| Marc D’ambrosio
October 30, 2005
Sex Ed
As the destructive power of hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, America was glued to the TV. We all saw the images of women screaming for their children as their houses where leveled by thousands of tons of water. We watched as men, bewildered and desperate killed the very people trying to help them. We saw the substance that gives us life pour over the floodwalls and into streets and homes, destroying everything in its path. So it is with another life giving substance, human sexuality.
In the mid 1900's a storm with a destructive power far greater than the one that hit New Orleans began to rage. Within just a few years, the mainstream philosophy on sex went from a far right view, to one proclaiming the freedom of sexual promiscuity. Television shows that would never have showed even married couples sleep in same bed, began showing sex scenes between couples after the first date. Pornography began seeping into the sexually confused culture making its first big hit in 1953 with Playboy Magazine. Books on sexual freedom began circulating. They said that the Church’s position on chastity and sexual purity was old fashioned and designed to bar us from having fun. They urged us to experiment with homosexuality and polygamy, and to free ourselves from our prisons of Christian lifestyle.
Playboy now claims three million subscriptions in the USA. Many more subscribe to the millions of other easily accessible “erotica” websites. I can not turn on the TV without seeing sex being used to sell yogurt. I watch shows life the ever so popular “Friends” and see sex being treated as commonplace, porn as funny, and lust as being manly. Our culture has it all backwards. If its philosophy is correct than why are 15 million STDs acquired by Americans annually? Teenage birthrates, suicides, and clinical depression rates are soaring. In what way has this so called sexual revolution freed society? Many would defend these lustful indulgences as natural. How is it natural for a man to watch hardcore porn while his wife is in the other room crying because she just found out about his sex addiction? This is not just a hypothetical situation; this very scene has repeated itself thousands of times over in homes across America. No, these “harmless” images have caused an immense amount of pain and hurt with their addictive qualities. How is porn (along with any other sexual activity) addictive? When men are sexually aroused a chemical called epinephrine is released into his system. It is also released during vigorous exercise. However, the amount released during sexual arousal is enough for its affects to rival cocaine high. It has several long term affects; in fact, studies show that provocative images can be permanently "burned" into the memory by this mood altering chemical. This affect was designed like a safeguard to keep a man aroused by his wife, but you can imagine what that must do to him if half the women he sees remind him of some girl he saw on his last porn binge. Doctor Russell Robertson, a professor of medical studies at Wisconsin university of medicine stated:
“There is a demonstrable link between chronic depressive symptoms and the regular consumption of pornographic materials. The accompanying and consistent distraction of the visual images generated, in combination with the obsessive desire for additional "dosing", creates a kind of dissonance insulating you from reality. In very real ways the associated fantasy life and distracting thought process disengages the user from the immediacy of living.”
So through their porn addictions men begin to lose touch with reality. They stop seeing women as human beings, but as a means to get aroused. Did you know that rape rates are proportionately higher in states with higher porn sales? When a man loses touch with reality and starts believing women to be objects for his sexual apatite, the way he treats them changes as well. In some cases this leads to rape. In others it leads to murder. Many people will think “a sex addiction could never happen to me, I have myself under control. Well think again, I am a devout catholic, brought up by a theologian father who taught me true sexual freedom by example and word. I’ve been feeling a call to the priesthood since I was four, and am the last person you would expect to be addicted to masturbation, but a few years ago I made one slip up, and since then every single day of my life is a battle. I cannot express the pain that I’ve gone through because of my choice to look at a porn website. This addiction does not discriminate; it does not pick and chose. To any man reading this, get help, pray, drag your addiction into the light, or you are endangering not only your soul, but the lives of those around you. Be a man; take a stand for the integrity of the women around you, for all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. You will never find sexual freedom in porn, all you will find is captivity. Sexual freedom is not between one man, one woman, and some pictures, and it is not between one man and his hand, sexual freedom is between one man and one woman in the sacred sacrament of marriage only by confining your sexuality to this ideal will you fined that you are truly free. |
