Talking About It

I don't talk about my porn addiction. With anyone. That is one reason I decided to join NoFap. I need to start talking about this. I am a writer by trade so I apologize if the following story is rather long-winded, but I need to get this out.

My first experience with pornography is when my mom found a Playboy in my dad's tool shed when I was 8 years old. I remember how angry she was about it and how my dad just hid. A few years later, at age 11, I had my first masturbation experience. My family had rented the 1980's version of Mutiny on the Bounty with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. This movie contains numerous scenes with topless island girls. I don't want to go into any more detail than this because of struggles that you may have (and the danger of arousing myself!) but it was these images I thought of as I had my first masturbatory experience later that night.

The discovery that I could make myself feel this good virtually any time I wanted to completely changed my life. From here, it didn't take long before I was sneaking out to the living room to put movies back in the VCR after my parents went to bed, fast-forwarding to all the sex scenes. After this I discovered the erotica sections of bookstores, where I would spend hours hiding in the aisles staring at pictures of fantasy comics as my parents went shopping on their own. Soon I was looking at swimsuit magazines and then yes, it was on to Playboy. I even had a system of stealing pornographic magazines from grocery stores, along with cigarettes. Soon I had quite the stash of my own Playboys which I awkwardly had to burn when my family moved so they would not be discovered. The smell of burning cologne advertisements in men's magazines from the mid-90's is not easy to hide!

From 11-15, this was most of my supply. Movies, TV shows, books, magazines, calendars, and anywhere else a horny and enterprising lad could catch a glimpse of the female form. The sad thing is that my mom walked in on me masturbating to such aids, more than once! I should have quit the first time but I couldn't stop, even then. I think I might have been addicted to porn in Junior High!

All of this was before the internet entered my home. When my dad got his first laptop I was allowed to use it for 3 hours a night. This was the typical 90's internet connection, slow dial up modem and pages that took a maddeningly long time to load. I would spend all 3 of these hours loading mostly soft core images before printing them and adding them to my stash. There were one or two models that I became obsessed with. These models almost became like girlfriends to me. In fact, I would spend more time looking at them than I did with my family or friends. I remember my dad catching me at least once, but it could have been more. How sad is that? I don't even remember how many times my dad walked in on me. That is how deep into this world I was.

My relationships with actual girls in Junior High and High School were pretty sad affairs. I was mostly too nervous to approach any of them. Maybe porn made this easier to deal with, or just kept me from pursuing some of them as much as I should have. I lost my virginity in a one night stand at the age of 17 and didn't have sex again until college. This was another one night stand as were nearly all my sexual encounters before the age of 29.

By the time I got to college, porn was a staid fixture in my life. It was a daily habit. Along with smoking, watching a television show, writing something in my journal, studying, playing guitar, porn was just another task that helped to get me through the day. I lived in a dorm with four roommates so there were times when this was rather tricky but since I didn't have a computer of my own I would use theirs to look at porn when they were in class. Yeah, I know, totally messed up. I would look at porn in public libraries, computer labs, anywhere that I could view my cherished pictures. There was not much that would keep me from digging deeper into picture archives or posted videos.

Getting my own computer both improved the situation and made it worse. Yes, I was no longer sneaking onto someone else's computer to get my kicks, but I was also completely free to look up anything I wanted to, whenever I felt the urge. Which was a lot. Up until this point I would say that I exclusively viewed softcore images or videos. This content included music videos, swimsuit or lingerie pictures, and the kinds of nude images you would find in Playboy. These were pictures of women scantily clad or naked, but never engaged in any sexual acts. Soon though, I found myself drawn to hardcore pornographic imagery. This proliferated over the years until it became the majority of the pornography I consumed. Currently, I would say it comprises about 80%.

At the age of 29 I entered my first serious relationship. A year earlier I had converted to Christianity. Both of these events drastically changed my relationship to porn. At first, becoming a Christian didn't change my sexuality at all. I still viewed porn every day and after my girlfriend and I had dated a couple weeks we became sexually active. However, this was the first time I experienced some of the negative physical effects of porn. I had some major sexual issues with this girl. I experienced ED for the first time during this relationship. She claimed it was no big deal, but I think it drew us apart. This, along with some emotional issues that I now believe are connected to porn, eventually caused us to break up.

A few months after this, I began dating the woman I would eventually marry. Unlike my first girlfriend, she was a strong Christian who did not believe in sex before marriage. For me this was great, I could still look at porn without having to worry about ED! About six months into the relationship I made a passing joke to a Christian friend about my heavy porn usage (thinking it was no big deal) and he said "you have to tell your girlfriend about that." I was flabbergasted and absolutely pissed, who was he to break "guy code" and demand I tell my girlfriend about porn. Guys don't do that!

Now this is when my faith enters the story so if you are offended by religion maybe just skip this paragraph. But when I went home that night after talking to my friend I was performing the usual porn/masturbation ritual when I heard a voice say "stop!" It wasn't my own inner voice and it wasn't the neighbor loudly reacting to the awkward moans of a hardcore threesome, it was a commanding voice completely outside of any prior experience. This is the only time in my life that I believe I heard the actual voice of God and he was telling me to stop looking at porn. You might think I'm crazy and that's ok, but even if it was just my subconscious or some other easily explained phenomena you have to admit that a sudden voice out of the blue telling you to stop doing something will make anyone rethink their life choices.

So I stopped. I stopped and called my girlfriend (now wife) and said we need to talk. I went to her apartment that night and told her much of what I have already related to you. I also told her I was going to do my best to quit. She later told me she nearly broke up with me that night after hearing I have this problem. But she decided to stick it out.

For the next few months I was PMO Free. My aforementioned friend was something of an AP I suppose, though we never really talked about any of this much after the initial conversation. All in all, I was pretty much on my own. At the time, I was attending a church that was very conservative and so I had a lot of guilt whenever I would even think about a woman. This was a very difficult time for me. I was PMO Free but I suffered both mentally and physically, mostly over the guilt I felt about all of the porn I had consumed for twenty years. I relapsed once during this period but aside from this, I made it to our wedding night PMO Free.

The wedding night was the big goal for me. I thought if I could just make it to the that night I would be having amazing, healthy sex and would never want to look at porn again. This proved to be hopelessly naive. I had greatly underestimated the effects of two decades of porn. Yes, we had sex but there was so much anxiety mixed into the majority of these encounters that they were often far from enjoyable. I suffered ED a number of times during this period, and it was a humiliating thing to go through with my new bride.

A few months after our wedding my wife had a surgery which basically put her out of commission for a week. It was during this week I relapsed. I was honest with her. I told her what I had done. But that did not stop me from doing it again. And again. And again. Telling her every time, but continuing to seek out porn. This is where I find myself currently, nearly four years into a marriage that has been absolutely decimated by porn. We even have a daughter now and still I look at porn. I am angry, I am depressed, I have ED every once in a while, I want to kill this part of myself that desires porn. But it seems like I can't stop. To be honest, I just discovered NoFap today, and while I was reading some of the articles and forum posts I kept thinking about how much I wanted to be looking at porn. My wife feels distant from me and recently told me she doesn't even see herself as my wife. We have sex maybe once a week, but sometimes I look at porn 3-4 times a week. If this continues, I don't think our marriage can survive.

Half of me wants to be a good father and a good husband, but the other half wants to live in a studio apartment and do nothing but look at porn. I know how messed up the latter is and that is why I am writing this to you now. That is why I am trying to beat this addiction by starting off 90 day PM Free. Maybe then I can silence this other half. At this point I don't know. But if you've gotten this far I want to thank you for taking the time to read this story. And I wish you the best with whatever you yourself are going through.

 

Thank you both for taking the time to read my story. I really appreciate your words and encouragement. I'm 2 days in and I feel more hopeful than I did when I started.

 

Thank you for your honesty and the time you took in crafting a response. I've told my wife about that and she will definitely look into it. It's good to know that we're not alone in this.