Stop masturbating? If you are already in the habit of it, you’re probably finding it pretty hard to stop: addiction can take hold very quickly! You may even think that you can’t live without it anymore, which is absolutely false. So, here are a few words of advice to help you break out*:

1. Avoid over-dramatizing the situation or blaming yourself excessively. (“I can’t do it, I’m so bad, I fall again and again, I’ll never be able to stop it I’m not capable, etc.”). This can continue to paralyse you, and make you lose all self-esteem, or any confidence you have in stopping.
2. Try to identify your deepest desire, the one which masturbation is trying to compensate for. Task yourself with responding to it positively, by developing your qualities. If you believe, entrust this project to God. If you don’t, maybe entrust it to people who do, for example via the live chat’ on this website. Entrust your heart and your body to God, as well as your deepest desires, your interior wounds: loneliness, lack of affection, etc. If you are involved with porn, you can also pray or ask for a deliverance prayer on this website. Masturbation is presenting you with a challenge: forge your true personality!
3. Avoid temptations: porn videos or pictures, daydreams, erotic gestures. Don’t tempt the devil in you. To help, read also: I’m obsessed by pornographic images, how do I get rid of them?
4. Share the weight of your problem. Ask advice from a good friend, a professional, your local priest or why not ask a psychologist to accompany you? When you’re able to express the problem you’re facing, and the difficulties you have in resolving it, you’ll lighten your load by 50%! Dialogue and advice can help you break the isolating and vicious cycle of masturbation.
5. REDUCE progressively acts of masturbation. It’s easier to walk up a mountain progressively than to arrive at the summit in one go! SLOWLY, BUT SURELY.
6. Take up commitments in positive activities. Give your energy to cultural activities, sport, social or Catholic activities. It’s not by wrestling with your faults that you’ll overcome them, but rather by developing the qualities you have.
7. Don’t listen to people who push you into having sex in order to avoid masturbating. Pornography and debauchery – or sexual vagrancy – are much more dangerous, much more destructive than masturbation.
8. If you fall, stand your ground: after a time of liberation, there will be moments where temptation comes back in force. Perhaps you’ve courageously managed to renounce casual sexual relationships, but you slip into the habit of masturbation? You’re asking yourself whether you’d be better off taking up sexual encounters again? Masturbation is compensation on a temporary level. No need to worry. It’ll fade out once you’ve discovered love in all its strength!

And, going from small victory to small victory, you’ll end up breaking out of it! If you fall again, tell yourself that you’ve lost a battle, but not the war!

So, what do you think about it? What do think about this advice? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service) :

To go further, about porn addiction:

• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• Masturbation, what’s the problem?
• How do I break the habit of masturbation ?

 

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Source: response freely adapted for Sosporno.net/Sosporn.org from the booklet for teenagers Succeed in your sentimental and sexual life, Brother Jean-Benoît Casterman, Editions des Beatitudes.

You Can Free Yourself From Pornography Through Prayer!

An article by Olivia de Fournas published in Famille chrétienne in September 2020.

The platform SOSPorno.net (launched on September 24, 2020) is intended to help Internet users free themselves from pornography addiction by contacting e-missionaries and praying for deliverance.

Mr. Jean-Baptiste Maillard is convinced that, “many people can be healed from pornography if we help them turn to the Lord”.  The co-founder of Lights in the Dark, an association that evangelizes via the Internet, launched a new website, SOSPorno.net, on September 24, 2020. It allows people affected by this addiction to confide their problems to others and pray for their own healing. All the Internet user has to do is to simply connect to the SOSPorno.net site. On the bottom right-hand side of the page, they are invited to enter into a totally anonymous chat with one of the 60 or so “e-missionaries” of Lights in the Dark. These volonteers took turns during the 3-day Congress Mission that took place earlier in the year (https://app.congresmission.com/), “to listen to Internet users, to pray for and with them, and to give witness to God’s love”.

After discussing together, the person is offered a deliverance prayer, entrusted to the intercession of Blessed Carlo Acutis. This prayer was written by two mothers and approved of by Mgr Jerome Beau, Archbishop of Bourges, and Dom Jean Pateau, Father Abbot of Fontgombault Abbey (France). Blessed Carlo, an Italian boy, who died at the age of 15 in 2006 of acute leukemia, was chosen because he will be beatified on October 10, 2020 and was given as an example to teenagers by Pope Francis (notably in his apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit). Familiar with the spirituality of this young servant of God, Jean-Baptiste immediately saw the hand of Providence when the two mothers came to present their prayer to him: “Carlo was aware of the dangers of the Internet, and of ’empty pleasures’, he knew how to act creatively to proclaim the Gospel, and to proclaim value and beauty.” The founder of Lights in the Dark also obtained, through a Capuchin priest in Assisi, the support of Carlo’s mother who wrote “Molto bene autorizzo” (“Very good, I give my authorization”).

However, the deliverance prayer from pornography does not stop when the Internet user signs off: 3,000 members of the “invisible monastery Carlo Acutis” continue praying and offer follow-ups by e-mail, with the contact info of a local priest or therapist. “There is no limit to what can be done. Our initiative is complementary to what already exists and we believe that prayer can transform lives!” Others who feel called to respond to the needs of the members of our society affected by the scourge of online pornography can also join the ranks of e-missionaries. Jean-Baptiste Maillard, also co-author of the book « Évangéliser sur internet, mode d’emploi » (Evangelize on the Internet: Instruction Manual in English, 2019) offers a workshop, available online on the Congress Mission website, “Transforming Lives on the Internet”(2).

 

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(1) www.sosporno.net
(2) The French workshop « Tranformer des vies avec internet », took place in Paris in 2020.

 

 

Possible to stop using porn? Marcelin*, 27yrs old, gave this testimony to us directly. He managed to break out of a ten-year pornography addiction thanks to the program Free to Love.

« It’s possible to stop »

I think what we’re all waiting for, us, the people marked by the red iron of addiction to pornography and masturbation, is for someone to tell us it’s possible to stop, and that stopping is real. That others have already done it and that, today, some are on the path to getting out of this unhealthy stupor, just like we want to be.

• Read more : How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques

When we can’t find strength enough to stop by ourselves, what we’re left thirsting for is hope, for an attitude that doesn’t judge and one we can trust. An attitude which believes in us and in which we can see the first glimmers of hope. This is why it’s essential to fight this combat whilst being accompanied, and if I want you to take one thing away with you from this testimony, it’s the belief that it is possible!

One day, I couldn’t face sinking anymore more deeply, interiorly, into this addiction, so I decided to use the same tool which was destroying me daily – the internet – to look for a solution. With force and rage, begging God to help me, I desired only to extract myself from this interior paralysis. Ten years, I celebrated my ten years of addiction to pornography and masturbation, after discovering at the age of eleven that my own father was himself a victim of this scourge.

It was an immensely heavy heritage to carry, for the child that I was. The image of a father and the coherence of the education I’d received crumbled. Suddenly, I wasn’t a child anymore. What I’d seen violated my childhood and destroyed my relationship with my father, replacing it with incomprehension, then with violence. I know that what animates my undertaking today is the need to spare this burden from my own child, to break the chain of passing it on to the next generation.

An interior straightjacket

With time, my addiction became little by little like a second skin, stopping me from being myself, blocking me from emerging in the world, and opening my arms to existence. Pornography dependence was like an interior straightjacket. My whole being was turned inwards to a ball within myself which I hated, which dominated me, but in which I took refuge, where I would escape from myself and the world. I was closing in on myself, I was both jailkeeper and prisoner, and unhappy.

Truly, after ten years, I couldn’t do it anymore. My skin was like a prison, enslaved to a force within myself much stronger than I was. On that day, by doing some research, I came across several websites and many different publications that I instantly bought and read. I was ready to try everything. Anything was better than carrying on like that. In reality it was this outburst that saved me. It wasn’t a momentum of willpower, where I promised the gods and myself once more never to go on pornographic websites. This never worked and I would always come away disappointed and disgusted with myself. No, it was different. It was the will to stop it, at any cost, to take up other weapons, ways other than direct confrontation, which only seemed to deceive and belittle me.

I can tell you that my life changed when I decided to open the book Get out of porn (1), and to follow the program Free to Love during the period of Lent.

A glimmer of light

For me, it was the first time a door was appearing before me, glimpsing a thread of light around it, bringing hope. For the first time, I started believing, after 10 years of practicing masturbation, having sexual relationships which were more or less balanced, and pornography addiction. I know that, on the last day, Easter evening, when I burnt the letter I’d written, in my little garden, which contained the confessions of these years of alienation, I felt like whatever came next, things would never be the same.

The weight of it wasn’t the same. The taste of liberty made me smile, I felt a real and authentic joy in my heart. However, to think that on the final day with the last page of the program turned, it was the end of the road, was a mistake. I’ve always loved efficiency, boxes ticked, lists crossed off, final points… I like to finish a step, not think about it anymore, and start a new one. In reality, after having turned the final page of the book, all the blank pages of my life stared up at me; and as the program had guided and supported me for a time, it was now down to me to take up the baton, like an invitation to the coming of age from childhood to adulthood. This program was not another box to tick. It was a walking stick God was offering me to journey on the road. It was the first (great) step on the path, opening the blank pages of our lives to write on. It was the new program opening up to me, the program of a lifetime. My mistake was to believe that I would never need the walking stick.

 

“Stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”

– Jesus, Mark’s Gospel, chapter 2, verses 1 to 12

But Jacob who had his hip wounded in combat with an angel in the Old Testament (2) will undoubtedly limp for the rest of his life. And Jesus did say to the paralytic “take your mat and go to your home” (2). I needed to humbly understand that this wound, even if it was healed, would accompany me with the walking stick. The hard winter evenings spent alone, which would burn me again, I would have this stick which served also as a reminder.

I followed the program in an exemplary manner. I did it assiduously, almost pridefully, I felt strong, a brave victorious warrior after battle with the enemy in me, who had enslaved me all these years. I bought all the referenced texts and read them, taking notes, planning spiritual retreats… When the last day of Lent was over, I put my sword away, believing myself to be free from my enemy who was definitively vanquished. I didn’t see him anymore, I had broken out of pornography, and so I didn’t watch out for him anymore. The months went by and I let my guard down, I lost a battle, then two, then three… What we call “falls”, knees to the ground. And as we’re terribly intelligent beings, we look for ways to disguise the hole in the road, which we pretend to have not seen coming, in the end we aren’t yet free, and liberty in the face of addictions is not something which is won in a single battle. It’s not a box we can tick, this has to be accepted.

The battle for liberty takes place every day, I would even say with every glance. And, in the end, glory dipped in pride is, little by little, transformed into humility and mercy towards yourself, to recognise I am “only” human and so, poor.

Three pieces of advice for getting there

So, the first piece of advice I’ll allow myself to offer you through this testimony, is about remaining prudent and not forgetting there are no ‘last pages’ in a program. Don’t set off without your walking stick, even if you think you’re strong enough. Our best strength is humility.

My second piece of advice, which I find hard to use myself sometimes, is to decrease the trust we put in our own strength so as to increase our faith in the grace and the fruits of our relationship with God, through prayer. It’s a shift in logic: going from strength, to abandonment and tenderness; from a need to control, to accepting that time is an ally and we must work with it. It’s in leaving the prison of inhibitions, where we’re folded in on ourselves, to unfolding and looking out into the world. It’s no longer a question of efficiency but a long road to walk. But I can see, and my life can testify, that looking back, the fruits are so much bigger than what I’d have been able to harvest by my own strength.

My third piece of advice is about not forgetting, after having done all that, not forgetting that the ultimate aim is to love, in all the variations that it might bring. To not forget the title of the program… I was so focussed on the addiction that I forgot about the cause: freedom to love. To want to be as pure as possible but with a heart dried up from lack of love, we’ll forget to live, work, cultivate our talents and put them in service of loving a woman “as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (3), and to put all our strength into the coming of the Kingdom of God. To finish, I feel that we need to rediscover the sense of rituals. The program proposes a certain number of them. I think it’s a good thing to take steps which are concrete and which map out the road over time and in truth. They give us the sensation of progressing, and so the strength to continue. Little rituals of passage, regular little rituals which help us and do us good. These are both little steps on the road and lights illuminating the path already trodden.

It’s possible to stop… with the help of others!

So, I assure you, I am writing what I always dreamed of hearing, yes, it is possible to stop using porn, yes. Yes, it is possible to move on, to change things, to evolve. Yes, it is possible to break out of pornography, the question is: do we really want to? Want do we truly desire deep down, for our life? How would we like to love the loved one? What are we prepared to put into place? Are we ready to make the first step today, even if it’s small, miniscule but as much as we are able to? To start the journey is already to have our soul retract itself from a dark corner of it.

We are not perfect beings, but there are three little things which make all the difference: we are no longer alone, we are on the path, and we believe in the hope that things can change. This is the path which constructs who we are, and we’ll walk it every day. We cannot let our guard down because in this world, the enemy is close and we’ll always be limping. It’s what I came to understand in the two years following the end of the program. We’ll always be scarred by it, but no longer overcome by it. So, this program has to offer a very deep experience for those who follow it, and it remains only for me to welcome you on this steep path, for whomever wants to be free to love!

And you, what do you think? Do you believe it’s possible to stop using porn? Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• Porn and masturbation, are they the same battle?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

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* The firstname was changed.

(1) Sortir de la pornographie, Editions de l’Emmanuel, Paris.

(2) Bible, Gn 32, 25-29.

(3) La Bible, Eph 5, 25

Porn and masturbation, are they the same battle? How can we wage this war? Here’s a little piece on the subject, submitted by Xavier.

 

Pornography and masturbation both function on the same principle as drugs. You’re obliged, little by little, to increase the strength of the doses in order to obtain the same effect as the previous consumption. And so, an addiction takes hold. We try to “ease” our conscience by telling ourselves we’re just responding to a natural urge, and that there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s important to think about the origin of these sexual urges, in order to master them, and if we want to break out of being enslaved by them. Becoming aware that it’s a sin (or a misguided distraction, if you prefer, sin being something which cuts us off from the connection with God’s love), and even going to confession (if you’re baptised), is a great first step, but there’s a good chance it won’t be enough. The urges remain strong and will probably cause you to fall again in the face of temptation.

It is interesting to know that the sexual urge – which in the first place is a good thing because it was created by God – does not only have “sexual” origins, linked to needs or desires. It can also be generated by a disruption or imbalance in your life, intentional or unintentional. Becoming aware of this enables you to stop blaming yourself and help you to break free. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of some life disruptions: stress, frustration, tiredness, boredom, lack of self-confidence, and poor personal hygiene. Poor personal hygiene includes excessive consumption of fatty meats, alcohol, sweet treats which “excite” the body, as well as not taking care of your physicality, meaning not doing any sport or not taking the time to relax your body (for example, having a nice bath or massage).

In brief, you need a “healthy spirit in a healthy body”, or even better “the Holy Spirit in a holy body”. Making the decision to pray more and/or go to confession must be reinforced by practicing a sporting activity to evacuate stress, frustration… and so bodily urges too, and introduce a feeling of well-being into your body. You need to replace pornography with a physical activity and/or a hobby, rather than trying to erase it. To be more precise, you need to reduce the intensity of the urges and channel the energy into another specifically chosen activity (organised in advance, if possible), rather than wrestling to contain them. In this way we treat the roots of the problem and not the symptom, which is pornography.

Lastly, we must take into consideration that the context of the society in which we are evolving every day, is unfavourable to purity: adverts, films, ways of dressing, jokes and conversations arouse our urges. We cannot always avoid them, but there’s all the more reason to be extra careful and learn how to turn our eyes away.

What do you think? Do you find it difficult to control your urges? Come and talk about it with us in the live chat! :

 

Going further:

• “How and why, I stopped masturbating”
• What’s wrong with masturbation?
• How do I break the habit of masturbation?

How does porn effect society ?

In May 1989, the Pontifical Council for Social Communication (Vatican) had already issued warnings to the media concerning the effect of porn – dangers which are today much better recognised and understood. Taken from a document which aims to “illustrate the most serious effects pornography and violence have on individuals and on society”.

Day-to-day experience will confirm what we have found in studies, carried out across the world, on the negative consequences of pornography. In pornography, present at the heart of the media industry thanks to the use of audio-visual technologies, we witness a violation of the right to the “privacy” of the human body, in its manly or womanly nature. It’s a violation which reduces the human person, and the human body, to an anonymous object destined to be misused and whose intention is to trigger concupiscent pleasure. Violence, in this context, can be understood as an exhibition, provoking the most basic of human instincts, behaviour which is contrary to the dignity of the person and which exercises an intense physical strength in a deeply offensive and often impassioned manner. Specialists are sometimes divided on the extent of the impact of this phenomenon and the manner in which individuals and groups are marked by it. The basic outlines of the problem however, are now clearly defined and deeply worrying.

1. Porn = sexual impairment, perversion of human relationships, slavery of individuals, destruction of the couple and the family

Nobody can consider themselves exempt from the degrading effects of pornography and violence, or safe from the damage caused by those who let themselves be seduced by it. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable, especially at risk to exposure and becoming victims themselves. Pornography and sadistic violence impair sexuality, pervert human relationships, enslave individuals – in particular children and women -, destroy marriage and family life, create anti-social attitudes and weaken the moral fibre of society.

• Read also: What are the consequences of porn on marriage? – What does porn do to women?

Nobody can consider themselves exempt from the degrading effects of pornography and violence, or safe from the damage caused by those who let themselves be seduced by it. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable, especially at risk to exposure and becoming victims themselves. Pornography and sadistic violence impair sexuality, pervert human relationships, enslave individuals – in particular children and women -, destroy marriage and family life, create anti-social attitudes and weaken the moral fibre of society.

It’s obvious that one of the effects of pornography is sin (= cutting yourself off from the love of God, ndlr). The voluntary participation in the production and diffusion of these harmful products must be considered as a serious moral evil. In addition, its production and diffusion wouldn’t be taking place if there wasn’t a market for it or a demand. Those who use this material are not just injuring themselves but are also contributing to the promotion of a harmful trade.

This is extremely troubling for young children who are frequently exposed to violence through digital media, at an age where they still unable to distinguish clearly between imagination and reality. Sadistic violence at the heart of digital media can condition people who are particularly impressionable, especially young people, to the point that they consider it acceptable, normal and worthy of imitation.

2. The link between pornography, sadistic violence and murder

We’ve already stated that a link exists between pornography and sadistic violence. A certain type of pornography is openly violent in its expression and content. Those who watch, listen to or read such material risk introducing it into their own behaviour. They end up losing any respect for others as the children of God, and as brothers and sisters of the same human family. Such a link between pornography and sadistic violence has particular implications on people suffering from mental illness.

What we call “softcore” pornography can progressively paralyse our sensitivity to it, gradually suffocating the moral compass of individuals to the point of rendering them morally and personally indifferent to the rights and dignity of others. Pornography – like drugs – creates a need and pushes individuals to look for more exciting and perverse material, “hardcore” pornography. The probability of developing an anti-social attitude will be all the greater, as the process continues.

Pornography favours fantasies and unhealthy behaviours. It compromises the moral development of the person and their healthy adult relationships, particularly within marriage and the context of a family, which demands a certain mutual trust between everyone, as well as moral integrity in word and deed.

Pornography undermines the familial character of authentic human sexuality. In the sense that it turns sexuality into the frenetic search for personal pleasure, rather than a durable expression of love within a marriage. Pornography appears to be capable of undermining family life in its entirety.

At its worst, pornography becomes an inciting or reinforcing element for cases concerning serious and dangerous sexual aggression, and so is an indirect accomplice. Crimes against children, abductions and murders.

One of the central messages of pornography and violence is contempt for others: who are no longer considered as people. Pornography and violence erase tenderness and compassion, paving the way for indifference and even brutality.

So, what do you think about it? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service)

 

To go further about porn addiction:

• Porn: What’s the problem?
• Ran Gavrieli: “Why I stopped watching porn”
• What does pornography do to women?

What does pornography do to women? *

Since it trains men to think of women as objects to be used instead of persons to be loved, guys speak of them as objects and treat them as objects. One longtime producer in the porn industry admitted “My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this, and the Industry hates me for saying it.” He added that the porn industry is simply “a playpen for the damned.” (1)

When men learn their concept of intimacy from videos and magazines, they may accept the idea that a woman’s no is actually a yes and that she enjoys being used. This can lead to a rapist mentality. Consider, for example, a study done in the Oklahoma City area. When 150 sexually oriented businesses were closed, the rate of rape decreased 27 percent in five years, while the rate in the rest of the country increased 19 percent. In Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhoods with porn outlets had 500 percent more sex offenses than neighborhoods without them. (2)

Ted Bundy raped and killed dozens of women. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he requested that his last interview be with Dr. James Dobson (3), the founder of Focus on the Family. In that meeting Bundy talked openly about pornography and told Dr. Dobson that his struggles all began there. He explained that all his fellow inmates had an obsession with pornography before going to prison. Porn magazines and videos lay at the root of innumerable rapes and murders. Countless victims of child molestation also report that their abusers exposed them to pornography as an attempt to desensitize and seduce them. No one can tell the husbands, siblings, children, and parents of those violated and deceased women that pornography is harmless. Besides, wouldn’t it infuriate you if a guy simply looked at a woman you loved in the same way he looked at pornography?

It should be noted that pornography addiction is not just a “guy” problem. Many women struggle with it as well, and they experience the same consequences. They often feel an additional sense of isolation and shame because they assume that women shouldn’t struggle with lust. Because of this myth, they often keep their habit secret instead of seeking help to overcome it.

While men often view pornography to see what they would like to receive, women sometimes view it wondering what they need to look like, how they need to act, and who they need to be. But such women need to realize that women were not created to be porn—they were created to be loved. If you’re a woman who struggles in this area, you’re not alone. Many women have written blogs for us on their struggle with porn addiction, and what they did to break free.

What do you think? We are here for you, via the chat to listen and answer your questions:

Going further:

• What’s wrong with looking at pornography?
• What does pornography do to marriages? 
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?

 

(*) Source : A text by Jason Evert from his book If You Really Loved Me (Chastity Project, 2007), freely adapted for SOSporno.net/SOSporn.org. Author of many other books on male-female love, he and his wife Crystalina run the website chastityproject.com and live with their children in Colorado.

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Notes

(1) Robert Stoller, Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 33.

(2) Source : U.S. Department of Justice, Child Pornography, Obscenity, and Organized Crime (Washington, D.C., February 1988).

(3) Ted Bundy’s Final Interview (pureintimacy.org).

What’s wrong with looking at pornography?

Question: “What’s wrong with looking at pornography? It’s not like you are getting a girl pregnant or spreading STDs”.

Answer. “The problem with using porn is that it emasculates men, degrades women, destroys marriages, and offends the Lord”.

You may be thinking: “That’s going a little overboard, don’t you think? I mean, what’s wrong with checking out a few web sites?” Take a look at the effects of pornography, and you will see why real men don’t use it.

First off, when Jesus warned that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman commits sin with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28), he spelled it out in no uncertain terms that it’s not enough to avoid pregnancy or STDs. He wants us to be pure.

“But I say to you that everyone whose eyes are turned on a woman with desire has had connection with her in his heart.”

What does pornography do to a man? For starters, it robs him of the capacity to be a man. The essence of manhood consists in readiness to deny oneself for the good of a beloved. This is why Paul reminds husbands in his Letter to the Ephesians that their love must be like that of Christ, who allowed himself to be crucified for the sake of his beloved, the Church (Eph. 5:21-33).

Pornography defeats this calling.Ask yourself: Wouldn’t it infuriate you if a guy looked at your daughter or wife in the same way he looked at pornography? Instead of denying himself for the good of the woman, a man, through the use of porn, denies the woman her dignity in order to satisfy his lust. In essence, pornography is a rejection of our calling to love as God loves. It is no wonder that those who use it are never satisfied. Only love satisfies.

Pornography gradually cripples a man’s ability to love. It is impossible to love a fantasy, but living in a world of fantasy allows a guy to escape from reality and evade the demands of authentic love. In a way, the fact that pornography allows men to indulge their lust without having to worry about pregnancy or STDs is part of the problem. It encourages him to live in a world in which sexuality offers only pleasure without meaning or consequences, in which “no one gets pregnant, no one catches a disease, no one shows signs of guilt, fear, remorse, embarrassment, or distrust. No one suffers from the sexual activities of others and the men, at least, are always carefree, unrestrained. . . . The priority of lovingly protecting one’s partner is of little concern in pornography because no harm seems possible.”⁽¹⁾

Simply put, pornography is the renunciation of love.As the writer Christopher West said, “[Pornography] seeks to foster precisely those distortions of our sexual desires that we must struggle against in order to discover true love.”⁽²⁾ For the person who indulges in porn, the purpose of sex becomes the satisfaction of the erotic “needs,” not the communication of life and love. Pornography drives a man to value a woman only for what she gives him rather than for the person she is.

• Read also: Porn: What’s the problem?

Some guys will slough this all off,saying, “Boys will be boys,” or “I’m just appreciating the beauty of womanhood,” or “I like the articles in the magazine.” Sometimes they will realize how unconvincing these arguments are, and they’ll become resentful, saying, “You want to repress sexuality and rob women of their freedom. It’s unhealthy for you to have such little appreciation for women!” This resentment has found its way to the billboards and titles of the strip clubs, w

hich advertise the establishment as a “gentleman’s club” for “adult entertainment.” Having the word “gentleman” or “adult” associated with a strip club is nothing less than fascinating. Why would a man feel the need to justify that his behavior is mature and gentlemanly? Can you call to mind any time where an adult needed to remind others that he was mature? Or can you think of any activity on earth where a gentleman needs to announce that he is one? Usually actions speak for themselves. Besides, a gentleman doesn’t need to pay women to pretend that they like him.

For the person who indulges in porn, the purpose of sex becomes the satisfaction of the erotic “needs,” not the communication of life and love. Pornography drives a man to value a woman only for what she gives him rather than for the person she is.

So even when a man’s lack of self-control makes him resemble a boy and nothing in his behavior is reconcilable with the title “gentleman,” he still feels a need to identify with authentic manhood. This is because no matter how much we fall, Christ has still stamped into our being the call to love like Jesus. If only we can untwist the lies and humbly come before the Lord in all of our woundedness, he will raise us up and make us into true men.

Now what does pornography do to women? Since it trains men to think of women as objects to be used instead of persons to be loved, guys speak of them as objects and treat them as objects. When men learn their “love” from videos and magazines, they accept the idea that a woman’s “no” is actually a “yes” and that she enjoys being used. This can lead to a rapist mentality.

• Read also: What does pornography do to women?

Consider, for example, a study done in the Oklahoma City area. When 150 sexually-oriented businesses were closed, the rate of rape decreased 27 percent in five years, while the rate in the rest of the country increased 19 percent. In Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhoods with porn outlets had 500 percent more sex offenses than neighborhoods without them.³

Ted Bundy raped and killed dozens of women. He was sentenced to die in the electric chair and requested that his last interview be with Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. In that meeting, Bundy talked openly about pornography and told Dr. Dobson that his struggles all began there. He explained that all of his fellow inmates had an obsession with pornography before going to prison. Porn magazines, web sites, and videos lay at the root of innumerable rapes and murders. No one can tell the husbands, siblings, children, and fathers of those violated and deceased women that pornography is harmless. If you want to see for yourself what Bundy said, click here.

What does pornography do to marriages? To be blunt, pornography is the perfect way to shoot your future marriage in the head. Imagine that a young man has a habit of using pornography, and he does not reveal this to his fiancee. He hopes that once he is married, the desires for illicit sexual arousal will subside. But what becomes of his lust once he marries her? It does not disappear, it is foisted upon his wife. The pornography has trained him to react to the sexual value of a woman, and nothing else. He has trained himself to believe that women should be physically flawless and constantly sexually accessible. Even if he rejects this intellectually, the fact remains that his attractions and responses have been conditioned and shaped by warped, pornography-inspired fantasies.

• Read also: What does pornography do to marriages? 

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• Porn: What’s the problem?
• What are the consequences of porn on your health?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

 

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Notes

1. Wetzel, Sexual Wisdom, 72.
2. West, Good News About Sex and Marriage, 84.
3. U.S. Department of Justice. Child Pornography, Obscenity, and Organized Crime. Washington, D.C., February 1988.
4. Laurie Hall, “When Fantasy Meets Reality.”
5. Pope John Paul II, general audience, 24 November 1982. As quoted by Theology of the Body, 346.

Source : Jason Evert in If You Really Loved Me (Chastity Project, 2007).

 

What does pornography do to marriages? *

To be blunt, pornography is the perfect way to shoot your future marriage in the head. Imagine that a young man has a habit of using pornography, and he does not reveal this to his fiancée.

He hopes that once he is married, the desires for illicit sexual arousal will subside. But what becomes of his lust once he marries? It does not disappear; it is foisted upon his wife. The pornography has trained him to react to the sexual value of a woman and nothing else. He has trained himself to believe that women should be physically flawless and constantly sexually accessible.

• Read also : What does pornography do to women ?

Even if he rejects this intellectually, the fact remains that pornography has warped the way he looks at women. You could say that he views the world through porn-goggles. He only knows how to look at women through the lens of lust. One psychologist who specializes in sexuality problems noticed, “the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality.”[1]

Provided a man’s wife is a life-size Barbie doll with a squad of makeup artists and hairdressers who follow her around the house, things might run smoothly for a time. But when reality confronts fantasy, the man will be left disillusioned, and the woman’s self image will suffer. No real-life woman can ever fulfill his disordered desires and fantasies. They focus solely upon self-centered gratification rather than mutual self-giving and joy in pleasing one’s spouse.

One woman explained that if a man’s real-life partner is not always as available sexually and willing to do whatever he wishes as the women he has fantasized about, he may accuse her of being a prude. If she looks normal, and unlike the models he has come to adore, he may accuse her of being fat. If she has needs, the passive images in the magazines, then she may seem too demanding for him.[2]

 

In other words, he will be quick to blame his disorder on her; his fantasies will have robbed him of the ability to be truly intimate with his wife. One reason he is unable to have healthy intimacy with his wife is because intimacy is not an escape from reality but the capacity to see the beauty of the other. The presence of lust in the heart of the man blocks his ability to view the woman as a person. He has reduced her to an object and ignored her value as a person. When this happens he forfeits love. True intimacy is impossible.

It has been said that the problem with pornography is not simply that it shows too much but that it shows too little. It reduces a woman to nothing more than her body. Thus a man will assume that the greater the body, the greater the value of the woman. With this mindset men not only expect their future wives to look no less perfect than Miss September; they also don’t appreciate a woman’s most beautiful and precious qualities, since a centerfold display can never reveal these. This drives men to look elsewhere in an impossible quest to satisfy their lust. After all, pornography fosters the false mentality that casual, uncommitted sex is the most fulfilling and enjoyable. Who does not want to be fulfilled?

One response to the marital dissatisfaction often caused by pornography habits is to bring pornography into the bedroom. This is a vain effort on the part of the man to have the illicit excitement he has formed an attachment to. The poor wife may allow this, but the joy of loving has escaped the man, who no longer sees the value of the person and the need to deny himself for her. Married couples who use pornography find that their marital problems only worsen. If a husband needs to pretend that his wife is someone else in order for him to be excited, then he will become less and less drawn to her. Instead of making love to her, he is destroying love between them. At the very moment he is supposed to be renewing his wedding vows with his body, he’s committing adultery in his mind.

Sexual dissatisfaction: don’t try porn!

Because the effects of pornography are so severe, Christian men and women have an obligation to rid their lives of it. According to Pope John Paul II, God “assigns the dignity of every woman as a task to every man.”[3] When we act in a way that is contrary to the dignity of others, we act contrary to our own dignity. For this reason, the Holy Father says, “each man must look within himself to see whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity, as a spouse, has not become in his heart an object of adultery.”[4]

Even if pornography had no adverse effects on people, we must never forget that sin is not simply a social matter. We owe it to our neighbors to love them, but we also owe it to God to honor him in all our actions and thoughts. To lust after his daughters is a grave sin, even if no one becomes pregnant as a result of another’s imagination.

“So shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

So, what do you think about it? Do you fear for your (future) marriage because of a porn addiction? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service)

To go further about porn addiction (from the same author):

• What does the Catholic Church say about pornography?
• What’s wrong with looking at pornography?
• What does pornography do to women?

Read also:

• Edgar’s testimony: “what if marriage could resolve my problem?”
• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• Will marriage resolve my pornography addiction?

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(*) Source : A text by Jason Evert from his book If You Really Loved Me (Chastity Project, 2007), freely adapted for SOSporno.net/SOSporn.org. Author of many other books on male-female love, he and his wife Crystalina run the website chastityproject.com and live with their children in Colorado.

Notes

(1). Marriott, “Men and Porn,” The Guardian (November 8, 2003).
(2). Laurie Hall, “When Fantasy Meets Reality” (www.pureintimacy.org).
(3). Pope John Paul II, general audience, November 24, 1982. As quoted by Man and Woman He Created Them, 519.
(4). Pope John Paul II, apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem 14 (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1988).

 

Porn: What’s the problem? Here’s Christopher West’s answer, taken from his book The Good News About Sex and Marriage.

Pornography is attractive.

Pornography attracts. Denying this reality, or not taking it into account, doesn’t change anything. On the contrary, we must ask why. Why is pornography so attractive? How is it that it reaches our soul, and can have so much power over us that it seems to suck us up with an irresistible force? I’m speaking as a man, of course. Visual pornography is a phenomenon which concerns, as a majority, men (but also women, editor’s note, 1/5 of people affected). Pornography exploits the mechanisms of men’s sexual excitement more than a women’s. This would explain why the equivalent of the Playboy magazine for women, is bought much more often by homosexual men than heterosexual women. Most women are not ‘aroused’ by looking at photos of naked men.

Despite all of this, there does exist a sort of women’s equivalent to pornography: ‘erotic’ romantic novels (also erotic comics, manga porn, editor’s note). The fact that women are much more attracted by these novels than pornography, clearly reveals something of the feminine psyche. For most women, images by themselves aren’t enough. They need the story, an enchanting romance, a build up of emotion, and drama. Even if socially speaking these novels are more acceptable than pornography, they aren’t any less of a distortion of the relationship between man and woman. Under different forms, both call out to the damaged desire to satisfy our sexual needs. For men, pornography satisfies the urge to be physically and visually stimulated, whilst, for women, adult romantic novels satisfy the urge to be emotionally and sentimentally stimulated. Neither of these remedies are healthy. Neither of these form us in the truth; on the contrary, they bog us down in lies.

• Read also : Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

1. So, what’s the problem with porn?

Once again, if we stay stuck in our own perception of things, with desires damaged by sin, the answer is: nothing. It’s completely “normal”. It’s “natural”. But if we let resonate in our hearts, even the weakest echo of God’s original plan for sexuality, then pornography illustrates exactly just how far we are from it.

• Read also: What are the consequences of porn on my health?

If one day, we want to discover true love, true joy, true happiness, we have to first rediscover the “nuptial meaning of the body” (which is what characterises the love specifically between a man and a woman). And live according to it: we have to die to our lust, and experience the salvation of our body, of our sexuality in Christ, right here, right now.

What’s the problem? Porn is hell, it’s like living cut off from God’s love. Now Jesus, having come to save us, doesn’t leave us to wallow in our sin, but offers us salvation, and the strength for man and woman to love each other as they were called to according to God’s original plan. And it’s for the here and now! It’s the only way to achieve true human fulfilment. This salvation is not a minor element, nor an addition to the Gospel Message. As John-Paul II says, a rediscovery of the nuptial meaning of the body – being called to give yourself out of love – always means rediscovering the meaning of all existence, and life.

Coming back to the question, “So what’s the problem with porn?”, the problem is that it robs us of the meaning of life. It’s an anti-Gospel message because it wants to feed the deformed sexual desires that we must precisely be fighting against, in order to find true love.

If concupiscence is a fire we need Christ to put out for us, pornography is the fuel which stokes the flames. No effort to rationalise it, or bringing out excuses like: “it’s normal”, and “men will be men” can change what pornography is, and the influence it has on how men see women, and on how women see themselves.

 

2. Porn degrades women

What’s the problem? In our culture, most men are so conditioned by pornography and by the image of a woman in general, which has been presented to them through the media, that women are finding themselves under enormous pressure to meet the standards of being seductive. Most of these pictures of women are not even real: they’ve been digitally enhanced, removing any of the “blemishes” (any trace of normal humanity in fact). Women are reduced to trying to conform to an absolutely unattainable canon of “beauty”. The upward trend in certain eating disorders in women, even in young girls, is a manifest example of the effect the pornographic culture is having on the feminine psyche. In clear terms, pornography degrades women, terribly. The music group Tears for Fears wrote a song “Woman in Chains”, which expresses remarkably well the way in which man’s sexual desire has an effect on women. It’s worth meditating on the lyrics, notably the following: Deep in your heart/ there are wounds/ time can’t heal […] It’s a world gone crazy/ Keeps woman in chains.

• Read also: What does porn do to women?

3. Learn to love

What’s the problem? If men want to be men, they must learn to love women. They must learn to see them not as something destined for their sexual satisfaction, but as people created in the image of God. But pornography only serves to feed a man, wounded by sin, and his inclination to treat women as objects there to satisfy him sexually. When a man gets caught in the claws of porn, it makes him incapable of loving women as he ought. As long as he stays stuck in its claws, he can only dream of having a healthy and pure relationship with a woman.  He can only dream of a marriage based on authenticity, fruitfulness and faithfulness. Men who give themselves to pornography, emasculate themselves.

Not that the naked body is bad, nor seeing images of the body, evil. What is wrong, is the lust in the human heart which brings with it a desire to continue feeding it. What is wrong, is presenting the human body in a manner which intentionally incites lust and reduces the human being to an object for satisfying this sexual greed.

As an antidote, I suggest you look at the naked bodies painted by Michel-Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. During its restoration, Pope John-Paul II requested that the loincloths, painted by prudish clergy members to hide the intimate parts of certain figures which were originally painted naked, be removed. Why? Because John-Paul was persuaded that an artist who understands the nuptial meaning of the human body can paint it naked and in doing so, help us to see the true beauty of our being, created in its masculinity and in its femininity, and in the image of God.

Clearly, Michel-Angelo was conscious of the dignity of the body. Which is obviously not the case with Hugh Hefner or Larry Flint (3). At its heart, according to John-Paull II’s perspective, the problem of pornography is not that it reveals too much of a person: but that it doesn’t reveal enough. In the human soul there is a deep and insatiable desire to know and understand the meaning of masculinity and femininity. Unfortunately, it’s rare that someone learns to express and satisfy this need, which comes from God, in a chaste and appropriate manner. When deprived of the truth, it is alas, very easy to succumb to lies and look to satisfy these legitimate needs or curiosity, through terribly deformed structures.

This is why the overwhelming majority of internet usage, is for pornography. This is why pornography is so attractive. This is why, in the United-States, there are more sex-shops than McDonald’s. This is why the pornography industry earns billions of dollars every year, in the United-States alone.

The antidote to pornography is truth, and using it to fulfil the need, deep inside us, of understanding the meaning of our sexuality. By discovering the truth of our sexuality, the deep mystery of God’s pan revealing itself through our body, we find what we’ve been looking for our whole life. If the truth of our sexuality resides in our hearts and minds, lies won’t attract us anymore because we’ll see them for what they really are: counterfeits, virtual and empty.

Praised be God! The true beauty of real men and women fulfils and dazzles us so much more than computer-modified pornographic images. We can ask God to give us the eyes to see it. We can pray to obtain the virtue of purity, described by John-Paul II as, ‘the Glory of God revealed in our body’ (4).

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God”

– Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:8

If you consume porn and are trapped in bad habits, if you have been exposed even once or several times to pornography and are looking to undo its effects, if you are the wife, fiancée or girlfriend of a man who consumes pornography, don’t despair. Ask for help. There is hope, and you can find healing.

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• How does porn effect society ?
• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

Delivered from porn !??

From a very young age I resorted to masturbation, my thoughts were orientated towards sex and it even stopped me from concentrating at school. It grew to take enormous proportions, the older I got. During adolescence, I read a book written by Billy Graham, addressing the problems encountered in youth, and it was in this book that I realised masturbation was a sin – in the sense it cuts us off from God’s love.

Only, it was impossible for me to stop doing it. Much later, it opened the door to pornography. When I was 20yrs old, I was working nights and I stumbled across a private French channel airing an X-rated movie. It was my downfall. Little by little, I began watching X-rated movies whilst masturbating…

• Read also : Masturbation, what’s the problem?

A catastrophe

The arrival of the internet was a catastrophe. I wanted to go further and further and it never fully satisfied me: I even suggested that my wife join a sex club, thanks be to God she refused. I was involved in my parish, in charge of leading praise. I consulted a specialist, I also took part in a television program but it didn’t change anything. I was experiencing a spiritual death and had no idea how to turn back from the dead end; this lasted 25 years.

“Jesus liberated me !”

During this time, I tried psychology and psychiatry, but to no avail (it doesn’t always work…). Whilst surfing the internet, I read a Christian article addressing pornography, and it orientated me towards the program “The road to purity”. I thought it was in English, but I found that it existed in French too. I started the program and from the very first day, I was filled with joy! Jesus had liberated me!

Today, I am free from any sexual slavery and any form of impurity. It’s a process and the freedom is established uniquely with the grace of God, in daily communion with him.

Without this we can do nothing, only Jesus took our sin to the Cross. All we have to do is trust him because he has the power to set us free, which the world doesn’t. I can finally say: the person the Son frees will truly be free. I thank Jesus, who delivered me. I thank my pastor who started this work with me. I thank my mentor and the whole team of ‘To free captives’ whom God put on my path!

 

So, what do you think about it? Do want to be delivered from porn? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service)On the same topic:

• “I was a porn addict, prayer healed me!”
• “Christ delivered me from pornography“
• Marcelin: “It’s possible to stop using porn”

To go further about porn addiction:

• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• Deliverance prayer