Put it down
I vividly remember one night, months ago, when I watched pornography. You would think with time you would forget certain things, but some things have a way of sticking. I had been looking forward to it all day. I was hyped up on nerves. I was hyped up on emotion. I was lonely. And I just wanted to feel good. I remember when I was watching the video, the girl’s body language was off. It was very clear that she was not engaged and she was not comfortable.
She had the look on her face of someone who was fighting disgust. It was in the eyes. She was a million miles away mentally, just bearing each moment, trying to get through it. Most of the time, the girls aren’t really in these types of things, but we guys tend to overlook that for our own pleasure. I couldn’t overlook this, however, because it was so, so obvious.
What stuck with me was the guilt. I always felt guilt in these moments, but that time I felt it even more so. I felt guilty because I knew exactly what was going on but I was not willing to give it up. In that moment, the high that I was anticipating overshadowed all else. I was hooked and I knew it. By the grace of God, I’ve never put a rubber tube tourniquet on my arm to shoot heroin into my veins, but I feel as if the experience of anticipation is almost the same. The lead-up to the moment of release overpowers all else.
I remember as I hit that high I yelled out “This is why I do it”! To this day I don’t know if I was telling God that or I was telling myself. Because, in that climax, as the endorphins rushed through my body and the world turned a different shade, I hated myself. I hated what I was doing. I hated what I was becoming. I hated the dirt and clutter that filled my mind. I hated the dirt and clutter that had been running through it all day in anticipation of that one moment. I hated it. I hated myself.
The question still lingered in my mind after the high faded. Why did she look so sad? Why did her eyes seem so detached and distant? So I began googling. Make no mistake, this is NOT something you should do with anyone associated with the porn industry, as it opens up the door to temptation, but my high was satisfied and my curiosity got the best of me.
The girl in question was not very popular. She was not a well-known name. She was somebody’s sister and somebody’s daughter. I found out that she had been an aspiring screenwriter. She’d moved to Hollywood with big hopes and big dreams. She was going to make the next blockbuster film and walk the red carpet. She was going to the Oscars. However, shortly after she got to Hollywood, those dreams fell flat.
The West Coast isn’t cheap, and she quickly found herself in need of money, so she went and began making porn. She needed the cash to pay rent and buy food. However, after just a couple of videos, she quit. The producers had lied to her about an actor she was working with, and she later found out that he had STDs when she slept with him. Shortly after she quit the industry, she disappeared entirely. The rumor circulating on the internet was that she committed suicide after finding she had gotten an incurable disease from the man, but no one knows for sure.
Internet sleuths had figured out her real name and linked to her old MySpace and Facebook. Those old accounts were eerie. They showed a young girl, smiling and happy, ready to take on the world. A girl that was worlds apart from the one I had lusted after not even an hour before. Those pictures showed the girl at birthday parties and concerts. There were pictures of her hanging with friends and family, going to the beach, and the ball games. I felt sick.
The male actor who had the STD was the other actor in the video I’d watched. Shortly after that video was made, his career began to dwindle as well. Seeking to up his profile, he began participating in more and more dangerous sexual activities, leading to more STDs. He fell into drug addiction as well, coping with what he was doing for “work”. Needing money for drugs, he agreed to do more and more heinous and obscene sexual things. The producers saw him as a desperate cash cow, and they took him for everything he was worth, and then some more. It broke him. Eventually, even his shock value wore off too and he spiraled into a deep depression, fueled by drugs and disease. He committed suicide by overdose before the age of 22.
This was the entertainment that I just enjoyed. These were the people I had disregarded as just flesh to fantasize about. These were the people that I had used for my pleasure in my head. It was disgusting. I was disgusting. This is what millions of men do every day. We often refuse to think about the reality of the situation, but that’s exactly what it is. Men and women abuse each other and abuse themselves on the altar of lust. Consider the following verse from 1 Kings 18.
26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.
27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
29 And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
1 Kings 18:26-29
We look at those prophets as if they are insane. Idiots. They jump and leap upon the altar of a dead god. They grow desperate to hear from him and cut themselves with knives and spears. They cause themselves irreparable pain by seeking to feel something and hear something from a god that will drag them straight to hell. Is that not foolish?
Friend, when you type a porn site into your browser, you are no different from those prophets of Baal. When I sacrifice myself on the altar of pornography, I am no different from those prophets of Baal. Men, we are cutting our integrity to pieces. We are stabbing ourselves with spears of lust, then watching as the purity of our hearts and minds spill onto the ground. The tips of those spears contain the poison of illicit passion that begins to run through our veins, calling to mind images of lust long after we’ve engaged in the act itself. That girl won’t leave your mind when you clear your search history.
If you allow it to fester. the addiction will build on itself. There will come a time when the endorphin hit of your regular rotation isn’t strong enough. You will want to do something harder. Something more dangerous and something more unrealistic. You will gleefully watch as women are degraded and abused, treated like animals and slaves, and your brain won’t be able to turn it off. God forbid you take these sinful thoughts and fantasies to the marriage bed and expect a God-honoring woman to fulfill desires rooted in lust and wickedness.
There ought to be chills running down your spine when you think of the woman that God has entrusted you to love and protect above all else. That is a woman that has, or who will, swear herself to you in the sight of God and man. That is a woman who trusts that you will provide and nurture her till the day one of you takes your last breath. She is not perfect, as you are not perfect, but, in the sight of God, you hold a responsibility that outweighs hers. Realize that the porn-fueled lust of your mind will debase her and mold her into nothing more than a warm orifice to be used for your pleasure. This is the true reality of porn.
By the grace of God, I don’t speak from personal experience in this regard, but I personally know men who do. They see nothing wrong with it. They find it entertaining and fun, as their reprobate minds have pushed them to the point where all women are the same. They view women as objects to be used and discarded. They swap them, trade them, and barter with them. Both those who are married and those that aren’t. You say “Sam, that would never be me.” Never say those words, for each one of these men were young boys once. They were once as pure and innocent as the driven snow. Yet, when the hormonal switch flipped, they fell into a habit that broke them, then proceeded to break countless women in their paths.
If you continue to engage in pornography, realize that this will be your fate as well. By God’s grace, if you don’t cling to him NOW, there will come a day when hitting that play button results in much more than a 6-second pleasure trip. I know of men who’ve lost spouses, jobs, children, and futures on account of porn. In some, it fueled even more deviant sexual behaviors resulting in them landing behind bars or with diseases that will never go away. This is not how God designed us to be, and there are simple practical steps that we can take to fight against this habit.
Identify your weakest moments
As we go throughout our day, we will have ebbs and flows. If you were to stop and think, you would probably be able to identify your times of greatest tempation without too much trouble. These are the times when you are the most tired or the most alone that you will be all day. These are perhaps the times that you are the most frustrated or the most stressed. All of these are triggers that can eventually link to habitual porn use. If you can identify the trigger moments in your day, you can be more on guard to prevent issues from arising.
For instance, I found that my personal trigger time was always late in the evening after most of the world was asleep. If I was stressed to where I couldn’t sleep, and that was paired with the exhaustion of a long day at school or work, I’d be more likely to pull up a new tab on my phone or computer. This was my weakest moment. I was apart from people and my brain was focused solely on that one thing.
Because I realized this, I had to begin taking measures to prevent issues from forming in that time period. When I had trouble falling asleep, I’d play instrumental hymns. When I was stressed, I’d turn my thoughts to verses in the Bible speaking of the peace and comfort that God gives, like Matthew 6:26.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
Matthew 6:26
If I had a difficult conversation that was weighing heavy on my mind, I would stop and journal it, or take it to the Lord in prayer. I had to make the switch from “let me just forget about all of it for a few minutes” to “let me take it to the Lord again.” By no means am I perfect, but I realize now that taking positive action steps such as these can prevent much of the heartache that comes from falling prey to trigger points.
Don’t simply remove. Replace.
I already alluded to this earlier, but you can’t simply break a habit by refusing. Elimination alone will not solve the problem. A replacement must happen as well. I know that if I don’t make a conscious effort to replace something dirty with something clean, some other form of filth will seek to replace it. It’s as if you stopped watching Shameless and replaced it with Game of Thrones. You’ve done yourself no good because you just swapped out one bad thing for another.
That is why the hole must be filled. If you have developed a dependency on pornography for sexual excitement, coping with boredom, or dealing with stress, you need to be aware that those emotions will still be there when the porn isn’t. You will still find times when you are bored. You will still find times when you are stressed. The question then becomes, what will you do? What will you replace it with?
Ultimately, the Lord should be your replacement. You should find satisfaction in Him. I tried to find hobbies that I could use that I could point back to him. Reading, writing, and music were what I ended up with. I’m an avid guitar and piano player, and I dabble in music production as well. Turns out, playing piano is a very soothing activity ( especially if you get the hang of some good hymns or Ludovico Einaudi pieces). I knew that stress was a trigger, so I replaced the porn with the piano. Boredom was a trigger so I replaced porn with writing devotionals (which are now part of this blog). It isn’t easy. There will be times you fall, but that is where the crux of the issue brings itself to light again. Am I relying on God, or myself?
Consider the delayed consequences
A porn habit is a beast that often really takes a bite out of you down the road. That part of the deception. Its easy to watch a video, then carry on as if nothing happened. Young men are exposed to softcore porn as a matter of routine now on social media channels and television advertisements. It’s been normalized. Because its seen as normal, no one thinks about the broader consequences that take place down the road.
The Emotional Impact
Moreso than men, women are emotional creatures. That’s not to say that all men are stone walls, but it is a scientific fact that the woman’s biological structure leads her to be more emotional. In a study on the subject, men showed greater down-regulation of amygdala activity and less prefrontal activity during emotional regulation. In other words, they were calmer in stressful situations. In the same study, it was stated that women were up to three times more likely than men to develop depression in response to stress.
Feeling that you are not satisfying your partner is a cause of great stress in many marriages. Sadly, much of that self-doubt is a direct cause of the effects of porn. If a man is hooked on porn, he will noticeably check out of certain activities, or there may be an emphasis put on certain actions in an attempt to replicate fantasies played out on phone screens. This emotionally damages the woman, because she feels that she alone is not enough. She has to become something else to keep her man. She has to compete with a photoshopped, airbrushed vixen.
The emotional connection will suffer because you will want to spend more time with porn and less time with your partner. The times you are intimately together, you will be distracted by the movie playing in your head. The woman, because she is more of an emotional creature, will easily pick up on this fact, which will further harm the trust factor of the relationship. She will feel betrayed and hurt, and rightfully so.
The Physical Impact
Porn desensitizes the brain’s reward system. Dopamine is good, but when your dopamine trigger becomes attached to something as unrealistic as porn, you will find that realistic things won’t have the same effect. In other words, it will be harder to feel the same amount of excitement and pleasure from real sex with a real woman.
Erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, and inability to orgasm are all directly related to heavy porn use, especially in regard to young men. We are stunting ourselves when we consume this garbage, and, for some reason, some of us don’t seem to really care. I remember the first years of high school when penis size was first becoming a thing that boys joked about in the locker room. All of their ideas of… the magic number… were built around the porn that they had watched. It was unrealistic and it left many boys ashamed of themselves for no reason at all.
Additionally, there are a few individuals I can think of who recluded completely into themselves during those years. Their porn addictions worsened and secrecy became a bigger part of their lives. They isolated themselves for the sake of spending more time engaging in and building their porn habit. These physical impacts may not always be seen immediately, but they will inevitably make themselves known in the lives of every boy and man that fall prey to it.
The Spiritual Impact
This is the most overlooked, but perhaps the most important, impact a porn addiction can have on your life. It can pull you away from God quickly and effectively. If you get used to hiding things from your parents, or your significant other, it’s all too easy to think that you can hide it from God as well.
I personally know boys who’ve been able to hide their addictions from their parents. I know men who’ve been able to hide their habits from their wives. I’ve yet to meet someone who’s been able to hide it from the Lord. God is omnipotent. He sees all and He knows all. You cannot be in fellowship with God if you feel no conviction or remorse in regard to the presence of porn in your life. If it is a struggle that you are facing, and you are asking the Lord for guidance and strength, He will gladly step in and offer help. However, if you think you can reconcile your faith with a porn habit, and that God simply has to accept that as part of your life as long as you live, then you are sadly mistaken and you are fooling no one.
In fact, if that’s you as you read this, know that you’re not even fooling yourself. I heard a man say once “you make peace with your God and I’ll make peace with mine”. Friend, God is constant. He changes for no man. There is no mine and yours. He is very clear in his Word that He cannot be in fellowship with sin. That is why Jesus, a sinless being, had to pay the price for our sins. He did this so that we, sinful creatures, would have to opportunity to have eternal fellowship with God, a sinless being, through accepting Christ.
Part of accepting Christ means denying the sinful pleasures of the world. A “pleasure” that contributes to human trafficking, breaks apart marriages, and destroys self-esteem and trust is not a pleasure at all. It is a sin. If you allow sin to fester in your life, and don’t make efforts by God’s grace to rid yourself of it, then you will never be in a right relationship with the Lord.
Conclusion
If you are to become a man of might, then you must rid yourself of this habit. It is a long road. If you’ve never started, I commend you. If you are on the road to recovery, I salute you. I got into the habit of tracking “streaks” in my daily journal, of how many days I was sober from the porn hit. Over the time that I tracked, at my best, I went an entire year before I was hit with some particularly devastating news that sent me spiraling. But God’s grace is sufficient. I asked for forgiveness and got back up to continue the march. I have to remind myself in times like that that I’m not just doing this for me. I’m breaking this habit so that I can be a good influence on my future son. I’m breaking this habit so I can love my future wife the way God intended. I’m breaking this habit so I can love my God the way I should. Keep this in mind brothers. Keep marching.
This article originally appeared on Fill in the Gap.
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