[This is for my clients struggling with pornography]
In this very short post, as a follow up to what I’ve written recently about the attachment to porn that some 90% of men have (and likely suffer from), I want to remind my clients that I will speak of porn as an escape from responsibility.
Indeed, as they undoubtedly know deep within their conscience, these men feel guilt and shame not because they consume porn but because they know that they are eschewing responsibility.
How utterly convenient is it that one can surf to a porn site and avoid having to interact with a real person?
There is good news: Those feelings of guilt are nature’s reminder that we have a moral sense. It need not be a burden.
Quoting here from The Sociopath Next Door (by Dr. Martha Stout):
No, the best part of possessing a moral sense is the deep and beautiful gift that comes to us inside, and only inside, the wrappings of conscience. The ability to love comes bundled up in conscience, just as our spirits are bundled up in our bodies. Conscience is the embodiment of love, imbued into our very biology. It lives in the part of the brain that reacts emotionally, and in their favor, when the ones we love need our attention, our help, or even our sacrifice. We have already seen that when someone’s mind is not equipped to love, he can have no genuine conscience either, since conscience is an intervening sense of responsibility based in our emotional attachments to others.
We can turn this psychological equation around. The other truth is that should a person have no conscience, he could never truly love. When an imperative sense of responsibility is subtracted from love, all that is left is a thin, tertiary thing—a will to possess, which is not love at all.
Think about it.
