The Will to Pornography
An adult male is essentially a nervous system attached to a prostate. Despite this, the distinction between sexual and ‘regular’ desire isn’t so clear. The entire hormonal economy appears to be of an entirely sexual nature, “the pleasure of climax appears to arise from a huge release of opioids”. The goal-directed dispensing of semen being the ultimate goal of the male bodily system, “squirts of dopamine urge you to finish with an orgasm”.1 It is in this respect that sexual activity is metaphysically lesbian in nature until seminal conquest is achieved.
The will originally possessed a monopoly on reward in biological systems, the propagation of life was the only means why which nerves could be chemically sedated. The will was the only dealer for the ubiquitous addiction to the will to life. “The final reward, or what we experience as feelings of pleasure, includes the release of endogenous opioids”, sexual gratification is an intravenous introduction of “morphine-like chemicals”.2 Although, such “opioids” which normally only naturally occur in the body would later be synthesized outside of the hormonal economy. It is in this respect that chemical technology has hijacked the design of the nervous system into a multiplicity of seeking behaviors. Increased brain power and grasping hands allowed for man to ferment fruit, slice the buds of the poppy and record videos of oral sex.
“Addictive drugs like meth and heroin are compelling because they hijack the precise mechanisms that evolved for sex”, they overlap almost “completely with sex”.3 Such circuitry, once regulated by the sexual selection of the female, is released into runaway self-reinforcement when it is allowed unregulated indulgence in social isolation. This is as true for private drug taking as it is for masturbation. This is taken to new extremes when you introduce contemporary pornography. The current instantiation of pornography is globally available through internet-enabled pocket screens. But, unlike the culturally arbitrated erotica of previous ages, internet porn leans into “supernormal stimulus”.4 Pornography has the same relation to regular sex that heroin has to the gratification received from a chocolate bar. “Cocaine addicts” show “nearly identical brain activation patterns when viewing both porn and a crack pipe.”5
Our entire situation, with abundant superstimuli in abundant quantity, has stupefied our biological substrate. “The brains reward center doesn’t know what porn is”,6 neither does it know that computer games aren’t real competition and that opioids aren’t real love.
Wilson, G. (2014). Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. United Kingdom: Commonwealth Publishing. p.67
Ibid.
Ibid. p.73
Ibid. p.69-70
Ibid. p.74
Ibid. p.97