Trigger warning:
Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives.
This story shows how sometimes the fantasy of porn can take over what's happening in reality and warp the consumer's perception of what's healthy. Her experience also shows how much porn can twist and change sexual tastes to be different than what was once naturally desired.
This is my story. I’ve read other contributions on here and felt it was time to share.
If my story can help just one person out there say no to porn, then this will have been worthwhile to me. Thank you for your organization. I’m grateful someone is fighting against this horrible drug.
To put it simply: sex slave hentai and online role play ruined my sex life.
Innocent beginnings
I was 16 when a secret online boy crush introduced me to the world of anime and high fantasy. As a sheltered daughter from a conservative home, I was instantly enamored.
I streamed anime and joined several Google+ groups, the only social media site that no one I knew was on. It was innocent at first, but as my chatting with this boy grew deeper and more intimate, as my attraction grew over exchanged secrets and selfies, my interest in related threads of anime took a darker turn.
I’ll never forget the first hentai video he linked me to. As an innocent girl who had rarely seen a naked body, the exaggerated childlike women and bold, confident men portrayed in the cartoons ensnared me at once. I was drawn in by the fantasies. The more I watched, the more violent ones I saw, the darker my thoughts about sex and relationships became. BDSM, rape, abuse…all became appealing to me.
One day, I asked the boy if he would ever tie me up like the boys in hentai. He replied with the dirtiest, most graphically explained message about exactly what he planned to do. And there, I started with role play.
Enslaved by a stranger online
Role play led to something even darker. After the boy blocked me randomly, my broken heart turned to other anonymous usernames floating around our groups and chat rooms. Desperate for attention, craving that abusive language that gave me highs, I met a 31-year-old man who got me to send him nudes. It wasn’t long before he blackmailed me and made me his online slave.
He told me he knew who my parents were and threatened to publish my photos publicly. I was terrified and easily tricked. He forced me to video chat with him, demanding I do vile things for him, and call him master. I hated it. But it turned me on, and I hated that even more.
It was disgusting that I, as a 17-year-old, was the lonely and miserable sex slave of a man from who-knows-where.
Fast forward six months. My parents found hentai on my computer and shut down my internet access, cutting me off unknowingly to a world much more frightening than what they had found. For months, I wondered if my old master would find me and do the things he threatened; he never did.
A body that craves pain
At twenty, I met and married the love of my life, a wonderful man who treated me like a princess instead of a slave. And as much as I loved, and still love his gentle and quiet care for me and my body, it isn’t the same. I can’t receive pleasure without pain. I can’t give sexual love without demand. I can’t please him without force, because my body is a slave. My heart is free, but my body feels like a slave.
Love is kind; it’s not abuse. The lies that pornography and hentai scream at us are plain: innocence is the new seductive, and enslavement is the new sexy.
It hurts my husband to see me struggle. But he refuses to rape me, to degrade his wife like an animal. No matter how much I crave it.
I hope someday it’s gone. But the scars of that secret online life dig deep, and I don’t know…maybe they’ll never disappear.
– S.
Why This Matters
Unfortunately, we often receive many messages like this, of porn consumers who have had their natural sexual desires twisted beyond recognition—way beyond what felt originally natural to them. [1]
And while many individuals desire rougher sex in consensual, adult relationships, (and FTND is not out to control anyone’s sex life) we acknowledge that sometimes this desire comes from a place of coping with past abuse or unhealthy expectations for sex.
Science is showing that watching porn alters the consumer’s sexual tastes. If a porn consumer is frequently watching porn that is violent, full of exaggerated fetishes, degrading, or increasingly extreme, they are actually conditioning their brain to be aroused by that type of behavior; even if it is showing things that they originally thought to be disgusting, uncomfortable or unacceptable. [2]
And because porn is an escalating behavior, a consumer inevitably can end up watching increasingly violent porn just because they need to watch more hardcore stuff to get the same rush they got in the beginning. [3]
Related: How Porn Changes Consumers’ Arousal Template And Warps What They Think Is Sexy
In an effort to get that dopamine rush in the brain that they have conditioned themselves to crave, this is when consumers start going to the deep, dark corners of the internet; it’s the only content that is extreme enough. [4] Imagine a porn consumer’s alarm when they first see these types of abusive porn, and then begin to specifically search it out even though they might feel a sense of unease. [5]
As time passes, the consumer’s sexual arousal template starts to change and they begin to associate sexual pleasure with these abusive or dark sexual tastes.
If we believe the research that shows us about our neuroplastic brains and how they can be conditioned through experiences, we can see that the brain can be manipulated into wanting something that the consumer didn’t want before. And that is when things get very confusing and very harmful to the consumer’s sexual and emotional health. [6]
It is clear that the effects of porn on sexual health become increasingly harmful the longer someone looks at porn. So regardless of people’s opinions, the facts remain the same: porn is harmful and research is proving it.
Citation
[1] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 95.
[2] Layden, M. A. (2010). Pornography And Violence: A New Look At The Research. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 57–68). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Cline, V. B. (2001). Pornography’s Effect On Adults And Children. New York: Morality In Media; Zillmann, D. (2000). Influence Of Unrestrained Access To Erotica On Adolescents’ And Young Adults’ Dispositions Toward Sexuality. Journal Of Adolescent Health 27, 2: 41–44; NoFap Survey Http://Www.Reddit.Com/R/NoFap/Comments/Updy4/Rnofap_survey_data_complete_datasets/
[3] Zillmann, D. (2000). Influence Of Unrestrained Access To Erotica On Adolescents’ And Young Adults’ Dispositions Toward Sexuality. Journal Of Adolescent Health 27, 2: 41–44.
[4] Angres, D. H. And Bettinardi-Angres, K. (2008). The Disease Of Addiction: Origins, Treatment, And Recovery. Disease-A-Month 54: 696–721; Zillmann, D. (2000). Influence Of Unrestrained Access To Erotica On Adolescents’ And Young Adults’ Dispositions Toward Sexuality. Journal Of Adolescent Health 27, 2: 41–44.
[5] Paul, P. (2007). Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, And Our Families. New York: Henry Hold And Co., 90.; Berridge, K. C. And Robinson, T. E. (2002). The Mind Of An Addicted Brain: Neural Sensitization Of Wanting Versus Liking. In J. T. Cacioppo, G. G. Bernston, R. Adolphs, Et Al. (Eds.) Foundations In Social Neuroscience (Pp. 565–72). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
[6] Angres, D. H. And Bettinardi-Angres, K. (2008). The Disease Of Addiction: Origins, Treatment, And Recovery. Disease-A-Month 54: 696–721.