How to give up pornography and why

How to give up pornography and why

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Let’s assume that there are people who are happy and proud of their consumption of pornography. Whether you are one of them, or whether you are among those who would like to give up a vice that entangles like a spider’s web and consumes body and soul, believers and non-believers alike, we suggest reading this article on how to give up pornography and why.

Reasons and means to give up pornography

Motivation, meaning, or why we do something is the main engine for any enterprise. This article aims to give psychological and spiritual reasons to abandon pornography and to promote laws that effectively prohibit it. Both reason and faith recognize that pornography harms the producer and the viewer.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Alteration of the internal attitude of desire

2. From vice to addiction: an intimacy-stealing drug

3. Preventing and helping with nonconformist audacity

Conclusions on how to quit pornography and why

Introduction to How to Give up Pornography and Why

Pornography is understood as the graphic representation of sexual content, mainly what refers to the sexual act and its deviations. It comes from the Greek pórni (πόρνη), meaning prostitute, and grafí (Γραφή), meaning writing. Pórni, in turn, is related to the verb to sell, poulísei (πουλήσει), as prostitutes used to be slaves.

The etymology of the word is a summary of the consequences of pornography, which we will develop: with the production or viewing of such images one falls into prostitution, i.e. the buying and selling of sexual intimacy, and slavery.

Although pornography has always existed, and with an increase after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, it has spread through the use of the Internet. Three factors make the Internet today the principal environment for this type of crime: how easy it is to access it and its contents, that it is within the reach of any fortune, and that it is an anonymous activity. These are the three “A’s” described by Cooper in 1998: Access, Affordability, Anonymity[1].

Giving up pornography that harms the individual and society

Because of its association with criminality and its addictive capacity, it is an issue of concern to many physicians and other health and law enforcement professionals. Some 80% of the images are violent, and not an inconsiderable number are posted on the web against the will of the “actors”.

The Fight the New Drug website has made three videos, mentioned in another article, with abundant scientific references on how pornography alters the brain, the heart, and the world. They are good for understanding the many reasons to stop the production and consumption of pornography.

Pope Francis asked to declare pornography a threat to public health

On June 10, 2022, speaking to members of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations of Europe, Pope Francis called for declaring pornography a public health threat.

The Pope spoke of pornography as a plague spread on the web. He encouraged the formation of family networks, noting that it was a duty to denounce pornography as a permanent attack on the dignity of women and men. Strongly, sustained by much scientific data, he told the participants: “It is a matter not only of protecting children—an urgent task of the authorities and of all of us—but also of declaring pornography as a threat to public health”[2].

In the same speech, the Pope quoted his own words from 2017, which frame the problem well and make it clear how pornography does not only harm minors: “We would be seriously deluding ourselves were we to think that a society where an abnormal consumption of internet sex is rampant among adults could be capable of effectively protecting minors.”[3]

The idea of sexuality that emerges from pornography is not only a threat to children’s health but also a threat to public health.

The idea of sexuality that emerges from the following tips, and which we will take into account in this article, appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is a dimension that “affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others”[4].

Interpersonal communion and procreation

Two great goods are carefully prepared in the depths of each person from infancy: the capacity to forge a solid interpersonal communion and the capacity to procreate, to open oneself to others and generate a new life.

What happens if this energy spirals out of control or does not find an adequate outlet? Sexuality cornered in self-centered pleasure ends up exhausting itself or exploding, like an over-pressurized boiler. And when it is offered an escape route, without order or guidance, it burns as many as it can reach, without bearing fruit.

Sexual energy drives towards a joyful and fruitful existence, if we allow it to expand towards the good of others. Or, if we enclose it in the search for selfish pleasure, it consumes in sadness and clouds the heart.

Questions that arise before the sexual dimension

It is necessary to know and educate that intimate vital energy, and to ask oneself: Is sex a game of hormones or an organic experience that should only function like a kidney or the heart?

Should sex be just an interesting hobby to test run others and see if they are worth it? Is it a means of communication like any other, an instrument to have a deep experience? Is sex possible as only pleasure to compensate for the frustrations of life? What is pursued with sexuality is something, ephemeral, interchangeable, and depersonalized, like a virtual experience on the internet?

1. Alteration of the internal attitude of desire

As in the sex trafficking of prostitution, pornography does not seek love, the good of the other, nor procreation, proper to human affectivity and sexuality, but exclusively quick and easy pleasure or economic retribution.

From the consumers’ point of view, the aim is to satisfy a need with an illusion, because for some reason it is not wanted or cannot be satisfied in reality. In this way, the normal object of the will, which is a real good, is changed. The will itself is altered.

The perception of the world and of other people is modified by pornography. Little by little, but soon everything is seen as deformed: bodies are seen only as objects, the taste for what is really good is lost and more consumption is always wanted. As it happens with junk food, or the excess of alcohol or a spicy pepper, which prevent the taste of authentic flavors and enjoyment.

Theoretically, pornography is illegal in several countries, but money has been more powerful and it is not prosecuted. Because of the damage it causes, the degradation it entails, especially for women, and the criminality it engenders, it is to be hoped that there will be more initiatives to prevent it.

The wounds of pornography at an early age

The first viewing of pornography today occurs at an early age. Around the age of 11 or earlier. Not infrequently it affects children in a similar way to sexual abuse, leaving deep psychological wounds.

The essence of this wound is what can also occur at other ages: love is confused with fiction. The images, often violent, are absorbed by a brain in formation, not yet prepared, which is unable to distinguish the real from the illusory. Thirty percent of adolescents encounter it by accident.

Pornography thus leads to a lack of identity. “When I was seven years old, a classmate showed me a pornographic video,” an eighteen-year-old seminarian, worried about his homosexual desires, told me. “Yes, at the age of fifteen I started to watch images,” another man in his thirties, who felt and was a slave, told me in conversation. “At the beginning it was normal pornography, the kind everyone sees on YouTube, now I watch the most violent pornography of men,” commented one man over the age of fifty, who had been suffering for years.

Risks of consumption associated with crime

The risks of pornography consumption are well known: it facilitates sex addiction, leads to dysfunctions or medical pathologies in the use of the generative capacity, instinctively alters desire, is a frequent trigger of sexual attraction to the same sex, and is closely related to criminality and exploitation of men, women, and children.

It, moreover, deprives the ability to respond to society or to a transcendent: a source of a lack of responsibility.

A child subjected to pornography can suffer significant harm because, as we said, it acts as abuse. That is why most governments seek to prevent it. New Zealand, for example, has prepared explanatory videos that are widely distributed.

The harm to young people and adults is less considered. It is clear that pornography gives free rein to instincts and increases, for example, the number of crimes committed by pedophiles.

In young people and adults it distracts from the proper object of sexuality. One of the main reasons why people today seek to stop consuming these types of images is the secondary impotence it produces.

Pornography damages conjugal communion.

It is also a frequent cause of breakups in marriages. The relationship of the spouses is altered by the intrusion of external agents. Serious problems arise in the practice of the conjugal act; it opens the doors to other types of infidelities.

Like any vice, pornography alters the relationship between the emotions or affective world and the will. One does not know what one really wants or why. We know that “emotions and feelings can be taken up in the virtues or perverted by the vices.”[5]. In pornography, the heart is often dissociated from the will. One can desire to quit but perverted emotionality takes the reins.

The poison of images enters violently into the spiritual immune system, so to speak, and diminishes the ability to react well to others, to think of them unselfishly. It becomes more difficult to fight with strength in other areas, and the very capacity to love is altered. All this leads to a modification of interpersonal relationships.

Neurological damage due to hyper-stimulus that alters the desire to love

Even the neurological factors involved favor this change of object and attitude in desire. Pornography presents to the senses, in particular to our optical system, what are called super stimuli. It is not a normal stimulus, but amplified and manipulated voluntarily to cause addiction.

The brain reacts with a hyper production of neurotransmitters related to pleasure and reward: dopamine, which is released at the level of the cerebral amygdala, a nucleus located inside the temporal lobes.

It begs the question: What’s wrong with increasing dopamine with easy and accessible pleasure? A major problem with pornography is that the excess dopamine it produces in the brain fools normal physiology.

After a while, the usual pleasure stimuli, managed in the amygdala, may become ineffective. Stronger and stronger stimuli are required to produce similar results. It is the same thing that happens with drugs or alcoholism.

The sexual dimension has an extraordinary force that, when not regulated by intelligence and will, absorbs other interests. Many people who fall into pornography lose the ability to enjoy beauty, reading, music, and other works of art, nature, and even friendships. We are faced with a pleasure that “clips the wings of the spirit”[6].

Hyperstimulation raises the threshold necessary to achieve the same effect, which will be the subject of the next section: the passage to addiction.

2. From vice to addiction: an intimacy-stealing drug

What often begins as a game, curiosity or seduction, ends up, with more or less complicity of the person, dragging one down a slope where vice and mental illness are intertwined. To the initial search for pleasure, an imperious need to act is added in order to reduce anxiety or psychic discomfort, and further pleasure is lost.

The search is transformed into a desperate yearning to fill the void of meaning in life and meaningful and intimate interpersonal relationships. What is “breathed” however is not the oxygen that was expected, but a noxious product that suffocates little by little.

With considerable medical justification, pornography has been called the new drug, since it triggers a series of brain mechanisms similar to those of drug addicts, as the department of psychiatry of the University of Cambridge proved years ago[7]. Wanting not to be addicted is a good reason to delve into how to give up pornography and why.

As I mentioned, pornography acts by releasing substances in the brain (especially in the cerebral amygdala), related to pleasure and reward. Specifically dopamine. These substances or neurotransmitters leave an imprint on the anatomical arrangement of the brain. In the end, like drugs, they produce an alteration that enslaves. The saying about pornography is illustrative: “it is consumed by the senses and stored in the brain.”

The visualization of images with sexual content permeates the brain.

It can end up modifying neuronal dynamics and morphology, which is another reason to abandon pornography as soon as possible. The mechanism that chains to the substance or to the harmful activity is the same: an unwillingness to respond (not wanting to be responsible) at the beginning, and an inability to do so, as dependence sets in.

All addictions have in common the desire for artificial or false paradises. The empty person seeks to fill himself with the first thing at hand.

Addictions to drugs, alcohol, and sex have similar mechanisms. A decrease in anxiety and an increase in euphoria are pursued. Sometimes an attempt is made to cut a pathological anxiety, and something beyond joy or peace is obtained: a dangerous, exaggerated state of excitement, which can lead to harmful impulsivity, to bad actions of all kinds, with detriment to overall health.

The onset of pornography addiction

At any age it is possible to pass from vice to addiction. It starts with a “moderate consumption,” but it is necessary to increase the frequency and intensity of the images.

In other words, the classic symptoms of pathological addiction appear: tolerance (the same level does not produce anything) and psychological dependence (one cannot live without consuming).

The end result is a constant tension that requires more and more violent images. The excessive anxiety of the drug addict, or craving, is present.

How to quit pornography

After looking at why, let’s move on to how to quit pornography. In general, any person who starts with certain activities, transforms his way of being in their direction. The one who strives to love his neighbors, to do good, to help them, even if he feels little desire to do so, is forming a charitable personality: he grows in virtue.

He who steals small amounts, acquires the personality of a thief. He becomes simply and plainly a thief. The vice becomes an ingrained habit.

Pornography is a theft of intimacy, which introduces the viewer into a criminal world. And this is not only because most pornography channels have illegal content, not voluntarily sold by the “actors”[8].

Whoever watches pornography becomes an accomplice of associated crimes and, little by little, even if he does not want it, his personality is transformed in that sense.

The historical crime of King David

King David committed a serious crime after violating the privacy of others, looking carelessly at what was happening in his kingdom and at one of his subjects. He had the woman’s husband killed so that he could keep her (cf. 2 Sam. 11). It all began with an illicit theft of one’s privacy.

Unlike other thefts, violated privacy cannot be restored. Whoever steals in a supermarket is able to return or pay for the item.

Those who violate the privacy of others will not be able to return what was stolen. It is also different in that a stolen object can be enjoyed for a while and really satisfy some need. Intimacy which is stolen does not satisfy the longing for love and the craving for human relationality. And its pleasurable effect lasts for an instant.

The pornography industry in its relationship with other drugs

The similarity of pornography with other drugs is important. From the general point of view, we mention the criminality it attracts and the suffering it causes.

If we divide into producers and consumers, we see that the industry in this sector is very similar to drug producers. It moves millions, has no qualms about committing other crimes to make profits, is not interested in the pleasure, welfare, or happiness of the user, but only that he pays and the more the better. To this is added a great machismo.

From the consumers’ point of view, those who watch pornography are more likely to become sexual aggressors or pedophiles. It also introduces them into a world of crime. Men who consume pornography assault women more frequently; and women who consume it also allow themselves to be abused more, and lose the capacity to denounce their aggressors.

Pornography as an emotional regulator

Pornography, like alcohol and other drugs, becomes an emotion regulator: with sadness, fear, or discouragement, consumption increases in an attempt to counteract negative emotions.

There is no recreational use of pornography. There is no “normal pornography.” Consumers, even in small quantities, have a greater risk of falling into pathological addictions, as they are subjected to super stimuli.

If pornography is not abandoned soon, the damage is more lasting. Not only the brain and the physical organism with its reproductive apparatus are modified and affected, but also the heart in its metaphorical sense of the emotional world. In the end, the heart is tarnished, understood as that place where we decide for good or evil, and which allows us to value the other person for who he or she is.

The emotional world of those who allow themselves to be dragged into the vice of pornography is transformed. It is easier for these people to continuously sound the alarms of a negative emotionality, which opens the way to burnout and other forms of psychic pathology.

3. Preventing and helping with nonconformist audacity

We hope that the reasons for giving up pornography, and why it is considered a criminal activity in many countries, will become clearer. Even Google bans it, but little is done to suppress it. We will not go into the responsibility of governments to put an end to this problem, but what everyone can do to break the chains and not contribute to the dance around the golden pig, as Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, called the enterprise of sexuality[9].

The harmful sex industry, and in particular pornography, promote and are an example of what Pope Francis has called the throwaway culture: “In our own day, sexuality risks being poisoned by the mentality of ‘use and discard.’”[10].

The vice of pornography can end when you accept that there is a problem, seek help, understand the damage it does to yourself and others, and choose safe and real paths to happiness.

Countering the Pornography Industry and Personal Change

Preventing and quitting pornography requires a nonconformist boldness. That is, to know what it is and what it produces, without conforming to the industry that promotes it; and the courage to create new currents around sexuality and love, with hope and conviction that it is worthwhile.

It is necessary to take a series of measures. Those who really want to get rid of an allergy do everything they can: consult an allergist, find out what substances provoke the reaction…, what medications or vaccines to use… Those who want to overcome the addiction identify the problem, move away from it, use what is within their reach to stop harming themselves and their environment.

The consumption of pornography reflects a personal conflict that is worth delving into in order to recover joy. The longing for immediate and artificial pleasure expresses a desire to fill the empty heart with love. Motivation is the starting point to overcome the problem.

Taking care of the internet and networks

If you know that the Internet is harmful to you, you are more careful. An effective suggestion is not to access the internet when tired or ready for bed, because these are moments of lower defenses; and to end the day by turning to the real You, God, and those who see us and love us, and not the anonymous crowd on the internet. It is advisable not to have access to some social platforms on your cell phone or tablet, and to limit them to a fixed computer or one in common use at home or elsewhere.

These dissuasive measures are more advisable if there are symptoms of addiction. In complex cases it may even be necessary to nip some kind of Internet use in the bud, like the alcoholic who decides not to drink a drop, because he recognizes the problem and looks with hope to a different future.

The main driver for giving up pornography

For both vice and addiction, the main driver for change is a clear motivation. Everything starts from focusing on what is important: God, me, and others. It is important to move from what you are doing—the theft of intimacy we mentioned—to why you are doing it. Perhaps in this way the emptiness in one’s life, aspirations, and projects can be discovered, and steps can be taken to fill it with real oxygen.

Pornography can be the search for an intimacy that one does not have and needs, but in reality it remains an illusion, because it is stolen.

The ABC’s of how to give up pornography and why

What I have called the four steps to abandon pornography are useful. We present them in a didactic ABC, which can also be seen in another article:

Accept that there is a problem of relationship and capacity to love, that by watching pornography one becomes an accomplice—probably unknowingly and unwittingly—to crimes: abuse of minors, women, and men, exploitation, trafficking and enslavement of human beings for money or against their will and forever.

Privacy once violated continues to spread on the Internet. This induces a change of attitude: it is advisable to give up the vice, even if not yet addicted, to discover the reasons of anger, anguish, frustration, impulsivity, emptiness…, which have made sex displace other interests and to see others as objects of pleasure.

Build a new world of relationships by seeking help from people in authority with whom to talk and who can guide you on a path of peace and reconciliation with the past, to discover possible wounds and to heal them, knowing how to forgive. Seek also good pleasures and entertaining activities, which fill and facilitate breathing. Form noble friendships, friends with whom to share hobbies; be interested in others and love them.

Finding the meaning of life, why and how to give up ponography.

Comprehending the meaning of life as a whole, what makes one suffer and what causes frustration. Discovering why one has fallen into the vice, and recovering the responsibility: that is to say, we can and must respond to loved ones and to society, even if this capacity is now damaged. A heart in love and with purpose gives light to the intelligence and strength to the will.

Developing the strength to quit pornography and activating the spiritul powers to contemplate the true, the beautiful, and the good, in art, in nature, in the human being. Activate, strengthen, and speed up precautionary measures, with someone in order to guide in a safe navigation, so as not to return to the “artificial paradises” presented by pornography. Going out of oneself towards God and towards others in order to serve.

A written motivation to give up pornography and why to do it.

The same article of the four steps to quit pornography advised to make a kind of navigation table, dividing a sheet of paper into two columns.

Write down the alarms in the left column: environmental circumstances (places and times, internet use) and subjective circumstances (mood and inner emotions: emptiness or lack of meaning in life, sense of loss, low self-esteem, lack of goals, loneliness, anger, fear, boredom…) that encourage the consumption of pornography.

In the right column, write down the precautions: how to counteract each circumstance or negative emotion, how to find or recover meaning, how to resort to religiosity and relationship with God; healthy and entertaining activities to not lose motivation: sports, going out with friends, a phone call, reading a book, listening to music…; limit the use of internet to certain times and places, use censoring apps, do not have social networks on your phone.

Conclusions on how to quit pornography and why

As we said, pornography would require more incisive measures by the authorities to protect the field of privacy, where women pay the highest price. For Frankl it is a serious consequence of dehumanization. The Vienna psychiatrist explains that it isolates sexuality and genitalia as an exclusive field of interest. It degrades, he says, the human being to the condition of a beast[11].

It is worthwhile to help from the beginning those who are plunged into this vice. When it is proven that there is a desire to stop, and it does not succeed despite the good advice of spiritual accompaniment, the intervention of a doctor or psychologist who has an adequate anthropology may be necessary.

Do not let your personality deteriorate with pornography.

Of course, not all people who watch pornography or perform other actions contrary to chastity feel sad or empty. One who steals may find pleasure and well-being with that action. But stealing is still bad and shapes the personality of a thief. Similarly, those who watch pornography for the pleasure of doing so also transform their way of being.

Sexual difficulties are often related to a lack of love. We can affirm, following developmental psychology, that “sexual satisfaction without love implies a serious lack”[12].

Love unburdens hearts, recognizes the beauty of bodies, and respects the dignity of every person. Love fills with hope, and the grace of God gives light and strength.

Wenceslao Vial

Article notes

[1] Cfr. A. Cooper, Sexuality and the Internet: Surfing into the new millennium, in «Cyber Psychology and Behavior», 1 (1998), 181–187.

[2] Francis, Address to directors of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe, 10 June 2022.

[3] Francis, Address to the Participants in the Congress on “Child Dignity in the Digital World”, 6 October 2017.

[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2332.

[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1774

[6] Hanz Remplein, Tratado de psicología evolutiva. El niño, el joven y el adolescente, Labor, Barcelona 1971, 564.

[7] Cfr. Valerie Voon, Thomas B. Mole, Paula Banca, Laura Porter, Laurel Morris, Simon Mitchell, et al, Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours, in «PLoS ONE», 9 (7) (2014): e102419. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102419. See also: Todd Love, Christian Laier, Matthias Brand, Linda Hatch, Raju Hajela, Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update, in «Behavioral Sciences» (Basel), 5 (3) (2015), 388–433, doi:10.3390/bs5030388.

[8] Many lawsuits are received by porn channels that, even though a number may be due to fraud by the “actors” to obtain more money, a not insignificant number seem to be true.

[9] Cfr. Viktor Frankl, Ante el vacío existencial. Hacia una reumanización de la psicoterapia, Herder, Barcelona 1990 (6ª), 26-27.

[10] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, n. 153, 19 March 2016.

[11] Cfr. Wenceslao Vial, Viktor Frankl: Aporte de sentido a nuestra época, in Humanitas, n. 40, 2005, 525-537.

[12] Charlotte Bühler, Psicologia e vita quotidiana, Garzanti, Milano, 1970, 191.

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Wenceslao Vial
Wenceslao Vial

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