in canals.

Which does seem to imply that by keeping the pres-

sure cooker lid on in the way that we seem to be intent upon
doing, we’re actually creating a situation where there is going
to be more sexual aberration.
I’ve often thought that it’s similar to the skinner boxes.
B. F. Skinner, the father of behaviorism, created little boxes
with rats in them who would have a lever to press when they
wanted a reward. Sometimes they’d get a reward and some-
times they’d get an electric shot as punishment. It was a way
of programming the behavior of rats. In a lot of our Western
societies, we are saturated with sexual stimulation every morn-
ing when we wake up to the evening when we go to sleep.
It can be in the form of advertisement, in the form of song
lyrics… all of our culture is permeated with sexual ideas and
sexual imagery because they sell. So we’re constantly in a state
of low-level stimulation. Some us may be in a constant state of
high-level stimulation.
Generally when people are in that kind of situation they
will seek some kind of release, if only so that they can stop
thinking about sex for a little longer and get back to whatever
it is they were doing. Often that release will be found in the
form of pornography. Now if the moment they get their re-
lease is the moment that they press that reward lever in that
box, yes they get the pleasure, the reward that they were seek-
ing, but at the same time they get the electric shock of guilt
and shame. Doing that experiment with real rats, you would
drive most of them mad. Doing it with human beings prob-
ably does the same thing. If the only way that you can get your
sexual release is by fantasizing about something that is forbid-
den or is socially unacceptable then, well…
At the moment in the west there has been a lot of contro-
versy about whether or not is okay to show even drawn images
. 39 .