Pornography addiction is a myth — Transcript

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1. 0:00Something strange is happening with the content  most people watch but few critically talk about.
2. 0:05I don't know if anyone noticed, but over the  past decade, adult content went from busty
3. 0:09ladies having an interesting take on what  a nurse is to well this. In the meanwhile,
4. 0:15the conversation around indulging in this type  of content went from moralizing finger wagging
5. 0:21using the name of the Lord to calling it one  of the worst addictions in the world today,
6. 0:26which is moralizing finger wagging using the  name of science. But okay, fine. The neuroscience
7. 0:32behind gooning is legitimately worrying and many  people do genuinely have a problem with this
8. 0:38habit. However, that still doesn't explain this.  What does this have to do with ape likes to see
9. 0:44pretty women and release dopamine? In this light,  it very conveniently remains unintelligible and
10. 0:50beneath our discussion. But what I found through  studying Jungian psychology is that if we shift
11. 0:55our viewpoint from seeing this into that or that  into this, we can unlock the archetypal meaning
12. 1:02lying behind these weird fantasies and  finally by taking them seriously truly understand
13. 1:09what's so universally gripping about them. And I have quite a few videos doing that.
14. 1:13But today I actually want to analyze something  larger overarching the whole thing. I want to
15. 1:18discuss with you a 3,000-year-old myth addressing  the meta reason behind watching pornography in the
16. 1:25first place and in doing so hopefully show you the  primordial roots of this modern addiction.
17. 1:34So there was this relatively obscure ancient  Greek myth of Hermaphroditus. The story goes
18. 1:39that Hermaphroditus was a child of the beauty  goddess Aphrodite and thus was an incredibly
19. 1:44handsome boy. As a child, he was nursed in a cave  of naiads (female spirits associated with water)
20. 1:49until he turned 15 and finally ventured outside.  Along his journey in a forest, he encountered a
21. 1:55lustful nymph Salmacis in her pool who fell for him  at once. All we need to know about Salmacis is that
22. 2:01she "would not interrupt her leisure" and was  only concerned with bathing and basking in her own
23. 2:07beauty. Anyway, the boy actually rejected her and  made her leave. But Salmacis could not overcome
24. 2:14her desire. She must get what she wants. So when  the boy thought the nymph was gone, he dove into
25. 2:20her pool. And of course, Salmacis jumped out,  wrapped herself around him, and called out to
26. 2:25the gods that they should never part. The wish was  granted, their bodies blended into one and when
27. 2:31Hermaphroditus realized what had happened, he  cursed the pool. Now, weirdly, isn't this story
28. 2:37just as unintelligible as modern-day adult content  expressions? Yes, it is. That's why I told it. As
29. 2:43you can probably intuitively feel, this story is  full of symbolism. And that means that we're not
30. 2:48dealing with a narrative about the objective outer  world like in a slice of life movie, but rather it
31. 2:54is a story about the inner world. But the problem  is, how the hell are we supposed to communicate
32. 3:01about our inner psychic experiences? It doesn't  have form or shape. It's intermingled and messy.
33. 3:07It's often paradoxical and conflicting with itself.  And if that wasn't enough, it's always shifting
34. 3:13and changing. Yet, it nevertheless manages to  form a coherent-enough unity that is definitely
35. 3:19real in the sense that it affects your behavior  and thus reality. Well, did I not just describe
36. 3:25mythology? See, it uses the language of symbols  called figurative speech in an attempt to express
37. 3:30the inexpressable, which means that we need to  interpret these stories psychologically if we wish
38. 3:36to rescue them from remaining ooga booga nonsense (in the case of mythology) or narcissistic male
39. 3:42fantasy (in the case of adult content). So, let's  take a second look at the myth of Hermaphroditus.
40. 3:48The first and most obvious clue as to what we're  dealing with is our hero's age. He's 15. This is
41. 3:54roughly the age around when many adolescents start  hyperdeveloping their personalities. At this time,
42. 4:00most experience the archetypal call or quest  to become someone. So, surprise surprise,
43. 4:05we're dealing with a story of maturation. I say  that because the coming of age story is like THE
44. 4:11narrative motive of humanity. Humans pray with  the rising sun, erect towers, and build rockets
45. 4:17to embody the archetypal struggle of an emerging  and growing consciousness from the eternal abyss
46. 4:23of the animal chaotic unknown. Even evolution  depicts the same story. Conscious humans emerge
47. 4:29from the blissful instinctual world of animals.  Anyway, what is important to know from here is
48. 4:34that in this figurative speech all over history,  we encounter the same two opposite forces at
49. 4:41play. We can think of it as the most ancient  conceptualization of our being. Nowadays, our
50. 4:46increasingly abstracting consciousness experiences  the fundamental opposites as good and evil. But
51. 4:52for the ancient man whose natural instincts still  dominate, they were first and foremost experienced
52. 4:57by the masculine and feminine. This distinction  is actually foundational to anyone's interaction
53. 5:02with reality and is why we're still so occupied  with this topic today. But importantly, in myths,
54. 5:08we are rarely dealing with literal men and women.  Remember, it's about the inner world. Rather,
55. 5:13what's being portrayed are the figurative  associations the ancient man made to these
56. 5:18two fundamental categories. And what we need to  know is that the thousands of pages of comparative
57. 5:23mythology show that all over time and space,  humans psychologically experience and thus portray
58. 5:30consciousness or individuality as meta masculine  and unconsciousness or the impersonal as meta
59. 5:37feminine. Now hold on. Equating what's unconscious  with the feminine might sound like a cancel-worthy
60. 5:43claim in our times, but please just bear with  me and this ancient symbolism will become much
61. 5:48clearer. Plus, I bet you will be surprised  by where I eventually go with this. Okay,
62. 5:53so in this light, we can see that the story of  Hermaphroditus is full of feminine symbols. He
63. 5:58was born to a beauty goddess. He was nursed in a  cave (think womb) by powerful feminine spirits of
64. 6:04water. Water is also feminine symbolism. For the  ancient man, water is the deep unknowable force
65. 6:10that both nurtures and drowns. In other words,  Hermaphroditus is far from a mature conscious
66. 6:16personality by his dependence on this symbolic  great nurturing mother. But one day he dares to
67. 6:22finally venture into the world. His consciousness  at the ripe age of 15 wants to emancipate. Hence
68. 6:28the coming of age story. But again he's met with  the gravity-like unconscious feminine force that
69. 6:35is always pulling down. He meets Salmacis who  doesn't stand for any actual woman but as we
70. 6:40know from her background for instinctual drives  like lust and leisure. Remember Hermaphroditis is
71. 6:46a beautiful boy. What he encounters are quite  conveniently the temptations that perfectly
72. 6:51relate to him. It takes on feminine symbolism in  adolescence because these temptations stem from a
73. 6:57little boy's experience of an all embracing and  providing motherly figure. The ancients weren't
74. 7:03stupid. Also, what's even more fascinating in  another version of the story, Salmacis is actually
75. 7:09the naiad who nursed infant Hermaphroditus. So,  in that version, Salmacis literally represents the
76. 7:15infantile unconscious experience of our young  hero. Step [*] genre, anyone? Anyway, this
77. 7:21gives even better symbolism as to what happens  next. As we know, at first he rejected Salmacis,
78. 7:26but again, not a literal woman. I mean, he's 15.  What women are we talking about for him? Rather,
79. 7:32he rejected the desire to regress back into his  childish existence. Good job. But as we know,
80. 7:39gravity did its thing, and he eventually gave in  to his temptation when no one was watching. Now,
81. 7:45what do you give into when no one's watching? I  just want to pause for a second and admire the
82. 7:513,000-year-old depiction of a universal human  experience that is just as relevant today as
83. 7:58ever. Okay, we'll get back to that, but let's  finish the story. So he jumps in the pool and is
84. 8:02overtaken by the unconscious force Salmacis. Thus  Hermaphroditus becomes a failed hero who did not
85. 8:08finish his quest. Instead he becomes one with the  figure who represents these instinctual infantile
86. 8:15aspects. Thus he fails his maturation, does  not become a developed independent personality
87. 8:20and naturally curses the pool. Now how often do  gooners or chronically single men curse the pool
88. 8:27that they cannot stop bathing in? But okay, at  this point you might be skeptical as to where I'm
89. 8:32going with this, especially when at the start I  criticized the constant finger wagging around this
90. 8:36topic. But so far we actually have half of the  story. To fully unravel it, we must also tackle
91. 8:42the contradictory symbolism of hermaphroditism  itself. As you can see, symbols just like our
92. 8:48psyche are contradictory and intermingled. For  example, the basic symbol of water can represent
93. 8:54both forces of regeneration and destruction. The  magical healing pool versus the flood. Just like
94. 9:00the profound symbol of the ouroboros, a serpent  eating its own tail, is both life and death at once
95. 9:06because it eats what it simultaneously creates.  Well, these motifs try to encompass in figurative
96. 9:11speech the whole or the round of our being. Aren't  each of us a unity of living and dying at once? So
97. 9:19fascinatingly the symbol of hermaphroditism  is also a symbol of wholeness; of the perfect
98. 9:25self. Which obviously throws a curveball into  our narrative thus far. See it's a symbol of
99. 9:30perfection because the hermaphrodite is male  and female beginning and conceiving devouring
100. 9:35and giving birth active and passive all at once.  It's a symbolical container that's uniting the
101. 9:42fundamental opposites. It intuitively symbolizes  perfection because this hermaphroditic image is
102. 9:47self-content. It is independent of any you. It is  only I am. A divine motif in many sacred texts. As
103. 9:55I hinted before, psychologically its roots stem  from a conscious "recollection" or longing for the
104. 10:01unconscious infancy. That's because unconscious  existence in the womb is combined with the absence
105. 10:07of suffering. Everything there is supplied of its  own accord. This state of ego-lessness interrupted
106. 10:13by no pain-pleasure reactions is quote "naturally  experienced by the later consciousness as one of
107. 10:19the most perfect forms." So wholeness is an  end in itself and we must understand that
108. 10:25every person's self-formation or autonomy  is just as crucial of a goal in our lives as
109. 10:30adaptation to the outer world. We can even view  it simply as two forces pulling us in different
110. 10:36directions: adapt vs become. Despite our  liberal democracies, the biggest emphasis is
111. 10:41still put on adaptation to society, which means  taking on roles. This is obviously THE challenge
112. 10:46for most adolescence. Be a good kid, be a good  student, look pretty, sacrifice for the community,
113. 10:52etc. But the hermaphroditic symbol, as we now  understand, puts the emphasis on becoming. Using
114. 10:57figurative speech, it symbolizes the fundamental  drive to give birth to oneself; or in normal words
115. 11:04to become your own person, to transcend your given  limitations. This is where I think the inescapable
116. 11:10attraction to masturbation originates. For a young  person it's usually one of the first experiences
117. 11:16of self-sufficiency, which is necessary. However,  adult content at the same time plays exactly into
118. 11:23the opposite temptation of dissolving your  individuality with all its burdens into the
119. 11:28pool of Salmacis, at least for a little while. I  mean, isn't that what's happening symbolically on
120. 11:33screen, too? The actors embody and emphasize  a complete ecstasy. They lose all individual
121. 11:40uniqueness and revert into bare expressions of  instinctual drives. If we apply the symbolism
122. 11:46to the odd modern fantasies, I think it serves  to further turn real women into these impersonal
123. 11:52goddesses of lust. I think the addiction part  rises from this ritual combining the two opposite
124. 11:58forces related to self-formation. Masturbation  IS Hermaphroditus after jumping into the pool. But
125. 12:04crucially, what I think ancient wisdom is trying  to tell us is that this wholeness is a lifelong
126. 12:09journey. It is not something you can fast track  by entering a magical pool. That's because even
127. 12:14though we emerge from this ouroboros-like unity,  we must first embrace the challenge of the
128. 12:19opposites. Like Hermaphroditus, venture out from  the cave into the real world or in other words,
129. 12:25adapt to our arbitrary circumstances and master  them. Hermaphroditus is a failed hero even though
130. 12:30he did venture out because he was passively  overtaken by this unity. And that's the catch.
131. 12:36If Hermaphroditus actively engaged the spirit  of Salmacis, we would have a brave story of
132. 12:42individuation, of someone who truly transcends  the opposites. That's a lifelong romantic
133. 12:47relationship, for example, which is why we find  long married couples so admirable. But that wasn't
134. 12:53the case. Hermaphroditus gave in. He regressed  back into wholeness instead of progressing towards
135. 13:00it. So, the fixation to this symbol in adolescence  hints at the inability to break away from our
136. 13:06origins or refuse to be born into the world as an  individual. But the part that most people miss is
137. 13:12that this allegedly narcissistic and egocentric  self-relatedness - masturbation - is the crucial
138. 13:19precondition for all subsequent self development.  One must become oneself. But one cannot forget
139. 13:26that this ritual is a jumping off point and not a  campground. Okay, that's all. See you next time:)