Annotations from an (former) Addict
Preface
Before you read on, it is important to know who this information is for and who it will help. This article contains my own experience with various resources that exist for someone who wants to stop a habit of porn. I personally know a lot of people, in many different states of religious practice or lack thereof, who have experienced a sense that there is more to life and sexuality than the fleeting comfort that porn provides.
I noticed after having stopped watching porn that I appreciate mundane things in life much more than I did before. Sunsets, nature, and other random occurrences have a whole new beauty. I also find joy in the most common occurrences. It is a miracle what a dopamine-saturated brain misses every day in life. One of my best friends and I have both quit watching porn and have noticed similar experiences. We are able to live in the moment and appreciate so much more when we are not governed by the next high. We have more time for hobbies and activities that facilitate genuine happiness and connection with others as opposed to feeding a habit that has no value to others and leaves the user in the same place as before they sought it out, albeit numbed to whatever preceded it. My willingness to share this struggle on a small scale with close friends has given them the confidence to share their own similar experiences and problems, and we have realized that we are not alone in this struggle, and are able to connect and share advice. Additionally, the stakes are high because you might miss your calling for real love if you are too numbed by porn to real-life beauty. For this reason, I am writing this guide for someone who is looking for help and resources to overcome this struggle and realize their higher calling and purpose for our human sexuality.
This Ted Talk played a role in outing my past and sharing my experiences.
As the old saying goes, "Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery." Bringing one's struggles into the light has a remarkable effect. It gives the problem an identity, a definition to fight against. Certainly other people have more articulately elaborated on this topic, so I digress.
Introduction
If you read my other article, you know of the threat porn poses to healthy relationships past, present, and future, and might be interested in learning more about resources that will help them stop. I have never been someone to present problems without solutions, so here are my solutions having spend a lot of time and energy testing different methods. There are several websites and a documentary series that were particularly good at approximating the problems of the porn industry. They give sobering insight into the porn industry's effects on those both in front of the camera and those behind it. I have found that humanizing those people can take away some of the allure of the carefully cultivated industry. There are also many tools, both paid and free that have helped me stop watching porn that I will discuss below.
Understanding Addiction
A psychologist named Gary Wilson wrote a book on the neurological effects porn has on the human brain called Your Brain on Porn where he details ad nauseam the relevant literature of addiction and how porn taps into those neurological processes. If you are interested in just the studies, his website Your Brain on Porn has plenty of free reading that is quite compelling, and many of the studies I discuss in my paper originate from there. If you want an simpler website to interface with relevant studies with a short synopsis about each and the ability to search for scientific literature by subtopic related to porn, this website Truth About Porn does a fantastic job of making highly technical studies available to the average reader by collecting and explaining them. It is run by a non-profit called Fight The New Drug which is dedicated to sharing research about the harms of pornography on the brain, heart, and mind.
Porn Uncut: Magic Lantern Documentary
Magic Lantern Productions, a channel on YouTube, made a three-part documentary on the under-reported harms of the pornography industry on porn actors and actresses. The first video, called Beyond Fantasy: Barely Legal, focuses on the recent trend in porn that depicts women as underage. It should be noted that this documentary series does depict some disturbing content to prove the claims of the actors, and while it is blurred out, it is still NSFW. I think it is important to humanize the actors that porn denigrates and depicts in a one-dimensional manner to understand the harms of supporting the industry.
The phenomenon of underage content, both legal and illegal was observed by Pulitzer prize winner Nicholas Kristof in his bombshell New York Times article in 2020. In probably his best work ever, Kristof investigated the prevalence of illegal content on popular porn sites. That same New York Times investigation by Nicholas Kristof also showed Pornhub failed to properly vet videos uploaded to the site for child pornography, and such content was easily available to anyone. In the wake of his investigation, major credit card companies dropped service for the site, and it was forced to remove millions of unverified videos from the platform. Pornhub used to track usage statistics and search results from their site and compile them into a report at the end of every year, until controversial search terms like "Teen", "Young", and other terms with dubious legality appeared at the top of their report and garnered unwanted attention.
The second video, Beyond Fantasy: Unsafe Sex, shares the experiences of actors who contracted sexually transmitted diseases from the industry, how porn companies take safety shortcuts to maximize profits such as lax and ineffective STD testing procedures which endangers actors and actresses. This episode soberingly juxtaposes the experiences of actors and actresses with the corporate speak peddled by some high-ups in the MindGeek leadership. For context, MindGeek is the parent company to several of the largest porn websites in the world. MindGeek's claims about their STD testing are persuasive if you do not know anything about how the industry works and the experiences of the actors themselves. Having heard the side of the actors and actresses who must actually undergo the testing, the starkness of the insufficiencies in testing comes into focus.
The third video, called Beyond Fantasy: Hardcore, exposes the porn industry's manipulation of women to get them to film dangerous, violent, and often illegal scenes against their will, including rape. Frequently, porn producers only give the script to the actress or actors after they are onsite and have finished makeup and other preparation to decrease the chance that they will turn down the scene. Actors and actresses have 'agents' who connect them with producers and studios, similar to movie actors and actresses. The agents will make a list with the actor or actress of things they are not willing to do under the guise of helping the actors avoid them. In reality, this information is used to entice them to do those very scenes for a pay bump, and many times the producers use manipulative tactics to pressure actors and actresses to do those very things. A third manipulation tactic is to structure payment so that even if the makeup, lights, sound, and other secondary staff do their jobs, they will not be paid if the actor or actress does not film the scene. This puts considerable pressure on the people filming scenes because it is not just their paycheck at stake.
Resources for Cutting out Pornography
Understanding One's Attachment to Porn
One additional perspective that must be understood is the inner factors that form one's attachment to certain unwanted sexual behaviors. Unwanted is a book written by a Christian psychologist named Jay Stringer who has researched the inner causes of what he calls "Unwanted Sexual Behavior", which includes attachments to porn, in the human person. He discusses how certain types of porn might be indications of wounds or traumas that have not yet been healed, addressed, or even realized. Him and his research team identified thousands of personality "profiles" for different types of porn by associating the porn with a common characteristic in the life of the individual. In other words, there is almost always a cause for someone to seek out unwanted sexual behaviors. It could be a product of loneliness, boredom, a response to some sort of wound or reliving a childhood trauma, or born out of a bad relationship. The research is well worth the read and will give great insight if you approach your habit, addiction, or behavior with curiosity instead of shame.
Tracking Progress
There are several different theories on how to quit this habit. You might want to understand your relapses in detail, such as the days that you are most likely to relapse, the places, emotions, and events that contribute to relapses, etc. The Fortify app on app stores is a valuable resource for tracking victories and setbacks in this journey. You report these metrics through daily check-ins. They also have video series to understand the theory behind things you can do to grow out of addictive habits like porn. I have used this app for many years (which is why I know the exact date I started tracking my progress). Recently, however, I have stopped tracking with the app because it requires porn to always be on my mind since the user must track whether each day was a victory or a setback. I view not watching porn as a lifestyle instead of a destination to achieve. I have finished the video series and have begun to understand the physical factors that contribute to relapses. Every major sports team uses in-depth metrics to track athletic performance, so you will need to figure out for yourself how you want to approach this.
Spiritual Resources
And he said to them: This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. Mark 9:29
I found the Exodus 90 program to be crucial in developing a stronger faith, building fraternity, growing self-control, and appreciating good things in moderation. It is a 90-day program beginning in January and ending on Easter Sunday where participants abstain from things that modern men typically rely on as crutches for happiness such as social media, video games, deserts, snacking, alcohol, warm showers, and other comforts. You will be paired up with one other man as an "anchor" that you will check-in with each day to talk about the daily Bible readings and reflections. Exodus 90 fraternities usually have three or four pairs of men who meet once a week and partake in regular group activities. The Bible readings follow the journey of the Israelites out of slavery to the Egyptians, a fitting parallel to the modern man spurning reliance on or addiction to material goods and reordering the self towards God and an gaining an appreciation of His gifts. It is built for Catholics and certain parts cater to the Catholic faith, but anyone, and certainly any Christian, would get value out of it and would be able to participate in almost every part of it. There is a similar program for women called Magnify90.
Internet Filtering
Covenant Eyes is also a valuable application with Android, Apple, and Windows versions that protects a user from porn and provides an accountability framework. The app monitors a device's screen by taking random screenshots and using machine learning algorithms to flag pornographic content on a screen. Trusted relatives or friends can receive notifications if such material is detected so that they can reach out and help to break the cycle and intervene in times of need. Optionally, the app can route all traffic on a device through a custom VPN that filters pornographic websites and enforces Safe Search settings on Google. Google, Apple, and Windows all have built-in safe search features to limit access to limit explicit material that can be turned on voluntarily or enforced via a parent child relationship. This is a free and excellent solution for families, although it is not perfect.
You cannot do this with Covenant Eyes enabled since it uses it's own servers as DNS resolvers, but if you want network-level protection for your home internet or a certain device, you can change your DNS servers on your home network or devices to use custom DNS resolvers that will not respond to or include explicit entries in web searches.
OpenDNS
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
and Quad9
9.9.9.9
149.112.112.112
will not respond to DNS requests for pornography. You would be wise to change your DNS resolver anyway to Quad9 because its servers will not answer requests to known malicious websites which provides another layer of protection against bad actors on the internet.