So, I’ve written a few articles on self-control and respect for women,
and I (Gary) think that a recurring theme in my articles is how these concepts
are always tied to each other. I’d like
to take this opportunity to shed a little more light on why I’ve tried to
emphasize these two concepts in almost everything that I’ve contributed to this
website.
As I mentioned emphatically in the article on respect, pornography does have victims. The men and women who are lusted over are
certainly being used, and you’re hurting the people that you love when you look
at it. Indulging in the imaginary world
of pornography takes you farther and farther away from your friends and family,
until eventually you no longer see them as people at all, but merely as objects
in your own fantasy world. That’s not
cool at all; it’s impossible to build a truly loving relationship with another
person when you’re indulging yourself in the sickest form of
self-gratification.
But it doesn’t end there; the person viewing the pornography is hurt as
well. Every time you sin, you injure
your relationship with God; and sexual sin is very, very serious. Every time you lust over another person,
you’re taking yourself farther and farther from God’s hands and closer and
closer to being a slave to your passions.
Being a slave is no fun at all; humans live for freedom, and living
according to God’s will is the deepest and truest freedom that you can have,
it’s what we were made for. But like John Philpot Curran said, “the price
of liberty is eternal vigilance.” In
other words: if you want to be free, you have to keep a watchful eye on your
freedom, or else you’ll lose it. Guard your eyes from pornography, and keep
yourself out of tempting situations; once you make a habit out of doing that,
instead of making a habit out of giving into temptation, then getting out of
the trap won’t be quite as hard. That
doesn’t mean that it’ll be easy, though; addictions can take several months, or
even years, to fully overcome.
So, you ask, why all the emphasis on pornography? Well, I’ll let you in on a little
secret: I’m not perfect. For a period of several years, I was addicted
to pornography, and indulged in it regularly.
Though I became Catholic before my first exposure to pornography (and
hence, I was pretty much liable for all that I did concerning it), I hadn’t
heard anything about what the Church taught about it. Even so, I knew it was wrong from the
beginning; nobody had to tell me, I could just feel it. I can’t begin to express the regret that I
feel for continuing to indulge in pornography for so long; even after I found
out for sure that pornography and masturbation were sinful and always
objectively evil, I continued to indulge in them. There were several times when I would tell
myself that I was done with pornography, but it would come back to haunt me
before long. So when I say that I know
about the temptations that you guys are going through, that’s not just a bunch
of empty words; I’ve been through the temptations, many times, and sometimes I
failed to resist them. I’ll have to live
for the rest of my life with the consequences of my actions; those images are
forever ingrained in my memory, and it’ll take many years for me to recover
from the effects they’ve had on me.
So all of this up to now is pretty disheartening, huh? It looks like the guy who’s helping to run a
website on chastity can’t even stick up to his own standards. Well, this is where the good news
begins. After all that I’ve been
through, and all of the bad things I’ve done, I can still know forgiveness and
healing, thanks to the awesome power of our God. For the longest time, I couldn’t bring myself
to go to Confession, because I thought the priest would look down on me, and I
didn’t think that he’d be able to forgive my sins because they were so
grave. But that’s the beauty of God’s
mercy; it’s unlimited! No matter what
you’ve done, if you’re truly sorry for doing it, God will forgive you for
it. After a considerable amount of time,
and with the proper motivation, I was able to go to Confession, and I was able
to talk about my problem (by this point, it had become an addiction) with a
priest, and eventually, even with my parents; and I was able to recommit my life to chastity. It felt so great coming out of Confession
with that load off of my shoulders; I felt 50 pounds lighter.
But isn’t it natural to be able to vent your sexual energies, and isn’t
viewing pornography a lot better than going out and getting someone
pregnant? God gave us many, many ways to
naturally vent our sexual energies: intense sports, nocturnal emissions, and
prayer (yes, prayer) to name a few.
Viewing pornography isn’t very good at reinforcing self-control, and it
definitely isn’t good for developing a sense of respect for women. Indulging in pornography teaches you to
gratify your passions immediately, by any means necessary (in most cases, an
internet connection). This total disregard
for self-control goes hand-in-hand with the lack of respect offered by pornography;
and I think I’ve already stressed how much pornography degrades the human
person. All of this almost adds up to
putting pornography right up there with premarital sex. The only thing you have not done is to
physically involve another person directly with your sin. However, we’ve already seen that pornography
has its victims nonetheless. So as I
mentioned earlier, there are much better alternatives to both pornography and
premarital sex.
So what’s so great about abstaining from pornography? Living in the freedom of Christ, that’s
what. When I was addicted to
pornography, I felt like a slave. I was
not a free man but a man bound to my passions; I was hardly more than an
animal. With pornography,
self-gratification is the only and the inevitable end; that’s all there is,
just pleasing yourself. But there’s
really a lot more to this world than just yourself, and there’s definitely more
to this world than just pleasing
yourself. The greatest people in the
history of the world are recognized as the greatest because they lived for
others; the only way for human beings to fully find themselves is to live for
others. When I became free from
pornography, the chains holding me back were broken; I was free to be the man
that God created me to be. I felt
happier than I had felt in a long time, and I knew that I had taken a big step
towards finding myself. I’ve still got a
long way to go before I fully find myself and figure out what I want to do with
my life, but now I know that I can pursue whatever that dream is in freedom.
After I had confessed my sins, I took extra steps to help to make sure
that I didn’t fall into sin again. I got
into the habit of praying whenever I felt tempted (during that time you’re
looking up pornography, you could be praying a Rosary: which do you think God would prefer?); I
spent more time outside, and more time with my friends and family; I also spent
more time with my hobbies, and picked up a few new ones as well (the main point
is to spend more time occupied, and less time idle). I still fell a few times after I had
confessed my sin (old habits die hard), but each time it happened, I picked
myself back up again, and recommitted myself to chastity. Eventually, after a long time of working
through my problem and many, many confessions, I was able to conquer my
addiction for good, and here I am (a vicious cycle of doing a bad thing and
then confessing it is not the way I want to spend the rest of my life; I also
don’t want to spend the rest of my life objectifying women). While I may have conquered pornography, that
does not mean that I have lost all of my hormones, or that my life is totally
free of temptations. As a 19-year-old
man, I face temptations everyday, and my hormones are in full swing; but I keep
John Philpot Curran’s words in mind (“eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty”), and I do everything that I can to avoid temptations and to grow as a
person in pursuit of chastity.
On a side note, almost all that I’ve said about pornography in this
article is also very applicable to masturbation, which is another hard topic
among teenage guys.
There’s nothing pretty about pornography: likewise, there’s nothing
pretty about the background of this article.
If you’ve got any questions about
pornography, or about anything relating to chastity, don’t hesitate to e-mail me or IM me on AIM at
“twoheartsto1”
You can probably find some relevant stuff in Secondary
Virginity and Respect
Click here
to take the chastity pledge!
Written by: Gary