Four ways of living with pornography

To those of us who struggle with pornography, and other sexual problems and compulsions, there is always a heavy tension in our lives between what we feel on the inside and what we have been doing with our lives. Inwardly, we want to be the kind of person that could be fully known by others. We crave intimate experiences, relationships and friendships. We crave transparency–to be accepted for who we are. But we know that, with the exception of a few, this cannot be. That’s because we understand that the moment others become aware of how extensively involved we have become with our pornography and sexually compulsive behaviors all sorts of unpleasant consequences may arise. Our friends may have drinking or gambling problems that are thought to be unfortunate; but, pornography is a problem that instantly marks us as perverted. We feel perverted because we cannot explain our apparent constant need to drink in the images and videos. Some of us have long passed the innocent stages of pornography that involved an occasional peek here and there and the images we crave now are truly hideous. Though we may have a carefully crafted exterior that makes look like we have it all together, each of us wonders what others around us would really think of us if they only knew.

As one who was fully engulfed in pornography for more than 15 years, here are the four ways I found that people, like myself and others use, to live with pornography. All of them involve intentional choices on our part.

We can change our beliefs.

Thoughts begin slowly and innocently. We build our belief system one thought at a time. We start with one thought, which attracts another and another until we have a fairly elaborate structure of beliefs in place. In the beginning, when I would slip around to look at an occasional image or video, I hardly gave it a thought. When I did, I would rationalize with something like, “Hey, I’m just a normal guy–everybody does this.” This was the foundation for the pattern I would build. If I heard counter thoughts that condemned behaviors such as mine, I would become rather indignant and mentally question the right that other people had to pass judgment. Later, as I became really engulfed in porn, and was seeking it on a daily basis for multiple hours, I had a much more elaborate system of thinking to rationalize what I was doing. Here are some of the thoughts I used to justify my actions:

• I love the human body.
• I’m a collector.
• I just have more needs than others.
• It’s my constitutional right to do whatever I want as long as it hurts no one.
• People who want to tell me what to do have bigger problems than I have.
• I’m not hurting anyone.
• Others, like my wife, just don’t understand.
• I can do this and still have a great relationship with my wife.
• This will actually make me a better lover.
• I’ll take the things I learn and use it in my relationship.
• Sure I spend a lot of time doing this, but others waste their time on television or sports.
• Just because I look at these pictures everyday doesn’t mean I have a problem–I’m just doing what I enjoy doing.
• Some people like golf, I like this.
• There is nothing wrong with it.
• God doesn’t really care.
• It’s just a harmless fantasy–nothing more.
• Society is too prudish, I’m beyond Victorian thinking and values.
• Live and let live. If I want to look at stuff like this–what’s it to you!
• If you don’t like what I’m looking at–look at something else and leave me alone.
• If I have a problem with this–then so do millions of other people!
• The people who participate in the sex industry are more open minded than most people.
• Even though I participate in all of this I know that on the inside I’m a good person–I don’t care what others may say.
• You can’t judge what people are like by what they like or what they do.
• I could stop this anytime I want… so I don’t have a problem.
• I’ve stopped doing this many times before… so I don’t have a problem.
• Sure, I may feel weird doing this–but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.

There were hundreds of other thoughts as well that I constantly used to fall back upon to justify my habits. The interesting thing was: It was always ME talking to my inner ME. It was like I had to constantly invent reasons so that I could keep on doing what the things I was doing in secret. Even though I gave 15 years of “reasons” I still felt uneasy about the grip my sexual compulsions had in my life. It didn’t feel right. In the end, I was not able to change my thinkingNo matter how I tried to change my thinking–

We can change our behaviors.

The first behavior change was participating in this stuff in the first place. I did it out of a sense of curiosity and excitement and wanting to try something different. Later, I would try and change my behavior the other way. I would try to quit. I would experience some initial success and get very excited. Then, I would lose my fervor and return to my old habits. In the fifteen years I was heavily involved, I think the longest I ever stayed stopped was four months. And even then, I was not fully stopped by the definition I would use today–I just was less involved. Here are some of the things I tried to do to change my behavior.

• I made a lot of promises that I would quit doing the things I was doing.
• I read a lot of books on the subject of quitting habitual behavior.
• I saw multiple therapists and would talk about this problem from time to time.
• I would become more involved in my religion.
• I would quit–cold turkey.
• I would pray more, read my Bible more, study more, attend church more.
• I would seek help from internet forums.
• And my favorite, I wore rubber bands on my wrists and snapped them!

I was like the yo-yo dieter. I tried any number of things and they never worked for long. Mostly I would try something, and then start right back up again. There were many times that I started back within an hour of making a huge resolution that “I was done for good.”

We can cope by living in denial and delusion.

Denial and delusion is different from trying to change our thinking. By this time, we are actually suffering from our behaviors. Our lives and personalities are changing–only we don’t recognize that anything has happened to us. When others may confront us about our dysfunctional emotions from time-to-time, we cannot see that they have a point to be made. We have an excuse for everything and tell ourselves that WE are ok but OTHERS have problems. Here are some common denials and delusions that I’ve lived.

• I would be tired from staying up early in the morning and I couldn’t make the association from my internet porn habits and being consistently run down and tired.
• I would be angry with my wife for not meeting my needs and not see how isolated and selfish I had become.
• I would tell myself I didn’t have a problem even when I couldn’t seem to stop myself from acting out every day.
• I would participate in my church activities and not see the hypocrisy of my life which was heavily involved in activities which the church would not condone.
• I would claim I was hurting no one, but I was supporting an industry that takes young men and women when they are most vulnerable and using them in obscene ways.
• I would deny that there could be anything bad personally or socially about being involved in my sexual compulsions.
• I thought of myself as an honest person while I was constantly lying about what I was doing with my time, income, behavior.
• I thought I was developing a great relationship with my wife while I constantly fantasized about others.
• I thought I was respectful to other women even though, in my mind, I sexualized each person that I saw.
• I thought that I was thinking normally when my mind was constantly thinking about sex and my next fix for my compulsive behaviors.

In the end, we will have little or no choice about choosing denial and delusion as our way of living with porn because it’s really the only choice left when we cannot harmonize our thoughts and behaviors and we insist on holding to our addictive patterns. The pain is too great so we choose denial which leads us into delusion. Of course, at some point it all catches up to us and we “bottom out.” The only hope out of denial is for things to stop working in our lives.

We can choose to live a recovered life.

This life is what the Purity Project of Oklahoma City is all about. A recovered life is one that is brought back to where it should be–before our addictions and compulsive behaviors took over. When we realize that our lives aren’t working, that we don’t know what to do about it and that we must do something, once and for all, to stop our compulsive and addictive behaviors, we are growing to a point where we may step out of our delusions and life of denial.

A recovered life is a precious one. It regains back what was lost at a tremendous price. This new life is a wiser form of living that recognizes that we will always live with the temptation to return to our besetting habits. In the recovered life, we not only stop what we were doing; but, we learn how to finely develop the tools we need to and stay stopped. In the beginning we will stumble and fall. But gradually, we have more successful days than non successful ones. Then we reach a point where we see more clearly where we have been. At this point, we sadly realize the wasted time and emotional toll we have caused ourselves and those that loved us. When we face new temptations, we easily reject them because we don’t want to live that way any longer.

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