My son once asked me, with a straight face, if he could have birthday cake, and only birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day. What a great question asked the way only a three year old child can.
Pornography is to sexual intimacy, what birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner is to an exquisite fine dessert at the end of a carefully prepared mouthwatering meal. Not just birthday cake, but cake specially engineered to trigger a false message in the brain which says "satisfied". Cake made with stolen ingredients, by bakers without love for baking, but for profit. Cake that is not earned nor offered but delivered to a private cupboard that never runs out of new flavours that all taste the same. Cake displaying a fraudulent label that reads - "secret and harmless". Birthday cake without a reason to celebrate.
I have had a lot of stolen birthday cake. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. A lot. I have made up new meals and mixed cake flavours. I have made cake sandwiches, dipped them in frosting and dusted them in sugar before gorging and going back for more. This cake never gave me indigestion and it never made me fat. It also never filled me up.
So what's the problem? The problem is that when cake becomes your meal, then you've lost your dessert - and your meal, too.
Any activity that brings pleasure is bound to be abused in search of ever increasing returns, and lust is no different. Since the beginning of time, sex has and will continue to be a popular path taken by those seeking to satisfy their sensory cravings. That is not news, nor should it shock us, for we all have access to the hardware with which the game is played, and we know how powerful its effects are.
What is disturbing and worthy of attention, is the increase, acceptance and wide availability of "stolen birthday cake" coupled with its rampant consumption and a foolish belief that the integrity of our social reality can be sustained in the face of this widespread addiction.
The numbers don't lie. 70% of men ages 18 - 24 consume stolen birthday cake regularly. (Most of the other 30% have a problem with honesty). Women are also feeding on this industry which increasingly caters to their unique tastes. And it doesn't abruptly start at the age of 18. We are living in a watershed moment, where for the first time in history an entire generation of children is being raised on pornography. The average age of first contact (that's average, not lowest) with smut is a ripe 11 years of age. The belief that these young boys and girls will grow up to rule our society, form new families and raise babies in the same way of even a single generation ago, is naive at best.
It took me years to travel the long road between the belief that I had hit the jackpot in having free access to the kind and variety of sensory stimuli never before available at the click of a mouse, to conceding that not only was this new found freedom of choice no freedom at all, but it actually was a poison that affected every area of life. I was never caught, labeled an addict nor did I require a daily fix. I held jobs, a rich social life, a loving girlfriend, hobbies and had accomplishments. But a prison isn't just that which robs us of what we can see.
The worst prison there is, is one which distorts our perception of reality. A prison where steel bars pierce through nerve endings. A prison without guards, where we hold the key and dictate our own lock-down times, never realizing that the dying candle's warmth by which we huddle in our cell is but a fraction of what's freely available from the sun outside.
This view is not popular in a world that has learned to embrace pornography as a "healthy activity when consumed in moderation". To have someone call it poison (and I do) is unpopular to say the least. But whatever your view, you must not cast me as someone who does not enjoy physical intimacy, someone who's carnal desires have died, or someone whose sensual experiences have fallen short of what stolen birthday cake has provided (not by any means). You must also dispel the myth that in our over sexualized culture, it is impossible to achieve long term freedom from this addiction, (as defined by any use of pornography at all).
Stolen birthday cake was no longer on the menu by the time of our vows and therefore did not contribute to my marital difficulties, but I have little doubt that it would have expedited them. However, in most homes, this dirty little secret is slowly neutering relationships in a most indiscernible way...
The busiest hour of internet traffic is 11:30pm. The highest number of sites visited during this time... You guessed it; stolen birthday cake.
In the years that I've been reading and talking to people about the issue of lust, I've found only three methods of addressing it. The first one is compliance. That is where the problem is seen as a virtue, and we say silly things like: "This enriches my life." and "No honey, of course it doesn't affect my feelings for you."
The second method is pride. That's where self loathing and shame become a motivator for repeated failed attempts at curbing inevitable relapses leading to a cycle of continuous struggle.
The third method for addressing birthday cake addiction is an encounter with the Head Chef. You know... the one who invented birthday cake. Who better to tell us how to appreciate such a sweet creation. His directions for us are not unlike the answer I had for my 3 year old…
Son, you can't have birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because I want you to enjoy it to the fullest.
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