Response to “My daughter wants to become Sunny Leone”

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We are discussing a response to the video about a girl who tells her parents I want to become Sunny Leone. So she says that she is giving pleasure to thousands, millions of people by her profession.
Answer, there are different kinds of pleasures in the world and there could be professions associated with different kinds of pleasures. We cannot just talk about the pleasure. We also have to look at the consequence of the pleasure.
For example, there may be drug vendors who also give pleasure to people. The people who consume drugs, they get pleasure. People who sell those drugs may also become famous and wealthy.
They become powerful. But and the consumers may get so much pleasure through it that they feel you can’t live without it. You need it absolutely.
But what is the long term consequence of the pleasure? The pleasure is actually something which leads to trouble. So just the fact that somebody’s activity is giving pleasure to others, we cannot see that as a single reality. We have to see in the long run what is the consequence of that pleasure.
Just as the drug industry, the drug peddlers, that industry has to be regulated because although people may get pleasure, that pleasure is something which gives them a lot of trouble in the long run. Now the question may be raised, what is the trouble that is caused by pornography? At the very least, we do see that people get addicted to it. And when people are addicted to it, there is sheer amount of the amount of money that is spent on the porn industry today.
The revenues of the porn industry is more than the revenue of the combined revenues of the three biggest sports in America. Baseball, basketball and soccer. So this much amount of money is simply being spent and people get hooked hours, even if we look from a purely materialistic perspective, that people who get hooked to it, they lose hours and hours and this addiction goes on for days and months and years.
Not only can they not do their work properly because of their job, because of their addiction, even their family relationships get disrupted and leave alone a moral perspective, even from a purely social perspective, pornography addiction is such a big addiction that there are whole professions which are the psychiatrists who deal specifically with porn addiction and there are porn de-addiction centres and neuroscientists have found that continuous exposure to porn actually restructures the human brain in a way that the human brain becomes desensitised to experiencing subtler emotions. The human brain’s capacity to experience sensations becomes escalated to crave for sensations and the capacity to sustain relations becomes substantially decreased. So even if we don’t put an ethical perspective over here, even if somebody says I don’t care about morality, still the consequences of porn are not in any way some innocent pleasure for people.
People get addicted and this addiction costs money and it has detrimental effects on people’s capacity to perform their work, to sustain family relationships and to live normal lives, normal responsible lives. So is it that the porn stars, that women are being suppressed by culture, by tradition from expressing their sexuality, that they are told that the sexuality is meant only for their husbands and in this way that which is their greatest power is being controlled by men. Yes, sexuality is a great power and power needs to be used carefully.
Just as we have a few countries in the world which have nuclear power and there is enormous amount of concern that nuclear weapons not be misused because when power is there and if it is misused then it can lead to disastrous consequences. So sexual power is also a great power and it needs to be used constructively. If not, if it becomes just a nuclear power, if not used carefully, can cause intentionally or unintentionally enormous devastation.
So sexual power can also, if not used properly, can cause enormous devastation individually, familially, socially, nationally and globally. Now is it a woman’s property that the sexuality is a woman’s property that men are suppressing? That is a very one-sided and distorted way of looking at the reality that sexuality is not just a power that is present in men or women. It is present in all living beings and nature has arranged this power in such a way that male-female get attracted to each other and through the male-female attraction there is pleasure in that but along with the pleasure there is the procreative function that is there and that is how the human race, any particular species, any species that reproduced by sexual reproduction, the species continues.
So whereas pleasure and procreation are by nature kept together, it is humans who unnaturally separate the two. So that separation can happen in many ways but that separation happens most graphically through pornography where the reproductive aspect of, the procreative aspect of the sexual attraction, sexual function is completely sidelined and only the pleasure aspect is highlighted, aggravated. So does a woman gain power by that? By exhibiting one’s sexuality, a woman may get a temporary sense of power but there are different kinds of power.
There are even a drunkard who is on a high after taking intoxication may feel a sense of great power that whoever comes in front of me, I can beat up that person but the drunkard is so drunk that he can’t even stand properly and a child may push and the drunkard will fall down. So there is a sensation of power which comes and there is a reality. So ultimately the human heart longs for fulfilment.
The fulfilment comes from sustained relationships. The Harvard Medical School did a survey of students in America who American college students are naturally parts of the free sex revolution where they all have free sexual relationships with many people. So the promise of the free sex revolution was that when prohibitive moral principles, moral norms of society were rejected then there would be happiness.
But these people who have free sex, the Harvard Medical School found that, an article was published which said that these boys and girls, they experienced profound loneliness. Although their bodies came in contact with many other bodies but their hearts remained untouched. They knew that they were using others and others were using them.
So apart from physical intimacy leading to any kind of emotional intimacy, it actually led to emotional alienation and loneliness. So for a woman, sexuality is a power that is given to her. But ultimately a woman is not just a sexuality.
A woman is a person and all people, we all want to love and be loved. So the fulfilment of this longing to love and be loved, that cannot come if there is only casual sexuality. There has to be committed relationships and the principle of a woman maintaining her virginity and offering it to her husband at marriage, the principle is not to control woman.
The principle is to have a stable foundation for a committed relationship. For a woman, her sexuality is her power, it is her property. But when she uses that power and property to form a committed relationship, then that is where, that is what gives the heart fulfilment.
Yes, by exhibiting one’s sensuality, one may attract many people. One may get a heady sense of fame and power by that. But how long is that power going to last? Socrates said that beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
We have to maintain that beauty and for maintaining that we have to do so many things. And even if we do that, it is not going to last. It is short-lived.
So we say that, okay, that all professions have their lifespan and afterwards, once the capacity to function the profession is gone, then one cannot perform. Yes, we may look at it like that, but there is a difference between professions which involve using one’s skills and a profession which involves parading that which is a very intimate, defining part of one’s physical identity, that is one’s sexuality. When people are defined by their sexuality, then when that sexuality is, that sexual appeal is lost, then they have practically nothing to live for.
They don’t know who they are. If they don’t have that physical attractiveness, then what do they live for? So sometimes women, in order to try to look young and attractive, they spend fortunes. The amount of money that is spent on cosmetic surgeries, not just cosmetic surgery, but any kind of beauty enhancement and beauty, the amount of money that is spent just in European Union America, that is actually more than the amount of money that is needed to feed all the hungry people in the world.
And in spite of that, how much longer can the beauty be enhanced? So a woman can use her sexual power to get a brief sensation of fame, brief sensation or can create a brief sensation. She is attracted by many. She attracts a lot of attention, a lot of fame, apparently a lot of power.
But after that is gone, what will be left of her identity? It is youth, that is the time when people form committed relationships. It is the time when families are formed. If that time is squandered away for the sake of getting some fame and money by parading on sexuality, then one is condemned to live at a very superficial level where one may attract the attention of many, but one does not get the affection of anyone.
We may make heads turn when we have physical sexual appeal, but without a committed relationship, the heart will never get fulfilled. As far as someone may say that men through marriage control women and make them, after satisfying their desires, just make women into mothers and women have to lifelong care for the children. Actually, women by their very body, by the very makeup of their body and their mind, have an innate need to nurture.
And if this need to nurture is not fulfilled, women cannot have a fulfilling life. They are just made in that way. If there is a room full of say 10 children and if there is a young man, if there is a 25-30 year old man, a 25-30 year old woman, who can better take care of those children? It’s naturally a woman.
So, women may feel deprived, women may feel that we are being disempowered, that we are stuck with a maternal role and we are not able to achieve in life. But actually, what is the achievement that women are looking for? Now, in the name of the empowerment of women, women are simply thinking, are simply made to think that the success of their life is if they become copycats of men. That whatever activities men are doing, if women are able to do it, if they have the right to do it, they have the freedom to do it, they have the ability to do it, if they do it, then they will be successful.
And they feel that society is stopping us from doing these things and we will oppose the society. Yes, now the question is not whether women can do what men can do or not. The question is what women can do which men can’t do.
So, by the arrangement of nature, women have been given some special abilities. And if women are miseducated to think of motherhood as a burden, then they end up denying their own innate need to nurture. And the result of denying, result of this negative perception of motherhood is that women don’t become mothers.
They themselves are unfulfilled and the way they try to get fulfilment is by getting pets. In several metropolitan cities in America, the number of pet dogs is more than number of children. And most pet dogs are either kept by old people or many are kept by young women, pet dogs or pet cats.
And these are not kept for security purposes. They are kept because they have a need to nurture. So, instead of taking care of children, they are lavishing all their love on dogs.
And what is the result of this? In many parts of Europe and especially in Europe, at least America to a large extent is still a Christian country and many parts of America still have Christian religious values. So, women do take care of, women do have children. But in Europe, which is much more atheistic, the average reproduction rate is about 1.3 to 1.7. And that means overall Europe is dying out.
So, when women are miseducated to see motherhood as a burden, the result of that is going to be that human society will die out. And it’s not that human society will die out. It is that part of human society which has been educated to think of motherhood as a burden that is going to die out.
In general, reproduction rates are much higher in cultures where traditional values are emphasised. So, in China, in India, in much of the Islamic world, the reproduction rates are higher. And even if you don’t consider the political aspects of demographic changes, still the simple point is that humanity itself will not be able to continue if women are miseducated to believe that being a mother is a burden.
Now, it may be that sometimes the maternal role may be felt as a burden by some women who have many other talents and they feel that just being stuck as mothers doesn’t allow them to do justice to their other talents. Now, there are two aspects to this. First is that if their own mothers had thought of them as burdens, then where would they be? In America and in Europe, a major problem among the younger generation is what is called as juvenile delinquency.
Juvenile delinquency is young people in their teenage years itself get into criminal activities. And the single biggest predictor of when children become criminals, teenage criminals is when they don’t get affection of parents. And this happens much more in families where both the parents are busy in pursuing their careers and they don’t have time for children.
Now, we often talk about quality time in our relationships. But children, especially in their formative years, they don’t understand the language of quality time. In their early years, they need quantity time.
And if they don’t get that quantity time, then they get no affection. They feel unloved, they feel uncared, they feel unvalued. And those negative self-conceptions, they come out later as teenage rebellion, as teenage criminality.
So, when we divorce one aspect of life or one aspect of personality, a woman’s sexuality from the whole social fabric, then the consequences of focussing only on one thing and neglecting other things, the consequences are far reaching. And they are socially not just damaging, but they can be socially devastating. So, in today’s world, yes, women may also want to pursue their careers.
And practically how each woman will adjust her maternal side, her need to nurture and her need to have a career, to succeed in life. That is something which every woman, every family will have to decide individually. But treating, deeming motherhood as a burden is a gross distortion of reality which will only make the woman feel deprived of her own innate need to nurture.
Now, if someone says that women who are being forced into a maternal role, that they have lost the capacity to think and that’s how they are submitted. Society has indoctrinated them to think in particular ways. Then, yes, in general, people are not thoughtful.
That is true. And that people are not thoughtful means that if established social conventions are challenged, then people in general may not be able to address those challenges. They may not be able to answer those challenges.
But that does not necessarily mean that the established social conventions are themselves simply tools for controlling someone. Those social conventions serve a purpose. And the purpose is the stable functioning of society.
Generation after generation after generation. So we could turn the whole argument around and we could say that women who consider motherhood to be a burden, they have been indoctrinated by society. They have been indoctrinated by their culture, by which they don’t recognise that which is their own strength in nature.
So, yes, a woman’s sexuality is her great strength, but a woman’s maternity is also her great strength. So a woman’s sexuality is a strength by which she can attract attention. And by nature’s arrangement, it is made in such a way that she can attract a mate by that.
And the other aspect, so the sexual aspect of a woman is short lived. At the most it is there for 10, 15, 20 years. But the maternal role is something which is much more enduring.
And the traditional social arrangement is such a way that the sexual and maternal roles are integrated together. The sexuality is used so that the woman can be a part of a committed relationship in marriage and then she can play the maternal role. And the maternal role is also an extremely powerful role.
It is said that the hand that shakes the cradle shapes the world. It is children who had maternal affection, who had a culture transmitted to them by mothers, those children grow up to become influential people in future. So maternity is also a power of women and that also needs to be tapped.
To consider that as a burden is a misrepresentation of reality. And if someone argues that actually this maternal role is something which I don’t want, then they have to consider whether they have been indoctrinated by society into embracing the definition of success which is applicable for men. So instead of women using their uniqueness, using their distinctiveness to make the contribution which they can make, they are simply thinking that being able to do what men can do, that is freedom.
But why do women have to consider like that? Now if women truly want to be empowered, then is becoming a Xerox copy of a man empowerment for a woman? Why can’t a woman have success, make contributions in a way that she is naturally endowed to do? And that men are not endowed to do. So yes, it is true that in the past there have been exploitation of women, there has been separation of women and that needs to be corrected. Systems have to be made in place where women should not be exploited or repressed.
But rejection of the whole social order, existing social order, demonising it, that will have far more disastrous consequences than what one can think of with one’s finite intelligence right now. So now is sexuality given by God and we should celebrate it, we should not be embarrassed by it? Yes, sexuality is given by God. Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that dharma vriddho bhuteshu kamosmi bharatarshiva.
Krishna says that when sexuality is engaged in within the framework of dharma, that is actually an experience of the divine, an experience of God. So it is a way by which humans can become co-creators with God and bring new life into the world. So if we say that sexuality is a gift given by God, we should not be embarrassed.
The point is not to be embarrassed. The point is that it is a natural gift and it has to be used naturally. If we are saying that sexuality is natural and then we should use it naturally, then the natural sexuality is naturally connected with procreation.
Why are we unnaturally divorcing the two? Why are we, if sexuality were meant only for pleasure, then why doesn’t, why don’t condoms grow on trees? Simply talking about what God has made, it is not that society is meant to be, people are meant to be embarrassed about the sexuality. But recognising that sexuality is a power and it is a power meant for a particular purpose, it should be used for that purpose and it should not be abused for other purposes. Lust can make men into monsters and lust can make women into witches.
Lust can make men, if the sexual power is not regulated, then men can become monsters who go mad and do atrocious things, cruel things for the sake of satisfying their lust. And similarly, if sexual desire is not regulated in women, then they become witches. They go about seducing others.
And there are many families which are disrupted because, say a woman with unregulated sexual drive, she seduces a married man and then the family gets broken and then the children have to go through a life journey without any father. So the sexual energy is to be used properly. And that channelling of the sexual energy is not separation.
It is actually proper direction for helping individuals to have meaningful relationships in which they themselves can find fulfilment and they can help in maintaining society and continuing the human race. So when it is said that the sexual role of a woman is the most important, that’s why even in religious scriptures when people are to be allured, they are allured by offering women in sexual role, not in a maternal role, not in a sisterly role. Yes, but again that’s an allurement.
And we cannot just take one aspect of scripture and divorce it from the reality. The point is scripture tells us stories to caution us against the dangers of unregulated sexuality. So those who are following the path of virtue, they get diverted, they get distracted.
They often lose their bearings because of sexuality. And the point of scripture telling us about sexuality is yes, there is a dharmic way, there is a virtuous way of gratifying one’s sexual desires and using one’s sexuality. And there is a adharmic way of doing it.
So dharma is not simply a matter of religious morality. It is a part of the natural order of things. And when that natural order is rejected, that has disastrous consequences.
Just as we cannot break, we cannot break the law of gravity. If somebody jumps off a 10 storey building, I say I don’t believe in the law of gravity. Well, their fractured limbs will make them believe in that law.
So like that, if we reject the natural order and we give unrestricted vent to one’s sexuality, then that will hurt oneself, that will hurt society. And so when scripture talks about this, it is talking about how sexuality can divert people from the religious path. That’s why they all need to be careful.
There is another aspect that yes, that sometimes for people who live virtuously, it is told that they will go to heaven and they will enjoy sexually. But again, that is within the framework of dharma where there is regulation and then there is reward. So the point here is that when sexuality is used simply to excite, agitate people’s desires, then there may be some pleasure.
But that pleasure leads to trouble, leads to trouble individually, leads to trouble socially. So when say women who engage in selling their bodies, they are labelled negatively. Is that negative label a means of controlling women? It’s not necessarily a means for controlling women.
It’s a means of protecting society. Labels can sometimes be unfair. And labelling itself can sometimes be a strategy for the powerful to control the powerless.
But irrespective of what the label is, there is an objective reality. And the objective reality is that when sensual desires are triggered by people, then if some people take this up as their profession, some people may do it. But the result on society is destructive.
And that’s why it needs to be regulated. There is always people who are good and there are people who are bad. And we cannot do away with the people who are bad.
So good and bad are both going to exist in the world always. But the world situation, society situation becomes far more dangerous when society loses the discrimination between good and bad. And when the bad is glamorised as good and when the good is demonised as bad, then that will lead to disaster.
So unfortunately, with whatever logic the girl in this movie claims to have for her beliefs, the logic is twisted because whereas she is thinking that she is breaking free from the shackles of thought that men have imposed on her, she is actually giving in to another set of shackles of thought that another school of thought has imposed, the school of thought which makes her think that maternity is a burden, makes her think that committed relationships are a prison, makes her think that sexuality or sexual power is repressed when it is channelled within a stable relationship. This is also another kind of indoctrination. And to consider that as freedom is actually an illusion.
So when people start thinking of good as bad and the bad as good, then society gets terribly misled. So the problem in the world, one European thinker, he said that the problem in the world is that the wise are full of doubts and the foolish are cocksure. So the foolish are overconfident, they are cocksure and the confidence of this girl in this movie thinking that I am doing the right thing is actually appearing from a very short term, unidimensional vision of things where she has simply decided that a woman rejecting their uniqueness and their distinct contribution to society, she is saying that women should not be controlled by men as it happens in traditional culture.
But here she is ending up being a servant of men in other ways. She is simply pandering to the lower desires of men and she is making a profession out of that. So men and women are together in society and when women reject control of men, think that a family is a beast to be controlled by men.
What is happening? She is simply offering herself to control of men in another way by pandering to their lowest desires. But the result of this is individually and socially destructive. Thank you.