Why I Quit

Hello fellow quitters,

I thought I should finally get around to making a post about why I'm here, and what I wish to do. Last Sunday (9/13/15) I was watching a documentary on Netflix, just waiting for the impending school day ahead. The documentary was part of a series by Lisa Ling, and this particular episode focused on strippers, and the following one focused on the sugar daddy/sugar baby dichotomy. It was somewhere along in the former episode that I started to realize that many of these girls were being manipulated, exploited, or otherwise forced by extraneous wants and needs into these occupations. In the latter episode, a girl said she didn't know if she could do it without sacrificing her dignity as a human being, as if she'd become chattel; an item, to be used and purchased.

I know, and respect that many people don't do this kind of thing as a sort of moral purging, or for the betterment of their ethical character, but to me, this really struck a chord. For me, it was enough to shake me from my quiet, comfortable indifference.

It wasn't long before I turned the lens on my own obsessions and addictions and realized that they too support the indecent exploitation of a lot of women. I also realized around this point, that maybe porn had been a bad influence on my own life as well. It wasn't that porn had subjugated me, or forced me into the same mental, or physical bonds that perhaps some of the girls find themselves in. Rather, I found that it had ruined the depth and emotional authenticity I found in my current relationship; that I could no longer find emotional depth or sexual pleasure in the physicality of our relationship. I decided at this point to start looking at the research out there, and what I found was the copious amounts of information that I'd turned a blind eye to. Maybe porn isn't just bad for the people involved, but maybe, it's bad for me too. The copious number of studies linking frequent porn use to neural plasticity and alterations in the brain are both frightening, and enlightening. I also realized I was on the brink of a lot of symptoms like PIED, and that maybe now was the last chance I'd have to escape relatively unscathed. It's enough to turn your stomach when you start to question the ambivalence you've long held for the stuff.

I hope this hasn't come off as too preachy, or too wordy. I'm on day 6, moving shortly into day 7 of no porn, and no masturbation. I know it's a bit of a trope now that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but I know that maybe at long last I've found the reason I need to quit a bad habit; not solely the injustice in the industry, not just the social stigma, or the awkwardness of paranoia, but for me. I need to do this for me.