10 men share their experiences with porn addiction, revealing how it impacted their lives. Through support groups like Relay, they’ve found hope and healing, proving recovery is possible.
“My wife would be extremely hurt by this, and the last thing I want to do is hurt her. I’ve never told her about the struggle, but I’ve said quite a few things that have suggested an old habit.”
“Toward the end of the relationship, when his obsession with porn seemed to be at an all-time high, he got more controlling and sexually assaulted me.”
It shouldn’t be societally normalized for any industry or medium to misrepresent, exploit, or fetishize LGBTQ+ folks and their relationships—yet the porn industry certainly does, and unfortunately often gets away with it.
Porn is often the primary provider of information about sex for many adolescents, but how is this exposure to sexual violence impacting teens?
“I thought I was strong enough to fight through what was occurring but instead it was eating away at me. Porn has warped that man’s mind and hurt his abilities to have a fulfilling relationship.”
Due to a variety of factors, LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately vulnerable to sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Here’s why.
In the porn industry, there is virtually no way to guarantee that any piece of pornographic content is truly consensual, ethical, or even legal.
My divorce was finalized, mostly owing to his porn problem. My advice is to look at the person as a whole human rather than just someone who struggles with porn.
“As a young boy, I was sexually assaulted many times. Not only was I forced to do things, this person introduced me to porn before I was 10 years old.”
Sex traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to lure their victims into exploitation. Porn is the marketing department of the sex trafficking industry.
“Sex traffickers are motivated by one thing,” Dr. Shively said. “They are trying to make money. It’s a market, and the commodity is people. Without demand, there is no motivation to come up with that supply.”
