Porn

It would’ve been roughly age 11 when I stopped secretly unscrewing the hinges on the backs of my brothers’ homemade safes to look at the dirty magazines they had (and steal a few coins to buy candy before replacing the hinges and screws perfectly). I only did so because my buddies on the block and I had discovered a method for creating our own stashes, well two methods, actually. We’d steal them from the corner gas station, which was a bit tricky because they were kept behind the counter. This meant becoming so familiar to the older teenage kids who worked there that they’d trust us to watch the store while they occasionally went outside to use the bathroom, at which point I could lean over the counter, reach under it, and lift a Playboy or Hustler, which I’d tuck into my jacket.

However, the far easier, if less rush-inducing, way was to pedal our two-speed Schwinns half a block to the apartment complex in which I had part of my paper route and hop into their 6’x6’x6’ dumpsters, riffling through bags of trash to find discarded Penthouse, Oui, and other such magazines. Granted, it took a lot of dumpster-diving to find even one magazine, but the score of even one kept us foraging. For, we were newly minted, high-charged testosterone packs. And so, it wasn’t long before I had my own rather sizable stash of dirty magazines in my safe.

I then became a bit more deliberate in the archiving of my porn. I found all the words and advertisements to be distracting. So, I would simply tear out the pictures of the women. But, over time, my stash had grown so large that I had certain pictures that were more titillating than others. So, I did not tear out all of the pictures, only those I really liked.

But then, over the next 10-15 years, as I aged into the ability to simply buy not only my own magazines but also later my own VHS tapes (not that I had my own VHS player), an odd thing happened. Despite my assiduous cataloging of and delight in dirty magazines, for years, and absent any waning of testosterone – in fact, if anything, it probably increased, as I entered my early- to mid-twenties – my use of pornography trailed off, apart from the occasional bumping into the Victoria’s Secret catalog in someone’s bathroom.

Even when personal computing came along with the beginnings of online porn in the 90s, I didn’t have a personal computer. So, I only randomly encountered it in a grad school library computer room, prompting a mad dash to the restroom.

Subsequently, as personal computing and online porn became more ubiquitous than God him- or herself, to the point where it’s easier to not believe in God than it is to not believe in porn, and to the point where all manner of devices are necessary to keep porn off of children’s devices, it never held some grand allure for me.

Compare porn to gambling, for a moment.

When I was young, every time I would take bets with friends or even play cards with siblings or friends, I would almost invariably lose. And I’m soooo glad I did. Because, I know that if I had won more, there would’ve been a high probability that I would’ve gotten hooked on the rush of gambling.

In contrast, because I did find the occasional magazine in those dumpsters, I did, at a young age, get hooked on the rush of flipping through torn pages of dirty magazines with one hand. But, unlike gambling, the porn habit didn’t stick as some great fixation for me, nor is it some great aversion, now at 57. My girlfriend of 11 years and I have an agreement and each infrequently uses it, but it’s no big deal for either of us.

So, what’s my point?

It should’ve stuck. Given the addictive nature of porn and given the highly charged sheer chemistry of testosterone – and a teenage boy has enough testosterone to kill a horse! – I should be an absolute, lifelong porn addict. But, I’m not, even though my testosterone levels, per my yearly blood tests, are well within the normal range.

Furthermore, I absolutely love women as much as my gay brethren love men. I’m a visual animal who gets very turned on sexually by attractive women.

And yet, the porn thing never stuck.

Go figure.

porn vs. IMAGINATION

So, the obvious question is, why? If all the seemingly necessary elements were in place for me to have a seriously long addiction to porn, why did that porn love fade away or just become incidental in my life? It’s as if either something was still missing that kept it from becoming an addiction, or something took porn’s place, or both.

Hmmm.

A funny thing happens when you’re in junior high in the 1970s, or I suppose in any decade. For as sexy as those ladies look in the Playboy tear-outs in your closet safe, you spend far more time staring at the Marilyns, Michelles, Romys, and Jennis at school than at them. You grow far more fixated on Diane’s butt or Nancy’s chest, than any woman in ink, or at least I did. Add on top of that, I had four older brothers who had an ongoing parade of girlfriends, over those years, whom I’d see in pretty clothes or the occasional bikini.

And so, I did what children and teens do. I used my imagination. And that – that! – became the drug that porn wasn’t, and far, far more powerful, at least for me. The ability to close my eyes and imagine any scenario with any person, known or not known, became far more arousing than any page or movie.

Yet, for as pleasurable as solo sexual experience within my imagination has been, over the decades, and still is, and while it has been a lovely substitute for porn, it has never climbed to any level of being some significant player in my life, any more than over-exercising ever has (and trust me it hasn’t, despite my vanity). So, while I lost my need for porn, I never grew a need for frequent solo sexual experiences using my imagination.

So, we’re back to the earlier question, if seemingly all of the elements for a porn addiction were in place, back in my teens and early twenties, either something was missing or something took porn’s place, or both. Well, imagination largely took its place, but even that didn’t rise to the level of addiction. So, perhaps something was missing that caused me to never get fully enmeshed into porn. But, what might that have been?

What Cheating and Porn Have in Common

Years ago, when writing what would become a heavily researched, two-volume book on female infidelity, after decades of counseling marital cheating victims and perpetrators, as well as those the third parties who were engaging in the affairs with the cheaters, I came to see a very distinct, unmistakable pattern in cheaters. Because of the nature of the Badass Counseling Method, I go very deep into behaviors and motivations, down into the core belief systems driving human action. Down there, the pattern I saw, again and again, is that the cheaters all had experienced massive denunciation of worth in children, over the years, in the form of three general areas:

• You’re not wanted,

• Not good enough/loved, and

• Who you (really) are doesn’t matter.

That one factor repeatedly showed up in the core belief system of the cheater.

Further, because of the origin of that belief, it had existed long before the cheater ever entered that marriage or relationship. It was just buried so deeply into the soul of the individual that it was hidden, as well as woven into the very fabric of their personality and operating system, beyond detection. Whereas, the marriage itself, rife with problems, of course, became the easy target and the spouse the bullseye – the cheater completely unable to see that the problems were created by something that long predated the relationship. It was a setup. In some ways, the marriages didn’t stand a chance to begin with. It’s a bit of a miracle the relationships lasted as long as they did, given they were based on two people living out a version of themselves that were never their most authentic selves.

Instead, as that child, decades prior, got those messages of not mattering or not being ever good enough or unwanted, he or she became whomever they had to become to get the love they sought to become. They became conditioned to be a different person, their conditioned self. So, you’ve got two conditioned selves trying to make a relationship, yet deep down two authentic selves are longing to be seen and come out to the sunlight.

Unhealthy People Come in Twos

But wait, you say, TWO selves? There’s only one cheater; only one person is at fault for the cheating. Why do you say two conditioned selves, two people unwittingly living these false lives since childhood?

Yes, now, I’m not saying the person who was cheated on is in any way responsible for the cheating occurring, at all. Let that be clear.

What I am saying is that anytime you have one conditioned, inauthentic person in a relationship, you have two. Plenty of people would love to point the finger at their spouse and say,

“They’re the inauthentic one. I’ve been doing self-work. I’ve been in therapy. I’ve found myself. They’re the problem.”

Here’s the problem with that little thought.

As I spend a chapter discussing in my book, There’s a Hole in My Love Cup, unhealthy people come in twos. I am an absolute believer that a healthy person will not get into, nor long stay in, a relationship with an unhealthy person. Why? They can’t. It is such a massive intrusion on their soul, such a colossal drain that it behooves their soul in no possible way. And, a healthy person only serves their soul, trusting all else to the spirit of the universe, itself. A truly healed, healthy person may wait, may try, for a while, but it won’t be long before they can try no longer, and for the health of their own soul they know they need to press on, even when children are present. They know they can do it better on their own.

Granted, a very healthy person may give of their life in service of unhealthy and hurting people in their work, but that is a different matter because the service or work serves their own soul. But, an intimate, everyday relationship is a completely different matter.

So, back to the point, the cheater has a deep longing in the soul that is no longer being met by the marriage and life, work, kids, and whatever other pursuits there may be, in addition to any addictions that may be a part of that life. And so, that individual reaches into the basket of options and chooses one – CHOOSES! – that she or he does not have to choose. They choose to cheat as an attempt to make themselves feel loved, wanted, or like they matter because that deep longing in the soul cries to them. The hole in the love cup caused by that core belief causes an ache that must be filled.

The cheating is a response to a deep need they cannot even see, only feel. It’s a wayward attempt to fill the hole. They could’ve chosen a million other things – therapy, separation, self-help, hell divorce. But, they chose one of the worst possible options. All they had to do was break off the relationship first, at the very least, and so less damage would’ve been done. But they chose the coward’s way out. And all because of a hole in their love cup caused decades prior.

So, what the hell does this have to do with porn addiction?

Well, it’s the exact same thing.

The exact same hole in the love cup that drives cheating drives porn addiction.

There is that deep longing to be wanted, to be good enough, big enough, loved, to be valued, to be seen, to be heard, to matter. It is precisely the same root cause. For that matter, it’s the same root cause of alcohol addiction, pills, gaming addiction, overworking, over-parenting, chaos addiction, gambling addiction, the incessant need for distraction, unhealthy relationships with food, cleaning addiction, and on and on. Dig deep enough and it’s all the exact same stuff at the root.

Driving the need for more and more porn is the need to feel something at a soul level, something not known in real life, or certainly not long enough to be believed. Perhaps it is the feeling of love, the feeling of relief or power, of validation, or feeling seen or wanted. There are so many feelings that can accompany a real or imagined sexual experience. The feeling being sought is often the very inverse of what was taught to the individual about themselves in childhood. A few examples:

• Someone seeking to feel wanted in porn likely grew up feeling unwanted.

• A porn experience where the viewer romanticizes having larger body parts could have been mocked for not being ‘big enough’ at a younger age and is seeking to feel big.

• A person seeking to be vicariously humiliated or have a masochistic sexual porn experience was likely taught to feel bad for who they are and thus lives with guilt. They like to feel relief from the guilt.

• Engaging in porn fantasies with multiple partners, even at once, could indicate someone taught them they didn’t matter as a child or were neglected. Thus, they seek to matter and feel venerated.

(It’s worth noting that every single human action, choice, principle, value, behavior, purchase, and pursuit is ultimately driven by the desire to feel something. Hack the choice to determine what the eventual feeling is that you’re trying to extract from the experience, and you will begin to really understand yourself at a much deeper level.)

The need for more and more porn is the need for more and more quote-unquote love poured into the love cup, because it keeps draining out the frickin’ bottom, because whoever raised you poked a hole in the bottom by not fully confirming your worth, instead somehow conveying

• you’re not wanted, and hence unwantable

• you’re unloved, and hence unlovable

• you matter only insofar as you can serve the parent, and hence the real you doesn’t matter.

Until the individual drills down and actually solves the soul problem of these core messages there are going to be a trail of problems in his or her life, whether in the form of relationships, career problems, financial issues, addictions, eventual medical issues, or internal strife. It WILL manifest, in one form or another. 

BUT, BUT, BUT What about porn?…

But this isn’t an article about porn addiction. It’s an article about porn. And, those are technically two different things.

More specifically, this is an article about porn and relationships – relationships with others and relationships with our own selves.

We’ve already begun the discussion of how porn, as well as cheating, gambling, overworking, booze, food, and just about anything else, can become an unwitting substitute for a relationship with your own authentic self, over time. Stolen from you or me at a young age, we seek out experiences that either take our pain away from feeling invalid or make us feel something that is a saccharine substitute for authentic worth.

To reduce the need, or even want for any significant or moderate amount of porn would require going within to flush out the pain, fears, and BS beliefs you’ve been taught about yourself that are driving the longing, in the first place.

Naturally, the same is true of your relationship with anyone else, particularly any intimate relationship. The degree to which porn, or anything else (from work to over-parenting), becomes a blockage to the relationship is a direct result of the amount of work done by two individuals on their own deepest inner selves and the identifying and extracting of those deepest messages. Till that happens, either by hook or by crook, the relationship skates on thin ice.

Social Contracts, Spoken and Unspoken

My girlfriend and I have been dating for 11 years. When we met, she was 50 and I was 46, living on opposite sides of the US. We each had been in long-term relationships, each had had our hearts blown out in the past, and each had walked away from relationships that had gone past their ‘sell-by’ date. We were both at the ‘No BS’ phase of life and each had our own quirks.

But, we also were each realistic in our allowances. I didn’t have all the silly jealousies and worries I had in my 20s. She wasn’t as intense as she had been as a businesswoman among old-school garmentos in Manhattan in her 30s.

We both knew the other used porn occasionally. Neither cared. At one point or another, each offered that if the other wanted to incorporate it into our sex life, that would be fine too. Since then, porn has come and gone, and come and gone. We don’t really talk about it much, because neither of us really cares.

Why?

Well, one, we have an agreement, a sort of social contract, that we’re good with it being in our relationship, to whatever degree one or the other wants to use it.

But, two, and this is the more salient point, it has never gotten in the way of our relationship.

More specifically, neither one of us has ever felt unloved by the other and gone looking for things to blame for the feelings of not getting the love one of us needs. Despite the demands of the companies we each own and run, the varying needs and wants of our adult children, and the undulating interests we each have, from politics to sports, and cross-country road trips to fitness, we always prioritize each other, not because we feel the need to prioritize each other, but because we just really enjoy each other.

So, the back-and-forth flow of love is just never really in question. The mutual fondness for each other’s spirit and body is real and felt. So, who gives a sh*t if the other wants to go solo, now and then?

But that’s kinda the point.

A) There’s an agreed-on, in advance, contract that both parties keep.

So many problems come up with porn in relationships when one person breaks the original agreement regarding porn. And yes, most couples do, at one point or another, discuss porn because it is a sensitive topic for so many people.

So, if one person breaches that contract, it is a very powerful negative experience for the other. It’s experienced as not just a lie, but a betrayal, because the feelings surrounding porn are so very highly charged for nearly everyone, which I’ll get to in a moment.

B) If the love needs of each partner are being met, or at least clearly and significantly endeavored to be met, fears and worries diminish.

There is a sort of calm that comes over a relationship, despite the normal vicissitudes of daily life. However, if those needs are not being met and if efforts are not being taken to get those needs met in healthy ways within the context of the relationship, then one partner may unfairly use porn as an escape or a side hustle, of sorts, to get their wants/needs met. This can be a very difficult situation, particularly if one’s partner is unrelenting in wanting to help to meet one’s needs. The rejection of my needs can lead to my escape, which of course I hide from you because it’s a breach of contract. This leads to further deception, which only leads to further sense of betrayal and hurt feelings when discovered. And the chasm that has already begun in the relationship only gets bigger.

There’s no excuse for breaking the contract of a relationship. But, that doesn’t change the fact that those same contracts can become profoundly constricting if someone is feeling unloved. For, isn’t the original social contract based on the agreement that I will meet your love needs and you will meet mine? So, it could be well argued that someone engaging in porn to get some small amount of love needs met when they aren’t feeling loved in a relationship is almost justified if their partner has not been meeting their love needs and has not been trying to any significant degree. Is not the original breach the failure to try?

And now here we see one of the many slippery slopes of relationships, only made worse if those in the relationship have not healed their deepest core beliefs and their holes in love cups, which only exacerbate unmet love needs as well as the pains of breached contracts. All of this leads to mountains of painful feelings building up over time and a whole lot of shit being slung at each other.

Those Damn Feelings

So, what’s at the root of all?

Feelings. It’s always feelings…and the core beliefs those feelings set off, or trigger. Always. Those feelings and core beliefs can sweep us up into a never-ending tornado of f*ckery that controls us from within or controls our partner, devastating everything in its wake.

So, let’s back up….

Relationships fundamentally are, or largely can be a drug. They can have profound power to either make us high or numb us from pain or at the very least distract us from sh*t we’d really rather not look at or ever feel. They can have a calming effect, an orienting effect as if giving a sense of direction or purpose in life. They can be euphoric. They can be deeply fulfilling.

Considered within the context of the conditioned self that child was made to be, to walk into a relationship in one’s 20s, let’s say, and fall in love, this new relationship provides not only the high of a new relationship and all the hopes, euphoria and dreams that go with it, but it provides a tangible human being dousing you in a living, breathing counter-message to the messages you got in childhood of you’re not wanted, not good enough, not loved, and don’t really matter. It seems to wash all of those messages away, thus basically doubling the normal feelings of love. It’s someone flat-out telling you your parents were wrong: you ARE wanted, ARE good enough, ARE loved, and DO matter!

• For the first time in your life you feel seen, heard, understood, appreciated, known, safe, all those things.

• For the first time in your life, those voices that have been pounding in your head go away.

And you glom onto the person like you’ve never bonded to any person ever. This ain’t mere trauma bonding. This is f*ckery bonding at the deepest levels, the most insidious of sh*t. And, it doesn’t imply any amount of ill intent on the part of your partner. They’re just as wounded as you are. Later, it may seem like they had bad intent, but that is often not the case when young. But it’s going to feel that way.

So, the voices go away. What seems to slowly creep in and take root is this belief that I maybe do have worth and matter. And the slow opening to this person and to life maybe begins. It’s a fricking cool thing for as long as it lasts. Maybe it lasts six years. Maybe it lasts six weeks. Maybe it lasts ‘til the first child is born, or until the day after the wedding.

But, the day comes when life sets in. And, it’s not even that the other person turns, so much as the fact that life begins to settle into a normal and the natural bumping of elbows and bruising of ribs (metaphorically speaking) happens that occurs in any and every human relationship, every one. But, because of that opening and trusting and believing that you actually do love me and believe in me and think I have worth because those things are so fragile, so tentative, and still so new, even six years later, the bumping and bruising begin to drive me back into my shell. Wounded, I begin to cower in fear, again, a little more each day, as the normal jostling of each day and each night of life passes through our relationship.

And it’s the recoil. Always the recoil. The recoil into ourselves causes the damage. Why? Because it is there, right there, where the crack happens, and the slow seep of the old messages begins. “Maybe she doesn’t love me. See, I knew it. I’m not worth it. I was never any good. I’m still not. Life sucks. I suck.” And the recoil, withdrawal, depression, and maybe bitterness and lethargy intensify.

You know it happens, don’t you?

Then what? What happens next in the relationship?

Once I start the recoil into myself, the self-doubt and self-loathing re-emerge from their slumber. And, the giant ogre that they are has a giant need to be fed. They soon begin to devour any and all love I had been giving to others, perhaps even my own children.

Everyone’s love cup around me begins to ever so slowly dry up because the ogre inside me is awakened and hungry for any and all life energy, gobbling up anything good, sitting its fat ass right on my head, rendering me barely able to breathe. With no love to give and no love going into the cups of those around me, they grow impatient and unhappy, wondering what feels like more love but is perhaps nothing more than previous base levels. But, it’s far more than I can give. So, they recoil in frustration, sadness, and anger, and give less love to me. This further reduces my love intake and increases my recoil and the size of the ogre of my childhood conditioning. The throbbing in my head returns: I’m not wanted, not wantable, not good enough, not loved, not lovable, don’t matter, only matter to meet their needs.

So, noooowwww, you have two individuals in increasing or full recoil, or at least toggling between partly open and full recoil. Each is completely convinced the other is the problem, the other person is not meeting MY needs, “Goddamn him” or “Goddamn her for not meeting my needs.”

And guess what? Not one damn bit of it has anything to do with the other person. They were both completely f*cked from the beginning because they came in as two pre-conditioned individuals taught to believe a whole lot of BS about themselves that was never true about those children. Never.

So, one picks up the pills or dives further into work. The other immerses himself in the kids while she becomes absorbed with non-profit work and her friends. She maybe goes back to her teen fixation with gaming, and he surrounds himself with animals and a constant flurry of activity (read ‘distractions’). Maybe she immerses herself in a life of porn, or maybe he does. Or maybe it’s cheating. Gambling. Jack Daniels or Chardonnay. Taking on extra travel for work. Or maybe it’s just working extra-long hours, just so you don’t have to go home.

But the growth, or re-growth, of these habits always, always, always comes amid a giant, unending blizzard of feelings. A never-ending winter of swollen feelings every day, from sunup to sundown to every middle of the night staring at the ceiling. It never fricking stops. The feelings, feelings, feelings. It just becomes this absolute consumption.

I’m reminded of the libretto from the Offertorium of Mozart’s Requiem,

Ne absorbeat eas tartarus

Ne cadant in obscurum

(Lest hell swallow them up;

lest they fall into darkness)

We do get swallowed up in the hellish blizzard. It is a long, dark, unending time. And it obscures vision. We actually believe the other person is the problem. We actually believe, worst of all, that we ourselves are the problem. We actually believe that the problem started with us or can be solved by solving ‘us.’ (Enter the utter inadequacy of marital counseling into problems that long pre-date this relationship, despite the valiant efforts of the counselor.)

The Porn is the Instrument

Still, it is, technically, not the porn that swallows them up, swallows us up, swallows anyone up. It is not the instrument that obscures our vision. The porn is not the problem. The porn is the instrument, the vehicle of the gods, so to speak. It is the means by which the ogre inside is fed.

No, the porn is not the problem any more than the case of beer is the problem or the affair partner, the casino, the kitchen, the endless chauffeuring and meals and baths of kids, the ceaseless work meetings and dinners, or painkillers are the problem.

None of those is the source of the blizzard of feelings and messages bombarding your head, chest, throat, skin, back, gut, and loins every day. All of those are the devices used to escape the feelings. Those are the new drugs intended to take over where the relationship can no longer provide the high. Life once again needs to be escaped. The feelings are just too much. Back into the cycle that you thought you had escaped.

Guys, the porn isn’t the f*ckin’ problem! It’s the symptom of a far greater beast. Granted, it’s an insidious beast. But, is cocaine or nicotine any less so? Parenting addiction? Obsession over building a business? Gambling?

Nah. Same family, different species.

But the point of contact, the point of commonality is the consumption of the feelings, the swallowing into darkness, and the longing to get high or escape. And, in the relationship, both people are experiencing it, whether they can put their finger on it or not, and whether they’re willing to admit it or not.  

Half-solutions vs. Lasting Solutions

When viewing porn or any other addiction or compulsion as the grand problem in a relationship, attempting to get porn counseling or even just marital counseling will be an ill-fated endeavor, because it’s not drilling down to the real root of the problem.

The only – yes, only – way to truly solve the real problems afflicting not just the relationship but the real selves of the two individuals is to go down and back into the conditioning of that small child and teen. For, that is where it all started. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that kid. There wasn’t a damn thing unwantable, unlovable, or not mattering about that wonderful child, any more than that sweet little girl you saw at the grocery store with her parents yesterday was some flawed, detestable little child. If you’re going to say that you were at her age, then she must be too. And so, was that kind young man of eight years old who held the door for you, when you walked into the post office, last week, or the sweet kids who wave at you every week from their pew at church. They must be just as disgusting as you were and not good enough as you once were.

No, it’s ludicrous, right?

But, it’s not enough to just see and say that. It requires a deep dive into the memories and messages of those who taught you this. It requires a seeing and feeling of the movie that was your life. As if watching the movie of that little boy who opened the door for you and his childhood where he’s learning the exact same messages, and you’re crying through the whole goddamn movie, because you bleed for this poor little fella and you’re just seething at the parents for the sh*t they’re raining down on him, whether intentionally or unintentionally. He’s the victim, more than anyone else in the story.

Except the story is you. It’s your story.

And you have to watch the damn movie. Your movie. Your name in the title. A Steven Spielberg Production of your life story. And there’s that damn thing that filmmakers do, called the ‘reaction shot.’ They don’t just show the ‘action’ shot of the train hurtling down the track or the woman screaming as she gives birth. They show the reaction of the reporter in the helicopter giving the play-by-play following above the train, or the reaction of the nurses as the baby gets stuck in the birth canal and is turning blue. The story is in the reaction shot. That’s what elicits our emotions. That’s where we know what to feel.

And here’s the sh*tty little thing that Spielberg does with those reaction shots that you don’t do with the movie of your life. When you watch the movie of your life, to the degree you remember it, you look at the actions of mom and dad, siblings and teachers, friends, and the like. The lens is always, always your own eyes, right?

But, Spielberg doesn’t let you get away with that self-trickery.

[pause]

[pause]

Read that again.

Spielberg doesn’t let you get away with that self-trickery….which you were taught to do. They conditioned you to focus only on them. Do not, not, not look at or listen to yourself, especially what you feel or truly believe about yourself, because if you did, you would discover the voice of God, itself, whispering the truth of your greatness from the vast, pure echoes of your soul inside.

See, you were taught to see and hear mom’s and dad’s reality as THE reality, never allowed to see, hear, or much feel the reaction shot of the boy or the girl you were. But all the rest of us in the theater are watching the movie and are utterly dumbfounded, pounded with sadness, and angry as all hell. Because Spielberg forces us and you to look at the reactions of that little girl or boy that you were. The slumped shoulders. The endless tears you fought back. The gritted teeth. The immense sadness you were forced to stuff down. The anger you were never allowed. The insults or putdowns you endured. The slights and ignoring. The endless listening to how bad mom or dad had it. The justifications for their treatment of you. Or whatever it was. All of us see and hear, and now for the first time you do too, all of the reactions of that small child, that teen.

The world is completely different, childhood is completely different, your innards and life belief system are completely different when you are no longer allowed to avoid the reaction shots of your first 20 years of life.

That’s precisely what either great fricking counseling is, or great self-help work can be. But the truth is, a lot of counselors don’t know how to do it or do know how to but a whole lot of clients don’t want to do it, whether with a therapist or alone in self-work, because it’s too uncomfortable, too scary, too ugly, and, often worst of all, the implications in the present, while completely their own choice, can be profoundly unsettling, such as, ‘What does this mean for my relationship with my mom/dad/family, now?’ (Of course, you never have to confront your family now, but you still gotta do the work of your past, if you ever hope to heal.)

Bottom line, until you go back, you can’t go forward.

When do you tire of watching their version of the movie?

When do you tire of spending so much life energy feeding the ogre of those mendacious messages that you don’t matter, aren’t lovable, and aren’t wantable?

When do the echoes of the gods themselves rise up in the heavenly chorus of “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” from your soul, such that you finally brave the ugly, uncomfortable, the nasty, the brutal, and the scary to set your soul free to be what the universe has meant it to be from your very conception?

You were never bad! It was literally impossible for it to be so. You were taught a lie. And it’s time to f*cking undo it. The porn is not the problem. The conditioning is the problem.

Fix it!

Get the damn book. Do the work!

“There’s a Hole in My Love Cup” by Sven Erlandson. www.badasscounseling.com/books. Available as audiobook, ebook, paperback, Spanish, French, and with workbook.

 Thanks for reading.

  -- Sven Erlandson, MDiv, Is The Author Of Seven Books, Including 'Badass Jesus: The Serious Athlete And A Life Of Noble Purpose' And 'I Steal Wives: A Serial Adulterer Reveals The REAL Reasons More And More Happily Married Women Are Cheating.' He Has Been Called The Father Of The Spiritual But Not Religious Movement After His Seminal Book 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Came Out 15 Years Ago, Long Before The Phrase Became Part Of Common Parlance And Even Longer Before The Movement Hit Critical Mass. He Is Former Military, Clergy, And NCAA Head Coach For Strength And Conditioning; And Has A Global Counseling/Consulting Practice with offices In NYC, NJ, And Stamford, CT: BadassCounseling.com