If you’ve read my last piece, you know that I went through a really hard time at the end of last year, and I am still rebuilding from that. There’s nothing quite like reaching your breaking point and losing everything to give you a fresh perspective on life. One of the big topics I have spent time thinking about during this time is porn.
I’ve previously shared about my struggles with pornography. Starting when I was 8 years old, I have fought and cried against something that I believed was wrong for such a long time. What I never realized was that this struggle was costing me and my future. Therefore, I wanted to write this, a short piece about some of journey I have been on in an attempt to repay my struggle with porn throughout my life.
Please hear me clearly in this – I am in no way attempting to make anyone feel ashamed about a habit or an addiction. However, I have learnt more in this last 12 months about why I would choose porn when I hated it so much than I have in perhaps my whole life before that. I have been learning what it looks like to live a life where I not only do not choose porn, but no longer desire porn. I am writing this because I walked through a journey for years and years, without understanding and without knowing where to find help. I have cried too many tears and experienced too much pain to not share what I am learning.
Ps. I have written an accompanying piece to this one, talking through some of the dangers and attrocoties of porn, which you can read here: Porn: It was never harmless fun
TRIGGER WARNING: While I avoid sharing anything unnecessarily graphic or crass, I have tried to be open and direct. If these topics could be triggers to you, please read on with care.
So what have I learnt in the last year?
My porn addiction largely came because of the way I view myself and view the world. As I watched porn, it became one of the key influencers in how I think, and how I see people (including myself).
Let me explain. Porn is designed so that when we watch it, it reacts with our biological systems and makes us feel good. But I believed it was wrong: I hated myself for choosing to consume pornography – so why would I still choose porn? I think there were 2 main contributors:
1) I didn’t believe I was worth anything, didn’t believe I was capable of receiving love and could receive free ‘love’ from countless women through porn. It ‘medicated my pain’.
2) I believed lies about my porn addiction, such as ‘it's only hurting me’, and ‘I can stop next time’.
The first was a personal wound I carried, and it played a large role in this journey. Through education, counselling, and time with God, I slowly unburied and resolved that. However, hat’s not what I am going to write about - I want to talk about the second point.
My struggle with porn was fuelled by misconceptions. I believed that me looking at porn made me feel horrible (shame), but that I could lose this battle now and simply deal with my addiction later. I believed that it was only affecting me. When I carried these beliefs, they dictated my feelings, my actions, my results – my addiction. However, it's more than that, so much more. As I began to process my life falling apart last year, I could see that my misconceptions, the lies I had believed, were catalysts for catastrophe.
So what are the lies I believed? I’ll try and keep this succinct, but here’s a few thoughts.
Lie no. 1 – “It's only hurting me, right?” Porn forms our brains. As I consume porn, I am watching a carefully curated narrative that teaches me about people. What is a man according to porn? An aggressive animal controlled by his penis who has no cares about the heart or emotions, only about ravaging any woman he meets. What is a woman according to porn? An object that exists purely for the purpose of pleasing a man.
Add to that the subject of consent – according to porn that is when someone wants sex, period. This may start with a no, but according to porn, if you just keep pushing, eventually it will feel good enough they will be incredibly grateful you ignored their initial no.
I’m speaking bluntly and crassly – but I hope my point gets across. When you watch porn, you are slowly and consistently forming the way that your brain views people, consent, and so much more - and in a disgusting way. How does this shaping, these subliminal understandings of man, woman and sex impact those around me?
The truth here is that porn is hurting my future girlfriend and wife as it incorrectly teaches me about what they want, what sex is, and what sexuality means. It is hurting my kids as my neural wiring is passed down through epigenetics. It is hurting me and reducing my ability to be a strong and edifying presence in the lives of those around me – which hurts everyone around me. It leaves me weak and vulnerable, unable to lead and love those who I have been positioned to influence.
Lie no 2. “I can fix it later”
A familiar, repeating internal monologue of ‘I can put it off, this isn’t what I want, but just this time – I’ll break this addiction later… But when is later? What are you sacrificing in the process of choosing ‘later’? Years of poor mental health? Losing a girlfriend? Destroying a marriage? Financial hardship due to poor discipline? I have started dating someone recently, and I know that if I chose to return to my thought process of ‘I’ll deal with this later’ and consume porn again, it would hurt her. A lot. What is the life you want to live? I guarantee that every day you choose to put off breaking a porn habit, you are sabotaging your own future and impacting the future of your potential future partner. My life, my calling, needed me to fix this now.
These two things are not the entirety of the list of lies I have uncovered – they are simply two dot points in a long list. The more I learn, the more I am horrified by what I have cost myself and those around me over the years. I refuse to keep paying the cost of porn – and I urge you to take the same stand.
But what if you’ve tried to stop paying the crushing cost of porn, but haven’t yet succeeded? What then? I would encourage you to take some time and think. What do you believe about porn and your life? What lies and misconceptions might you be operating under that are keeping you from living the life you are called to? Keep walking the journey, keep digging, keep praying, keep finding uplifting community. 10 years in I had just about given up hope. 15 years in I thought that I was going to be fighting this till the day I died. 16 years in I realised just how much I was hurting the people around me. 17 years in I walked away free. There will a lot of little wins a lot of losses in those 17 years, but my point is that I hit a point of believing I just couldn’t do it – but God is good! So hang in there, and keep fighting!
In summary, I’ve been walking this journey for many years. It caused me more shame and pain than anything I could ever have imagined, yet I found it so hard to understand why it was so hard to break free from? And my answer – because I believed lies that were impacting my thoughts, my actions, and my life. Education alone will not solve this issue. Willpower alone will not solve this issue. Prayer alone will rarely solve this issue (God calls us to walk in faith, not stand still in faith). Put them all together though, and they’ve served me pretty well. So keep going, keep fighting, and keep finding WHY porn so that you can end porn.
Here are a few resources I have found in my journey that have helped me understand, fight, forgive, and break free.
- The Unchained Leader program. This one was expensive – but when I compared it to all the costs I experienced in 16 years of addiction, it was one of the easiest investment decisions I ever made.
- Slowing down. This one sounds weird – but I was never able to properly address what was happening inside of me until I slowed down long enough to intentionally (and painfully) stare it in the face. Porn is often a distraction from pain. That 1st point that I didn’t really talk about - I needed to be willing to sit still long enough to find what was hurting to work through that one. And to sit still, I had to first remove some of the clutter from my life. It was uncomfortable, I hated it, and it changed my life.
- The book ‘Raised on Porn’ by Benjamin Nolot. 10 years of research and campaigns against pornography and sex trafficking, culminating in the publishing of this book. His work really helped me in this journey – porn is far less attractive when know of the abuse happening both on and off the camera.
- Fight the new drug social campaign (social media and documentaries). This is an organisation that seeks to fight against porn in an attempt to promote healthy relationships and healthy sex, and they have some great resources to learn about what porn is doing to us and the world. Their 3-part series 'Brain, heart, world' is also thought-provoking, would recommend.
- Time with God. You may not believe in this, but I cannot highlight enough how key this was to my healing. I would not be where I am today without Him.
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