Pornography (as defined by Merriam-Webster)
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
Sexual addiction (as defined by Wikipedia)
The behavior of sex addicts is comparable to behavior of alcoholics and addicts, where sex functions like a drug. A common definition of alcoholism is that a person has a pathological relationship with this mood altering drug. It provides a quick mood change, works every time and the user loses control over their compulsion. Like alcoholics, sex addicts’ lives rotate around the constant desire for their “drug” of choice. [emphasis added]
. . . .
I am a 61 year old male. I have also been a Christian since professing faith in Christ as a child. But for over 50 years I was addicted to pornography—not because I wanted to be. I hated it. Notice the emphasized words in the definition of sexual addiction. “The user loses control . . .” In other words, the user loses choice. You will look; you have no choice.
I was able to keep my addiction hidden from my family for many years—until 1999, when we started Internet service. I could not stay off the skin sites. Finally, after three confrontations, my wife asked me to leave home and seek counsel. I began meeting with a licensed Christian counselor from my church. He led me through Mark Laaser’s excellent Faithful and True material. Using that material in conjunction with my faith in Christ, the Lord gave me choice once again.
My wife asked me to come back home a year after I left. Over the next two years, I had two major slips on the Internet. Since I had broken trust with my wife in 1999, she could only assume that I was still addicted. To a victim of sexual abuse, “addiction” and “a slip” look the same. In working through solutions to this problem, I read an ad for Covenant Eyes. I looked at the website and discovered that this is what I wanted. Not a nanny program to keep me away from something (passive participation), but accountability to a partner for what I chose to look at (active participation). To make sure that the accountability stuck, I made my wife my accountability partner.
This last summer, I celebrated 10 years of having choice being given back to me. Have I slipped? Yes. But Covenant Eyes has helped move me from a position of trying to get around it to see what I didn’t really want, to actively joining with it to keep my heart and mind pure. “I have made a covenant with my eyes . . .”
– Bill Reynolds
After having successfully downloaded Covenant eyes on my family computer and browsing the website I wish I had done this long before now. I am now legally separated from the man that I love due to his inappropriate behavior. My children (teenage boys) are being adversely affected by their father’s choices but he can’t seem to understand that. I hope at somepoint he can wake up to the possibility of being a slave to his porn addiction. There is life in recovery!
Bill – I completely understand and empathize with your story. I have struggled on and off with pornography for years and recently had Covenant Eyes installed on my computer.
It’s good to know that I’m not the only one out there that struggles with this.