Dear Oprah~
If I had been a young woman instead of an older therapist, I would now view the sex industry as a lucrative and exciting career option. Instead, as a therapist who has to deal with the heartbreak and family wreckage that pornography leaves in its wake, I kept waiting, Oprah, for you to balance your Nov 17th show by bringing up "the other side" of pornography--of how porn images effect a wife or young mother or teenager who has just discovered what their father does at night on the internet.
As a psychotherapist, I deal with the young women who feel betrayed when they find internet porn that includes "just click here" options for child porn as well. Mothers look at their children and back to the children on the internet screen. First they call the lawyer, then they call me. Then I try to find them a support group for the disheartened wives of porn watchers.
I kept waiting for you, Oprah to bring in a therapist who would discuss this addiction that pornography creates, and its crushing effects on families, because, according to the mainstream therapists magazine, "Psychotherapy Networker" it is internet porn that is the leading cause for divorce in America today. Or maybe simply someone on your show could have said that the money gained from choosing this career has a downside that is as psychologically damaging to soul as HIV is to the body.
An afterthoughtclarification: Porn is not about erotic sexual enjoyment, it’s about “power over another” and it too often incites brutality against children as well as women. When wives choose not to perform in a pornographic sexual way, the men complain, and when the women see what the men have been watching on the internet, they file for divorce. Now that’s what I call empowerment.
ReplyDeletePornography is toxic....I can`t believe we allow our children and women to be degraded like this....it erodes one`s sense of dignity and safety.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the "light" that can be found in pornography as well. Of course we live in a society that responds to pornography first and foremost from fear. And because SEX in itself is often advocated as dirty it is very difficult for most to see the beauty and pleasure that pornography brings and more so the FREEDOM that is symbolizes. To focus on the dark is ignorant and keeps those minds just there in the dark where it is - like yours! The drive for men to run after pornography is what we must look at, the underlying reason they turn to it. That is where the true healing begins and not by remaining ignorant and blaming the porn industry and others like Oprah!
ReplyDeleteWhat i do not understand is why we are not told at sex education classes in school, that mens sexuality and womans sexuality is different. Porn is a product of our consumer society. A society that cannot "feel" anything anymore. Like an alcoholic or an addict, one drink one drug is never enough.
ReplyDeletePorn can be viewed as Venus/Aphrodite's revenge for the suppression of beauty and sexuality. In a culture that deforms beauty and attempts to keep sexuality locked behind closed doors, Venus too often has little choice but to situate herself in the underworld of the lower expression of Pluto/Scorpio/8th house--erupting with a vengence for our blatant disregard. In porn we see the power/disempowerment and not the eroticism.
ReplyDeleteyour last comment elizabeth was really profound for me, and does seem viable. thank you
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly disagree with you lumping all pornography in the same category. To say all porn is wrong is to say that all sex outside of monogamy is wrong, or that voyeurism/exhibitionism is wrong. You say, "porn is not about erotic sexual enjoyment, it's about power over another" and "is as psychologically damaging to soul as HIV is to the body." These are a blanket-statement not taking into consideration that there are different kinds of pornography, and that based on their differences, will have varying affects on the psyche.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I disagree with the statement, "the addiction porn creates". As a jungian psychotherapist, I am surprised that you project responsibility for addiction on an exterior source. Addiction to anything is a symptom of a problem and not the root cause of the problem. As an example, people can be addicted to fairly harmless indulgences if taken in moderation: food, alcohol, tv, the internet, masterbation, the righteousness of their own opinions. Addiction can cause a fairly harmless indulgence to become monumentally self-destructive. Do you deem all food as the enemy when you encounter a patient with an eating disorder? From a Jungian perspective, to deem any facet of human expression as completely evil is a calcification of the Jungian shadow and the root of human phychosis.
I also do not believe that internet porn is the leading cause of divorce today. I would say that is where blame is being put, but not the deep truth of the matter. No, it is more likely rooted in the cultural sexual wounds that we all have, which has been caused from millennias of monotheistic, patriarchal social conditioning. Embracing and healing our sexuality means being open to various aspects of its expression outside of our culture's dogma, and accepting eachother's sexuality for what it is. From this perspective, porn becomes a mirror of our contemporary sexuality (including our wounds), reflecting them back at us as our subconscious does to our conscious mind.
- signed by a sexually liberated woman
I dont understand why you would expect Oprah to be balanced about anything,Im sorry but I think you are being very naive. Oprah is a populist, thats her bottom line. Any personal integrity she might of had is long gone.
ReplyDelete