Guilt is the perfect tool for pharmaceutical companies. Are you afraid you can’t handle anxiety? Ashamed of your body or desires? Corporations are right there, offering "treatment." But instead of understanding your emotions or the causes of discomfort, you get only temporary relief. A pill doesn’t teach you to understand your feelings; it suppresses them. Mindfulness, self-work, acceptance – these take too long and are too complicated. And most importantly, they can’t be sold.
Companies play on your fears. Are you afraid you don’t meet standards? Afraid your desires are not normal? Afraid of being judged? A pill promises to relieve the tension and restore your confidence. But the truth is, it’s an illusion. Fears are not a disease; they are a signal that you need to work on yourself. But the pharmaceutical industry wants you to believe the problem is you. And instead of exploring your fears, you take another pill.
There is no room for mindfulness in this scheme. It’s not profitable for corporations. Mindfulness is the ability to listen to yourself, accept your emotions, work with your desires. But corporations are not interested in you becoming free. A free person doesn’t buy pills to fix what isn’t broken. But a dependent one buys again and again.
Pharmaceutical companies have built their business on suppression. They don’t want you to ask questions, to understand your fears, or to accept yourself. They want you to think the problem is you, not the system that made you feel ashamed. But a pill won’t make you yourself. Only you can do that by choosing mindfulness over suppression.
Why Society Dictates the Boundaries of "Normal" Sex
Society dictates the boundaries of "normal" sex for a reason. Control over sexuality is control over personality, and this mechanism has worked for centuries. Sexuality is a powerful force capable of inspiring, liberating, and making you stronger. But it equally frightens those who want to control you. A free person who accepts their desires stops being afraid, becomes less pliable, and breaks out of social norms. To maintain order and stability, sexuality is turned into an object of control, and its natural expression into sin, shame, or a problem.
Control over sexuality began with religion. In medieval Europe, the church defined what was permissible in sex and what was not. Sex outside marriage? Sin. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure? Sin. Female sexuality? A dangerous temptation threatening order, which had to be suppressed. These dogmas made people dependent on forgiveness and cleansing that only the church could offer. Religious prohibitions didn’t protect but suppressed, turning guilt for desires into a tool of power.
The Victorian era brought this idea to absurdity. Sexuality became taboo. Women who expressed sexual desires were labeled hysterical and isolated in psychiatric hospitals. Men were scared with myths about the "diseases" of masturbation, up to threats of blindness or insanity. Even talking about the body was forbidden. These rules suppressed people, increasing shame for their nature and turning sexuality into something shameful and dangerous.
Today, religion has lost its monopoly on control, and culture has taken its place. Films, advertising, and social networks create the illusion of "normal" sex: the right bodies, the right poses, the right desires. You must be sexy but not too sexy. Desires must exist, but only those approved by society. These norms create a vicious cycle in which a person is always "not good enough." Sexuality has become a commodity. It is sold through images, convincing you that you must adapt your body, behavior, and desires to unattainable standards.
Social networks amplify this pressure. Every day you see what sex should look like to be "ideal." In real life, sex is awkward, impulsive, funny. But culture imposes a performance: you must play a role to fit in. As a result, you begin to doubt yourself. If your desires or body don’t fit imposed standards, you feel abnormal. This shame becomes a constant background, affecting self-esteem, relationships, and confidence.
Scientific research confirms the destructive impact of such frameworks. According to the Journal of Sexual Medicine (2021), more than 60% of people experience anxiety or shame related to their sex life due to social norms. This leads to depression, lower self-esteem, and relationship problems. Shame activates the amygdala, increasing anxiety, while the hippocampus forms long-term associations between sex and fear. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, is suppressed, making a person even more vulnerable to external influence.
The boundaries of "normal" sex don’t protect; they suppress your individuality. They make you doubt your desires, see them as a problem. You’re afraid to ask yourself: "What do I really want?" because you’re used to orienting yourself to standards. Your desires become alien, and you become part of a system that suppresses you.
"Normal" is an illusion. It was invented to control you. Your desires were never abnormal. The abnormality was the fact that someone tried to regulate them. Freeing yourself from these boundaries means reclaiming your right to be yourself.
Control Through Guilt: How This Scheme Works
Guilt is the chain society puts on your freedom. This tool works skillfully and imperceptibly, making you doubt your desires, thoughts, and actions. You feel like you’re doing something wrong even when you’re just trying to be yourself. But who said your desires are wrong? That voice is not yours. It was created by family, school, culture, religion – all those who want to keep you within limits.
At the brain level, guilt triggers a chain reaction. The amygdala, responsible for fear and anxiety, activates as soon as you step outside the "permissible." This triggers a stress response: cortisol, the stress hormone, rises, and the hippocampus records this situation as "dangerous." Over time, your brain starts associating any manifestations of individuality with a threat. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, is suppressed, and you can no longer critically evaluate whether you actually did something wrong. Guilt becomes your automatic reflex every time you try to step out of bounds.
Historically, guilt has been used as a tool of control. Religion has instilled for centuries that desires are sinful. Want more than you’re allowed? Guilty. Deviate from the rules? Guilty. This turned a person into someone dependent on "forgiveness" and "cleansing." Only the religious institution could remove the guilt it imposed. Guilt strengthened power by suppressing people and making them obedient.
Modern culture has perfected this mechanism. Now you’re not told outright that you’re "bad." Instead, ideals are created that you must conform to. Social networks, advertising, media show "ideal" people with "ideal" bodies and "ideal" lives. You look at this and feel you’ll never measure up. You feel ashamed of your body, your desires, that you’re not what you "should" be. And you start trying: work more, buy more, adjust more to standards. But these standards are an illusion. They’re specifically designed so that you always feel not good enough.
Research confirms that chronic guilt destroys a person. According to the Journal of Neuroscience (2020), people who experience constant guilt have a 40% higher level of anxiety and are 30% more likely to suffer from depression. The amygdala in such people operates in a state of heightened activity, and cortisol levels remain consistently high. This makes them vulnerable to external influence and unable to critically assess their condition.
Guilt is not an emotion that helps you become better. It destroys your individuality, forcing you to suppress your desires and doubt your thoughts. You start living not your life but the life prescribed by society. You’re afraid to be yourself because you’ve been taught that being yourself is bad. And the more you try to conform, the more you feel guilty for not being able to achieve it.
But the truth is, guilt is not your nature. It is artificially created to make you easier to control. This mechanism benefits the system because a person who constantly feels something is wrong with them becomes obedient. They will work, buy, conform, but never ask: "Why should I live this way?"
Recognizing this scheme is the first step to liberation. It’s important to ask yourself questions: "Who said my desires are wrong?" "Why should I feel guilty for being who I am?" These questions break imposed boundaries. You begin to see that your desires are not wrong. What’s wrong is the system that made your natural state a source of shame. You are not made to fix yourself.