I decided to go visit the singles ward in San Diego today to see if I could handle moving there. The ward was okay. I met some very nice people, including a very nice, tall guy who retreated almost as fast as he approached when a very weird girl came and shouldered into the conversation.
The most unfortunate part of the trip down south today was that I somehow managed to select the weekend when Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society was cancelled so they could put on a TWO HOUR meeting on porn with people from LDS Social services, including a 30 minute question and answer portion. Portions of the meeting were disturbing, other parts were very boring. Anyway, I consider it to be very poor timing on my part to select this particular weekend to make my visit.
4 comments:
A two hour meeting about porn? Wow! I am not sure how productive anything longer than 20 minutes on the topic could be? I mean when it comes down to it, the whole topic, and others related to it, could be reduced to one root cause of people looking at the stuff: Selfishness.
If we attacked the root cause of selfishness, I am positive this and other things related to it would simply melt away. We seem to not be really trying to understand it from that point of view but look at it like some addiction like gambling or alcohol or something. I think we are missing why people allow themselves to immerse themselves in such behavior: they are not considering others who are affected by their decisions to look at such filth like their future wife, kids, family, friends, and even the people prostituting themselves for the industry.
I wish to hell we could solve this problem. It is killing me that our leaders can't enlighten us with something other than another talk on porn. It is obviously a huge problem in the church but I wish it werent.
Oh, all aspects you just mentioned above were touched on. It was complete with a powerpoint presentation. I have to say, they were very thorough. They defined the difference between someone with a porn problem and a porn addiction. They talked about women with porn addictions. One of the slides in the presentation was dedicated to some emotional reasons porn appeals to different people. Things people can do to fight a porn problem/addiction (pretty much seek professional help), and how it can impact your interactions with members of the opposite sex. The even discussed the impact porn can have on small children that are exposed. It was actually very factual, and I can't say that I walked away without learning something.
So did they actually say it was possible to have an addiction to porn? I have heard people say that before but I thought it was just hyperbole. I am not refuting that but just never heard a definitive statement of evidence of it.
Also, I have heard that porn is a distinctly male problem. Are there reasons it is now becoming a genderless problem and how much are females affected? You always hear how males are more visually oriented than females but I guess that always isnt the truth.
Yes, they did specifically address that question, and clearly stated that there is such a thing as a porn addiction. They went down a whole list of symptoms that qualify a person as an addict. The girl next to me took notes, I did not, so I can't give you the list, but it was pretty much the same criteria they use to define an alcoholic. Interfering with daily routines, causing the person to emotionally withdraw, jeopardizing career and family relationships in order to continue the behavior, etc.
As far as female addicts they said it's not as common, and generally women will not develop an addiction as quickly as a man, but after continued viewing for an extended period of time it does happen. They said they're seeing more of that all the time.
Post a Comment