This is not food porn

So, Sexual Addictions. I know that I would dish, and I will, in part, but mostly I want to comment on the nature of the issue itself. The class was fine. I was of course offended by the usual injustices of lack of egalitarian language, and a sole focus on married people and all of their problems. Because who wants to even talk about single people and all of their problems ad nauseum? We all know that once you get a single person talking about themselves, it could go on forever, right? They're so darn selfish.

If I get too offended about these issues, I won't get much done. I'll become a tape that just plays the same sides back and forth, over and again. And of course, I can't start talking about the gays and all of their deviant homosexual problems either. So I will just stick to the real stuff. Get married in that normal hetero way. Attach fully to your spouse. Be honest; get therapy; don't look at porn; repeat.

Okay, so apart from all of my sarcasm, sexual addiction is real (and it's more than pornography), and the neurological factors involved are also real. The brain is deeply affected by visual sexualized stimuli, and pornography has become so accessible, affordable, and anonymous, that now pornography is reaching populations it may not have reached before. A lot of people struggle with sexual addiction. They feel controlled by it just like any addiction, and it's a hidden thing, a secret. Sex is always around us, but shame keeps us from always engaging in relationship in healthy ways. When we do something that we don't want anyone else to see, the shame sweeps us into a terrible cycle of secrets and hiding and unreality.

This is where I come in. If there's a huge percentage of men and women out there dealing with this, how can we allow it to remain a hidden, shameful issue? It's normal is what it is. Sex is normal. Arousal is normal. Attraction is normal. Our bodies do it without our permission. What fucks everything up is our belief that sex is dirty, that our humanness is dirty.

You are not dirty! There is nothing wrong with you! Say what you want. Say who you are.

There is no shame in being you. Start there. Accept yourself as you are, and when you feel completely okay with that, you can look into the parts of your life that aren't working so well, that are hurting your relationships, and hurting you. But don't start by hating yourself. That will never work.