i was checkin the express online & come across this 3 part series by behavioural psychologist Nazma Muller. I tink it very interesting and very relevant in our society these days?
Is plenty reading but i DEF tink it worth takin a look at.
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Part IPorn: nothing to giggle or Google about
Nazma Muller
Sunday, December 21st 2008
T&T's fascination with porn is now
official: Internet search engine Google says it gets the most searches for porn per capita from this country. Nazma Muller
investigates the addiction that is as pervasive as it's secretive.
The van pulled up outside the house in Belmont. Michelle grabbed her purse and ran outside. The driver opened the side
door and Michelle climbed in, excited as a child in a toy store. The back of the van was filled with DVDs - the latest "blues" on the market.
The delivery man gave Michelle a rundown on his new stock-from the States, Brazil, Europe, girl-on-girl action, two guys and a girl, a granny...
She bought five-that should last her the week. A single mother, she couldn't wait for night-time so she could watch the movies, along with her favourite vibrator.
If you think Michelle is a freak, you're not alone.
If you think, "So what?", you've probably watched porn too. Maybe still do.
Michelle is just one of thousands of Trinbagonians who are addicted to porn. And I mean addicted. We're not talking about the "innocent" watching of a blues now and again, or having a few photos of naked women on your phone, but the urge to watch porn videos regularly. According to Google, the internet search engine, T&T is the number one country per capita for porn searches. And we have been at the top for the last four years. During February-Carnival time-there's a dip in searches though. There's enough flesh about locally for porn users to take a break from their Net fixation. Thereafter the searching picks up again (Lent being a time of abstinence), climaxing in May.
"The Internet is the Trini's high," says Rodney*, who is married, in his 40s and admits he is addicted to porn. "Look, facebook [the social networking site] gets the most hits in Trinidad. It's banned in most offices, but almost everybody knows how to get in through mirror sites. The same goes for porn. People are always looking at porn in the office. It's a problem we have always had."
Rodney is always online. "I'm on the Net now," he laughed. "I have one computer at home, two laptops and an iPhone." When the Internet first became available, he got into it because of its downloadability, the access to music, information, just about everything, including porn.
Suddenly, you could type in "SEX" and a whole world, literally, opened up. Literally. You can find porn from almost every country in the world; photos of your kinkiest sexual fantasy; the most amazing and shocking scenarios: women and horses, the Simpsons screwing each other, Janet Jackson losing her top..."It starts off as curiosity-you want to see what's out there-and then you just keep on going," Rodney explained. "Also, it's just so easy to access. It's the availability of it."
Porn used to be free to download, but gradually most sites started charging for photos and video clips. Rodney has found a way to get porn for free by using shareware, through sites like mininova.org. "There are people who store porn and share it." A certain section of their computers is available for the world to access, and through this they can search for and download just about anything: books, audio books, games, high-definition movies, and of course, porn.
The local porn industry is not so big anymore, he says. It stopped being profitable a long time ago. In fact, a former porn producer/distributor said, "Oh, I stopped doing that years ago. It's not a good business. I'm into real estate now."
Rodney says there are local blues still being made, but with so much available on the Internet and the foreign production quality being so much higher, hardly any are made for profit. "It was never profitable," he says. "There was no way of marketing it." There was one movie shot here that made it big though, but it was produced by foreigners and sold abroad. "There were scenes in Smoky and Bunty, Maracas, all over the place."
He knows of two porn sites made by Trinidadians for Trinidadians. "They literally ask us to supply and share local porn-via phone clips, movies, anything. If you want to share say, American porn, they actually push you in a corner-they try to keep it totally local. And it's not for porn alone. They have blogs where you can ask questions about sex and health issues."
And you only have to look at MySpace.com to find a number of Trini girls in their underwear or less.
"That's just the kind of people we are," Rodney concluded. "I believe it stems from our Roman Catholic persuasion."
He agreed to talk about his porn addiction and the prevalence of porn use because it's very important. "The 550-plus missing people in Trinidad are going to be the next big topic in Trinidad, just like kidnapping. I believe a lot of them have been sold as sex slaves. There's a lot of people trafficking going on."
Young people and even children are using the Internet to meet people. He claims both bmobile and digicel's chat sites are "a thriving sex quagmire". He has seen children as young as ten on the site ("there are ways to find out who you're talking to"), and paedophiles target them. "Giving a child a phone is very dangerous now," he says.
According to a porn addiction website, porn addicts don't usually realise that something is wrong until they try to not use porn any more. Like a typical smoker, they do not see the addiction until they try to stop getting regular highs from porn.
Porn addiction, like all others, is a conditioned response to emotionally or physically painful experiences in one's life.
If you have been abused or continually ignored as a child or throughout your life, live in emotional isolation from other people, experienced a major loss, have very low self-esteem as a result of your emotionally painful experiences, porn is a way of dealing with the pain.
Emotional trauma can make it impossible for an individual to make meaningful connection with others. And because human beings cannot survive in complete isolation, porn addiction provides a "safe haven" where one can have virtual relationships with "perfect" people. Porn addiction presents itself as a place where one is never hurt.
Rodney sees porn addiction as an "acceleration of your kink, of what you like... it is addictive, like being a drunk in the street. Everything has progression; it's up to you to say I don't want to go down that road."
Tomorrow: The Miseducation of Leon Hill: How boys
become "man" on de block.
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Part IIThe Miseducation of Leon Hill
Trinis and Porn-Part II
Nazma Muller
Monday, December 22nd 2008
In Part Two of an expose on porn addiction, Nazma Muller talks to sex therapist Dr Raj, who says one of the causes of the clandestine obsession is fellas learning about sex "on the block".
"I buy my porn," says Mark. "I bring most of it back from New York, the rest I get from a guy who sells right next to KFC in Arouca, next to the police station." He says you can get a reasonably good-quality DVD for $15.
The 36-year-old said he started watching porn when he was about 13. A boy in his class at St Mary's College lived above a video rental and the owner, a woman, used to lend him tapes. He in turn would pass it around at school. "Eventually she get to know all of us," Mark explained, "and she would lend us too."
Mark's porn collection now runs to 400 titles. "The only thing I don't have is kiddie [child] porn and male homosexual porn." He admits watching porn is addictive. "It is very easy to get addicted. As you become less sensitive to it, you need more variation to become excited, your curiosity expands, and it's less about titillation and more about curiosity and seeing new things."
Of the four local blues he has, two seem to be home videos. He knows they're local because he knows four of the actors. "There's a boy who went CIC in it. A tall, dougla fella. He tell me he get $5,000 for it [his role]."
It was funny, he says, when the movie came out he and other porn watchers were calling around to confirm that it was indeed "so and so", then the conversation turned to "if he looked good or not". Mark says knowing the actor made the blues "more real. The girls didn't seem so inanimate "
That's the thing about porn: it being unreal is what makes it "safe" and "comforting". You are in a fantasy that allows you to freely experience and express feelings that you're normally ashamed of or can't talk about.
"Hypocrisy is the number one reason for this addiction," says The Sex Doctor himself, Giriraj Ramnanan. "In Trinidad we glorify Carnival. Yet if you see a girl walking down the road in shorts you will make a comment. If a man sees a sexy woman, instead of saying 'Good afternoon', he will 'suit' her."
Dr Raj, as he's known on his radio show on Power 102FM, says being such a religious place is one of the main reasons T&T has such a high percentage of porn addicts. All the religions, their power over the society and on a personal, emotional level, make believers view sex in a conservative way. He points to the older generation, especially, for whom the word itself is a taboo.
"I treat people for this every day so I know the level of addiction in the country. It's high. But then we have always had a high percentage of people with porn addiction," admits Dr Raj. He says internet porn is especially popular because the society is denied easy access to porn magazines and videos. In the States and Europe, there are probably even more people who like porn than here, but there are adult stores where they can go and buy what they want, no problem. "We don't have that avenue open to us," he pointed out.
You might think it's a certain kind of person who is interested in porn but it's the entire population, said Dr Raj. "From pastor to priest to pundit - people from all walks of life. And it's not only in Trinidad this thing is a problem. In fact I just came back from a medical conference in Las Vegas on treating porn addiction so it's a phenomenon that is occurring in a lot of other places in the world. I have been looking at it seriously for the last year."
Dr Raj's theory is that many young men here get their sex education from on the block; not in school or from their parents. They believe a man is supposed to be macho and run down women and have a lot of different ones. So they try running down a lot of women and they get the opposite reaction: none. So what do they do? "They end up watching porn and masturbating," stated Dr Raj matter-of-factly.
"They see women as sex objects, and they pursue them with the sole objective of getting into their pants. And this is reinforced by watching porn, which is not real. Most of them don't have the self-confidence to make a date, to get to know a woman.
"Even girls are taught that penis size is the most important thing. They see sex as just something to satisfy an urge. They don't see it as a reflection of a deeper feeling. They don't understand the emotions behind it." And that is why we have so many cases of sexual dysfunction and frustration.
We have a serious problem in Trinidad, Dr Raj sighed, describing how grown men and women react to just the mention of sex. "When I tell people I'm a sex doctor, they giggle. They don't believe me. I tell them yes, I treat sexual dysfunction. When they realise I'm serious, you know what is the next thing they say? 'You know, I wanted to talk to somebody like you.'"
Tomorrow: The sacred and the profane: religion and porn
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Part IIIReligion and porn
The sacred and the profane:
Nazma Muller
Tuesday, December 23rd 2008
In this the final of a three-part series on porn addiction, a behaviour change specialist tells Nazma Muller that Trinidad and Tobago's secret sexual habits are a result of too much preaching, and not enough teaching
"I don't collect, I just borrow, watch it and give it back."
So Kelly-Ann wouldn't say she's addicted to porn; but she likes to watch it. The 40-year-old professional has a boyfriend, who doesn't know about her secret habit. "I'm not into girl-on-girl action, that's boring. I'm into hetero stuff-two guys and a girl. That's a fantasy of mine."
The ex-Convent girl said she started out reading Playboy and Penthouse as a teen, and had seen some of the older movies, including classics like Deep Throat. "I was always curious about sex. And back then I wasn't doing anything (sex-wise), just fooling around. That's how I would learn about it, reading articles in magazines. It was research, this was something I planned to do and I wanted to get it right."
At Convent Kelly-Ann didn't talk to the other girls about sex. "That was not the kind of conversation we would have," she shrugged. Then she went to UWI, and started having sex, "so I would watch porn and learn tricks to put into practice".
She still enjoys reading erotica, mostly written by women for women because "it comes at sex from a whole different angle".
Most porn videos are made by men, she pointed out.
"Porn is mainstream now anyway," Kelly-Ann insisted. Well, in the US and Europe anyway, with rappers making music videos that are basically softcore porn; and a few even doing hardcore versions. However, she had to admit, her liking for porn was "not something I would disclose to everybody".
"We are a society that is uncomfortable with the idea of discussing sex," says Salorn McDonald of Population Services International (PSI), an organisation that is trying to change the high-risk sexual behaviour that many Trinbagonians engage in. As the regional behaviour change communications manager for PSI, McDonald has seen and heard a lot in his research.
"You have old men bragging about contracting STIs (sexually transmitted infections) back in their heyday," he exclaimed. "Back then it was a source of pride to get 'runnings'. They show you their old, beat-up, green clinic card, as if getting it made them a man. They don't tell you about the burning sensation when you pee and not being able to walk properly after a shot of penicillin.
"We have to remove the mystique and mystery from sex. This is what creates that appetite to explore. We need to make this a normal part of our upbringing, then it becomes a healthy understanding of life and ourselves."
Where does this publicly prudish attitude (except at Carnival) come from? Is it because we were a British colony? "It goes deeper than that," McDonald contends. Many people tend to use a faith-based approach to raising children, he said, be it Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Rastafarianism. And this means sex is portrayed as something that should not be talked about. "We ingrain this into our children and that creates a situation where there is no exploration of sexual appetite, and discussing sex is immoral. The idea of having young people discuss sex is not to be done."
Worse, it does not equip our children for a world inhabited by sexual predators. Young girls with no knowledge of sex or feelings are fooled into having sex with the first person who tells them "I love you".
All of this could be avoided if, God forbid, children were exposed to information about sex and sexuality at an early age, says McDonald.
He has visited countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and Holland, where there is clear evidence that education about the birds and the bees has helped to reduce teenage pregnancy and the incidence of "VD" (venereal disease).
Even in England, sex education is to be taught in schools. In October, Schools Minister Jim Knight announced that sex education would be added to the national curriculum- including kindergartens. The English have had no choice but to confront distressing figures such as 39,000 girls between ages 15 and 17 becoming pregnant in 2006, plus another 7,200 girls between the ages of 13 and 14.
"It's vital that this information doesn't come from playground rumour or the mixed messages from the media about sex," Knight said. Currently, English schools are only required to teach basic lessons on reproduction as part of the science curriculum. Now they will have to provide lessons on relationships and contraception, with the lessons becoming more sophisticated as the children get older. Elementary schools can offer lessons in naming body parts, preparing for puberty and relationship feelings, Knight said. At the very earliest, sex education will mainly be about self-awareness, he said. "We are not talking about five-year-old kids being taught sex. What we're talking about is children knowing about themselves, their differences, their friendships and how to manage their feelings."
In Trinidad and Tobago we still teach a vague introduction to public health and hygiene in school that dates way back, McDonald said with exasperation. The absence of proper sex education in schools is not serving children in any way. "It's not helping young people to understand themselves and what happens to their bodies," he said.
And burying our heads in the sand is not going to make resulting problems, like porn addiction, go away.
To be a fine, upstanding member of this society, says McDonald, one does not discuss matters like sex. And this belief is especially strong among the elders. "They say what seems to be the correct thing," he noted, "rather than saying or doing the important thing-what is necessary."
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I know plenty ppl on here are parents, what is allyuh take on the situation?
