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.
We recently received a story from a dedicated Fighter who shows how forming intimate, close relationships can be difficult in the midst of having a porn habit.
I discovered pornography at the young age of 10, and was a full-on compulsive consumer by the age of 12.
I was looking at some form of porn and getting aroused to it 4 to 5 times a day. By the time I was 15, I had access to the internet, though it was dial-up, so I had to be very patient. But I still went for it, because I needed my fix.
Looking for love in unhealthy places
Because I was shy and insecure, I didn’t date or have intimate relationships with girls, so I had no way of knowing of knowing how pornography was affecting me emotionally, mentally, or socially. I was 18 when I started dating, and I finally had a girl to hang on my arm and sit in my car. But she didn’t fulfill my fantasies like pornography did… She didn’t make me feel as good as pornography did.
After two years, she found out, and asked me to stop. I said no. After all, we weren’t married, so why should I?
I ended up getting bored with her and dumped her after three years. She was devastated, and I was more broken than ever, looking for the next girl I could experience. I had spent my whole childhood rejected and cast aside, looking for love and belonging, yet every girl that wanted to commit to me was like a disease. I wanted to hook up with them and have fun.
Pornography warped my mind to only be obsessed with the physical side of relationships, so that I was pushing away the one thing that I desired so deeply—a real connection with someone.
The downward spiral
When I started dating my future wife, it was the same cycle, she found out about the porn, asked me to stop and I said I would try. It was all futile because I was hopelessly lost at this point. I dumped her (my future wife) three separate times, she dumped me once, but somehow we ended up getting married. She was committed to me. Seeing that, I was not about to let her go, so I kept my porn problem very quiet.
Related: Why It’s Important Not To Judge Someone By Their Porn Struggle Alone
Knowing how it affected her, I would try to stop, but I just couldn’t. She began to feel like an object for my pleasure, there was no love from me and I was just sinking into a downward spiral of addiction and depression.
Then, in 2010, I woke up.
I saw what was happening to my wife, and I vowed to fight this addiction. This meant I was completely transparent about when I would look at porn, talk to her about it and work through it with her.
Deciding to fight together
I’ve been actively fighting for the past eight years, with some great successes, and failures, but my wife and I have decided to fight this together, knowing we want something deeper than what porn offers. Once I found your organization and saw the mission, it gave me a new purpose and reason to fight.
Since I have become a Fighter with this organization, I have been working to advocate and rally support for trafficking victims and bring awareness to the toxic nature of the porn industry and trafficking industry. It’s given me a renewed passion and purpose and has shown me an even greater purpose for the path that I have taken. I have been publicly sharing my story, and have found others who are struggling. My desire is to show those in the midst of this struggle, they are not alone.
Related: 5 Real Stories Of Porn Performers Who Were Trafficked Into The Industry
I believe and hope that my life would serve as a beacon of hope, which shows others that there is a way out and there are things worth fighting, sometimes tooth and nail, for.
–B.
Why this matters
Porn is, at best, heartbreaking, and at worst, downright destructive to relationships. Thankfully, real love and mutual determination can have the power to work through the damage porn can cause in a relationship. But both partners have to be all-in, and sometimes, they choose not to weather the difficulties porn brings. And that’s okay, too.
There is an underlying assumption in society that every guy looks at porn and loves porn, and if he doesn’t, there’s something “wrong” with him. This normalization of porn is part of the reason why toxic porn habits are often thought of as a “rite of passage” and why porn isn’t exactly thought of as the harmful issue science and research have shown it to be.
Related: “All Men Watch Porn”: 3 Reasons Why This Argument Is False And Needs To Go Away
Our mission since day one has been to shine a light on the real harms of pornography and make this issue a hot topic, not some awkward or hidden conversation. By being open about the harms of pornography, we can change attitudes and perceptions about this new drug in our society, and how it’s affecting individuals, relationships, and our society as a whole.
Fight for real love, and fight to change the world.
