Authors-choice: Hope & Revival

Stop Looking at Porn, You Sicko!

Comedian Bob Newhart has been making people laugh for decades. One of my favorite skits features Newhart playing the role of a therapist. After one patient describes her fears of being buried in a box, he advises her to listen carefully to two words and incorporate them into her life. “Are you ready?” he asks. “Here they are…

“Stop it!” He shouts.

When she seems puzzled by the therapy, he says, “This isn’t Yiddish, Catherine. This is English: Stop it! You don’t want to go around in life being scared of being buried in a box, do you? It sounds frightening.

Then stop it!”

As Catherine brings up other phobias and problems, she receives the same advice. She suffers from bulimia.

“Stop it. Are you a nut of some kind?”

She has self-destructive relationships with men.

“Stop it!” Newhart shouts.

She fears driving.

“Get in the car and drive, you kook! Stop it!”

For reasons apparent to most people, poor Catherine doesn’t feel comforted and demands more from her therapist.

“I don’t like this therapy at all. You’re just telling me to ‘stop it,’” she confronts.

“Okay, let me give you 10 words that I think will clear everything up for you,” he says. “Do you want to get a pad and a pencil for this one? Are you ready? Here are the 10 words. Stop it or I’ll bury you alive in a box!”

Hopefully, no one meets a therapist like this. But unfortunately, this is the pointless counsel that many people give themselves or to others regarding porn use: “Stop it!”

No one likes to admit they feel out of control, but then pivotal moments come along that wake us up to what our habits are costing us.

The perception of these costs can vary. A person may be troubled or even disgusted by their pornography use, or it may be having a disturbing effect on their sexual thoughts and behaviors. Pornography can have negative impacts on relationships, from ignoring loved ones in order to spend time with porn to pornography destroying intimacy, which can lead to divorce. Pornography often reduces sexual potency, including premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction.

Others may realize that pornography use conflicts with their moral or religious beliefs. They may recognize that the men and women in porn are real people that are typically victimized, especially women. “This is someone’s daughter,” they may recognize. Women in porn are often treated with violence, and are required to perform sex acts that are abusive.

Pornography contributes to sex trafficking, and the victims of sex trafficking become part of the pool of video and images circulated online. Between 14,500 and 17,500 sex slaves are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Another 300,000 American children are at risk for trafficking each year.

After binging on porn, many men and women feel ashamed of having given in again. They promise themselves, others, and even God that they will never again view erotic images, videos, or stories, or enter online sex chatrooms. Typically, this promise is little more than a repeated plea that echoes through their memory. They may even experience periods of abstinence from porn, whether a couple of days, a week, or even a month, but eventually they fall again.

If a person could just “stop it,” quitting porn would have happened by now. For some, a vicious circle plays out: viewing porn to feel better, acting out, feeling shame, keeping their secret, viewing porn to feel better, acting out, feeling shame, keeping their secret… The merry-go-round continues, and though nauseous from this spinning, escape seems unrealistic. Others may feel no shame about using porn and may see it as a recreational activity. But they still might recognize its adverse impact on their sex life, work, and family. They may realize that they need porn and masturbation just to feel normal. They may notice that their porn use has escalated to more varieties, or to scenes they feel (or once felt) are hurtful, disgusting, or inappropriate.>Read more