At a very young age, I saw a girl playmate bent over with a dress on, and she didn’t have any underpants on. I didn’t know what sex was then, but I knew I wanted to see more. In my teens, I found Playboys, and any other girlie magazines I could. Some friends and I decided that, when we turned 18, we were going to an X rated theater. They still had those, then. We did, and after that, I found video stores that had them. I became popular with my friends, because I knew all the “best” ones that were out at that time. This was a big deal, because I was picked on a lot as a kid. They became more easily available. And then the internet was born. I found all I could for free. If the internet was as big then, as it is now, I probably would have become totally immersed in it. Fortunately, I married a loving, Christian woman, and realized the magnitude of the problem I had. I found help, and have been able to be set free of this garbage. The temptations still come, with an occasional slip. But, I am not captivated by it any more. Praise God!!!!
I was playing with a friend in a park and someone threw boxes of porn magazines away in a dumpster. I cannot remember why we climbed in there but I think we thought it was empty or something. We saw a box with magazines in there. We looked at them because we were curious. It felt wrong to look so after a little bit we turned some over to not show the pictures. During this time I was being molested by a step-father so I didn’t discover it was really wrong until I was older, about 9. CPS(child protective services) said since he didn’t remember molesting me because he thought I was my mom and he was blacked out, it was “ok”. It is never ok to molest someone. When I was 13 I was dared with some friends to watch a pornographic movie; I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I could not stand to watch something like that.I am totally against pornography and when my children come to age or when we start watching tv again, we will talk to our children about sex, pornography, and how media makes it more easily accessible. Then we will take the steps to set up their own account with filters so they may not come accros it when they start going online.
I saw two magazines under my uncle’s bed when visiting with my cousin, along with a couple sports magazines. I looked at them that time, and then one more time. But I was so convicted by God in my heart and felt the dirtiness of it, that I repented and next time found them and without looking at them, I tore them into shreds and threw them away. I never saw porn again. I’m 39 now. (I’m very fortunate though, because I had a strong prayer covering over my life. I could’ve easily been more susceptible to this if I hadn’t, just like any man.)
It ruined my first marriage and now my current relationship is pretty much finished. My partner has no interest in me and spends all his time looking at teen porn (there is NO WAY those girls are 18 they look 12)!
I found stack of magazines in a vacant lot on my way home from school. I was11 years old. I was unable to avoid it once I had looked through the stack. I hid them and went back to them often till they were ruined by rain. After that when ever there was an opportunity to look at it, I was helpless to avoid it.
As a teen I was big for my age and could pass for an adult. I was able to go in strip clubs and see the dancers. This led to the porn movies and years offrustration and depression. When I got married I committed to not look at or use porn any more.
There was short time when my wife and I did it together thinking it would help our love making. We quit that because it made things worse.
We have been married for32 years and have raised 7 children. We avoid porn like the plague that it is.
I was raped at 14 by my ex and his bio-brother and bio-father, who are R.S.O.’s, and went through Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence for 7 1/2 years because NO ONE would help me get me AND my boys out of the situation. I knew they had also done something to my oldest son at one point when they’d kidnapped him from me, but ‘couldn’t prove it’. I got out of that only to marry someone I’d known Through Church over 3 yrs, who began behaving the same way behind closed doors. I was pregnant, but that marriage didn’t last but 3 wks. I left the area 9mos. pregnant with my daughter, never to look back again. However, the first experience (and it’s family) continue to haunt me and my family. I’m in that area again and stuck due to finances. My 18yr old son finally revealed to DCFS what his father did, but they protect Them instead of us! They showed up on Facebook not shortly after the revealing and I believe they are stalking me and my family again, but no one cares…Again!!!
As child my neighbor showed pornigraphy to me and also some of my friends as a gateway to molesting us and raping one of my friends. He used it to convince us that what he did with us was ok and “normal.”
Pornography was one of the reasons, why I decided to divorce. My formal husband first respectet my whish not to have this sh.. in our house, because I hate it and we are christs, but few years after marriage I found this sh.. even more and worse in our house while cleaning. And it were not soft-cores anymore! He wathed hardcore, teens, anal a.s.o.! I understood, that he’ll never learn to respect me and women at all, althought he calls himself catholic. I prayed and waited some years, then I was gone with our baby.
I enjoy pornography from time to time. I think if the participants are willing there’s no harm in it being made. And I think if the viewers aren’t addicts there’s nothing wrong with watching now and then. I think people who are so intensely opposed to porn have been raised overly religiously and are terrified of sex in any and all forms.
I wish I could take back all my wasted time. It sucked 4 years of my life away. I lost an opportunity that I had worked 5 years toward. The threat of a relapse nearly broke me away from the most wonderful woman in the world. I still live in fear that I will go back into that old addiction. After all this time I can still feel the corrosive effect it had on my mind; a jagged hole that hurts every time I think about what I gave up, what I wasted, just to look at something to stimulate my passion.Don’t think for a minute that it won’t find an opportunity to rear its ugly head; even filtered searches for innocent terms can occasionally have something slip by. I wish I had had the foresight to install a filter on my computer… by 16 I was in charge of updating my antivirus software, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to add a web filter as well. Most parent’s don’t realize how pervasive it is. No matter how much you trust your children it is still essential that you have a barrier in place in case their own mental barriers aren’t strong enough.
When I was 14, I was told by an acquaintance at school to go to a specific website that he gave me the URL for. I could tell by the name that it wasn’t something I would be going to when I got home, but even after all these years I can still feel it branded into my memory. And that is just a link that I didn’t even look up at the time (I didn’t look it up till after I had already been caught by pornography)–the imagery that I saw in later id a thousand times worse.
I can never go back to what I was before I started viewing pornography. I will always be far behind my potential–what I could have been. I can feel the damage it did to me still festering in the back of my mind. I can be strong enough today not to look at it, but there is a constant worry that I may not be strong enough tomorrow.
I may live a life in fear of the future, but I still hope for a better one, and work every day to find it.
I am a mom of two girls. I have never approved of porn and think it should be taxed to the highest. But for my story. I was married for sixteen years my youngest daughter is totally disabled. My husband and I started drifting apart only about 6 months after we were married. At the time I did not understand why, He bought his own laptop and had his own password so no one could get in on it. He would push me away if I came close to him,he kept to himself all the time looking at the laptop.One of my children caught him downloading porn early one Sunday morning before he got ready to go to church! Needless to say we are divorced,he is alone and my daughter lives with me. This filth has ruined him and this family to this day he is alone watching porn. He has lost all desire to be close to a woman. This is sad and for the life of me I can’t understand why the gov. is taxing the american people to death.When they could tax the porn industry so much more.As to take a burden off of the american family possibly shutting down some of the industries wIth HIGH TAXES..
Finding pornography at home in my brothers room got lodged in my mind at an early age, then I came across it time and time again at friends house and elsewhere & it almost appeared glamorous and I thought I mght get involved one day. I know it’s wrong now, but for many years it lead me down a path where I was pretty much open to sex when I was younger, as well as drugs, etc. – it kind of numbs you to the point where you don’t respect your own body and for me, I didn’t realize what I was doing or where I was headed until I was much older and my best years had been foolishly wasted!
I still remember the first time I saw a pornographic video. I was about 13 years old and my friend brought a pornographic video over to the house for us to watch while my parents were still at work. I was shocked by it, and I still remember the scenes depicted in the movie.
When I was 16, another friend lent me several pornographic videos that I watched in secret when my parents weren’t home. Suddenly, the videos weren’t so shocking, and I began to watch these videos over and over.
A couple of months later, I started to masturbate. I would either masturbate to images that I remembered from watching the videos, or through my imagination. From then on, I masturbated regularly for several years and continued to watch pornography.
After time, my mind became fixated on sexual acts and I was totally absorbed. I wanted to see sex for real, which gave birth to my struggle with voyeurism.
When I went to college, the internet explosion occurred and there were plenty of sites to visit. I would masturbate to large amounts of pornography and my voyeurism started spinning out of control. I would hide out in back of the girl’s dormitories to watch them undress, and in my insanity not even realize what I was doing. Masturbation became so compulsive that I did it in public places to the point of where I was doing it several times a day.
Later in my freshman year of college, I began dating my first girlfriend. We became increasingly physical in our relationship, yet despite this I persisted in my other habits while we were together. When we broke up at the beginning of our Senior year of college I was devastated. Fortunately, I had many Christian friends so I dove headlong into my faith. As a result, I was able to reduce my pornography usage, voyeurism, and masturbation, yet it continued to be a struggle well into my professional career.
I moved away from home and lived alone for 6 years. My pornography usage spun out of control and could not stop. My view of women totally deteriorated into sexual objects. The porn I looked at became increasingly aggressive in nature, depicting woman getting dominated and humiliated by groups of men.
I was living a double life; I would dress sharply and go to work, presenting myself as an upstanding individual, but I was rotting from the inside out. finally realized that my obsession with pornography and masturbation was taking a huge negative toll in my life and affected me in all the areas of my life.
I came to realize that I could not control my behaviors anymore, so again I turned to my faith to try to end my lifestyle.
Over the next couple of years, I had some breakthroughs in combatting my sexual addictions, however, it wasn’t until I was in a meeting with my then fiance’ and pastor because I only told her about my issues with sexual addiction shortly after we got engaged. It was then that I realized that I needed professional help to end my addiction. I began attending SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous), where I met many people like myself who struggled with the same issues, and I got the name of a therapist who specialized in treating sexual addiction.
From then on, I had to take a multi-faceted approach to arresting my addiction through attendance at SLAA meetings, weekly therapy, and spiritual guidance in my faith. Over time, I was able to drastically reduce masturbation and pornography because I had literally began to re-program my mind from the devastation pornography had caused. Today, I am proud to say that I have only looked at pornography a total of about 4 times in the past 3 years, and it has been over 3 years since I last masturbated.
Despite my successes, I still have to use an internet filter on my home computer, and be held accountable by several people in my support network to reduce the urge to look at pornography again. Simply put, pornography is a DRUG, albeit a powerful one, that has led to the demise of many men and women alike.
In my 5 years in recovery, I have seen people go to jail, be estranged from their families, contract STD’s, go through divorces, and literally lose everything due to sexual addictions which more often than not were preceded by pornography addiction.
I say with undoubted certainty that pornography IS the gateway drug to all sexual crimes, and it WILL lead people into a never-ending downward spiral if not dealt with. Again, I have witnessed this firsthand. I am very blessed to have a supportive wife and the people who have helped me maintain sobriety.
It is my hope that those who read this will find the strength to begin recovery if they are in pornography’s snares, and to shed light on the devastating effects of pornography addiction.
I believe there is nothing wrong with sexual things except for the following. In those not yet at a stage where puberty is well underway, sexual arousal in any form creates an unhealthy fixation on sexual things. To put it in an analogy, younger people are spoiled with the “dessert” (physical/sexual things) of relationships. This makes the “bread and veggies” (emotions, feelings, spirit, etc) seem like necessary evils. When in fact the patient cultivation of these is the greatest high you’ll find. Dessert has its place in every diet. But if you eat it first, the rest is less appealing. The key with “dessert” is enjoying it at the appropriate time. Appropriate meaning “suitable for a particular purpose” and not necessarily socially acceptable.
In short, sexual arousal should compliment spiritual and emotional closeness with another person. Otherwise you’re numbed to spiritual intimacy. “You aren’t a body. You are a spirit. You have a body.”
Pornography, as with any addictive substance, starts out small and seemingly harmless, but then quickly consumes your time and/or money, and can eventually rob you of any respect toward your fellow man, let alone your willingness to interact with others.
Exposure at an early (or ANY) age creates a totally false & inappropriate outlook about sex. It’s a horrible addiction that can be fed all too easily today … in fact, it’s almost impossible to avoid.
Yes,
Simply put, It all started with just one little joke. I started playing around with masturbation then wanted the high to be higher and found that Porn does that.
I am a porn addict. With the grace of God, a loving wife , and blocking software, I am doing MUCH better. However, those images are burned into my mind, and it is a demon I will have to actively deal with the rest of my life.
I first discovered porn at about 13 and within a year I was addicted to veiwing thing on the computer, videos and magazines. this addiction became worse over the years and progressed into different types of porn and interests including homosexuality. After I was married, it became a sex addiction in which I began to meet up with other men (sometime 3-4 a week.) In 2008, I hit rock bottom when I was forcibly raped and entered into sex addiction treatment. I have been sober for 4 years and I am looking for opportunities to help others with similar experiences.
Starting a relationship with God is the only way for the shackles to break off your hands and feet when it comes to porn addiction. God’s love, grace and mercy are what saved me and He delivered me from my addiction 1 year ago. Once in a while I still struggle with lust, but when I do I tell my friends and pastor about it and I ask God for forgiveness and for Him to clean my heart. Once you have a relationship with Christ, you realize that porn is worthless.
I’m older so the internet wasn’t an option. My friend took his fathers magazines and showed me. I instantly was drawn into them. I was so young I had no idea how to deal with the emotions I was feeling and it became an addiction. I have done things that I am not proud of because of it. It took time to come to realize the true magnitude of the addiction. My life since then has been a struggle to stay clean. The internet and ease of access has only compounded the problem. After being married and having sons I saw that it wasn’t a personal battle. It has affected my wife and I but she has been there to strengthen me. After discovering my boy had a problem it was devastating. I have maintained a strict firewall in the home and we talk about it. This has given both of us strength to continue. We are far from cured. Unlike drugs, you can’t detox from porn. You can’t unsee what has been seen.I think I heard it best described as “First impressions are lasting impressions”. I saw unrealistic sex so early in life that that has been the bar or expectation I subconsciously have set for my current love life. Knowing this helps but the damage is done. I love my wife but she doesn’t meet my expectations in bed. She is not to fault, my porn addiction is.
I have been clean for quite some time now but I see the triggers all the time. Not acting is the only defense.
There is much much more to my story. I will fight on. I will, I must!
I am a woman who has struggled with a pornography addiction. It confused me for a long time. I tried to stop, but couldn’t, then it was no longer confusing, it was scary. I was not sexually active before I was married, and I thought that when I did get married and became sexually active it would not be a problem any more. I was wrong. I finally admitted my problem to my spouse and he was very loving about it. I went to counseling and I’ve been clean for one and a half years. I feel so much better.
Exposed to it when I was 5, irregular exposure to softcore pornography until 12, regular hardcore pornography consumer for years, habituated by late high school, saved from it at age 22.
Friend exposed me as a young girl. As a married woman, found out my hysband was addicted. He has tried to over come for years. Two years he had a salvation experience and has been able to kick it. He is still very tempted and it is hard. We do to great lengths to keep it out of our home and lives. However, his addiction exposed our own dear daughter when she was about 7. For 3 years, she was exposed and didn’t tell us until it was too late. OUr family has been devastated b/c of this evil stuff. My husband is discouraged and hates himself, I hate myself and am always dissatisfies at how I look, and my daughter told me she now struggles with lust. EVIL!!!
NCOSE leads the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation with over 300 member organizations.
100+
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has had over 100 policy victories since 2010. Each victory promotes human dignity above exploitation.
93
NCOSE’s activism campaigns and victories have made headlines around the globe. Averaging 93 mentions per week by media outlets and shows such as Today, CNN, The New York Times, BBC News, USA Today, Fox News and more.
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93
NCOSE’s activism campaigns and victories have made headlines around the globe. Averaging 93 mentions per week by media outlets and shows such as Today, CNN, The New York Times, BBC News, USA Today, Fox News and more.
100+
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has had over 100 policy victories since 2010. Each victory promotes human dignity above exploitation.
300+
NCOSE leads the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation with over 300 member organizations.
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