Wednesday, October 26, 2011
One instinct common to all mammals (including humans) is known as the Coolidge Effect. This refers to the tendency of the male to be significantly more sexually aroused by a female whom he has not yet had sex with than he is aroused by a female whom he has already had sex with.
For example if a male rat is placed into an enclosed large box with four or five female rats in estrus, he will immediately begin mating with all of the female rats repeatedly until eventually exhausted. Although the females will continue nudging and licking him to continue, he will not respond. However, if a novel female were introduced to the box, he would become alert and find the ability to mate once again with the new female. New is more arousing than used. Similar tendencies are found in all other mammals.
Today, thanks to Internet pornography, men are able to have "sex" (in their imaginations) with an endless stream of new women. This can lead to a complete lack of interest in real women, besides becoming a serious addiction similar to cocaine.
Orthodox Judaism prohibits any sexual stimulation outside of marriage. Therefore the Coolidge Effect presents an enormous challenge to Orthodox men in the modern, sexually promiscuous, Internet wired world. I would suggest that this may be the greatest challenge to Orthodox Judaism today.
Making vows can be a very powerful means of controlling oneself. Each week one can read a list of vows along the lines of:
I hereby accept upon myself that if later this week or next week I knowingly unblock any webpage from Net Nanny software I will be required to fast 1 day during this month of --------- or next month of -----------.
In some cases, medication may be helpful.
In addition, heartfelt prayer for divine assistance is very important.
Posted by jewish philosopher at 4:08 PM