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

Ten pitfalls of porn: oups!

Did you know? Porn has at least ten traps extremely difficult to get out of… a good reason to watch out for them, to avoid falling in!

1. Porn creates a “culture” of base sex and impulse. It’s a flourishing commerce, multiplying itself to infinity via today’s access to the internet (we’re talking about one third of all connections).
2. Porn reduces sexuality to genitals and orgasm (close-ups, sound effects, etc.), to animalistic practices, obscenities, aggressions. It reduces people to their genitals and turns them into objects for consumption.
3. Porn crushes the richness of sexuality and love. It destroys the intimacy of loving and joyful relationships. (And so differs entirely from eroticism).
4. Porn poisons the spirit with fantasies which invade the imagination. Like a computer virus, it paralyses any reflex of self-consideration or self-control.
5. Porn portrays the image of sexual parts (size XXL) and sexual performance, as the norm, or as an example to take, especially for young people who are at the important age of asking questions about their sexuality. Some become obsessed (+ consequences: acting on impulse, premature ejaculation, etc.); others go through revulsion or inhibition, performance anxiety. For children, porn is equivalent to mental rape, and can leave them traumatised.
6. Porn imprisons you in an endless spiral of masturbation, degradation, psychological slavery, shame, guilt, isolation, often depression…
7. Porn makes you “porn-dependent” or a “porn-addict”. It’s as tyrannical as alcohol or drugs (cocaine, heroin…). It finishes by RUINING the life, work, relationships, and the finances of its consumers.
8. Porn ignites your primary impulses. Why are we surprised at the dramatic increase in STIs? It pushes people towards crimes of a sexual nature: rape, paedophilia, incest. (So many rapists recreate in reality what they’ve seen in the porn they’ve been watching.)
9. Porn recreates the conditions of slavery, as much as for the consumers as for the “porn girls”.
10. Porn is a trap!

PORN = TRAP + DRUG + POISON + SLAVERY + HELL

So how can we make a stand against these pitfalls?

Outsmart them! Tear out the porn from your life. Delete images and internet links. Flee anything that leads you in that direction!

“If your right eye (pictures or films!) causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell”

– Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, chapter 5, verse 29

Ask the only true liberator, Jesus, to get you out! There is a prayer for deliverance from porn addiction on this site, which you can ask for online through the chat’ (anonymous and free discussion) :

Going further:

• Porn: What’s the problem?
• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• What does pornography do to women ?

 

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Source: freely adapted from the brochure for teenagers Succeeding in your love and sexual life (“Réussir ta vie sentimentale et sexuelle“), by Brother Jean-Benoît Casterman, Editions des Béatitudes.

 

Getting out of porn? Some quick tips!

You want to get out of porn ? Here are some quick and practical tips to quit your addiction !

1. Talking about it. (it’s at least a start)

Talk about it with one of your relatives, your friends or anyone who’s kind with you, who will not judge you and will encourage you : because, alas, porn is truly an addiction which locks you up and makes you feel sad. 

2. Getting some help (it’s essential)

It’s quite impossible to win this war by yourself : this is the reason why you need some help. You can find some specific help – as on this website- or a more regular one -with a priest’s help, for the spiritual aspects of this fight. You can too find help with a therapist, some of them know particularly well the subject, and will receive in consultations. Unfortunately, a lot of people face the same difficulties as you do. Don’t be afraid to knock at their door ! 

3. Confession use

This is for the spiritual side : if you’ve been baptized, leave your addiction into Jesus’ arms. Go and see the same priest for confession, each time you’re falling. It will be a good help ! Unlike family dishes, the more you go to confession, the less it wears out. And the more you receive God’s help to go through ! And if you’re not baptized, well, ask for baptism ! (Just come and talk with us on the Chat, you’ll see, being christian changes life!)

4. Ask for the sacrament of the sick.

And, why not ? After all, if you feel overwhelmed, unable to resist in front of this addiction ? Talk with your priest, knowing that you certainly could receive this sacrament discreetly. The gifts received to face your problem will be  numerous.

5. Following a healing journey

Several of them exist and are very well made and are free. We strongly recommand the  journey « Free to love »,that can be followed by e-mail (find out more)

6. Ask for a deliverance prayer

We offer one of them on this website ! Warning, this is not a magical formula, but it can help a lot, and, if God wants it, it can heal you too !

What about you ? Where are you now on that subject ? Come and talk with us on the « Live Chat » !  (Anonymous and free listening). 

 

Going further:

• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• “Jesus delivered me from porn”

What is porn? Good question!

“The people are more easily enslaved with pornography, than with watchtowers”

– Alexandre Soljenitsyne

The word pornography comes from the Greek words pornê: prostitute and graphein: describe. Up until a century ago, pornography was limited to describing sexual encounters with prostitutes.

This has almost nothing in common with what we can find on the internet today: paedophilia, scatophiliac, bestiality, sadomasochism, rape etc. We cannot yet measure the fallout of the X-rated world, and the consequences this new drug has on the brain. It concerns perverseness and machoism towards women.

• Read also : What does pornography do to women ?

People imagine the life of “X-rated” stars to be the stuff of dreams, thinking they take pleasure in making hardcore films. This is entirely false, as Shelley Lubben, an american former actress testifies in her autobiography.

Besides, increasing numbers of health professionals are warning against the serious damage caused by porn in young people.

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

Lastly, from the point of view of society, it’s disastrous…

• Read also : How does porn effect society ?

All is not lost! We can be healed from porn; we can even find God!

• See video: Ex-porn star finds Jesus, quits adult film industry

And you, what do you think? What is porn? Come and talk to us through the live chat (anonymous and free discussion):

Going further:

• Porn: What’s the problem?
• Ran Gavrieli: “Why I stopped watching porn”
• “Jesus delivered me from porn”

 

Etienne gives his amazing testimony, healed from pornography addiction… through a prayer!

I fell into the torments of pornography during adolescence. One day, rifling through my parents’ stuff, I found pornography and erotic magazines. These images had a weird effect on me: I was shocked by them but they excited my curiosity, they provided material for masturbation, which I had been indulging in for a few months. I also clearly felt the desire to go further, always searching for more intense images.

Growing up, I rooted my daily life in a virtual sexuality. But it wasn’t easy. In the 1980s, internet and smartphones didn’t exist. Pornography or erotic magazines weren’t that easy to buy. And you had to hide them, to avoid being caught. Then I met my wife during my studies. I quickly saw that our relationship was going to be serious. Once we’d decided to commit to each other for life, we naturally felt the need to ask for the Sacrament of Marriage.

I didn’t say anything to her about the addiction I was suffering from. I was ashamed about the whole situation. I didn’t dare talk to her about it because I was afraid she was going to think I was a pervert. Also, I thought that with her touch I would change and I could be delivered from this dependence. But I carried on using pornography.

There was a duplicity in my sex life: on one side, I was a good man, serious and responsible, and on the other I was a person on a constant quest for new pictures to satisfy my senses. From the year 2000, the internet started appearing in people’s houses. This arrival unfortunately marked a new step in my mess. From that point on, I could access virtual sex at home. I didn’t need to buy or hide magazines anymore. It accelerated my consummation and my addiction. I always needed more. And the final nail in the coffin was getting hold of my first smartphone: with that, I could take a window into this dark world with me, wherever I went. I didn’t even need to get in front of my computer anymore. I felt like I was able to build a virtual world into which I would dive, without having to confront reality.

The more I used “hardcore” pictures, the more I felt unsatisfied. I always needed more. The more I sank into pornography, the more I felt sad and unhappy. The images I saw were imprinted on my memory and often disgusted me. I realised it was harming me and in turn I was hurting my wife. I also realised that the image I had of women in general had been perverted. But I had the impression I was the only one suffering such a slavery. The consequences were numerous: shame, tiredness, a spiral of increasingly obscene images, weight gain, stress, damaged libido, all disturbing my married life.

I knew I had to stop. I was conscious of the fact this situation couldn’t go on. I envied everyone who had a normal life. I tried so many times to stop. But each attempt was a failure. I fell once again into this dark world. It was a nightmare for me to have been stuck in an addiction like this my whole life. The idea of growing old, still with this shortcoming, terrified me. This is why I wanted to close down this double life. And I still didn’t dare talk about it with my wife, who didn’t suspect a thing.

Even if I had faith, it didn’t occur to me to call on the Lord for help. In my head, God only called good people to himself, those who are perfect, with no ugly baggage. I thought the evil of pornography was too bad for God to be interested in me.

 

In April 2013, my wife made me read an article on a novena “Mary, undoer of knots”. At that time, we were facing serious professional concerns, and she suggested we offer this novena to Mary, for this intention. I accepted. Mary gave us so much more than what we asked for. A few days later, and without telling my wife, I decided to personally consecrate another novena to Mary, undoer of knots, for deliverance from my addiction. Internally, I called on Our Lady: “Mary, if you’re able help us with our work problems, then please help me again, and free me from pornography.”

From only the second day of the novena, I felt a peace: I no longer experienced a need to look at pornography websites. I had been healed of my dependence and I thanked Our Lady for saving me through asking her Son to help me.

I kept this joy a secret in my heart, without talking to my wife. Something had changed, but she didn’t know what it was all about. The vision I had of my wife and of women in general wasn’t the same… A verse from the Gospel of Saint John resonated in my heart: “The truth will set you free”. And I wished so much to rediscover this freedom in our couple.

Six months after being delivered from my addiction, I decided to speak to my wife. The revelation was a shock to her. She was hurt by it. She felt betrayed, retrospectively, and she was angry with me. Also, she blamed herself, for not having noticed anything and not having done anything to help me. She needed time to process it all. We offered it to the Lord in prayer. Being rooted in the Sacrament of Marriage enabled us to overcome this trial. Christ filled us with his peace. We often evoke the Gospel chosen for our wedding (Saint Matthew 7:24-27): “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock”.

We came through it, thanks to God. In fact, our relationship was strengthened by it. We gave testimony about what had happened to us. By being open to speaking about it, many people have since confided in us their past or present suffering, on the subject.

I also understood that the Lord came to save those who were lost, and my pride made me believe he couldn’t save sinners, or those who are ill or crippled. “But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Gospel according to Saint Matthew 9:12-13)

So, what do you think about it? Do you want to try to pray to be delivered from this addiction? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service)

Going further:

• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• Joseph, ex-porn addict: “One day, I thought to myself: you’re not happy!”
• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?

 

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(*) Source : YouEternity.com

We are ready to listen to you!

Listening to you and talking together? We, the volunteers, often get asked why we offer to speak directly with you. The answer is simple: every person is worthy of being listened to, understood, helped, encouraged.

Perhaps you’re not sure if you’re loved. Maybe you even blame yourself; you don’t think you’re worthy of love or attention, or fellowship or simply-speaking, a relationship with anyone anymore.

However, there is someone who loves you more than anything, who has desired you to be, since eternity. He knows the number of hairs on your head, he has written your name on the palm of his hand.

His name is God. Yes, I know, you’re going to say that maybe you don’t believe in him. But it doesn’t matter: at the very least, we are here for you, in a visible way, here at SOSPorn.org, to listen to you. It’s as simple as that.

We care of you!

If we are here, it’s because we are interested in you. We have compassion for you, whatever difficulties or suffering you are going through. It’s our role as Christians: never to make you feel guilty, but to listen, which comes back, in a way, to loving you.

We want to reach out to you. Not asking for anything in return. We don’t expect anything from you other than a simple dialogue, equal to equal. Human being to human being. To talk together. Perhaps finding the right words to describe the pain in your life. Because if you don’t talk to us, how can we listen?

And then, and only then. And only if you want to, we suggest turning towards Him, whom you might not believe in but who did however send us to you, here on this Internet page. It’s plain to see. And maybe it’ll give you some peace, who knows? In any case, it won’t cost you anything to try: dare to have this experience with us!

What is there to stop you from talking about your problems with someone who cares? Come and talk to us through the chat (anonymous and free listening service) :

Going further:

• What’s wrong with looking at pornography?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• François’s recovery from a 25-year porn addiction.