Jessica Hariss was a porn addict : her testimony!

Do women struggle with porn too? Author and ex-porn addict Jessica Harris says women can succumb to a porn addiction just as easily as men do. She also warns parents: it’s not a matter of if your child will be exposed to porn, but when.

Jessica Harris is now the founder of Beggar’s Daughter, a ministry dedicated to walking with women who have an addiction to pornography. Telling her own story of porn addiction and struggle with lust, Jessica seeks to help other women find hope, healing, and grace. Jessica enjoys traveling and speaking on the topic of female lust addiction and how churches can minister to women who struggle. She resides just outside of Washington DC where she works as a teacher and serves on the Biblical counseling team in her church. She is the author of Love Done Right: Devos—A Journey From Lust into the Love of God.

• To go further: read his many articles about porn addiction on Covenanteyes.com

So, what do you think about what says ex-porn addict Jessica Harris? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service)

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:

• Edgar’s testimony: “what if marriage could resolve my problem?”
• Ran Gavrieli: “Why I stopped watching porn” (vidéo)
• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”

Help! My husband recently disclosed his porn addiction to me. Answer by Peter C. Kleponis, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Therapist (*).

• Also read : My husband watches porn: is it my fault?

Question

I’m a 25 year old wife and mother. Recently my husband disclosed his porn addiction to me. He has been looking at porn since our engagement four years ago.  I’m completely broken by this discovery. I feel that our marriage is soiled, I feel inadequate as a wife and I feel so angry and pain beyond description.

He assures me that it has nothing to do with me and that I am beautiful and attractive to him. He says that he hates this addiction/compulsion and it’s broken him. While I believe him and forgive him I cannot understand how it has trapped him. How can something he hates pull him in?

I want to see what he’s been watching so I can accept it/understand it and move past it, my imagination constantly torments me. When we speak about it I see the pain its caused him, and that makes me angry too and i feel guilty for bringing it up. I feel so deceived thinking I was the only woman my husband has intimately been with. How can I move on?

Answer

The emotions you are feeling right now are quite normal and, believe it or not, healthy. What you are struggling with is Betrayal Trauma.

Most women when they discover their husband’s pornography addiction feel deeply hurt and betrayed. While pornography may be nothing more than images on a computer screen to men, they aren’t just images to their wives. Those images are other people!

For wives, this is as serious as an extramarital affair. It’s adultery.

Knowing her husband views porn also hurts a wife’s self-image. The women in porn are generally between the ages of 18 and 25. Most have had extensive plastic surgery and thanks to makeup and digital enhancements, these women don’t exist in real life. When a wife discovers what her husband is viewing, she thinks to herself, “How can I compete? He must think I’m ugly. I’ve lost my beauty and I am no longer desirable!” She feels rejected and replaced. This can be devastating for a woman. I believe that if all men really knew how much their pornography use would hurt their wives, no man would ever want to touch it!

Right now, it’s okay to feel hurt, angry and betrayed. You have the right to feel this way. However, you also need to work on healing and forgiveness. Your husband is correct in saying the pornography us is not about you, your beauty, or your adequacy as a wife.

To him you are beautiful and he would never want to replace you for the women in porn. He realizes how the addiction has enslaved him and how it has hurt you and your marriage. Naturally he hates pornography, and that he has become addicted to it. It sounds like he is truly sorry for how he has hurt you. It also sounds like he sincerely wants to overcome the addiction and restore your marriage.

The reasons

There are many reasons why men become addicted to pornography:

First, men are wired to be visually stimulated. When they encounter an erotic image, they automatically look! This sets in motion a series of neurochemical reactions that produce a “high” feeling. This, accompanied by orgasm, can lead a man back to it over and over again. The body then becomes dependent on this neurochemical/orgasm reaction.

There are also psychological and social reasons why men become addicted to porn. Many men grow up in a world where pornography and exploiting women is accepted. This makes it easy to use porn. They may also use porn to self-medicate deep emotional wounds. Thus the porn use is really the symptom of deeper emotional conflicts. Moving on from here means seeking help for healing and recovery. I recommend contacting a licensed Catholic therapist who is certified in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual addiction. Your husband needs to be in a
comprehensive recovery program to overcome his addiction.

You may need counseling to help you recover from the betrayal trauma. Both of you will also need marital counseling to restore your marriage. While this may seem overwhelming, the process is very gentle. It’s all about healing and restoration – becoming the individuals and couples God created you to be!

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:

• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• My husband watches porn: is it my fault?
• What does pornography do to marriages? 

 

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(*) Dr. Peter C. Kleponis, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Therapist and Assistant Director of Comprehensive Counseling Services in West Conshohocken, PA. Dr. Kleponis has over 17 years of professional experience working with individuals, couples, families and organizations. He specializes in marriage & family therapy, pastoral counseling, men’s issues, and pornography addiction recovery. Dr. Kleponis is creator of the Integrity Restored Recovery Program for pornography addiction and cofounder of the Integrity Restored Network. He is author of the book, The Pornography Epidemic: A Catholic Approach. Through his Fighting Porn in Our Culture…and Winning! conference Dr. Kleponis travels internationally speaking about the pornography epidemic, how to protect families, and how to help those who struggle with addiction. His website is www.IntegrityRestored.com.

Looking at photos of women in swimming costumes…?

Looking at photos of women in swimming costumes can have negative consequences on the way we regard women. The images leave a mark in our mind and it can be difficult to get rid of it.

Imagine you meet a pretty woman, and you get to be best friends. Soon after you fall in love and finally you ask her to marry you. How wonderful, she accepts!

You go off on honeymoon, and then, after this you learn she’s pregnant with your first child, a little girl. When the baby arrives, you are the first to see her. Your eyes fill with tears as you behold a miniature version of your wife.

You fall in love again – in a certain manner – because you are in admiration of this new-born, which you created with the help of your wife, and above all with the grace of God.

You bring her up with love, you teach her to ride a bike, you scoop her up into your arms if ever she falls over… She’s the princess, and you are her king, and you both know it. Years go by, and you start building a family.

Today, it’s her 17^th birthday and she’s organising a pool party with her friends. She comes out of the house in a swimming costume, and your son takes a photo with his phone. As he thinks it a good photo he publishes it on the internet.

Soon, there will be hundreds of thousands of strangers all over the world lusting over your princess. They’ll be admiring her body, and making all kinds of jokes about this young woman, and what they’d like to do to her.

And you, how do you feel about it?

Would you feel reassured if they said they were “simply appreciating the beauty of the feminine body”?

Now imagine God the Father’s heart, who loves his daughters infinitely more that you or I ever could.

Magazine girls are also daughters of the “King of Heaven and Earth”, whether they’re aware of it or not. What’s sad it that us, his sons, have created a market, for selling his children.

This is why pope John-Paul II challenges us:

“Every man must look inside himself to see if those who were entrusted to him as sisters of humanity […] have not become an object of adultery in their heart.”(1)

We are called to treat women with the honour, purity and respect we expect other men to treat our daughters.

I knew about “Sports Illustrated” (sports magazine) which was going round high school, and I’d heard all the reasons in advance to justify it, pretending it wasn’t bad to admire the photos in it. Obviously, none of the arguments were very convincing, but why would I care about that? I was just appreciating the feminine body. Before I was aware of it and could stop it, my way of looking at them had been modified. My criteria of physical beauty had become one of impossible perfection. And when the eye wanders from page to page of a magazine, with lust, your eyes also start looking from one girl to the next, on campus or in the shopping centre.

In a very short time, you start assuming that behaviour like this, always being sexy, is something completely natural to teenagers. Then, when you bump into girls at school or even at church, without even realising it, you’re transforming them into objects. We start measuring the value of a woman by the excitement or desire she provokes. We become increasingly superficial. And all the while we sooth our conscience by saying that it won’t affect us that much.

Images leave a mark on the mind

Porn pictures leave behind a mark on your mind, and I don’t know how long it takes to erase them. But it’s not just these images which stay with you. Your vicious way of seeing things won’t leave you either. A way of seeing things in a certain light, where your eyes are not happy with looking at just one woman, even when you start a relationship. You’ve trained them to look at anything that could excite them. They’ve become gluttonous with lust.

Now I’m married, I still feel the effects of porn magazines and sports photos of swimming costumes that I looked at ten years ago. It causes you to have unfaithful eyes: looking at every attractive woman you see. I’m not saying you lust over each of them, but you have a tendency to want to undress any pretty woman within 100 metres of you.

But my eyes, like my heart and my body, belong only to Crystalina (my wife). If I know there’s a dreamy creature walking around the shopping centre, I have to turn my head, to stop myself stealing a glance at her. Lastly, it’s not a sin to contemplate a beautiful woman, but we have to get back to monogamy, because pornography causes us to live a “mental polygamy”.

“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!”

What should you do if you see a magnificent woman? I recommend you recite the words of Psalm 84 in your heart: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!” As every person is a temple of the Holy Spirit, we can rightly thank God for the beauty of each place he inhabits!

If you don’t know what to do, to stop looking at photos of women in swimming costumes, if you’re feeling powerless in the face of this situation, don’t hesitate to talk to us about it via the chat (free and anonymous). We’re here for you!

Going further:

• What does pornography do to women?
• How does porn effect society?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

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Notes

(1) Pope Jean-Paul II, Apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem 14 (On the dignity and vocation of women), (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1988

 

Masturbation, what’s the problem? Last night, Văn Sinh N. left us this message on the contact page of SOSPorn:

“Help me overcome masturbation. Thank you so much.”

We can clearly see through this example: a man asking for help…

What is masturbation ?

Masturbation is the solitary pursuit of sexual pleasure through arousal of genital parts. It’s frequent at adolescence when sexual urges start appearing. It can be supported by fantasies, consumption of pornography, etc. There is always a link between porn and masturbation, even if this is not true of the opposite.

But what’s the problem?

The real problem with masturbating, is the pursuit of pleasure centred on ourselves, without a real relationship nor true tenderness.

This can provoke an obsession or a guilt which will poison your life!

Masturbation is also an escape from or over-compensation for certain frustrations: loneliness, lack of love, etc; It can hide a secret wound. But masturbation is not the solution. It’s the contrary, it imprisons us in the problem. It’s a quick escape… and for Christians it’s a sin because it cuts us off from the love of God, source of all love.

 

Two tendencies TO AVOID:

1. TRIVIALISING masturbation like it’s a necessary part of looking after your body or a normal and positive way of discovering your sexuality.

Masturbation is not harmless!

2. DRAMATISING masturbation like it’s the dirtiest and most shameful thing ever. No: our body is beautiful and pleasure is justified!

The problem is not then physical, but mental:

1. If it becomes a habit, masturbation weakens our personality (dependency). It affects our sense of fulfilment because of sexual obsession, the feeling of failure, or guilt.

2. Masturbating can also paralyse our romantic relationships through its pursuit of individual and climactic pleasure instead of living a true RELATIONSHIP based on love and shared pleasure. This can cause a partner to suffer deeply.

And you, what do you think? Come and talk about it with us through the live chat’ (anonymous and free discussion):

Going further:

• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• Porn and masturbation, the same battle?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

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

How can I get rid of porn images in my mind?

If you are obessed by pornographic images in your mind you can pray the deliverance prayer for the intercession of Carlo Acutis. Just recite it over and over again with all your heart.

If you are obessed by a person who has sent you pornographic photos or videos, you can try this strategy. Every time one of their impure images comes to your mind, use that as a call to pray for sender.

Don’t know how to pray? Nothing to worry about, just say:

“Jesus, I am praying to you for so and so (name the person if you know their name) because I want you to save her (or him)…!”

All you need to do is to simply pray for that person. In this way, instead of that person causing you to slip back, you can help Jesus to save them too. Therefore, this will pay you back, so to speak, for the time you have spent and at the same time help save that person from the evil clutches of pornographic images that has her (or him)  in its trap! If you practice this on a regular basis, the bad thoughts in your mind will rapidly quieten down!

First and foremost, deepen (or start) a personal prayer life and stay pure from day to day as best as you can. Get closer to Mary—also called Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (Mary many names)! Mary is the best untier of knots ever! In doing these simple things, you will start to chase away the pornographic images that obsess you!

You need to restore how you feel about femininity (or masculinity): Pray 10 Hail Marys (eventually an entire Rosary or 5 groups of 10 Hail Marys) every day. This is THE ideal means to begin reconstructing your life!

You can also pray the deliverance prayer without moderation!

Another remedy to pornography is learning to understand your feminine dignity (or your masculine virility) and how you desire to be loved. Persevere in this way and your temptations will be transformed into real love for others.

In the meantime, stay strong. Resist temptation and you will acquire virtues that will help you to re-create yourself just as God created you—with all the love He has for you—so that you can give that very same love to others, in all areas of your life. Trust in God’s love for you!

So now, what do you think? Do you want to pray for a person who has sent you impures images that you can’t get out of your mind? Do you want to pray to Mary with us? Then come and talk with us on our live chat today!

 

Going further:

• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?

My husband watches porn: is it my fault?

This article by Matt Fradd* was first published ThePornEffect.com with the title It’s not your fault your husband watches porn.

By far, one of the most common myths that women believe when they find out that their husband is hooked on porn is this:

“I am to blame. I must be the source of the problem. If I was only prettier, or more adventurous in bed, if I was only not so nagging or needy or angry, he wouldn’t be so drawn to these perfect women online.”

Let me use an analogy to show you why this is false.

The Gypsy Moth

Back in the 1860s, Americans made the mistake of bringing the gypsy moth from Europe to Boston. Within 10 years, swarms of gypsy moths were devastating the forests and continued doing so for over a century. Attempts to eradicate this moth failed, but then in the 1960s scientists devised a new strategy. Biologists knew that the male gypsy moth found the female by following her scent—her pheromones.

Scientists developed massive quantities of a synthetic version of this pheromone and then scattered small pellets of it from the air. The effect was overpowering for the males. They either became confused and didn’t know which direction to turn to find the female, or they became desensitized to the lower levels of pheromones naturally given out by the female.

Pornography has the similar effect on the male brain in our culture. Surrounded by powerful doses of synthetic sex, men find themselves confused about where to turn for real connection or are unmotivated to do so.

It Isn’t Your Fault

It isn’t your fault that you aren’t hundreds of online, 2-dimensional women. It isn’t your fault that you aren’t as clickable and customizable as digital images. It isn’t your fault that sex with you doesn’t look like a scripted, heavily edited film performed by sex athletes.

My friend Luke Gilkerson, the Educational Resource Manager at Covenant Eyes, has an illustration he often uses with hurting wives:

“Compare the enjoyment of a fine candlelight dinner to a sub-par, all-you-can-eat buffet with food that’s been under the warmers for five hours. If a person chooses the buffet over the candlelight dinner, it is not because the food is actually better. It is because at the buffet he gets variety, volume, novelty, and convenience. This is what draws men to porn over pursuing an intimate relationship with their wives: they want a variety of women, they want to binge, they want novel fantasy experiences, and they don’t want the inconvenience of coordinating with another person’s sexual desires and wants. It is sexual gluttony at its worst.”

Gilkerson clarifies that he doesn’t want us to stretch the analogy in the wrong direction: women are not “pieces of meat” or a commodity to be consumed.

The analogy is about the mentality of men: do they see their sexuality as a means of intimacy or do they treat it as a need for which women perform a valuable service? The man who prefers the cheap buffet over the candlelight dinner is evidence of his warped mentality, not evidence that the candlelight dinner is flawed.

What your husband has grown accustomed to is synthetic, industrial, and commercial sex—he has trained his brain for novelty, convenience, and variety, and no one woman can satisfy that kind of craving.

What Now?

If you’re coming to terms with your husband’s porn use and you just don’t know what to do next, I strongly encourage you to download the free guide from Convenant Eyes, Porn and Your Husband.

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

Going further:

• Help! My husband recently disclosed his porn addiction to me.
• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• What does pornography do to marriages? 

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Notes

(*) Matt Fradd works for CovenantEyes.com and is the author of the book Delivered: True Stories of Men and Women Who Turned From Porn to Purity. A popular speaker and Catholic apologist, he has addressed thousands of people around the world and appeared on EWTN, ABC, and the BBC. Matt is also the founder of ThePornEffect.com, which, if you haven’t guessed by now, is dedicated to helping men and women break free from the vice of pornography. He has produced several audio and video resources on pornography and purity, including Taking Down Goliath: Five Strategies to Get Porn Out of Your Life, The Ugly Truth, and The Man Talk (all available from Catholic Answers). He lives in North Georgia, with his wife Cameron and their four children.

Is counseling a must for the porn addict?

Question

I found out my husband was addicted to porn 3 years into our marriage – 13 years ago. He went to counseling, we went to counseling, he went to SA, I went to Sanon – He acted out off and on and struggled on his own. I thought we were free from it at least since 2006. I found out in March that he had been viewing again with the newly acquired Kindle from last year.

All along lying if I would ask… Even now he doesn’t really recognize or admit to the fact that this is hurtful to “us” –our marriage and our family — although he knows it is certainly wrong. He has “given up” everything including all electronics (again) but he “doesn’t need” help or anyone to tell him what to do, nor will he talk about it with me.

If I try to talk or have a reasonable discussion forget it – “I don’t want to talk about it!” is all I hear. We live in a tiny town with little resources for this and also have no way to afford counseling but I would LOVE to have help. Is there even any real hope of true help without the counseling, 12 step group or anything like that? Also, he will not really pray with me although he goes to Mass regularly and has gone to confession since he was found out by me back in March. Besides divine intervention is there any reason I should hope for things to really improve? Who can really know these answers?

Answer

by Dr Peter C. Kleponis*

While it is important to pray for healing, and God does sometimes deliver people from addiction, I don’t believe a person can truly recover from an addiction without participating in a comprehensive recovery program. There are several components needed for an effective recovery program, which I cover in the Integrity Restored Recovery Program. They are:

1. Self-knowledge and Commitment: Admitting one has an addiction, taking responsibility for it, and being fully committed to recovery. This also includes recognizing one’s triggers and developing strategies to avoid acting out.

2 Purifying Your Life: Removing all pornography and any source of pornography from one’s life, and making sure it doesn’t come back. It also includes using Internet filter and accountability systems, guarding one’s eyes, and respecting other people’s bodies.

3. Support and Accountability: Recovery comes through community. An addict needs to surround himself with others who understand the struggle, who will support him, and keep him accountable in recovery. He will do the same for them. This is where 12-step recovery groups are crucial. It is almost impossible to recover from an addiction alone.

4. Counseling: We need to look at the pornography use as the symptom. The real question is: “What is driving the need to compulsively view pornography?” Counseling can help an addict uncover and resolve the root causes of the addiction. This can lead to true healing and lasting sobriety. For couples, marital therapy is needed for healing the marriage.

5. Spiritual Plan: A healthy relationship with God is necessary for recovery. Here an addict realizes how deeply loved his is. He can receive God’s love, healing, mercy, compassion and forgiveness. All of this will give him the strength to persevere and succeed in recovery.

6. Education: As with any issue to overcome, education is necessary for recovery. An addict must understand the addiction and recovery proves. Many addicts are unaware of what healthy sexuality and intimacy are. Education in these areas is also necessary for healthy recovery.

7. Virtue: To fight a vice one must use virtue. The ultimate goal of recovery is not just sobriety, but transformation. This means allowing God to come into one’s life and transform him into a new creation. This happens through prayer and living a virtuous life. This can reinforce the progress one has made in recovery. It also leads to healed relationships.

In a situation like yours, you may need to give your husband an ultimatum. Either he gets help or you are leaving him. Often addicts need to realize how much they stand to lose to get them to commit to a recovery program. This is tough love. You must stand by your convictions.

If he is not willing to get help after receiving an ultimatum, then you will know that pornography is more important to him than his wife and kids. That would not be a healthy environment for you or your kids. Fortunately, when wives are serious about their ultimatums, husbands usually respond positively.

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here for you, via the chat to listen and answer your questions:

Going further:

• Wich path of recovery from porn addiction?
• Help! My husband recently disclosed his porn addiction to me.
• My husband watches porn: is it my fault?

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(1) Dr Peter Kleponis Ph.D. is a Licensed clinical psychotherapist. He’s a faithful Catholic who specializes in helping those struggling to be free of pornography.

A delegation of our association Lights in the Dark, went to Assisi for the beatification of Carlo Acutis. A meeting was planned with his mother, but what was not foreseen was that she proposed to deliver a video message to you! Discover Carlo Acutis’s mother message.

 

Carlo Acutis’s mother message :

The problem is that today, many young people visit pornographic sites. Internet can be a great tool but also be a bad one. Pornography is a plague and it attack people on charity.

It uses people and leads them to have wrong behaviour towards them. Pornography creates problems to young people : problems with their faith, their charity and their affectivity. it is really a bad thing.

Carlo used to warn his friends against pornography. When he died, the diocesan cause took his computer. They have never find a pornographic site on all his browsing history. He was truly pure and purity was very important to him, it meant a lot.

The Virgin Mary insisted a lot on this. When she appeared in Fatima, she said that many souls go to hell for the sin of the flesh. It is very dangerous for your soul !

So it is very important to go to the confession as soon as you fail. If it is to difficult to you, you can go to the confession every day and ask help from heaven. The evil is using this to destroy family, young people. It is truly an attack against charity, faith, hope and all virtues, it is one of his favorite tools.

I like your association which helps young people and all people who are victims of these addictions, it is like a drug. You know, studies show that it creates brain synapses equal to those created by cocaïne… This is really incredible !

I will really pray for your association and for all the people you will help.

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:

• Who is Carlo Acutis?
• When pope Francis spoke to the youth about Carlo
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

Article by Dr. Peter C. Kleponis*, first published with the title Pornography and the Catholic Church, on Theporneffect.com.

The church has much to say about pornography. This is because porn injures the dignity of everyone involved – producers and consumers. 

Sexuality is a wonderful gift from God! It is meant to be shared by a husband and wife as an expression of their love which is unitive and can lead to procreation.

Pornography reduces sex to nothing more than a recreational activity where people are simply used for personal pleasure. With pornography, there is no relationship, love, intimacy, responsibility, unity or openness to new life. People are simply treated as objects. It is a disordered use of sexuality, which can hurt people physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. Use of pornography is a grave sin. It wounds our relationship with God, which can threaten our eternal salvation.

For married people, pornography use is a form of adultery. For single people, pornography use is a form of fornication. Both of these are serious sins.

Pornography offends against chastity, and there are no reasons to justify its use. It’s important to remember that the Church’s sanction against pornography is not meant to be a way of controlling people or preventing them from enjoying life. Quite to the contrary, it is meant to protect people so they can enjoy a healthy life and live it to the fullest!

An offense against chastity

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pornography is an offense against chastity:

“Pornography consists in removing real of simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants, since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involves in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.” CCC 2354.

Masturbation most often accompanies pornography use, but even when it does not, it is an offense against chastity:

“Masturbation is the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” “The deliberate use of sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.”  CCC 3528.

 

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has commented widely on the dangers of pornography use:

• Pornography in the media is a “violation, through the use of audiovisual techniques, of the right to privacy of the human body.” (Pontifical Council for Social Communications, 1989).

• You are aiding a billion-dollar criminal enterprise “Production and dissemination of these materials could not continue if there were not a market for them, so those who use such materials not only do moral harm to themselves but contribute to the continuation of a nefarious trade” (11, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

• You run the risk of carrying over the attitudes and behavior presented in pornography into your own relationships and may begin to lack reverence and respect for others (13, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

• Even so called “soft porn” can have a progressively desensitizing effect, gradually rendering you morally numb and personally insensitive to the rights and dignity of others. Exposure to pornography can be habit forming and lead you to seek increasingly “hard core” and perverse material (14, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

• It can interfere with personal moral growth and the development of healthy and mature relationships, especially in marriage and family life, where mutual trust and openness and personal moral integrity are so important. (15, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

• When sexual activity and/or pornography is used for personal gratification rather than as an expression of enduring love in marriage, it becomes a factor contributing to the undermining of wholesome family life (16, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

• In the worst cases, pornography can act as an inciting or reinforcing agent, a kind of accomplice, in the behavior of dangerous sex offenders – child molesters, rapists and killers (17, Pontifical Council for Social Communications).

Bishops of the Catholic Church have also warned against the dangers of pornography:

• “The problem with pornography is not that it reveals too much of the person (exposed in the image), but that it reveals too little of the person. The person in the image is reduced to their sexual organs and sexual faculties and is thereby de-personalized.” Bishop Robert Finn. Blessed Are The Pure In Heart: A Pastoral Letter on the Dignity of the Human Person and the Dangers of Pornography, February 21, 2007.

• “Perhaps worst of all, however, is the damage that pornography does to man’s “template” for the supernatural… How can we understand the supernatural sight God desires for us – i.e. the contemplation of God in the beatific vision – once our natural sight has been damaged and distorted?” Bishop Paul S. Loverde. Bought With A Price : Every Man’s Duty to Protect Himself and His Family From a Pornographic Culture, 2014

The Catholic Church in her infinite wisdom has always viewed sexuality as a beautiful gift that is reserved for marriage. To use sex in any other way corrupts God’s plan and can only lead to heartache.

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:

• What does pornography do to marriages?
• Will marriage resolve my pornography addiction?
• My husband watches porn: is it my fault?

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Notes

Dr. Peter C. Kleponis Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Therapist and Assistant Director of Comprehensive Counseling Services in West Conshohocken, PA.

The consequences of porn on your health… both mental and physical

We can’t lie to ourselves: the consequences of porn on our mental and physical health are both numerous and serious…

 

1. Loss of sexual performancee

According to neurobiologist Jean-Didier Vincent, author of The Devil and the Flesh (1) consumption of pornographic pictures produces too much dopamine, which then accumulates and leads to the desensitisation of our sensory receptors. It’s as if they stop responding so well in the wake of insisting so much, which in turn leads to the reduction of sexual performance during intercourse. The imagination, muddled by incessant and pervasive images, inhibits our experience of reality and real sexual interaction. In this way, porn has disastrous and destructive consequences on the sexual intimacy within a couple and people’s self-confidence.

2. For guys, it’s a bad example which degrades the image of woman (and vice versa)

Stripped of the sentiments of love, pornographic pictures and videos ridicule the true needs of a woman in the sexual domain. It’s something which is absolutely not taken into account in porn: the importance of preliminary caresses, and the need for gentleness and tenderness, eg. Boys whose sexual education is provided by X-rated films will treat their partners bluntly. In this way, pornography engenders sexual violence, sometimes escalating to rape: which is the complete opposite of a sexuality which is responsible for and respectful of the other.

3. For girls, it provokes an imitation game (and vice versa)

Pornographic websites traffic a vision of sexuality where only the performance counts, often embellishing sexual frolics for an audience. Girls are all too often persuaded they should be “sexy and docile” with their partners, and so start emptily searching to compete with “porn-stars”. They take on the role of the compliant “sex-friend” concerned about staying in the game!

They believe they have to multiply their sexual encounters, using increasingly racy positions – sadomasochism etc. also to be open to partner-swapping or similar risky behaviour.

Those who don’t react by treating men like a piece of meat, as porn would have it, find themselves trapped, frustrated in their need for female sensual pleasure. So they turn away from men, preferring women. In this situation we are so far away from understanding and learning the true gift of self, within respect of our bodies, which will enables us to offer what we have best, to the other. And if they remain heterosexual, a high number of young women simply don’t want to have sex anymore, as explained by Gynaecologist Pia de Reilhac, President of the National Federation of the Colleges of Medical Gynaecology, warning us of the influence of X-rated films on the sexual life of young adults (2):

“More and more young women are telling us they don’t experience pleasure with their partners. We are observing a great distress. Some of them confide in me saying, “I don’t want to have sex anymore”, “I don’t have pleasure anymore”, “it’s rubbish”, “they’re all the same”. These young women, who aren’t even 25yrs old, don’t like to make love with their partner, who tries to imitate porn actors.”

4. Porn, a habit which quickly becomes an addiction

In France, Psychoanalysts estimate the number of victims of sex addiction at 5%, including physical addiction to real sex, and addiction to pornography (3).

Porn follows the classic schema of any addiction, which is characterised by:

• requent impossibility to control a behaviour aiming to produce pleasure
• carrying out this behaviour despite knowing its negative consequences.

We are talking about addiction:

• when the need outweighs the desire, when having sensations replace having a relationship.
• when behaviours with the potential for pleasure become compulsive, and obtaining pleasure or relieving tension is made a priority.
• when passion generated by this addiction overwhelms reason.

Like any addiction, porn drives us fatally to increasingly “hardcore” practices. Easily accessed thanks to the availability of the internet, the spiral is infernal.

As in any addictive process, and the consumption of porn is no different, behaviour is modified progressively, following a series of steps:

Unlike drugs, porn addiction won’t result in an overdose causing immediate death, however, it will end up isolating the individual, driving them to have a sexual “burn-out” and even provoking clinical depression, which carries its own load of consequences on the physical and mental health of the person, including suicide, not to mention the direct effect on the people around them (violence).

So how can you break out of it?

• Porno : comment s’en sortir ? (la vidéo complète)

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

Going further:

• How does porn effect society ?
• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• Porn: What’s the problem?

 

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Notes

(1) “La Chair et le Diable”, éditions Odile Jacob, Paris, France.

(2) Source : Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui en France (french newspaper) : Sexualité des jeunes adultes : “La pornographie fait des dégâts graves”

(3) Source : Santé Magazine (french magazine).