I Invited God to Look at P*rn

And Then Grace Did What Shame Could Not

I’m outing myself a bit more today, perhaps in a big way. Perhaps not, that’ll be up to your opinion after reading.

Back in November, 2023 I shared my first post about kicking porn. I called it, “How I Gave Up Porn the Unorthodox Way.” I shared a bit about my pattern of behavior; told a little story about arriving home late at night and found myself alone with my inner thoughts and my iPhone. This was always a challenging combination. Further down the article, I shared the story of when I first got my hands on my own collection of straight-up pornographic images.

But I never shared how I gave up pornography.

Several articles later I continued the story and shared about going to college where I discovered that some people would freely admit to their masturbatory behavior. This fact was a bit shocking to me back then.

But I never shared how I’d eventually overcome compulsive sexual behavior.

Two weeks ago I shared some information I’d learned about how people who find themselves in situations where they are being scrutinized on a regular basis may struggle with sexual compulsivity more than people who are not under the spotlight. I pondered whether the scrutiny of church communities like the one I grew up in might make this more difficult.

But I didn’t share how I overcame this added scrutinization.

Well, I didn’t share it here.

I did share it on Reddit. If you’re unfamiliar with Reddit, it is a social media platform and online community where users can submit content and seek feedback on the content. Content is organized into communities called "subreddits," each focused on a particular topic or interest, such as technology, cooking, gaming, fitness, or in my case, faith.

I will use Reddit as a sort of testing ground, looking for information about how things I write might land with my reading audience.

But I think it’s time I share it here. Maybe it will help you or someone you care about.

Here is what I shared that day complete with the clickbait¹ thread title:

Pornography accountability partners [are] simple shame avoidance and counter-productive.

I'm currently writing on Substack (www.theunfilteredscribe.com) about my journey to giving up porn. Most recently I talked about one reason Christians seem particularly drawn to pornography.

As for me, I wasn't able stop to until I dropped any of the "Christian" reasons for doing so. I literally started watching porn on purpose, whenever I wanted to. Turns out, I didn't want to very often. When I realized this, I was able to stop. It was about being intentional in my actions, knowing why I was doing what I was doing. Here are a few things I've done.

1)      I gave up Satan. No need for a scapegoat that most definitely did not flee when I resisted.

2)      I gave up the idea that I was addicted. There were things there that looked like addiction, but there were things that did not. For instance, I never had any withdrawal symptoms. That may sound weird, but I think it matters when we're considering addiction versus "stuff we wish we didn't do." I'm more addicted to pizza than I am porn.

3)      When I felt the desire to watch pornography, I took a moment to ask myself why I was having the desire. If it wasn't #1 or #2. Was it a hormonal thing? Maybe my partner and I hadn't had sex in a while, or maybe I was bored, or maybe I was avoiding work I should be doing, or maybe... something else. You name it. I then made a conscious decision as to whether or not I was OK with that reason. Then I acted as I wanted to. I found that as time went on, I didn't want to. So I didn't. There was no shame involved.

I really struggle with accountability partners when it comes to pornography. Ultimately it's just a different form of shame avoidance. I found shame was a motivator to keep to myself, which wasn't helpful. The only person I wanted to be accountable to was my partner, ultimately. When we dropped the shame around porn, we grew closer, and porn grew smaller in my life.

I am fortunate to have a partner who understands me.

So, there you have it. I got over my pornography use by… watching it on purpose. That’s the “unorthodox” part about it. I’d always tried to kick it by not watching. In the long run, this approach never worked. So I tried the opposite approach, and was able to find success.

I’m quite uncomfortable admitting this. It goes against everything anyone ever told me about behavior management regarding porn use. I’m sure there are readers out there who would never consider advising people to watch porn in an effort to get over their porn, ahem… “addiction.”

“It’s a sin! You can’t sin to get over sin!”

Listen, I hear you. But a few things:

Jesus ate with and spent time with sinners. This was unorthodox.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath. This was unorthodox.

Jesus instructed his followers to pick grain and eat on the Sabbath. This was unorthodox.

Peter entered the house of a gentile. This was unorthodox.

Paul dropped the idea of circumcision. For Jews, it didn’t get more unorthodox than that.

I just get the idea that sometimes doing things the unorthodox way is ok with God, particularly if it brings someone to a place of healing and therefore, a better life. This was my experience.

There is an important caveat. I actually didn’t want pornography to be part of my life. This was what was so frustrating for me. I wasn’t looking for a way to rationalize behavior I wanted to be OK. The fact was, I was engaging with something I didn’t want to be engaging with, and had tried for decades to avoid.

No amount of prayer, accountability partners or anything else helped me. The pattern always repeated. I prayed and told God I thought I needed to do it a different way^{(SPOILER ALERT—>} ²⁾.

In a moment you’re going to come to a paywall. Beyond it is what I offer my paid subscribers. I share the rough-drafts of my writing projects with them. And to be sure, today’s writing is rough. But first, just a bit more about what I think made the difference in the end for me.

I invited God to be there with me until I figured out why I did what I did. It was something like, “God, I’m about to look at porn. I know it, and you know it. I’d like you to be there with me, I guess.” Maybe we could say that I found a new way to avoid "giving in" to temptation. I didn't give in. I started approaching it on purpose, with intention. God accepted my invitation and brought grace with him. I found grace there, even in the midst of doing something I was taught was sin. 

It's interesting, because when I let God into my porn viewing experience, “Satan” didn't seem to come along. Maybe there wasn't any room for the grace of God and “Satan.” “Satan” used shame to keep me alone in my struggle. It’s as if grace and shame are opposite polarities. They can't exist in the same space. Grace allowed me to love myself, learn about myself, and understand why I was compelled to behave as I did. When I began to understand this, I began to use porn less and less. I continued to watch it whenever I wanted to. I still do.

I just don't want to anymore.

NOTE: A danger of letting people into early drafts is that things can change significantly. This happened this week. So significant was the change that I’m considering just including my eBook in the larger work about my marriage. It’s how things are developing.

That said, some (maybe %50) of what you read below will sound familiar. I’ve posted it before. Here it is again, in a new form with some new content. As it sits the next portion of the work would head toward this piece which I shared previously. I think you’d agree that makes sense. If you have any interest in sending feedback, please do.

Remember: this is a draft. It is mostly unedited and there will by typos and errors.

I’m so glad you’re here, experiencing the writing development with me. Thank you for your grace, patience, and support!

Jeff

---

Pornography: The Cycle

I stood in front of my chair in the room. Several strangers were looking up at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. So, I did.

“Hi. My name is Jeff, and I’m addicted to pornography.”

“Hi, Jef…”

“No … wait…” I interrupted the group, waving my hands at them in protest as they were about to greet me. “I mean … I might be addicted to pornography … but, I’m not sure. I don’t know if I need to be here or have the right to be here or whatever…”

Blank stares all around.

“Well, Jeff, then what are you doing here?” Asked one of the group members.

“I suppose I want to figure out if I am or not…”

**********

I wasn’t really in that room. I was in my car thinking about being at a sex addicts anonymous meeting. I wondered if I needed to be. In reality I was sitting in my driveway, in my car.

It was 12:20 AM. I was in my early 40s and at the time was working a second shift job. I lived in a rural area, with few street lights on my route. There was nothing much to see other than the lights of the dashboard or radio. Nighttime radio being crap, I was alone with my thoughts for the duration of the 20-minute commute home.

Generally, I like to be alone with my thoughts. But the midnight drive home was different. At about the time I hit the halfway point where I left the streetlights of the larger part of town behind me, the battle would begin.

Just go home, park the car, go up to your room, get ready for bed and then get in it. Don’t do anything else. Don’t even look at your phone.

I’d play the role of my own little motivational purity coach.

I’d mean it. Every time.

But usually that’s not how things progressed, motivational speech be damned. Usually I’d pull into the driveway, turn the car off, and then for reasons I didn’t understand, I’d always grab my phone to check my email/Facebook/twitter/Clash of Clans… you get the idea. I’d have the phone in my hand lighting up the otherwise pitch-black cabin of the car, somehow forgetting what “coach me” had said just seconds before. Then, before I knew what was happening, the battle was raging in my head again.

Was I going to look at pornography or not?

That was the question. It was always the question.

I’d get out of the car, walk up the front steps, go into the house, and there was the bathroom. I was downstairs, all alone and by myself. And then I’d say the one thing I always said to myself.

Just this one last time. This is IT. After tonight, I’m going to get it under control.

Not long after, as I was washing my hands of the act, I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. If I had the courage, I’d look up to my reflection. The look on the face of the person in the mirror was one of shame and disappointment. The thoughts in my head? Also of shame and disappointment. My reflection was honest.

Well, you did it again.

Then I’d head up to bed, doing my best not to wake my wife. In the back of my mind was always the thought that maybe she’d be awake wanting to make love to me, and I wouldn’t be able to. 

For the next few nights my willpower would hold. I’d manage to drive home and go right to bed. If over the next few days my wife and I did have sex, I’d be able to resist the urge to use pornography for a longer amount of time before the battle once again raged within me.

I rarely spoke of this to anybody. My late-night excursions into the world of pornography were lonesome, solo affairs. From time to time, I’d confess my challenge to close friends, hoping they’d be able to provide some insight or encouragement. The encouragement came, but not so much the insights. It was as if they might be experiencing the same struggle I was.

So, I kept this to myself. I always hid it. I always had.

I hid the cycle. I hid the… the masturbation. I hid it all.

I was tired of hiding; tired of lying. I lied to everyone, including myself. Maybe mostly myself. Just this one last time. 

Whatever.

I pressed the button on the side of my phone and the screen went dark. Placing it back on its magnetic holder I was now alone with just my thoughts, though the phone called to me and tried to interrupt.

At that moment I made a decision. I wasn’t going to do it the same way anymore. I started to have one of those thought-prayers. The kind where you hoped God was listening if God was actually there. Ultimately, I wanted to get my behavior under control whether God was there or not. But it seemed appropriate to have the conversation.

I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not going through the same cycle I always go through. I know what’s about to happen, and even though I’ve always told myself, “just one more time,” I know that’s not true. And, God, if you’re there, you know that’s not true either. I’d like to at least be honest with myself, and you too, God, if you’re there. I’m about to use porn. I’d rather be having sex, but that’s not happening tonight. So, I’ll be using porn to satisfy my urges. Um…if you’re there… you’re welcome to come along with me.

I grabbed my phone, opened my car door and went into my house. I went inside and had my time with pornography. When I was done. I forced myself to look in the mirror.

Was I happy with what happened? No. But it was different this time. I also wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t feel let down. At least I hadn’t lied. The honesty I’d had about my actions provided some relief. We’re doing it differently this time, I told myself. 

I loved the guy in the mirror. I didn’t judge him.

As I crawled into bed next to my wife, I gave her a kiss on the cheek, being careful not to wake her. Laying beside her and staring at the ceiling, I realized there was someone else I needed to be honest with.

Her. 

My wife. The woman I loved and wanted to be intimate with. I’d learned honesty and intimacy are inseparable.

This wasn’t the first time I’d have had this conversation with her. She knew I struggled with pornography. She’d caught me with it early in our marriage. I swore I’d never do it again, which sounds like a repeated theme. Later, about 10 or so years into our marriage we’d discussed it again in marriage counseling. At the time our marriage had been in crisis, and honesty meant a lot. So, I confessed it to her that I still struggled with it. 

We managed to fix our marriage issues, and communication about everything was better, including porn use. But I didn’t make a habit of confessing it to her every time the cycle came around. I felt like I needed to get over this on my own, so I didn’t tell her.

But this time I felt different. If I was being honest with myself and honest with a God I wasn’t always sure was there, I owed it to my wife to be honest with her, who I knew actually was there, and was most sure did love me.

I picked a time, just after she’d finished blow-drying her hair, and told her there were still some issues I was trying to take care of when it came to pornography.

“Joy?” I started. “I need to tell you something.”

She looked at me with expectation but didn’t say anything. My statement placed a certain heaviness in the room.

I went on. “You know pornography has been a problem for me in the past.” She nodded, looking at me somewhat awkwardly.

“I need to tell you it still happens sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes.”

“Ok.” She replied.

“I just want to let you know I’m working on it. It’s not about you. You haven’t done anything wrong.” The look on her face changed. The awkwardness was gone. In its place was a look of relief, if you can believe that.

“I really want to learn how to handle this, and I’m committing to you to do it. I’m attacking this different now, and want to begin by being more honest about it.”

“I thought you were about to tell me you were having an affair!”

“What? No!” God, no!” I laughed a bit.

She put down the hair dryer and looked at me. “I love you. I know this has been something you struggle with and hate. I’m sorry you’re going through it. I don’t totally get it, but I know your heart.”

“Thanks. I knew I could tell you, but still, I was nervous. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

She shook her head as she looked at herself in the mirror, going to work with the curling iron. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, head tilted in the way women do when curling their hair. 

“I trust you.” She said, smiling at me.

I considered telling her I was taking a different approach, that I wasn’t going to fight the urges like I had in the past. But I wasn’t sure she needed to know that, and I wasn’t sure my new approach would work, so I didn’t tell her that yet. I couldn’t be sure even if I approved of the approach I was taking. So, I didn’t feel like I could defend it to her.

Joy finished getting ready for the day and went to work. I went outside to rake leaves. Yard work is how I get away and think. The repetitious activities associated with yard work left room for my mind to think about other things. Mowing: up and back, up and back. Turning over a flower bed: shovel, scoop, and flip. Shovel, scoop, and flip. Weeding the garden: find a weed, pull it. Find another weed, pull it. Raking: rake, rake, rake, rake… I could think about other things all day long.

On this day, as I was gathering the red, yellow, and brown maple leaves which had fallen over the past week. It was a perfect day. The sun was shining with only the occasional wispy cloud in the sky. The colors of the leaves seemed to work perfectly with the still deep and rich green of the grass. Even the rake in my hand seemed to be an extension of the beauty of fall. As I raked, I thought about my marriage. I shook my head a bit in disbelieve at how well things were going.

Nobody would have predicted this. There were a lot of things that saved our marriage. But if I pointed to the first thing, it was honesty. Honesty had saved our marriage. It started with being honest with her. I paused in my raking for a moment to ponder on that idea for a moment. Something about it  didn’t seem right to me. 

No. It wasn’t right. I was off just a bit.

The first part of saving my marriage was being honest with myself about the reality of… well, things. 

The thing I’d done. 

I shook my head again, smiled and went back to raking. I couldn’t believe she’d forgiven me. Even though I knew she had.

I began to think back to the time when our marriage almost ended. It was winter when it all hit the fan. As I raked leaves onto the tarp so I could put them in the trailer, it hit me that the fallen leaves were the final sign that winter would soon be upon us once again. Winter is a time of what looks like the cold of death, or the death that cold brings. For sure, our marriage had been close to death. And there was a poetic nature to the fact that it was a winter storm that brought everything into the light.

1. I composed this title in an effort to get people to click on it, read my post and then hopefully add their thoughts to the discussion. While it is clickbait, I do believe that in the end, accountability programs in regards to pornography don’t get to the root of a behavior, and are based on shame avoidance. I’ll write about this more when I feel like I have a better handle on my position.

2. When I did this, it looks like I stumbled into something called “Cognitive Behavior Therapy.” As I understand it – and I admit I might not completely understand it - broken down into its simplest form, CBT involves dropping one way of understanding a (perhaps undesirable) undesirable behavior for a new understanding which helps change the behavior. This is much different than prayer. It’s active participation in behavioral modification. Prayer should come alongside action. Not in place of it, and not as a way to eradicate unwanted behavior.