I had my first orgasm just before turning twelve. It happened under the sheets late one night while quarantined in a room with all five of my younger siblings. My father was remodeling the house we lived in, one-half entombed in a wall of clear plastic to keep the construction dust from contaminating what spare livable space remained.

For a few years we lived like this, moving from one house to the next while tearing them apart and trying to eat, clean, and cook amongst the constant interruptions of electricians, plumbers, and drywall dust. My siblings hadn’t had as much trouble sleeping as I did, still tucked naively in the comfort of pre-adolescence. Not realizing that I was even touching it I suddenly found myself in the alarming throes of what I would later learn to be an orgasm. It was amazing, like nothing I had ever experienced. I felt there should be more to it, as eleven is usually too young an age to ejaculate, and sure enough it became a different experience a little while later. It would be something with much importance and consequence on my life, jerking off, a tool with which I could bring myself rare comfort during the fast approaching tumult of my religion-addled adolescence and destabilizing family life.

That I discovered my sexuality so early is no coincidence—Mormons are obsessed with sex. Sex and genitals are spoken of with much frequency, though usually in the context of not touching them or sharing them with others, and even with the very young. Every Sunday there are lessons in which church leaders describe sex or variations on it, then demean and shame it and those considering its engagement who probably weren't even thinking of it until you brought it up in church but thanks now that’s all I can think about. 

I could not get away from discussion of sex even if I wanted to, and I often very much wanted to. The current brouhaha over abortion emanating predictably from the South is not about saving babies, as any reasonably minded person can easily see. The furor, codification, and contention surrounding abortion in politics is about subjugating women and forcing religious ideology on other people. Now that I am a grown man I recognize as sexual predators most of the adults in my church who fervently evangelized about sex, their fetish for exposing young people to eroticism veiled as religious instruction, enabled by a culture comfortable with shame, secrets, and authoritarian patriarchy. One creepy religious leader who often took to discussing sex behavior and condemning it when leading our young men's group was later arrested for criminal sexual conduct at his place of work, having assaulted a female colleague and hidden cameras in the women's locker room. Indeed many overzealous reproduction-obsessed politicians turn up with dark sexual crimes and secrets. This is no coincidence. If we look past the surface and probe into the motivations and reasons why these kinds of people behave in this manner we can easily surmise the motivations and origins of this behavior, and so how to address it not only presently but more importantly in the future.

From my work dealing with cancer and other metabolic issues, which included premature and profound erectile dysfunction, I also came to understand why people like the congress in poor states like Alabama and Mississippi are constantly engaged in ideological warfare with their fellow countrymen, and indeed why this kind of sexual oppression occurs in other societies which are afflicted with sex-obsessed leaders. It never surprises the LGBT community when conservative, anti-gay politicians come out of the closet or are caught in some compromising position. A person’s outward, proclaimed intentions often betray what their mind spends the greater portion of its time and energy in conflict. A person who dislikes their sexual orientation and wishes to change it then spends their outward actions attempting to do so. Politicians like those currently administering in Southern legislatures suffer from sexual dysfunctions which in turn make them feel sexually impotent or out of control in their own lives. So they attempt to compensate for this tumult in their outward actions, attempting to control the things in their environment which they cannot control within themselves.

This is not conjecture. It is no coincidence that among the members of these legislatures are physical manifestations of other health problems which are caused by the same factors which also cause sexual dysfunction—rampant hair loss, goiters, weight problems, skin issues, and emotional problems such as irrational anger, agitation, and a dearth of common goodness, compassion, and reason. When we age as individuals our body produces an excess of certain metabolic products which are designed to prolong our existence in the face of nutritional or environmental stress but which also cause other health problems. Chiefly among these and most relevant to this situation which also accelerates the aging process through the inhibition of mitochondrial respiration is nitric oxide. Nitric oxide binds to the respiratory enzyme cytochrome oxidase as a stop-gap to prevent mitochondria from burning up spare and important nutrients during metabolic stress. But this has the unfortunate side effect of preventing cellular regeneration, which is why aging advances hastily in those who exhibit excess nitric oxide, contributing to unfortunate developments like hair loss, weight gain, dying skin, but also emotional problems like agitation, irritability, and irrationality as the pain and absence of vitality takes a toll on the mental and emotional capacity. Environmental factors such as poor diets or agricultural chemicals such as glyphosate which wipes out the gut microbiome can further hasten or amplify these effects as the body doubles down on its defense from these assaults, but which makes the effects of cellular inhibition more pronounced and consequential.

Most tellingly and relevant to the current political climate is that an excess of nitric oxide both stimulates the sex drive while also castrating the emotional and intimate connections normally provided by sex. An overactive sex drive is sadly often regarded as a defect of moral character and something that can be controlled, and which is often also incorrectly regarded as an addiction. Many politicians, especially those who are of a conservative orientation, often suffer from overactive sex drives and seek to manage it through the outward idealization of sex and controlling the sexual behavior of others. But an overactive sex drive is merely the result of chronically elevated nitric oxide, since nitric oxide stimulates the sex impulse. When a healthy metabolism begins to be overtaxed by the demands of an tumultuous or unfulfilling environment, or compounding the effects of nutritional insufficiency or contamination from industrial toxins, the systems which turn down nitric oxide begin to stop, allowing nitric oxide to flow unceasingly. There is nothing wrong with an active libido, except that in the case of excess nitric oxide it is often associated with suffering external stress along with the vague burden upon a person’s psyche from the associated stress-hormones which seem to only be relieved by sexual activity (because other normally therapeutic approaches to reducing stress do not lower the nitric oxide), and this suffering is compounded by ideological ideas which demonize sex behavior. So someone who believes that sex is immoral or experiences guilt for sex who is also biologically stimulated to engage in sex through the action of excess nitric oxide finds serious and detrimental conflict between what they believe and what their body is commanding them to do, while also feeling an absence of the restorative and joyful function of sexual activity which is then mistaken as supernatural punishment for their actions. Because excess nitric oxide inhibits normal cellular respiration the sex act itself is also not fulfilling and healing as it should be, which then robs the person with these problems of the restorative effects of healthy sexual activity, and it merely medicates the discomfort caused by the excess nitric oxide without doing anything to relieve them of their long-term suffering nor supporting emotional bonds with others as sex is meant to do. In animals and our ancestors stress usually only came from times of famine, disease, and competition, and such stress was always associated with an increased chance of death, so the function of an increased sex drive in response to stress is meant to promote mating, to increase the chance of insemination and the production of offspring before the expiration of the adult. This is why sexual compulsion is also associated with greater risk taking and even criminal sexual acts, as the human brain is commandeered by base instincts mean to perpetuate the species at all costs. It still has that physiological purpose in us today, but now we experience this same level of stress due to poor diets, inadequate lifestyles, abusive familial relationships, and contamination of the food supply which by disrupting the endocrine system exacerbates the stress response. Because in humans the sex response is also social and bonding, when directed toward loved ones (or oneself) it promotes some reduction in stress, but unless the underlying metabolic conditions are addressed it will not change. To be clear, the idea that this needs to be changed at all has nothing to do with sexual activity but only because the increased stress products such as nitric oxide actually work to further destroy sexual function and general mental and physical health and bear a great burden on the lifespan and quality of the individual, eventually leading to the kinds of behaviors seen by groups of people all struggling with the same internal conflict and consequence of diets, behaviors, and food supplies which derange the reproductive system. It is also one of the reasons why men and women with elevated sex drives also feel acute shame, resentment, or guilt surrounding their sexual activities, not because the sex is a problem but because elements like nitric oxide which are elevated in the person make them more susceptible to the negative effects of stress-hormones and associated metabolic products and then the impetus for sex becomes associated with unpleasantness rather than joy or happiness as it does in those without such conditions, who are not concerned with the sexual behaviors of other people or the world at large. In environments such as the one in which I grew up where stress was unceasing and outlets for sexual fulfillment used as tactics to control this has an effect of worsening sexual impulsivity and the derangement of mental health precisely because it increases the stress products which stimulate increased sexual impulses. Because excess nitric oxide inhibits the regenerative nature of mitochondria it also makes erectile and arousal issues worse, leading to impotence, erectile dysfunction, and conditions like performance anxiety which are then unfortunately treated with medications and supplements which produce even more nitric oxide which then speeds up aging and emotional and behavioral issues which result, as well as the outward manifestation of these issues such as increased hair loss, goiters, weight gain, ailing skin, etc., and there is probably not one single man who recently passed anti-abortion legislation who is not also on medications like viagra for this very reason.

The problem is that nitric oxide is a stress hormone. Its role is not to facilitate arousal but to guarantee it. Sexual function is one of the last metabolic processes to be lost because the body has many methods to keep sexual functions operating as long as is possible, even at the expense of physical health, to ensure a greater chance of reproduction. Like many metabolic processes nitric oxide has its rightful place, but this does not mean it comes without consequences. The long histories of ancient and contemporary practices of abstaining from sex (based on many theories ranging from the retention of sperm to retention of metaphysical energy) while based on marginal observable developments in health do not result from an abstinence from sex but instead the abatement of some nitric oxide. Especially since it is entirely possible to limit excess nitric oxide production while thus maintaining erectile function, it is misguided to engage in such practices, even futile, as nitric oxide production is defined by the state of health, diet, and environment, and not sexual activity, and the antidote to this problem is not so much in reducing nitric oxide but instead promoting its liberation from mitochondria, thus restoring normal cellular respiration which in turn heals cells and provides ample energy and vitality.

Because such sexual health problems are viewed by self-pitying ideology as evidence of wrongdoing, or deficiency of moral resolve, many men and women feel shame for biological responses which are a part of our natural existence, especially when those functions fail, but which are intended to fulfill our moral obligations as social and reproductive creatures, and this stress further compounds the problem adding to the stress which depresses the metabolic rate. Considering that excess nitric oxide resulting from excess stress causes sexual impulsivity, “sex addition,” is not really a thing. We also cannot be addicted to that which is required for life. One cannot be addicted to air, or water, to love, to a person, or even to sugar. The impulse that a so-called sex addict feels is actually the biological response to acutely elevated nitric oxide which compels a person to mate just as hunger compels us to eat and exhaustion to sleep. It is an impulse to mate designed by nature resultant from extreme nutritional, environmental, or emotional stress. This same biological response is why sex so often becomes the pivot point of relationships, where those with elevated nitric oxide find sex to become problematic in the fulfillment and maintenance and satisfaction in relationships, not because sex is the problem but for the unsettling nature of elevated nitric oxide and other stress hormones which inhibit the bonding response of real intimacy. Of course, sexual activity can also relieve stress by temporarily lowering that nitric oxide, and so we engage in this behavior, because the nature of biology is immutable. But those who campaign for the regulation of other people’s moral behavior are themselves struggling with compulsions and moral conflicts which are too difficult for them to face, so they turn this energy outward and subject others to it instead, finding some catharsis in the act of control. Reducing physical, nutritional, emotional, and environmental stress and promoting the liberation of mitochondria from the influence of nitric oxide as discussed in my book reduces fixation on sex. Sex then becomes fun and restorative instead of a necessity or associated with feelings of guilt, shame, apathy, or the inability to bond with a partner (or oneself). In healthy individuals without excess stress the completion of sexual activity results in emotional bonding with the object of their affection (and oneself), because of the way certain hormones and neurotransmitters interact and imprint upon the body and mind can either promote or impair this bonding response. But an unhealthy person’s body has outsized levels of stress hormones which in excess exact an outsized effect on endocrinological and neurological function, preventing the usual restorative, imprinting, and enmeshing effect of sexual activity. Even self-sex can result in unpleasant and demoralizing results when excess stress hormones cause outsized deficits on metabolic function and depress the usual healthy hormones by causing the release of high amounts of stressful hormones. Healing the endocrinological function removes these unwanted and unpleasant effects and restores the healthful, moral function of sex which is to promote love, whether it is with oneself or with a partner.

Only when we are more cognizant as a society for everyone’s sexual health, even bigoted white men who seek to oppress the freedoms of other people will these problems finally leave us. Abandoning others to suffer poor dietary standards and the destructive nature of toxic industrial chemicals and practices only leads to a worsening of these kinds of situations. When people are healthy and taken care of, and compassion rather than contempt is leveraged to help even those who would mean us harm their problems which motivate this kind of behavior will finally disappear. For more information on sexual health you can read my article Recovering from Erectile Dysfunction which not only has implications for personal sexual health but also those broader issues in society such as overzealous sexual arbiters which are in turn motivated by these individual problems.