Freedom from pornography is essential to health and happiness

Who'd have thought that the clearest voice to raise concerns about the film "Fifty Shades of Grey" would belong to Russell Brand?

In an honest and heartfelt video Brand said he didn't like the way he felt about himself after watching pornography. So, instead, he's trying to blaze a trail in learning how to close the laptop and turn off, what he calls, the "waves of filth."

"This cloud of pornographic information … is making it impossible for us to relate to our sexuality and our own psychology and our own spirituality," Brand said. "It's jarring and distracting… (and) really difficult to remain connected to truth."

Brand is clued-in to the fact that pornography has stealthily entered the conversation, in the media and on social media, and is proliferating like some socially infectious disease. But like many today, he became "infected" by it when he was young and most impressionable.

He cites the latest research which found watching porn leads to an exaggerated perception of sex in society, diminishes trust between couples, abandons hope of sexual monogamy and promotes the belief that promiscuity is a natural state. He has woken up with a jolt and is trying to tackle the harmful effects this has had in his own life.

Each generation gets the opportunity to come to their own conclusions about the place of sexuality in life. Back in the '60s and '70s most young people were caught up to some degree in the ideals of the hippy generation. Some of those ideals have certainly left a positive legacy, but the so-called "sexual revolution" proved to many that sex for sex's sake was not all it was cracked up to be.

Instead, we eventually discovered we could only find truth and happiness in a relationship that was built on honesty, loyalty, selfless giving and care for our partner's happiness … all of which I have come to consider to be divine qualities.

We needed to upgrade our thinking to acknowledge our mental and spiritual side, just like Brand advocates.

At the end of the 19^th century - an era that has recently been losing some of its reputation as strait-laced - a shrewd observer of human naturecommented on the less overt but similar problems of her day.

"In the present or future, some extra throe of error may conjure up a new-style conjugality, which...severs the marriage covenant, puts virtue in the shambles, and coolly notifies the public of broken vows," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, adding that this would fly in the face of "...common law, common sense, and common honesty..."

That honesty, the noted thought-leader wrote, "is spiritual power", because it has its source in the divine Mind.

She also made the connection between such spiritual thinking and how healthy and content we are - doing better when we take a step away from the human reasoning which chooses paths that seem easier or more self-satisfying, to be guided instead by motives like honesty and love.