Having sex, watching porn, and the quality of mind

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: Is engaging sexually with the man or woman somehow different than engaging with porn or can both these engagements be of the same quality of pure lust?

Acharya Prashant (AP): In an absolute sense, it doesn’t matter what makes you excited. It could be a body of a woman, physically present in front of you, or it could be a memory of a man or woman, or it could be the image of a man or woman on the screen of a computer. It doesn’t matter what excites you.

All excitement is fundamentally the same. And all excitement is equally the same in its failure and frustration.

If you are watching porn in order to be relieved, that relief is a superficial relief.

If you are mating physically with a woman in order to be physically or mentally relieved, even that relief is equally superficial.

So, at an absolute level, there is not much of a difference. However, there is a difference. The difference is that a physical man or a woman is more likely to be able to destroy your assumptions & dreams about himself or herself. The character on your computer screen is your slave. You might have paid to watch porn, you might be reading a fantastic, erotic novel…