This post is intended to shed some light on the effects

pornography is having on society and specifically on men

of this generation. There is no end to the vitriol spewed
against the pornography industry ranging from them
accused of objectifying the female body , by the
feminist circles extending to their branding as agents of
Satan by the conservative right. Feminists call it the male
gaze which reduces the woman to an object forgetting
that such has been the case for the whole of history, the
difference being only the medium of expression which
determined the extent of the intensity and savagery so to
say depicted in that medium. There has never been a
medium like the internet with its depth of reach and
technological capacity and so porn is just another rider
on this global technical revolution. In an episode of
Boston Legal, the case revolves around a Professor of Art
who is caught having sex with a prostitute and his
eventual release, facilitated by the portrayal of the sex as
art which is immune to prostitution charges. The
professor happens to be a connoisseur of Victorian era
sex gadgets. A comment from his defense attorney,
Shirley is notable. She says the first use of any
technological revolution is always in the realm of erotica
and sex. This should be easy to explain given that sex is
such a powerful force inside us and seizes the first
chance to express itself in any form that appears. Porn as
such is just an extension of this tendency in the realm of
the internet. Dissidents of technology are quick to point
out the disastrous effects of the internet in our lives but
they neglect the sweeping benefits that the same
technology has brought out. Technology like any other
tool has its good and bad sides and porn only happens to
be the darker aspect. But this increased intensity of
sexual expression that now finds release in pornography
is leading to changes that were simply not possible
before and its a dangerous trend which can very much
lead to deep generational disorders once it drops below
the level of our collective consciousness and becomes
embedded in our very psyches. Its this aspect that I want
to talk about.

Its a given in our times that pleasure is our driving maxim.

We look to enjoy as much as possible, create happier
lives as much as we can and dont think about death until
we reach there, stumbling towards it or otherwise. In it, we
are no different from the past since man has always
sought happiness for himself and his loved ones. Except
today, we dont have any restraining force to counter this
pursuit of happiness. Its happiness for its own sake and
not as a means to a higher end or the by product of a life
lived with values and dignity. The Greeks considered
happiness or eudamonia as a by product of a life of
courage and it was in short supply in the mortal world.
True happiness was a reward after death hence the
saying, Never call a man happy until he is dead. This
world was not the place to seek happiness or pleasure.
Pleasure was not forbidden but there was a strong
emphasis on self-control which acted as the strong
counter force to an unrestrained chase for pleasure.
Today that force has vanished and we can boldly claim to
be the first people in history who are exclusively hunters
for happiness. Of course life is harder today and we have
to deal with lifes burdens but the goal remains to
somehow handle these burdens and look out the window
for the next pleasure to be grabbed and used up. A
philosophy like this is not new as there were Epicureans in
Ancient Greece and Charvakas in Ancient India who has
pretty much the same hedonistic approach to life. But
back then, philosophy was a national occupation and
there were many philosophies contending for mass
approval besides epicureanism like stoicism and
platonism, or christian theology all of which, in some form
or another expounded a philosophy of restraint whether
because of the fear of God or for the benefit of the soul.
There was no one philosophy that reigned supreme.
Today pleasure and its relentless pursuit is a global axiom
and what more fruitful an arena for the cultivation and
enjoyment of pleasure than sex ?

Pornography though has its intellectual supporters like

Camille Paglia who rightly interprets it as a symbol of the
savagery and chaos that resides deep in our
subconscious, the violence and dirt that inhabit our
depths and which remain hidden from the mainstream
discourse only because society today has been sanitized
beyond recognition with Political Correctness and easily
offended feminists who wont take a deeper look at the
origins of this and prefer to shout polemics of theoretical
abstraction like male gaze and so on. Paglia terms
pornography as the necessary expression of the
Dionysian chaos in opposition to our cleanliness
obsessed intellectual Appolonian mindset which wants
life to be ruled by theories and cut-and-dried goodness
without understanding the volcanoes growling beneath
our skins. Which is true to a large extent. Life will always
be an interplay of chaos and order and if we ignore the
chaos, we run the risk of being blown away when its
pressure erupts underneath. Feminists who point out
moral degradation and terms like patriarchy dont
understand that morality today is ultimately just an
intellectual framework and its deeper spiritual
underpinnings which gave it meaning are now lost. No
one today is convinced by such moral arguments
because there are equal arguments to not be moral
today. For an immoral male gaze, we can always point
out attention whoring and exhibitionist tendencies of the
women. One can just say that porn is a victimless crime
done in the privacy of ones home and we all have the
right to privacy so where is the problem ? Anti-porn
activists talk of porn encouraging rape but this causation
is very difficult to prove as this is a deep psychological
causation and very intractable to prove by empirical
evidence. Thus no such argument will ever have an
end.We see this not only in porn debates but also in
abortion arguments where we cannot come to any
conclusion because both sides have their points.In the
meantime, porn just keeps expanding its tentacles and
infecting millions of lives. There are now research studies
how porn creates depression, erectile dysfunction,
dopamine exhaustion and so on. Science can detect
chemical changes and prescribe some remedies but its
not a forceful argument against porn. The primitive drives
that force us to see porn are not amenable to reason else
feminists and intellectual arguments would have won us
over long back. These are truly Dionysian Chaotic forces
which take over our minds when we sit in front of our
comfortable laptops at the end of a tired day spent doing
whatever. The chaos is real but should this chaos be just
let to play itself out or we need to take a hard look at what
purpose is solved by the very existence of this chaos.
This is what I intend to do here.

Christian Evangelists who term porn an agent of Satan

frequently call it an evil which wants to corrupt the soul of
man. The theological aspect aside, its not unknown today
that repeated porn use leads to many physical problems
like depression and sexual dysfunction. In effect, the
people watching the most amount of porn of people
engaging in sex, are the least likely to have it themselves.
Their minds are so attuned to watching millions of women
naked that for a real flesh and blood woman to turn them
on are limited. This should be the first reason to stop
watching porn but as I said, such arguments hardly lead
to change as the will of these drives are more powerful
than the power of intellectual persuasion. Porn addicts
are like those helpless sailors in a drowning ship who see
their boats capsizing and try to hold on to it, all the time
knowing that death is coming near and they are
powerless to do anything about it. Except one little catch;
porn addicts dont mind such a death if such an idea is at
all in their heads. As porn eats away at their will power,
they feel bad occasionally but the next wave of pleasure
beckons and they rush headlong to satisfy that urge of
ecstatic release of wet fluids. Its the seeking of pleasure
that drives the universe of porn and here is its connection
to all those bygone times and philosophies which
advocated restraint and self-control. Their reasons were
metaphysical and theological and probably the biggest
tragedy of our age is the loss of these higher
perspectives ,in the language of modern liberalism but
to me they represent higher truths. A wise man once said
that all problems are ultimately spiritual problems but I
wont get into the metaphysical arguments against porn
but highlight something more closer to home. And these
arguments are embedded in the very discourse of
pornographic portrayal.

Porn is not some random guy having sex with some

woman. Yes there are those kinds but its a universe with
its own language and codes. These codes are visible to
any keen observer who can take some break from his own
enjoyment and look closely at the stereotypes and
mannerisms of the actors in pornography. Just one axiom
remains unchallenged, that porn is a means to
experience pleasure. Some might say, its also a theatre of
power but we will come to this complex interplay a bit
later. Let us try to imagine one such porn viewer and his
motives. He wants to watch porn because he loves that
release that comes at the end of his short journey, one
which leaves him satiated and exhausted, though
pleased. Thats the goal which he can achieve by any
category of porn, be it a inter-racial porn, cuckold,
femdom, submissive or whatever. Its this 2 second
release that drives him. He wants to quickly get that
eruption and drown in the post-coital bliss of nothingness
which typically makes him sleep out of a weakness which
he interprets as peace. We here have to note that even
today, most porn viewers are male and to a large extent,
the male gaze is true. Porn is made for men, viewed by
men, discussed by men much more than women. We can
find some feminists objecting to this and claim the equal
right to watch porn but statistically thats a lesser
percentage though increasing steadily. I will focus on the
effects of porn on men and then on women in the end.

Real life sex for such a porn viewer is pretty much an

extension of his virtual life. He is quick to do it if he at all
can get it up and quick to sleep. He might loiter around in
the womans body for some time but action is limited in
our dudes real theatre of sex. Now we come to an aspect
of sex which has become controversial for reasons I shall
explore later. Its the question of power in sex. As Oscar
Wilde said, Everything is about sex, and sex is about
power. The question is , whose power ? Oscar Wilde
said it in the context of a man and Kevin Spacey
reiterated that in House of Cards as Frank Underwood
was fucking a journalist in return for his giving her some
inside information on the White House. He too is a
powerful man in the drama and the portrayal is consistent
with that character. He is as ruthless in sex as in life. The
woman is portrayed as enjoying this encounter with relish
and desire. He demands sex and possesses his willing
victim with a combination of violent urge and cold control.
Sex will always be about the possessor and the
possessed. The only difference is how man and woman
divide themselves in the occupation of these two roles.
Who wants to possess and who wants to be possessed ?
Who wants power and who wants pleasure ? More
importantly, how does power and pleasure related to
possessor and possessed. These are timeless questions
and worthy of deep contemplation but we have these
answers in the world of pornography itself. But before
that, spare a moment for our dude now sleeping after his
satiated release. Think for a moment about the woman he
had sex with. What is going on in her mind ? Sex was
barely starting when he exclaimed his achievement of that
much desire climax and retreated like a coy puppy inside
his blanket. Unless its her first experience, in which case
she has no understanding other than a vague sadness,
any experienced woman is likely to never have sex again
or have anything to do with such a man. But whats the
real problem ? Why is she unhappy really ? Is time such
an important factor in love and its physical expression ?
Why wont love for this man over rule any such feelings of
disapproval on the part of the woman ? The reason is
pleasure is something women want too. And the classical
taunt to such a man is that he is selfish, that he cares
about his own pleasure and has no idea how to pleasure
his woman. But of course, every porn addict is selfish,
else why would he even watch porn ? But usually this
habit is hidden from their women who would probably feel
undesired or unloved or if she is a feminist, would brand
him the dreaded male gaze fanatic. Porn thus comes
down to selfishness and in real life, the very structure of
sex makes it an irredeemable sin for a man to be selfish in
bed. We must keep in mind here, the moment in history
where such a thing as selfish in bed can even arise.
Even a hundred years back, when pleasure was not such
an eagerly sought after object, such a man would not be
called anything. His partner would just take it as it came,
the feeling of being left stranded in bed would not occur
to the woman, children would appear and life would go on
as usual. Sex was not something to discuss, rather to just
do and shut up. Our dude though is born in different
times.

In sex between man and woman, pleasure and power are

divided between man and woman. Greek Myth relates the
story of Zeus coming out of his wife Heras bedroom and
being confronted by a friend who asks him, who had more
pleasure ? Zeus shrugs his shoulders as if surprised at
the question itself and exclaims, Of course Hera. He
even gives a ratio of this division, being 1:9, nine being
the proportion of pleasure enjoyed by Hera, his share
being a paltry one. We have come a long way since those
times but nothing has changed in the constitution of the
human body. The woman now is just like the woman then
and her body has much more capacity of pleasure than
the men. A hint of this is present in the chthonic moans of
women and the sweaty grunts of men in the vanilla variety
of heterosexual porn, which is my main area of emphasis
here. For men, sex is thus a sacrifice. He has to sacrifice
his own pleasure if his woman has to have the volcanic
outbursts of orgasms she very much looks forward to. If
not, he better just stay locked up in his room with porn.
But one might ask, is this sacrifice just for her pleasure ?
Well, here we come to the other side of the equation,
Power. One compliment men look forward to is that he is
good in bed. Among other things it means he is not
selfish and can last longer and can do this very sacrifice
which makes him feel good since he very much wants
that power to be able to please women. Power is inherent
to this feeling of victory since he is the one who is able to
give that pleasure. He can control that thing and choose
not to give that. This sacrifice of man for the pleasure of
woman gives him that power which he relishes. Porn is
very explicit in this portrayal and one might call them
stereotypes, but the word stereotype exists because it is
true for most. Exceptions here prove the rule. The very
enjoyment of power entails one sacrifice his desire for
pleasure. This deep truth does not apply only to sex but to
all areas of life. Its not for nothing that ancient cultures
prohibited pleasure since for them, the goal was a nether
world after death which could only be happy if one has let
go of earthly desires, desires whose goal is to achieve
pleasure, be it physical, emotional or mental. This is the
real origin of this banishment of pleasure seeking which
later degenerated into moralistic admonitions and an
external ban on pleasure which defeats its purpose since
this check should be internal and not imposed from
outside. Christians externalized this ancient greek idea of
self-control which led to enormous tragedies of extreme
repression and church paedophilia, the full extent of
which is coming out only now as seen in Ireland and
Boston revelations. But to go back to our topic, our dude
thus suffers in real life, goes back to his room and sees
even more porn and gets inside a vicious circle of
pleasure and self-destruction.

Porn encourages a form of voyeurship where you watch

others having sex and this detached viewing gives you a
turn on which you use to achieve orgasms. Its selfish for
sure but more importantly its teaching you a way to
achieve pleasure cut off from the real life experience of
sex where you are the actor and not necessarily the
viewer. Intimate sex requires you are mindful of your
womans needs and not obsessed to achieve orgasm. If
orgasm is your real objective, why have a woman at all ?
Porn is far better that way. But a mind trained in porn cant
switch perspectives depending on the situation since
porn begins with selfishness and the addict is just looking
to replicate his pleasure in the real world. The other
dangerous off-shoot of this tendency to get turned on by
watching others is the now famous tendency of the
cuckold male who watches his wife having sex with other
men and actively or passively encourages it. I shall come
to the active passive aspect below. Ordinary
understanding might explain this that he is just a
submissive man who cant satisfy his wife and so is
helpless if his wife seeks out other men. Or that he desires
his wife only when other men desire her, a perverse form
of jealousy which has been used by men and women
implicitly for ever to spice up things now and then. But
cuckold is not just a matter of jealousy driven desire or
plain submissiveness. Its active encouragement and
willing submission to his wifes demands for men who can
satisfy her better. Cuckold porn has now reached epic
levels and is the second most viewed category among all.
Playboy and Salon have written articles trying to analyze
the sudden rise of this particular form of pornography.
They give detailed psychological theories but they miss
the origin of this drive. At the end of the day, the cuckold
is a normal man seeking his own pleasure. What he has
been seeing for years on screen, ejaculating a million
times to random men and women having sex, he now
wants in real. Yes surely one might say that real life is
different and that its his own wife involved, one who surely
evokes passions of ownership and one whose loss will
cause enormous pain, not to mention the humiliation
involved in such an act carried out in real life. But the
question is, is such a humiliation really so painful ?
Humiliation is a psychological state of mind, but
submission is a much more truer word to describe such a
state. In the earlier analysis of power and pleasure, I
skipped the question of the possessor and possessed
deliberately so as to place it here. The one who owns and
possesses necessarily has control. The one who is
possessed and has willingly surrendered has pleasure as
its reward. Surrender and pleasure go hand in hand when
it comes to sex. Since the one to surrender is going to
get pleasure out of it, these underlying drives are
structured by nature itself and not done so consciously as
we might think.

For tens of thousands of years, we have lived as man and

woman and nature has guided us in sex, designing power
and pleasure in such a way that the act is carried out with
the most efficient results. These issues have never been
very important until now when we see man and woman
fighting for individual power in every day life outside the
bed and its no surprise that the bed also becomes just
another playfield of such urges. There is pleasure in
surrender when it comes to sex. If there was no such
pleasure, would women have such moans as they do
when they climax ? Would any woman just surrender,
although unconsciously , if nature had not arranged such
a reward from doing so ? In sex, women have always
enjoyed being possessed and the perverse thrill of
being owned has being the subject of great literature too,
D H Lawrence being the great master at understanding
this game. Pleasure is a very complex phenomenon but
submission is always a companion to it. Of course one
can say, seeking power is a pleasure in itself but this
power in sex is not a pleasure at the same level as the
sexual physical pleasure achieved in climax. This power
is much more psychological than physical. When a man
seeks physical pleasure, its through his own climax and
such a climax has no hint of power in it at all. The way in
which porn shows this division is in the portrayal of
cuckold porn where a man is sometimes humiliated by
his wife as she is having sex with a hunk who fucks her
like an animal. The man is outwardly all helpless and even
tries to object but ultimately is shown rubbing his penis for
pleasure. Just like women get a big thrill from submitting
themselves to a powerful man, similarly men too get a
sexual thrill and pleasure from submission to a woman.
The guy screwing his woman is really a third party and of
no importance to the cuckold. His real pleasure is in
submitting to his woman, his thrill is in obeying the orders
of his mistress, her goddess as its shown in many such
porn. On the outside, it seems the man is being
humiliated and forced to serve his mistress but the inner
pleasure of the man as he submits is rarely understood.
For a porn viewer, watching such a video allows him to
identify with the man and enjoy the vicarious pleasure of
submission which makes him climax quickly. The thrill of
submission which was, in times past restricted only to
women has now reached the hearts of men who have
drowned themselves today in the pursuit of this shortcut
to pleasure. Watching a hunk having sex with a woman
can give pleasure to a man too but the nature of this
pleasure has more power in it than the much more
psychologically forceful way of enjoying pleasure by
submission to a woman. This explains the rise of this
specific brand of porn called cuckold porn which is now
teaching a whole generation of men to serve women
simply because they are women. This is all underneath
the narrative of course since admitting such pleasures is
considered perverse so most men would not admit such a
thing. But the statistics are too staggering to be ignored
now. In the US, there are dedicated dominatrix women
who service men by such means as humiliation and
Craiglist has millions of men advertising for willing men to
have sex with their wives. When such a powerful
willingness resides in so many men, surely a large part of
them wants it. Else cuckold porn wont exist in the
dominating way it does today. I wont go into the details of
this category as there is no limit to such excesses . It was
my intention to explain the psychological drives of
submission and power as expressed through the
pornographic industry. Porn is a big part of our lives not
just through the internet but mainstream media is teaching
a lot of such attitudes through TV, ads and novels.

The eternal principles of man and woman are not going to

change and the great wisdom of the ancient cultures was
that they were based on such eternal orders of life. The
reason there was less of a prohibition on women, the
reason that all responsibility for strength, dignity, honour,
courage, renunciation, selflessness fell on men and even
today really fall on men is that nature intended men to be
guardians of society, harbingers of new dawns for their
people. Its not sexist to admit the natures of men and
women. The combination of the two determines creation
itself but its worthwhile to ask, what was the need of two
sexes ? What characterizes the division between man and
woman ? Because going by the current discourse, it
would seem that since women are doing anything men
can, there is just one sex, that of men. But femininity in its
essence is not just about surrender. That is just a trick of
nature to ensure sex between man and woman. But its a
trick that is very very important to ensure natures plan.
And this game of sexual possession and sexual surrender
is as much visible in porn as anywhere else. Cuckold
porn typically has a man serving a woman, doing her
chores, washing her private parts but never having sex
with her. He has given up all power willingly in life for the
reward of his selfish pleasure of release. We are teaching
men to prioritize selfish pleasure above all else. This is
counter to the entire period of known history since man
began his existence. Mans desire for achievement and
power led to the rise of entire civilizations and histories. Its
the one thing man can do, whether the power be temporal
or eternal, be it power to achieve your goals or power to
help, save and protect your people. And the very
foundations of this search for power is the ability to deny
yourself something you want. Its the very denial of
pleasure that leads man to achieve that self-sufficient
completeness only after which he can be of any help to
anyone, be it woman or his society. Denial of ones
personal desires of pleasure has been the basis of
civilization and the repudiation of such a profound ideal
portends dangerous signs for society. Of course, porn is
not the only force operating today but it has become a
major player in pop culture, given its billions of dollars in
profits and tremendous cultural power, although not so
widely known. The greek philosophers used to say that
desires are the leakages in a mans fort. Every desire
when denied gives man the power to master himself and
master his destiny. There is no point blaming women for
destroying manhood as the roots of this destruction lie
inside modern man himself. His desires has led him to
where he is and until and unless he learns to deny himself
his pleasures, until he is able to control the nature playing
havoc inside him through his desires, he will destroy his
significance more and more. There is a lot of truth in the
modern saying of feminists that women today needs not a
man. Men today can give women nothing which they
really need except maybe his sperm, which can also be
got from any random man from a sperm bank or a late
night stand. What men have always brought to women
was character, the basis of which was also the denial of
self-seeking desires. That truth remains true even today.
Earning a million dollars means nothing to the woman
today unless she is a gold-digger until you bring in self-
control and command inside you. Men are failing
everywhere for the lack of fathers. Single mothers are
rising in every country and no matter how much a mother
cares for her child, she cannot be a father, something she
show and something we have always known. Fathers are
not required to take care so much as to show the way
ahead. The way ahead in ancient cultures always started
with struggle. Life was a struggle and is a struggle but the
only difference today is that we dont question the
purpose of this struggle. Also the greatest struggle in life
was inside of man for the ancients. The only worthwhile
life was one in which you won over yourself. This meant
there are things inside you which are your enemies and
which have to be defeated. This internal division in man
was the basis of that much abused maxim, Know
Thyself. Man is not a harmonious creature. Not all
aspects inside him want his good. There is good and
there is bad. They have to known and removed. The
greatest enemy of man inside him was always his desires
and cravings. They had to be known and controlled if not
removed. Today the world of advertisement has reversed
this and proclaims satisfaction of desires as the primary
goal. Is there any surprise when we see the world and its
men killing each other for personal selfishness. Porn is not
responsible for all this I know but it cant be ignored that
sex, which was always kept under the carpet has been
unleashed in such a way today that it threatens to destroy
the very concept of manhood itself. Rome fell when its
kings became lustful and lecherous, when its generals
started marrying prostitutes and becoming beholden to
them. Today the world is again at the stage when sex has
become the biggest battlefield in the personal lives of
men and women. If only for the solution of that, men
should stop porn and remove this desire for sexual
pleasure from inside their hearts and minds. Once the sex
is good, I am sure many problems between men and
women will just cease.