*This article is was written by www.XXXchurch.com
I don’t know if I can do this. But what else am I going to do right now? What if someone knocks on my door? It hasn’t happened yet why would it now? What if this time I get caught? Who cares if I do? I’ll deny it. They won’t be able to tell it was me. My brother uses this computer too. I’ll blame him. But then he’d know. It’s not like he doesn’t look at porn either. Why am I always so afraid of getting caught? I know it’s wrong but I can’t stop. It doesn’t matter. This time will be the last time. I swear. I said that last time, but this time is it… Why do I always feel so guilty after? I shouldn’t have done it and then I did it any ways. Now I feel like everyone knows. It’s like everyone sees through me. I hate this feeling. I’m never going to do it again. That was the last time I looked at porn. I swear.
That scene was almost a way of life for me growing up. Porn was a common theme in my primetime entertainment. I always fought with myself to be done with porn when I wanted to but addictions don’t work like that. I always got more out of it then I realized. The idea of getting caught gave me the sense of excitement that I couldn’t do without. The thoughts that kept my mind full of pictures and video I wouldn’t share with my family around the dinner table began to haunt me. It was not what I expected when I started with it. You never know what you’re getting into.
The stats prove that my story is not something new or unique. The average age someone first sees porn is 11 years old because of the Internet. With 90 percent of kids between 8 and 16 having viewed porn online the chances of us being alone in this deal is slim to none. I wonder if any of us ever know what we’re getting into. If people knew that porn victimizes people I don’t think they’d want anything to do with it. If you could see that when you started looking at porn it meant you were lying to your friends and keeping things from your family, you probably wouldn’t do it. But the problem is that porn is all about us. It’s a selfish act. It often leaves you without any friends and without any type of close relationship let alone an intimate sexual relationship. Sometimes people even believe that they are the only one looking at porn. That’s just because no one wants to talk about it.
You know how sometimes you feel alone on something; well porn isn’t one of those things. It’s super serious, but it’s not too serous to deal with. The biggest reason why people don’t ever get help with porn is because they feel they’re alone on it and won’t be able to have someone who can relate. There are 40 million adults who regularly visit porn sites. That’s not a minority. You’re not alone on this one. And it’s too important to ignore. You have to talk about it if you’re going to change in your life.
I remember being the kid who couldn’t talk about things or make observations on anything because I was always distracted by the images and sexual association going on in my head. It was super awkward. It’s not ok to think about girls in a way that treats them like meat and I realized that quick. For girls it’s not ok to think for one second that the stuff you look at is safe. It messes with your view of sex, of what a normal relationship looks like between a guy and a girl. It makes you expect things that don’t normally happen. These are the kinds of issues people don’t take a shot at and deal with. It’s hard to realize that it takes talking to solve this problem but it’s harder to realize that looking at porn doesn’t just affect you.
Porn goes into our minds and then is recalled and thought about anytime we look for the “perfect woman” or the “hottest guy”. That makes everyone you look at have to match up to the standards of the images in your mind, which isn’t fair. It affects the lives of the people around you. Just like being into porn involves other people, getting out of it does too. If you don’t want to look at porn any more it’s going to take more then a guilty determination. It’s going to take a supportive relationship that is centered on honesty. For the same reasons I didn’t want people to know, I was telling these guys I grew up with so I didn’t have to deal with the fear of getting caught and guilt anymore.
I answer emails and get a lot of them who say I don’t know how to stop. My first response is, “do you have someone who can hold you accountable?” So I’m going to ask you. Do you have someone who will hold you accountable? If yes, schedule coffee, tea whatever you need to sit down and talk about it honestly and see how you can challenge each other to be pure. If no, find someone. Look around you, someone about your age or older who is trusted, won’t gossip and can challenge you to be pure and hold you to the things you say you’re going to do. It’s always interesting the excuses people come up with to avoid accountability. Usually it’s just that they don’t want to talk about it, but it’s impossible to stop looking at porn without accountability. You can’t fight it on your own; you’ll break all your own rules if you don’t have someone asking you about them.
I promise you, it won’t be easy. I guarantee that. Talking about such a hidden subject is awkward but if both people are open it’s a lot easier. There is nothing hard about talking but it’s talking about porn that makes people nervous. For all the harshness of the first couple of talks and meetings where you get used to honesty being so awkward, it pays off when you don’t need to talk about screwing up anymore. To be able to see that you can look at the people around you and not imagine them without clothes on, it’s huge. To be free of secrecy and hidden nights it changes the way you trust people. It gives you a new life. The kind of life people dream of, the kind of life we were meant to live.
*this article was featured on September 29, 2007
