Porn Addiction
The Statistics
The porn industry has always made extreme amounts of money due to our addiction to the content. Recent estimates show that the industry rakes in roughly $17 BILLION per year, and that is just what is reported.
The porn industry profits from the sexual exploitation of both men and women. There is an inseparable connection between porn, human sex trafficking, and abortion. The exposure to porn at a young age forms the attitude that men have towards women. Exposure to porn at a young age also increases the chance that those children will be the victims of sexual exploitation themselves.
Porn addiction has caused a public health crisis. According to studies done by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, 93% of young boys and 62% of young girls will see pornographic material before reaching the age of 18. 40 million adults in the US watch porn on a regular basis. 25% of searches are pornographic and 35% of internet downloads are pornographic. However, recent surveys show that only 10% of adults feel that they have a problem.
…this is a real problem with real victims
There are a TON of studies that have been done and a lot more statistics that you can find on the internet. The point is that this is a real problem with real victims.
My Addiction
I’ve been addicted to porn for most of my life. I was exposed to pornography around the age of 14, which makes me a part of the 93% statistic mentioned above. I was fully addicted by the age of 16. Watching porn was something that I did every chance I got. All it takes is motive, opportunity, and access, and I had plenty of all three. I became addicted not too long after broadband internet became available and my parents had no idea how to handle it. This was a fairly new struggle for most parents in the internet age.
As a teenager, I saw women as objects, but I would never admit it. I would see them for what they could do for me and what I wanted to do to them. I would fantasize about sexual situations with most women and thought that I wasn’t harming anyone. I found myself unable to have a normal, non-sexual relationship with females unless I didn’t find them attractive. Porn and fantasies consumed me.
My identity was in sex
I started pursuing women sexually in my late teen years and my expectation was what I saw in the porn I watched. I expected them to perform a certain way, but that wasn’t reality. That unmet expectation led to frustrations which led to deeper porn addiction. If they didn’t satisfy me, then I just satisfied myself. Eventually, this led to anonymous sex with random women that I met online. Sex consumed me.
Fast forward 20 years. I’m hopelessly addicted to porn. I tried off and on over the years to stop but always came back to it. My identity was in sex. My self-worth was in what I could get out of sex. My self-esteem was almost non-existent and I didn’t feel like I was satisfying my wife. My wife was not accepting of my problem and our marriage suffered greatly because of the choices that I made. If we didn’t have sex often enough then I ran to porn. If she found out then she wouldn’t want to have sex with me so I ran to porn. If we had sex the day before and my drive was still high I ran to porn because I knew it could be a long time before we had sex again. Sex and porn still consumed me.
Hope
There are many treatment options available, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and counseling. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has been shown to greatly reduce the viewing of porn after treatment.
However, none of these are cutting to the core of the problem. The core of the problem is that we are broken people in a broken world. Porn isn’t going away and your desire to look at it probably isn’t fully going away either. It wasn’t until I fully admitted what I was doing to a mentor that I started seeing real progress. I then entered into a program at Grace Church in South Carolina called Re:Generation (Regen). This program gave me the tools to see my sin for what it really was and how to deal with it.
Our only hope for victory over this addiction is Jesus Christ
Pornography and fantasizing is a sin, plain and simple. The last of the 10 commandments says “Do not covet your neighbor’s wife”. Whether you are watching porn or fantasizing about someone you aren’t married to, you are coveting them. You are fantasizing that it is you in the situation.
In Regen, I learned how to inventory, confess, repent, and make amends for my sins. I learned that we’re all broken people and we all have our own struggles. Not everyone struggles with porn as I did. Some struggle with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and so much more. I learned that Jesus’ blood that was shed on the cross covers ALL of my sins. Jesus was crucified on the cross so that his blood would cover all of my sins so that God sees me as righteous.
Why am I sharing such a vulnerable experience publicly on the internet? I’ve found that most people I talk to about this struggle have experienced the same issues in one way or another. I grew up in circles where you were NOT allowed to discuss this for fear of punishment. There was very little grace or help where I came from. I want to get this out there to start a conversation. I want to hear from those that have been affected by porn addiction. I want to help.
Are you struggling with an addiction? Have you tried to stop, but can’t? Have you put your trust in God to deliver you from that addiction? Why or why not?
