or other human advocacy groups judging it and condemning its use. All the while, no one is asking the questions – why do we need porn? Why do women agree to perform for porn? Why do men justify their watching it?
When the FACT is NO UNDAMAGED MAN EVER WANTS HIS DAUGHTER OR SON TO GROW UP TO BE A PORN STAR, AND NO 5 YEAR OLD DREAMS OF BECOMING A PORN STAR WHEN THEY GROW UP – how does a man (or woman) allow themselves to get off on someone else’s daughter or son, and how does a daughter or son grow up to become one, if this is the case – and in increasingly alarming numbers…
Absolutely, spot on Adam. These people who choose careers in porn are all still people…we so easily lose sight of this, and they are seen as objects to use and if not, to judge. It seems convenient to overlook the simple truth that we are all equal, and these people are someone’s son or daughter, perhaps father or mother, sister or brother and friend.
Well said and powerfully put Adam – no one grows up wanting to be a porn star let alone wanting their son or daughter to be one. It is alarming and shows how far we are from treating everyone equally with the love and respect we all deserve, for if people were treated this way in no way would they entertain entering the porn industry or perhaps even feel the need to watch porn in the first place.