NOTE FROM JOSH: I was honored recently to participate in a fantastic summit currently being offered by my friend, Ruth Falk. I invited Ruth to share the reasons she created this free opportunity and share a little bit of her story. If you’re interested in learning more about the Pornography Changed Monogamy summit, details are at the bottom of this article.
I believe sexual pleasures come from being in love and sex without love, while perhaps physically satisfying, is ultimately meaningless. The act of sex can and should be a physical expression of a fulfilling relationship. It’s not necessarily a perfect one, but one in which partners move freely alongside each other. Touch and physical connection are a tangible way of demonstrating and sharing the intimacies and closeness between two people.
Pornography, in contrast, is oppositional to this experience. Rather than sharing words, touch and closeness with another, it is most often an individual experience in which the viewer watches complete strangers turning intimate acts into performance. There is no experience of uniting love.
Good Sex and Bad Sex
My name is Ruth Falk, and I am the CEO of Pleasure After Healing Life & Business Co. My mission is to heal people from betrayal. By doing this, I am creating a world of freedom, empathy, connection, responsibility, accountability, commitment, and love. And my solution is one thing: healing. I believe there is good sex and bad sex. This varies depending on where you are sexually, emotionally, and religiously or (spiritually).
Good sex and love cannot come from using pornography only. Often, it’s where people are at sexually: pornography only. We all want love, intimacy, sex with a real person. But then why do we want to watch pornography? I heard many prefer to be alone because relationship is pain. So, we go to porn. Is this really going to fix the problem?
A Bit About Me
It has been argued that pornography can be a healthy bonding tool when used together as a couple. But by and large, the nature of pornography is one of muting the female. The women on screen are portrayed as emotionless, conflict-free and accessible for the male’s pleasure in a time and place of his choosing and convenience.
The problem with this, and what I personally experienced in my marriage, is that that accessibility, immediate gratification and unrealistic portrayal of sexuality has proven to be grounds in which a full, love-based relationship cannot flourish. My marriage was preempted to pornography. It had been his main source of sexual pleasure well before we ever met. While we did have great sex, it eventually proved to be nothing but an appetizer for his pornography appetite. Ultimately he was unable to work through or let go of his addiction, and so our marriage had to end.
I don’t hate my ex-husband, but I mourn the loss of what pornography did to him and to us. Mine is not a new story. It is one that has been repeated undoubtably as long as humans have been around.
Sex, Love, Porn and Trauma
The trauma associated with commercialization of and addiction to sexuality is often a misrepresentation of our innate human need for love, for belonging. Sex can connect us to the deepest part of our psyche, our spirit, the place where our self-worth, values and identity reside. When we misplace those needs, or don’t understand them within ourselves, then we often connect to inappropriate and even dangerous expressions of love and desire. Pornography is one such way that underdeveloped or damaged interpretations of love are sought out.
Stemming from there, pornography then acts as a holding pattern, a repeating of immature and delayed development. It keeps the individual in a place of bondage to a false idea of what healthy sexuality truly looks and feels like. There is no room for long term fulfillment in a relationship, as the individual gets stuck in an addiction cycle of desire, gratify, repeat. Sex and sexuality become a continual itch to scratch, a way of simply releasing, rather than an experience of fullness wherein you grow alongside a partner.
In my experience of viewing pornography just once, the images then haunted me for years. And, while in the act of sex with my spouse. The struggle of separating those images from the reality of our sex life was a battle I dealt with constantly – and that was after viewing it just once.
Taking a Stand
After hearing numerous stories similar to my experience, I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to create a free forum, a place for people to learn about healthy sexuality and most importantly to understand that in order to move past an addiction to pornography, you need to do the work of self-insight. Being in love with yourself is crucial to a true loving relationship with a partner.
I had a wonderful time creating this free summit as one of 21 experts from around the world in the fields of psychology & neuroscience who are exploring how sexual relational patterns, unhealed emotional trauma, childhood & cultural programming can powerfully impact our relationship to sex and pornography.
In this free Healing Summit, you will receive specific tools, inspiration and encouragement to help you easily communicate your desires and wants with your partner, without feeling shame and fear that your unhealed trauma if the loudest voice you listen to. By signing up for the summit, experience freedom and love that comes from healing yourself.
If you’d like to learn more about the summit, which Joshua Shea was the debut speaker, click here: SUMMIT
