Addicted to Porn through Loneliness – HELP!
Since the age of 15, I’ve been fascinated with erotic material of various types. It began as research, since I didn’t understand any slang terms (or even most medical ones), and the word “sex” was never spoken in my home. This was further complicated by the fact that I was molested by a man as a young child—he somehow convinced me to go down on him, to completion. It’s actually one of my earliest memories, but I must’ve repressed it until my hormones kicked in.
Anyway, it all started with my stealing lingerie ads from newspapers, then the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues every year. By 17, I’d seen “lad mags”, and the following year I started buying them—Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, you name it. By 22, I was using online pirate sites to watch X-rated videos, and it’s pretty much stayed there since. I’m 45 now, and the little I’ve avoided has been by personal choice. I really started feeling condemned over it a few years ago, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried to honestly repent . . . but it always feels like a lie, because I often wish I didn’t have to. I also know there’s never keeping any secrets from God, but with other people, it’s a different story entirely. I already know how terrible I am with this, but I still don’t want anyone else emphasizing it.
I just finished watching more of this stuff a few hours ago (at least, as of submitting this). It did the job to relieve the pressure, but it has never changed the cry of my heart. I want a Godly woman who loves Him first and me second, so this part of my life can finally be whole. I don’t want to destroy my future marriage someday with all of this. On the contrary, I want to drive the woman I marry so insane in the best ways on a regular basis, that her screams of passion almost shatter windows!
Child abuse is the ultimate evil. I salute your courage in confronting this secret within you. It doesn't define you. That man is the evil one. You were just a child.
A woman taken as a wife is more than a sex partner. You should be looking for a trusted friend to marry. You should be thinking of her feelings, her happiness, and becoming a great listener. She, in turn, will return your love.
Porn is a lonely road to travel. The best thing to do is fill your life with activities that allow you to share your best traits and put you in the company of women…single women.
Finally, don't be creepy. When we start thinking of sex first and that's our first priority, women can pick up on it and think we are creepy. A man should practice speaking to a woman with kindness and respect. Let flirtation arise naturally.
Also don't look past a woman who doesn't quite fit the look of a porn star. Those porn star women are all dolled up and don't look that way without a lot of make up. Men are often not the perfect specimens so we can't expect that from a woman.
Make her feel loved, respected, and beautiful. Once she starts feeling that way, the horniness will kick in.
You might have to "detox" from your porn a but and retrain your brain. It's not impossible.
Often I think about my wife and think of all the sexy things I want to do to her. I then remind myself to be there for other things. In the end, it all works out for everyone. She gets just as worked up and horny and we it culminates in something beautiful every time.
Prayers.
I’m sorry for your struggles. This awful world combined with who we were before Christ saved us create this affliction that troubles us all. Even Paul struggled.
I’m not condoning sin, but I also believe that our sex drives are from God, and that He gives us a healthy way meet those needs.
Masturbation itself is not a sin. Certainly, there are some things that we should not view, read, or entertain but I think if you reframe your desires within a healthy context, you can find some freedom.
I don’t think it’s a sin to view married couples having sex. I don’t think it’s a sin to read healthy erotica, such as here on MH, and I don’t think it’s wrong to imagine yourself with your future wife.
This isn’t and easy struggle, and it’s one that I wrestle with myself, but there is a way.
I will pray for you and hope that you start a healthy journey to Biblical sexual fulfillment.
Yours in Christ
KM
First off, thank you for being so open and seeking counsel here. That isn't easy! I pray you can get encouragement.
Second, from a fellow single, let me encourage you with some things I've learned: our sexuality is not evil. God created it. I fully believe He gifted us masturbation, certainly as an outlet and a preparation for while we're single, and an added pleasure for marriage, especially if intercourse is off the table for whatever reason. I also believe that porn is a broad term; not all erotica is evil either. There is no Scriptural precept that says we cannot view, read, or listen to sexual things. Song of Solomon is certainly written erotica! Marital sex is praised and encouraged. Personally, watching videos of real couples helped me a lot in my early days of learning about sex and deconstructing my disgust. Mainstream porn repulses me because it's so fake, but real-life passion and intimacy? Beautiful. I hope to experience it someday. Turn your desires and thoughts to future marriage, to understanding your body and educating yourself about the female body, and enjoy resources that encourage that. Also understand that God is gracious and you can have grace on yourself too. We all mess up here! I've looked at stuff I shouldn't, and I'm working on repenting and removing that from my life. My desire is to be a well-informed, sexually-eager, explorative, hot-for-my-man wife. It can be lonely being single, but I've found it's great training ground! Thank God I was never pursued or had marriage possibilities when I was in my late teens-early 20s! I knew nothing about sex and it would have wrecked me. Now, at almost 30, I'm so confident, much more knowledgeable, and still educating myself. It took time for God to work on me. I pray you are encouraged and feel your burden lightened. God loves you and gave you your sexual desires. Direct them towards your future wife, and God will bless that.
Conflicted1980,
First of all, WELCOME to the Marriage Heat community.
A lot of your thought processes and struggles parallel my own.
So, please click this link and read my introductory post from about a year ago.
https://marriageheat.com/2025/01/11/introducing-turnedon47s-story-with-a-poll-question-about-pornography/
The poll question was not my idea. The admins added it. But, it fit well and it sparked some good discussions.
I will concur with LLL that not all sex video is "porn", per se. For example, most of the time, I watch only one couple. They are a real-life man and wife. She gets turned on by the idea of men watching her get fucked. Her husband encourages her and calls her a "porn star". (She has actually had orgasms from him saying so!!) So, to me, that is not "porn" (which comes from the Greek word for "dirty"). Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think so. To me, it is no different that a couple fucking loudly inside their tent in the camp of the ancient Israelites. Somebody likely heard them. 😉
I hope that you are blessed and encouraged by the comments here. A lack of sexual contact is only part of the struggle of loneliness. But, it is the part that "just won't go away" for most people. I will pray for you.
"To me, it is no different that a couple fucking loudly inside their tent in the camp of the ancient Israelites. Somebody likely heard them."
Absolutely, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob as well. There was no embarrassment about sex then. Ditto in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, when Christian civilisation was at its height. Too cold for tents, but most people lived in a one room dwelling, good chance most people heard that under the blanket, behind the curtain that there was some fucking happening.
The result was that people in the Middle Ages were much more open about sex.
MH type discussions probably happened openly in the villages.
By its silence, the Christian church accepted it as okay.
This is a reply to both TurnedOn47 and SarahK:
TurnedOn:
You think people heard the Israelites in the desert? Let me take you a step further. There were about 600,000 men plus women and children that left Egypt with Moses. (2-3 million total?) Almost all of them died off in their travels but a very similar number entered Canaan. So a LOT of children were born over those 40 years. The tents were all one room tents, so there was a LOT of sex going on and it was not only heard outside the tent, but the kids inside got to watch and smell it as well. Ever see the movie Dances with Wolves? There is a scene where that happens with the Sioux medicine man and his wife while the 2 whites are in the tent watching. That is what made me realize what happened during those 40 years.
Sarah K:
I agree the ancient Jews and the first century Jewish community were very PRO-sex. (BTW – the myth that Song of Solomon was not supposed to be read by anyone under 30 is WRONG. It has been read in every synagogue at Passover every year to all in attendance) It was one of the criticisms of Rome and Greece.
While the middle ages were more open sexually, early christianity was NOT. Some of the early church fathers were very opposed to even marital relations. Jerome said the only reason God allowed married sex was to make more virgins for the Church. Another said that the Holy Spirit has to leave the entire building when a married couple was doing that. Instead of following the teachings of their Jewish spiritual ancestors, they followed the teachings of the more negative Greek and Roman philosophers like the Stoics and the Vestal Virgins. They also bought into the writings of Hippocrates (father of western medicine) who wrote circa 400 bc that women have no sex drives and are entirely passive recipients of male libido. This certainly contradicts scripture and the experience of most other Greeks and Romans.
Things started going back negative in the 16 and 17 hundreds ad when the Catholic church started coming down hard on it again.
@Watts2
While I mostly agree, I would caution against a few assumptions. I think it's a bit presumptuous and silly to assume all the Israelites' tents were one-room tents with clear visibility of lovemaking couples. The construction of their tents are not given to us in the Bible, nor in any other historical records I'm aware of. They had thousands and thousands of tents for all those people, so it's entirely plausible that families were split between multiple tents pitched next to each other. We also DO know that they knew the very basic idea of creating interior dividers for tents, as the Tabernacle had them.
These cautions by no means discredit the idea that sex was an overheard or perhaps visually observed commonplace reality, I just want to make sure we don't start down weird rabbit trails based on unfounded speculation.
Conflicted1980,
If you have not already done so, report the abuse you suffered as a child to the police.
That predator will have violated many more children and may still be doing so.
As others have said, your body and sexuality is from God, and is good. However if you are focusing on sinful sex – that is something you will need to train yourself out of.
To know what is bad, you need to know what is good. What is good is sex between married couples, PIV, hand and mouth. Masturbation is also good, both for singles and those who are married.
Fornication, adultery, same sex activity are bad.
Ditto for erotic, if it contains what is bad, it is bad, contains what is good, it is good.
I often encourage singles to focus on masturbation.
This is a good example for you: https://marriageheat.com/2025/12/13/more-sexy-journal-entries/
Aw, thank you for recommending one of my posts! I am flattered!
LLL, you are welcome.
One of the details I like is you making yourself cum in your thong.
You'll know I am a fan of making myself cum in my knickers.
Cummy underwear reminds me of the Shulammite with her hands dripping with "myrrh", she is one of the holiest woman in the bible.
songs:
Chap 1:8 “fairest among women,”
Chap 4:7 ‘You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.’
Chap 5:2 “flawless”
Chap 5:9 “O fairest among women”
Chap 6:9 "… perfect,… pure,… blessed…"
Just as she has her hands "dripping with myrrh", as Christian woman, so should we, and that should also flow into our clothing, underwear etc. God Bless you LLL.
PS: I note that you generally say, "rubbing over", while I say, "rubbing through".
There's a lot of great advice here already! I think you are on the right track wanting to get your issues taken care of before you meet your bride, that is incredibly wise. I'd encourage you to get psychological counseling if you haven't already started. Your past molestation is not the way anyone should experience sex for the first time. It's indeed possible that that trauma has influenced your current views on sex and possibly planted the seed for porn addiction. Counseling can help.
I'd also recommend that you learn to separate porn use and masturbation, because when you masturbate to porn you are only reinforcing that behavior by pleasure rewards, and it's a downward spiral. I've had my own battle with that, and the shame surrounding it (https://marriageheat.com/2025/04/15/god-doesnt-blush-my-story-of-overcoming-shame/ ).
But when you say that you started feeling condemned over porn use, let me remind you that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Remember that God created you with not only your desire, but also your sexual responses and there is nothing wrong with finding naked women appealing; perhaps there is something wrong in how we seek that out, and if you are under the dominion of addiction then I'd definitely encourage you to break free.
If you'd like a resource and want to throw yourself in the deep end cold-turkey style, mindgasm.net has a 30-day challenge program that you could go through which would be a good reset of your body, to try to break some of those bad habits and start building some new good ones.
[From MH: We don't always allow links to outside sites, and we cannot vouch for this source, but we will allow it in this case.]
First, my heart goes out for you in all of this struggle. May God walk & talk you through.
You confessing your sin is a sign things are happening, in the good direction. I hope you find our replies a sign of forgiveness.
Countless men & women are in your very same place with porn, masturbation, & molestation. In my experience, there are way more stories like yours than the church wants to know. You are one of many, while your mind may think you are alone. The problem is very well hidden because of lust & shame of generations past, into yours, & beyond.
There are many different ways out, through, or in it with God. As you may read on MH many people are in different places with this stuff. From always using to never have used christians (people in general) have their own path to walk before their King. I have shared some of my story here concerning my own experience with porn, etc. Solutions may vary, but God applies to all.
A wife, unless capable & fulling engaged in your struggle, will not stop your porn use. Praying, laying on of hands, etc. will help, but there is no silver bullet cure. It is a weakness you have to train & exercise to be strong against. It is an offense you need to learn to defend against. It is a habit you have held hands with for far too long you must relearn to let go of & never go back. Porn is hard to shake partly because of our belief.
While there is no easy fix, & for many there may be no happy ending on earth, but Jesus is the one true cure whether your habit ends, or not. But, it is just a habit. Calling it an addiction can influence us to believe the addiction, instead of God who tells us we can stop sinning. Yet, the stopping of sin isn't exactly as we believe, either. We believe, since Jesus healed the leper, that our healing comes just the same. Well, it could. God can intervene & do that. But, has He? Have you walked up to Jesus, like lepers did in the Bible? Has Jesus pronounced a healing over you as He did in the Bible? Or, has He said your flesh & its desires were crucified on the cross? Or, did He say all sin that we confess to Him He faithfully forgives? Our problem as humans is that we have a habit of conforming to the patterns of this world. Jesus, wants us to renew our minds. This takes time when we constantly want & think we are doing the Lord's work just trying to pray it all away. It takes time to rethink & renew our minds out of thought patterns this world & church told us to think.
In Christ, we are both sanctified & being sanctified. This means our salvation is intact now & is an ongoing process of continued cleansing of us, as we go. Forgiveness is built into God's commands for us. Our sin does not stop or salvation. Confession & forgiveness is God's plan. He, Himself, tells us we serve the law of sin with our flesh. While, we serve the law of Christ with our mind. If we want Jesus He wants us. He doesn't kick us out for our sin, as a repentant believer. Does He want our sin gone, yes. So, work with what you have & get up, in faith, & keep on keeping on believing God's will, will, happen.
We believe ourselves into a corner that we think we cannot get out, or stop. We christians would never think we should ever eat food sacrificed to a false god. Yet, Paul, who said would not eat meat if it caused a brother to stumble, told the church they could eat food sacrificed to idols. He gave specific rules for it. The idea is that they were to stop eating it in an idols temple, but could buy the food in the common market, & even eat it at a non-believers home, if invited. Paul said they did not have to raise any question of conscience concerning this. And, if the non-believer announced the food was sacrificed to a false god, then & only then, for the non-believers sake, not the believers, were they to not eat the food. Basically, leaving the issue to the liberty of the believer. If they wanted, here is how to do it. If you don't want don't eat it. He only commanded them to care about the weaker church members that may fall because of their liberty. As long as they were not causing another to sin, they could be at liberty to eat.
This brings the believer's mind into the realm of obeying correctly. We believe what we fear. We believe sin a lot. Not just to do it, but also to cling to it in shame, addiction, & helplessness to stop it. I would encourage you (anybody) to define the sin & righteousness correctly. Many times we beat ourselves up over things that are not really a sin. We have a built in enemy in our flesh (mind, & heart, connected to our body). But, we have a built in Savior, too, (mind, & heart, connected to the Holy Spirit, & Scripture). It is up to us to find out what words are Spirit, & what words are flesh. If porn is a sin, what exactly is that sin? Is your belief an unfounded assumption, or a real founded sin? Have you done your homework, & checked your work?To me, porn isn't sin to view as a christian, if it does not chase away Jesus & cause you to sin yourself. Plus, I find porn is a sin because by viewing it (even what some christians would say is ok) I would cause weaker church members to fall away from Jesus, if they witnessed me in that temple. But, also, where your conscience is, is where your sin is. That means don't go against your conscience, but also, our conscience can be changed by God's Word. So, definitely work your salvation out with fear & trembling. Don't be casual about it. But, don't freak out either.
I tell everyone to stop listening to the church. We are divided, at best. At worst, we are going to hell. Listen to Jesus. Only. If the church is important, He will let you know. Which it is. Just don't let them speak for Jesus. 1st get with God & settle whether you are saved, because that is where our minds go when we sin habitual sin. This can then spiral us away from God if we begin thinking we are not saved anyway.
I found the church can be very confusing, but God is not. Some of the church will tell you we are saved by answering an alter call or saying a prayer. Read Acts & see how people got saved. Every story shows people were immersed in water as an answer to the call of the Gospel. That's just one thing. I've heard some churches say you are not saved unless you speak in tongues. Never found that in scripture. It is worth searching the scriptures for all aspects of your struggle. In my estimation the steps (all shown in immersion baptism, but can be done incrementally too) of salvation, every church has a set of these, biblically – are grace, belief, faith, repentance, immersion, proclaim, & endurance. I don't judge any their particular steps, I just point out what I found.
Then, keep going in the word. As I say to do with salvation do with all other things, including sex, nudity, porn, masturbation, etc. Just you & God getting comfortable. Seekers find. Askers get answers, & knockers get doors opened to them. Don't make it about stopping sin more than just learning to love God, through Jesus. Everything will get filled in, in due time. Be patient in making Jesus your new habit.
Figure out your future goal, concerning your future marriage & wife. Some sins can be confessed to spouses & it works well together with both of you. But, other times it leads to divorce. Should you get married with this sin intact, like it is now? Can you wait as long as it takes? Can you find an understanding wife that will marry into this aspect of you? I don't doubt that Anon groups produce marriages, so your understanding wife could be out there, having the same problem. Just step through it with the Bible. Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us.
Lastly, I don't say all this to make an impossible situation worse. I say all this because Jesus says belief saves. Faith walks out the belief. I say this to say you can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens you. What, or who, you believe gives you the power to obey it in faith. Stop believing the lies of sin, & confusion, & start believing God, at His Word. Even when all hope is gone, never give up seeking & believing Jesus. That is the key to it all. We do not overcome this world without belief & faith in Jesus. Belief has to be strong enough (about the size of a mustard seed) to act upon it in assurance. Dissect the Bible. If you believe sin you will do things to let it hang around. If you believe Jesus you will do things that allow His will in your mind & eventually your body behavior. Belief is your superpower.
Hello sir,
I firstly say that I am sorry to hear about what happened to you as a child, but know that what happened does not define you in any way.
I will speak about my view of porn and such only from what I know. You see, I'm not from the US, so we see erotic material and sex differently, almost opposite in fact. I think that you may need to change your mind here. Porn isn't the problem, mindset is. Stop seeing it as evil and stop feeling like you are living a lie. Irony is, the draw of porn – at least in the US – stems from it being forbidden, and we usually want what is forbidden. I say, allow yourself the freedom to use it, just as if you were allowing yourself to eat or gym, and you may find that you will actually use less of it over time. When you make it something normal, it ceases to be a threat and burden.
I agree that it is counter-productive to beat yourself up, but I will add that other things play into the dangers of porn besides mindset. One is that most of it depicts sex between unmarried people, which doesn't make us feel right with God, does it. Another is that it can set unrealistic expectations for our spouse, driving us back to the screen when s/he doesn't "perform" as we think s/he should. And of course, there's the difference between watching and participating; some users have a hard time enjoying their spouse as much because they can't fully see the action.
But OP, I do agree that you will have to accept forgiveness for the behavior to be free from it, and that includes forgiving yourself. Understand that a lot of psychology goes into "selling" porn, even if you aren't paying for it. It does feed the flesh in a sense, but it's junk food vs. the three course meal (and sometimes beans and rice) of marriage sex. So you wish you didn't have to eschew porn, but you know you'd be healthier if you did. Jesus *can* take a craving away, but he doesn't always. Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, He lets us do the work of weaning ourselves off of our less glorifying habits and replacing them with healthier ones.
How about the idea above of mental imagery of your future wife and yourself trying out different techniques? You can imagine how you will tell if she likes something even if she is shy and not very verbal or moaning a lot. You can pretend she didn't like the way one thing felt and how you'll not let it hurt your feelings but try something different, planning to try it differently at a later date. You can imagine how you'll respond the first time she goes down on you without your having to suggest it, but you could also think of all the fun ways you could suggest it.
In other words, play with her in your mind until you find her in real life. And put time and effort into becoming the man you think your dream girl will want to marry. Take care of you; you deserve to be happy. And Jesus knows what will really give you joy.
Hmm, we do not have the same fixation that sex outside of marriage is bad, we actually find this fixation in the West a bit strange and unnecessary. Biggest problem is not the act but the intentions.
@BehindTheCurtain
Having values against porn and sex outside of marriage is less of a Western thing, and more a Christian thing. Many Americans (and Europeans too), perhaps the majority, don't see anything wrong with sex outside of marriage. But MarriageHeat is a Christian site, based on Christian values, and we members are mostly Christians (though not exclusively). The Bible teaches that the only appropriate place for sex is within marriage. That's where that worldview comes from.
The intentions certainly matter, but the act itself does too. There are many reasons why it's wise to have sex only in marriage. A committed relationship is the best place to find true connection and intimacy in sex. It's hard to find real relationship and intimacy when your partner could leave at any time because they aren't committed to staying with you. Developing physical intimacy through sex can lead to deeper heartbreak if that uncommitted relationship ends. Sex often leads to children, and a mother and father who are committed to stay together in marriage is the best, safest, and most secure place to raise a child. There are many other reasons too, including more theological/religious-focused ones, but that's a discussion topic that would fit better on a different post.
@PatientPassion,
One must be careful not to equal the term "Christian" with "Biblical".
And even what is Biblical is not clear in modern Bibles. There are many Christian doctrines out there that are simply not Biblical. Sex in marriage as a command has no Biblical basis. Of course, this is encouraged and as you say, wise, but not inappropriate necessarily: this is why I speak about intentions.
Concerning intentions, I've known people who have waited until marriage to have sex, only to divorce shortly afterwards. And I have known people who may have had some partners before marriage, who, when married, have had lasting marriages.
Marriage is a continuation of society. If we want its success, we need to stop seeing it as the license for sex. My comment here is not endorsing promiscuity, but rather to adapt the mind. There are great dangers out there that we overlook because we are blinded by the taboo of sex: greed, envy and theft are but a few to name. And these are often the hidden sins of the church which is pointing its finger at its followers for their sexual acts. I do not think Jesus would have approved of such Pharisaic behaviour.
I mostly agree. Certainly, some supposedly Christian doctrines are not biblical. I use the term Christianity to mean its proper form, which adheres to the Bible as closely as humanly possible. But I also acknowledge every Christian has an imperfect understanding of the Bible, and some Christians' beliefs are more misaligned with the Bible than others.
We have discussed this topic in the past on this site, I believe. It is true that there is no explicit command that says "You shall not have sex unless you're married." However, there are some very strong implications that have led to that belief among Christians, and it is a belief I personally hold to as well.
Beyond the practical impacts I listed before, here are a few of the biblical reasons (all references from the English Standard Version, or ESV):
– Genesis 2:24-25 (later referenced and affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:8, and by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and Ephesians 5:31) says that man and wife come together to be one flesh. By God's design shown here, the "wife" part (the marriage covenant), the "hold fast" part, and the "one flesh" part are either sequential (marriage, then becoming one family unit, then sex) or all considered together as parts of the same inseparable whole, where one cannot be had without the others. I'm no scholar, but that's what I understand from my own reading of the text, and from all credible teaching I've heard.
– Deuteronomy 22:13-21 prescribes severe punishments when pre-marriage promiscuity is discovered, or when false accusations of such are made. (The penalty was death for promiscuity, and a substantial monetary fine for a false accusation. This was a very serious matter.) 22:21 also says, about a woman who was not a virgin at marriage, that "she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house." That's a pretty damning statement. Of course, this is an Old Covenant rule, which we are no longer bound by under the New Covenant, but that does not mean morality has changed. We no longer give the death penalty for promiscuity, but it is still wrong. (Similarly, Jesus stopped the execution of an adulteress in John 8:3-11, yet still indicated it was sin.)
– There are also zero positive or accepting references to sex outside of marriage. Some historical cases are presented neutrally as a matter of narrative description (as are many other sins), but they usually come with negative consequences, and are never spoken of positively.
– Marriage is also presented as representative of the relationship between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32, in the broader context of 5:22-33), though the spiritual "marriage" of Christ and his people is still in the future. But even though Christ and his people are not yet "married", sexual terms like "adultery" (Ezekiel 16:32, James 4:4) and "whoredom" (Exodus 34:15-16, Isaiah 1:21, Jeremiah 3:1, and MANY others) are used to describe following any way other than God's. This language of marriage and sexuality indicates that it's entirely possible to be unfaithful and sin sexually even before a marriage is official.
Perhaps none of these individually are irrefutable, but together, I think they make a very compelling argument. Even if you aren't convinced, I hope that helps you understand what I mean when I say that sex before marriage is against the teachings of the Bible, and against God's design.
God's clear commands are important, but if we base our morality ONLY on the explicit commands, we lose huge amounts of the important guidance, wisdom, morality and meaning in the Bible. God made us to be intelligent creatures, and if we use our minds properly, together with hearts that are redeemed by him, we can understand that he has a certain way he designed us to live, and he doesn't give us every single detail of that in the form of an explicit command. If he did, the Bible would be millions of pages long, and no one would ever be able to read it all.
@PatientPassion
I thank you for your message.
To try and be concise, I will say this: Paul mentions that everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. It I up to us to decide what these things are in our lives.
God gave us a very basic framework with which to stick to: His Ten Commands; this is our moral framework. But everything else is peripheral to this.
I see that you mention a few verses containing words such as Whoredom and Adultery. One must remember that whoredom is usually spoken of in terms of idolatrous action, not mere sex. In Deuteronomy, the whoredom that the girl is guilty of is not sex itself but using her virginity without giving money to her father (the father owned her viginity and only he had the right to sell it). But we do not have such systems today really.
Adultery as we know is unfaithfulness of any kind, it has nothing to do with sex outside of marriage by itself.
I see we have some pretty significant differences of interpretation, but it would be off the topic of this original post to have further debate about it here, so I will leave it be for now. Thank you for your reply, though! I will think about your points and study further as I have the opportunity to do so.
@Conflicted1980
I too was molested by a family friend and one of my dad's employees when I was around 12 or 13 years old. I too have struggled with an "addiction" to porn for most of my life, especially from the 90s and upward as it became more and more accessible on the web. Today, right now, I could very easily watch the most graphic porn in a long-format form, for free! Back when I was a teen, during the 70s, all we had were magazines with pictures of a naked lady (like Playboy) and those were hard to come by. So there was not much temptation back then, even though i was horny as a teen.
i have struggled with it even as a pastor. As a matter of fact, I struggled with it up until about a year ago. What changed? I did. I'll explain below.
First, we must ask the question of what is porn? There are obviously many different definitions of what it is as is evidenced in the above posts. For our purposes, however, I believe that porn is defined as the depiction of immoral sexual acts purely for the purpose of sexual excitement of the mind. It is designed to create envy and discontent for the things you are not allowed to have as a Christian. That is what porn refers to in this context as opposed to its broader context as simply the depiction of sexual acts of any kind, no matter the context.
I label it an "addiction," despite it not fitting the technical definition, because it seemed I could not stop. I would successfully not watch it for about a week or two before I would find myself back at it again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't not want to watch it. I was drawn to it like a bee to honey.
Now, you have called for "HELP!" I can infer from that, that you want help to quit, rather than to gain a better understanding of what it is, so I am not going to go over the Bible verses as PatientPassion has already done, or join any debate over whether it is okay or not, etc. You obviously feel it is a problem, so I will start where you are at.
First off, you need to evaluate, to the best of your ability, what it is that motivates you to watch it.
For example, I watched it because it generally helped me to have an ejaculation. I noticed that I rarely ever said to my self, "Ah, I just want to watch a good porn flick." and then that would cause me to get excited and start masturbating. Rather, the majority of times I would be masturbating and had some trouble "getting there" so I would be drawn to watching porn because I hoped it would help me have an O, which it generally did about 60% of the time.
Other reasons may be loneliness or your lack of a high-libido spouse, or many other things. Whatever it is, here is what I did to currently be almost a whole year without once pulling up the porn sites and watching till I squirt.
I realized that in my instance, I was discontent with my lack of an ejaculation. That is what caused me to desire to watch porn. I saw that as the goal of what I was doing. Granted, I still see that as the goal ultimately. But at any one session, can I just enjoy the sensations I get and be content with those? In other words, do I need to have an ejaculation every time to be content with what I did get?
i call this the contentment principle and it is based on Phil 4:11-13:
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content.
12 I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want.
13 I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.
St. Paul is telling us that the secret to being content with whatever place we find ourselves in was through relying upon Christ. Which means that I would need to be content with whatever feelings I had, whether I had an ejaculation or not. I had to become content, which St Paul says I can do through Christ.
So, I took it to heart and decided to institute a contentment policy as it regarded my masturbation sessions. If I had an ejaculation, great! If not, I would need to stop after a decent amount of time and move on with my day, thanking God for the good feelings I did get.
And it worked. For the first time in my life I no longer feel bound to porn. Did I watch any after I made that mental switch? Twice I did. One time, as I was deleting my porn stash, i watched them "one more time" and the other time was a deal I made with God, sort of a relief valve. I felt He was okay with this, but if I had gone two weeks without an ejaculation, that then I could watch some porn. But I had to wait for two weeks. So far I have held to that and I have only one time had to activate that during the past year. And you know what? I still didn't have an ejaculation.
I was getting close this week to activating that as Sunday would be two weeks since my last ejaculation. But I had one yesterday. And my now around 8 months or so–I don't exactly recall when I made this deal with God–of "sobriety" on watching porn continues.
This is not meant to praise me, but rather Christ who strengthens me. He is the key because He is the only one who can turn your discontentedness into contentedness. And remember, it took me until i was 65 to reach this place. It may be a real struggle to reach a place of contentment. But you can do it through Christ who strengthens you. So don't give up. I know it feels like it is near impossible to reach a place of contentedness, but keep striving for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Rest in His grace and His mercy. And keep on keeping on. You can succeed in due course if you trust in Him.
First, I'm so sorry for this tough history you have to carry. I pray for your wholeness and progress toward healing, freedom, and a thriving life.
I too struggled with porn for many years, though I don't think it was ever a true addiction. I don't share your history of sexual abuse, but I do share the history of growing up in a household where sex was taboo, which resulted in extreme ignorance about sex, and vulnerability to the pornographic influence of the internet, which I began discovering around 13 years old.
Others have already given much advice, so instead of writing everything I could possibly think of on the topic, I'll just mention a few things that may be a bit less commonly understood, but which are important to realize in this fight of yours.
As you may know, sexual trauma often results in sexual dysfunction. Survivors of sexual abuse often shut down sexually, or become hypersexual, or have increased difficulty with other things like porn addiction. So while the porn use is still bad, which you know, it doesn't necessarily make you any more sinful than anyone else. It's not just some weakness of character or a lack of self-control on your part—there are factors at work that are not within your immediate control, like that history of trauma, so don't think it's all your fault. And although it's not your fault that you were pushed in this direction, it IS still your responsibility to fight it as effectively as you can.
Also, while your desire for a Godly wife is admirable, don't buy into the impression that having a wife to fulfill your sexual desires will make the desire for porn go away. Most likely, it won't. That is an issue that will almost certainly have to be addressed separately. It's a common belief that getting married and being able to have sex will free you from the desire to use porn, but it's an incorrect assumption, and many men have been disappointed to discover that first-hand. I've heard many, many stories of men who struggle with porn and think getting married and having sex available to them will solve that addiction, but it doesn't. At least, not by itself. Addiction is a form of mental illness that needs its own treatment. There are many great resources out there that provide porn addiction recovery programs, but as this isn't something I ever needed myself, I can't recommend any off the top of my head.