To prepare myself for writing today I watched some Internet porn.

I felt it would help the spirit of this article if I had re-engaged with my lustier side. To get to the movie I went to a website and two clicks later I was being fed some seriously raunchy cyber-woman. I chose a short online movie entitled Good Girl. I watched it with awareness. Memories of my old porn-addicted ways came flooding back to me.

Good girl was a beautiful Hungarian twenty year old. She was initially interviewed by a tall muscular man who looked like a bit of a thug (my projection). She was then made to stand and turn gently before being bent over for a thorough examination. The camera slowly went in for a close view. Are you still reading this? Did energy move in your pelvis?

He then laid her back and forcefully did her. Shortly thereafter he bent her over, hands behind her back and she was done-to harder. He took what he needed. The hammering was clearly painful, she yelped with every thrust…and it got worse, but you get my drift.

Perhaps writing about porn is porn!

In our world today pornography, sex addiction and the broken ways in the world are all high visibility subjects. I can see something has warped in our culture’s relationship to sex and it is detrimentally affecting the way we all honor men, women and the Earth. This cultural damage is reflected in pornography.

My spurting practice.

Like millions of other well-functioning married men with issues, I turned to pornography. For several years I wanked myself stupid. Time and space was filled with horny-ness beyond my wildest dreams. Time that might otherwise have been used to be creative, productive or even just plain-bored got devoured by lust. In any moment where there was a desire for some escape from life I scored some porn. You know those moments that arise in us that are pregnant with the need for some conscious introspection? Well I used pornography there too. Porn consumed me as my life became filled with grasping for pussy.

My fantastical life prospered while my real life was numbed. But where was all that battling of the purple-headed yoghurt-slinger taking me?

Our thoughts precede our reality; so perhaps we should be careful with our porno fantasies. Did the cosmic-people who wrote about “The Secret” consider that porn fantasies may have the quality of manifestation within them? What have my fantasies with thousands of porn girls manifested!? In general they manifested jacked up, buzzed feelings that were shortly followed by misery.

My relationship to pornography was double-sided. I loved porn because it allowed me to safely channel my still-considerable sexual energy out of my body—and into empty spurts.

And I hated porn. I couldn’t sniff her, worship her or probe the beauty of her being. I couldn’t feel her essence bathing my wounded masculine to wholeness.

Many men today, both married and single, rub away countless hours of their lives looking for harder, dirtier digital women. It probably hasn’t always been that way though. There’s no doubt the Internet has played its part in dumbing us all down. Sure a hard woman is nice every now and then, but you know what?  There’s nothing in the Universe quite like a soft, loving, all-embracing real woman. But for me porn somehow replaced the real thing. It was just, well, easier.

Neurosis-free women.

A fantasy-driven sex life was easier because the women of porn are apparently cleansed of all their problems and devoid of their testing neuroses; it was rather like buying irradiated meat in the supermarket in clean little packages without a sign of the industrialised chum behind the scenes. Shooting-up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions. Small men everywhere, who would rather not deal with the truth that women have for them, can go get a fill of female energy, have a beer then get on with their day.

Men what is happening to us? Sure it’s nice to admire a beautiful woman in all her sexually attractive glory. But guys, pornography is disempowering us. If you are a user, can you feel it? That disempowered, out-of-control sadness. Does porn feel good after the release?

Perhaps all is well, though, as women will be able to resume their matriarchal power when all us men eventually become useless wank-piles. They shall reclaim their rightful ownership of all the power in the Universe, the power to create life itself. The Earth will be saved!

It’s amazing the lengths we will go to look at sex, or maybe flee from looking at it. I became very creative at creating porn-time. Always conveniently out of sight. I was a secretive user, and wanking held me in a numb power-sapped stupor.

Photo: Wineblat Eugene

Sure enough though I got to the point where I simply couldn’t get enough of such an apparently good thing. Porn is incredibly addictive, and if you have never felt the full power of sex over your logical mind then you will not relate to my words.

But why was I shooting up on porn so much? Perhaps all the sex in our society is helping us stay normal, otherwise we might all go mad.

But we are all mad, so we go get more porn just to keep our sanity. And to make things worse, we don’t even talk about it. We porn users are a secretive lot. What is the problem so many people have in talking openly about sex? (We still say we slept with her instead of shagged her.)

This is why porn exists, it feeds our shadows. Porn is a media reflection of the damaged inner relationship that we have to our sexual impulse. That impulse is beautiful. It is what has brought every one of us here to earth. It should be celebrated, not banished to the provenance of hidden jerk-offs in an upstairs bedroom.

If we all celebrated our sexuality, maybe there wouldn’t be a need for porn. Ultimately I realized that I was using porno pleasure to feed a sense of lack, without any regard for the women behind the scenes or how it was affecting my relationship to my wife or to sex.

The dope had become heroin/heroine. How could I shake it?

Shaking it.

Men who are seasoned porn users will be familiar with the empty-bollock ache that results from the perpetual fixes that are available. I got to the point where I’d had enough of porn. I hated porn to the core of my being. I also realized that I’d had enough of being taken for granted. I needed to be held, touched and found attractive. I needed to be loved by my wife and to give my love wholly.

In every moment we choose communion or separation.

I was a courageous warrior, determined to continue to be a powerful man. I embarked on a five year journey of self discovery to get to the root of the problem. My journey took me deep into self honesty, Tantra and sacred sexuality. I learned a great deal about sex, my relationship to myself, my relationship to women and my relationship to the earth along the way. I wrote a book about my journey to freedom called The Sex God – No Mud No Lotus.

My spirit feels brighter now that I am free of the grips of porn addiction.

Is porn a good thing?

For sure, some men don’t have access to sex; they may be wrinkling, wretched or alone. In those cases copious conceptual copulation with porn may be a healing salve. Porn stars with their minimal emotional engagement could in fact be healers in that capacity.

Some healthy users, men and women, say they like pornography, they say it’s fun and sexy, and that it can be used to raunch up an evening with a lover. Perhaps in recreational doses porn has its place on the smorgasbord of life.

It all comes down to consent and boundaries. One way of expressing our sex is recreationally. I could use some porn with my lover. We could watch some juicy people make love to each other and have a fine time together.

That is, if the men and women in the porn movie were consenting and nobody was being taken from or  done to against their will. Then porn may have its place in the smorgasboard of life. (Where can you find giving to and receiving sensual movies?) But it’s important to recognise that porn can creep into the holes in our wholeness and cause all kinds of grief.

My heart is my biggest organ and it knows that being utterly at ease around sex of any kind is my greatest opportunity. My heart can always feel whether porn is a good thing or not. Sex has nothing to do with brutishness and exploitation.

Sex has everything to do with creation and beauty. It is the noblest energy there is.

As for Good Girl, sure the movie made energy fizz in my pelvis. But you know what? It was no substitute for feeling the high fidelity, total sensory union possible with my real beloved. These days my preference is a powerful ejaculatory-choice practice and sacred sex over anything I can gain from lifeless digitised images of hairy eastern European girls.

There has never been a better time for us all to take a good look at the assumptions we make about our sexuality and how it affects our culture and all our relationships.

 

(This article contains extracts from Ben’s recently published book, The Sex God – No Mud No Lotus. This article is also the second in a seven-part series over seven days, in colloboration with the Good Men Project, addressing the question: Is Porn a Good  Thing? For GMP’s first two in the series, Pleasureland and O Hai Porn.)

 

Ben Belenus is a truth seeker, worshipper of women, practitioner of conscious relationship, mystic and author. His juicy new book, The sex god – No Mud No Lotus is a thorough and sacred investigation into sex, love and authenticity. It’s a sexually explicit and passionate love story that follows one man’s evolution towards spiritual freedom. The story follows Ben from innocence into sexual cockiness, painful infidelities, porn addiction and then onwards into deepest Tantric love. Ben’s next book , a deep exploration of conscious loving relationship, will be published next year. Learn more  www.benbelenus.com Join the debate   www.facebook.com/benbelenus

 

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Editor: Lori Lothian

 

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