The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com. A woman and her boyfriend made a choice. They made a promise to their God that they would remain virgins until the wedding night. But she says they were weak. They were human. They gave in to their sexual desire four times—a choice. They repented their sins, and they turned away. They turned away from their lifestyle, but it was really hard when they were in the relationship not to cross the line. So I have a lot of empathy for this darling little couple who are in love with one another. They're not just shacking up. They're not just sleeping randomly with strangers. These are kids that love each other.

Now they're broken up. Her boyfriend has now turned to porn, and she wonders how she can break this addiction to porn besides prayer. So I'm going to talk about the porn in a minute. I'm going to set that aside for a moment. Let's first talk about your basic view of yourself. This woman, Amy, her basic view of herself is that she's a weak human being, that sexual desire is low, is wrong, is bad, and that she sinned. The four times she made love with her honey, she sinned, and now she has to repent to someone because she gave in to this low nature. It's like the devil made her do it, and now she has to confess to somebody who knows better.

She has to confess, and she has to resist something—her sexual capacity that feels right and good with a man she loves. Now, what if everything you were taught about morality was wrong in this area? What if, here's another view: what if you are a wonderful human being, that sex is not a low nature, unless you are a low creature, unless you are a lowly human being that uses it indiscriminately or as a weapon? But say that you're a wonderful human being with natural sexual desires towards a man that you love and that you take rational precautions. This isn't a one-night stand. You're not ready to have a baby, so you take rational precautions and you have sex before marriage, which may even be much better for you to see if you're compatible sexually.

It's not a sin if it's done rationally, you're responsible, and you enjoy the capacity to enjoy the pleasure your bodies can give you with someone you love. Is this bad or not? I say no. So you would evaluate in the context of your love for the person you're with, and in the context of your whole life. Does it make sense to make love to my partner? And if the answer is, rationally, yes, there's nothing wrong with it. Take precautions if you're not ready to start a family, or if you're just making love for the first time. Yes, take precautions. But that's a very different view.

And how much guilt should you have for those four times that you had sex? Zero. Are you a sinner? No. Do you have to tell some stranger what you did, or some priest, minister, or rabbi? No, it's none of their business. So I feel that you have every right to enjoy your body, as long as you do it rationally. By irrational, I mean things that would harm you—having indiscriminate sex or sex with someone you don't know, sex with someone who could give you diseases, sex with someone where it feels degrading to you. It didn't, in this case, except for you held the wrong view.

So I would say no unearned guilt. The wrong moral code and irrational moral code will bring everybody who practices it unhappiness and unearned guilt. I say that sex is good when properly acted on, when done in the context of a loving relationship. So think about morality more broadly.

My—the person, the moral code I love is objectivism, and the person that identified this moral code is Ayn Rand, A-Y-N, R-A-N-D. She said that the purpose of morality is to teach you not to suffer and die, but how to enjoy yourself and live properly by using your mind, your rational capacity, so active thinking, valuing your mind, figuring out how to think clearly, figuring out how to set long-range purposeful goals for yourself that are your personal values. Learning how to pursue them will bring you happiness. Trying to deny them, buying into a self-sacrificial code, won't bring you happiness. It will relieve some guilt that they induce, but it won't bring you happiness. So I am all for rational happiness, and I hope that helps you regarding pornography.

Pornography is a problem because many times it's got a very degraded view of sex. Now I'm not talking about erotica—a healthy erotica. It's very hard to have sex day in and day out with a loving partner just using the missionary position and looking in one another's eyes and saying, “I love you.” Now the first time you say that to one another, it is precious. It's very arousing. It's very wonderful. It should be, but you can't just rely on that. You need to be creative to sustain a passionate sexuality with a loving partner, and so turning to look at—having sexual fantasies—healthy ones. I don't mean S&M ones or child porn or that crap. I mean healthy sexual fantasies that you would never act on with one another can be very, very playful, very arousing. So I think that's healthy.

The internet can help with that. So can different magazines. Now, some of them are crude. Some of them may take a week to overcome the crappiness of them. So I'm not encouraging all of them. I'm not endorsing all of them. I'm just saying the use of seeing women in bikinis or sexual men or people embracing each other is wonderful, and having those thoughts is wonderful. So I don't know whether your boyfriend is turning to sex in a healthy fashion, or whether his use of internet porn is undermining his own capacity to have a healthy relationship.

If he's got the Christian view and thinks that it was really bad to have sex with a loving partner, then maybe he'll turn to porn. Look at what the priests have done. They turn to child porn. They turn to child—well, you know what they turn to. So you don't want to have that happen in your life.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Did she say anything? Much or anything at all? Yes, come to think of it, she did a bad seed. Oh yes, she was starting to write a book, something around the theory—let me see that—a child can inherit criminal tendencies in the blood. If you'll forgive me, that's a pretty specious theory. That's what I told her myself. It's all a matter of environment, isn't it? Of course, okay, the nature, nurture. Is it a bad seed? Is it genetics? Is it biological, or is it nurture? Is it the environment?

Well, what if it is choice that a child can become bad, not because of a bad seed, but because kids make choices? Think back to your own childhood. When I worked with very young ones, two and a half years and older, I would see that moment of deliberation of choice in their mind. Should I tell Ellen the truth that I took her toy—this is in a clinical session—or not? I could see that moment of choosing in them. They choose their friends. They choose how they deal with a sibling. Sometimes they let themselves go on autopilot, automatic pilot. They don't reflect. They don't give it any thought, but they have the capacity to think.

They have the capacity to say, “You know, I just yelled at my brother. I always yell at my brother, and I always tell myself I'm right. Is it possible that I'm not right?” Now, even if you're in a married relationship, you have the capacity to think, “I'm always nagging my husband. Should I think about this? Am I really nagging him? Am I just making excuses or not?” You need to be able to reflect on your own behavior, and that gives you more control over your choice. Making you have your choice, whether you use it or not, and whether you use it well or not, is up to you.

So we can't get around the fact that we have free will. So it's not just nature versus nurture. It is choice making. It's obvious there's a biological basis to us. Obviously we have genes, obviously we have biochemistry going on. But the fundamental with a human being is choice making. And it's also true that the environment can have an effect on us. If you grew up in an abusive environment, it doesn't mean you end up abusing your own kids if you were abused. It means you can think about it or you can choose not to think about it again.

Notice how it always points to free will, volition, choice. For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path of Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke.

Molly, a 62-year-old housewife, and her husband Bill were living the high life together until one day Bill died of a heart attack. Molly was shocked to discover that they'd been living on borrowed money and that Bill had left her penniless. She had no clue about their financial situation. She had to go to work at minimum wage just to make ends meet.

In this case, Bill's motives were not to protect his wife from financial responsibilities but to protect her from his deceit. Protecting a loved one from basic knowledge needed to live, especially finances, is not a benefit. It leaves the "protected" partner feeling psychologically dependent on the knowledgeable one for basic needs, and is often used as a means of control.