The Sex Industries

D. The Sex Industries

Closeness to other humans is an inherent need for all humans. This closeness is involved with the subtle complexities of our existence, with the rational interaction of one intelligence with another. Sexual interaction guided by informed intelligence can be an elegant part of that closeness, but closeness need not involve sex, or sexual feelings, to be complete, rational, enjoyable, and a positive activity. Sex without closeness can be imagined in desperate situations, but closeness does not require sex for completeness, and closeness can be very complete and satisfactory without it.

Humans come equipped with sexual instincts, which in our earlier evolution were undoubtedly necessary to the continuation of our species, but which, like our other instincts, can come (and in the absence of patterns have come) under the control of our intelligence. There is no "human" need for sex (as distinct from our species' need for procreation).

Most (perhaps all) of our existing cultures (which are already contaminated with patterns) treat nearly all closeness between genders as being available only through sex, rather than through deep emotional connection, through intelligence, through camaraderie, and through fun. In these patterned cultures, there is a contaminated confusion between closeness and sex, and many men have been left with a rigid attitude that "closeness is available only through sex." This channels the need for human contact and connection into what comes to feel like a need for sex in order to have closeness. This approach usually leads to a backlog of desperate loneliness, a frozen preoccupation with sex, and lives dominated by sexual compulsions and inhibitions.

All such patterned sexual compulsions and inhibitions can be discharged, and discharged completely, through enough effective counseling. Some of the very good work that has been done in Re-evaluation Counseling has been done under the direction "to address and discharge on every memory that has any
kind of connection with sex at all, and discharge it thoroughly."

Children are naturally interested in sex, as they are in all human functioning. This interest is, however, often contaminated by adult-imposed secrecy, condemnation, and shame. It is nearly impossible for children to receive access to information about sex separate from the distresses of adults. In many cultures and religions, sex is considered inappropriate to
talk about and regarded as "a necessary evil."

The mishandling of information about sex and leaving children's education about it to furtive gossip between their peers amounts to abandoning boys as they try to figure out an area that they have already concluded is of
paramount importance to "being a man."

Many men have other experiences as boys that compound distress about sex, including sexual abuse. Men rarely have been helped to talk and discharge about these experiences so that they can become more rational as they grow older. As a result, some of these men who were originally abused as boys feel compelled to act out upon others the sexual distresses that were originally perpetrated upon them. These experiences of sexual distress tend to make all relationships difficult for men.

The substantial backlog of distress about sex, accumulated from childhood, has formed the basis for a huge world-wide market for sexual materials. This market is driven by men's preoccupation with sex, which is also an unaware attempt to escape the loneliness and isolation of men's oppression. Participation in these activities, however, actually does nothing to relieve the loneliness but instead adds another layer of shame and despair. The sex industry includes prostitution, strip joints, pornographic movies and magazines, World Wide Web sites, phone sex, and any other profit-making businesses based on selling something intended to restimulate distress recordings that include sexual feelings. Other related industries, like entertainment and advertising, also capitalize on men's preoccupation with sex as a means to sell their products. In our society, sexual interest is used to manipulate men's distress rather than to inform them.
The sex industries are harmful to men in a number of ways. These include
the following:

* Perhaps the worst effect is the shame and self-disgust that many men are loaded with. They internalize the message that they are to "blame" for their frozen preoccupation with sex. In fact, this preoccupation is reinforced by society and based on hurtful experiences they endured that they were in no position to prevent or avoid.

* There is a transfer of huge sums of money from the customers to the owners of the sex industries. Some estimate that the pornography industries are more lucrative than all of the Hollywood enterprises.

* The sex industries serve as a diversion from liberation and other rational activities, including real closeness.

* The sex industries harm men's and women's relationships with each other. Often patterned attitudes (portraying women as "sex objects") have been installed by the distress in the culture to replace the natural response of relaxed affection between men and women. These tense preoccupations come up around women, and the culture has attached shame to this. All people sense intuitively that involvement with the various phases of the sex industries is not rational. The sex industries are dehumanizing to both men and women.

* Preoccupation with sexual tension can become addictive, just as any other distress can become addictive, and can ruin people's lives if it is not discharged.

A man need not remain preoccupied with such an addiction. Persistent counseling can leave one permanently relaxed and at ease in the whole area.

GOALS

Expose the pornography "industry" and other "sex industries" as totally harmful to men. Eliminate pornography and other uses of sex to manipulate men's emotions on the basis that they are destructive to both men's and women's lives. In particular, prevent any further installation of patterns (including addictive patterns) through any irrational treatment of women and through any embarrassment, shame, and humiliation imposed on males around sex.

STRATEGIES

a) Information about sex can be presented without tension or embarrassment, but simply as a part of living that can be understood in its entirety by anybody and everyone. Organize people in schools, in families, and in special meetings, to remove all mystery and embarrassment from the realities of sex and sexual practice. Encourage people to tell their own sexual histories, starting with the earliest memory connected with sex in any way at all.

b) Never withhold real closeness from any male, particularly not on the basis that it is not manly to need to be close. Challenge all social forms that treat boys as not needing human closeness, or that offer sex as "an escape" from their isolation as males. Establish support groups for men to free themselves from sexual addictions and to assist them in establishing close, human relationships with other men and with women. Promote openness and honesty about sex. Assist people to think about when and with whom a sexual relationship may, can, and should be started.

c) Assist the men who are victims of the sex industries to recognize the harmful nature of these industries and the harmful impact on their lives. Create the conditions necessary for the men (and women) who are victims of the sex industries to tell the real stories of their lives. Establish support groups for men addicted to pornography, phone sex, etc., and provide counseling resource to assist men to break free of these addictions and reclaim full lives.
d) Expose the motives of greed and profiteering that fuel the sex industries.

(c) copyright 1999
Rational Island Publishers
Reprinted on this site with permission of the copyright owner.

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