Why I Hate Pornography

Ever since I was a kid I had a fascination with sex. I don’t know why. When I was nine years old I remember getting so mad at a friend of mine who said he found a Playboy magazine behind an apartment complex but threw it away.

Eighth grade was the first time I ever self-abused. Even that phrase sounds like I’m trying to hide something—using the phrase “self-abuse” while dancing around the word “masturbation” because somehow it is supposed to sound less degrading. It doesn’t though, it probably makes it worse.  Not too long after that I discovered pornography on the internet.

I remember finding pictures on a downloading torrent and saving them to a 3.5 floppy at one in the morning or finding explicit stories and printing them out to read later when everyone else was out of the house. I loved it. The thrill. The satisfaction. The relief. It was my escape from a world I thought was friendless. From eighth to eleventh grade, all I had were—what I then thought—pity friends: other parents forcing their kids to invite me over to play, or hearing my mom through my blanket walls in the basement telling my brothers to invite me along. Four years of being alone and relying on pornography as my only company.

Somehow in eleventh grade I made some friends and even got a girlfriend. I still don’t think I appreciate or understand how much my developing addiction influenced how I interacted with her. My warped sense of how men used women for sex created a weak foundation for our relationship. I still regret losing my virginity in a car. I regret nearly every relationship after that too, all with the same foundation.

After we broke up, I graduated high school a few months later. I remember the empty feelings pornography left me more than I do the things I learned in my classes. I had several church leaders ask me about living the law of chastity. The conversation was the same each time:

“Eric, have you ever looked at pornography?”

“Yes, I have, but I try to avoid it.”

“Well, if you promise to do your best, I think you’ll be ok to get this recommend for baptisms in the temple.”

“Thanks, I promise I will try my best to not look at it anymore.”

I don’t blame them for my addiction. I do wonder though how my life would be different if one of them said, “No, you can’t go to the temple. I’m not going to let you until we tackle this thing head on.” That day finally came after five years when I sat in my bishop’s office to see if I could graduate from the four years of seminary I attended at 6:00 AM every morning in high school. He told me I couldn’t graduate, but I should still go to the graduation to support my friends.

I didn’t go. What friends?

Somehow I managed to stop in order to go on my mission. The same bishop who told me I couldn’t graduate seminary was the one sending me off. As much as I tried to reassure him that I was clean and hadn’t relapsed and was really sorry, I still don’t think he was totally convinced or felt comfortable letting me go. I did go, and I’m glad I did.

That is not to say, however, that I was clean my entire mission. Of all the memories I have from serving a mission, only two stand out vividly. Once in Marysville after my year-mark I sat outside my apartment telling my mission president that I relapsed again, and he telling me it was ok and to move on. The other in Sammamish when I had three months left, I kept trying to get call him again to tell him I no longer believed any of the stuff I was teaching, and I wanted to go home. I never got a hold of him. I decided to stay rather than face the social pressure of answering the question, “Why did you come home early?”

When I got home, I didn’t have a girl waiting for me, I had an addiction waiting for me. I went to BYU-Idaho without a testimony but with an addiction. Less than eight months later, my addiction led me to a greater mistake of meeting a random woman online in a hotel room in Idaho Falls. Two weeks later I was disfellowshipped and driving back to Maryland.

From all of these experiences so far, I learned one very important detail: I have an incredibly loving family. Both of my brothers opened their homes to me and listened to me. Both of my sisters who knew little of what was happening gave me shoulders to cry on and ears to listen. My parents—where would I be without them? I called my dad telling him I had been disfellowshipped, and he said, “It’s ok, son. Come home.” If there is one thing I want to give my children, it’s a safe place to land when they make a mistake. My mom and dad are truly incredible people who love me unconditionally. I am forever in their debt for that.

After months and months of meeting with my patient bishop and after a failed engagement to a girl (another relationship with a weak foundation), I was refellowshipped into the church. It was an incredible feeling to be back, to have a temple recommend again, to have some self-confidence in my own testimony and spirituality.

It didn’t take very long to relapse.

I got my temple recommend back in 2009, and for two more years I didn’t have the motivation to fight off my addiction any longer. Then on March 26, 2011, after months of emailing each other and rekindling a friendship, I drove from Rexburg to Provo to meet Crystal. I knew I wanted to date her the moment she opened her door.

Now, I thought, I had motivation. I still relapsed from time to time while we dated and even after we got engaged, but I knew that if I wanted this relationship to work, it had to be different than all of my other relationships. It was, and for the first time, I felt happy in what I now realize to be my first ever healthy relationship with a woman. I told her everything. I gave up my addiction for her.

On October 8, 2011, we got married in the Columbia River Temple in Washington. I had no idea how much damage a lifetime fascination with sex and a twelve-year addiction to pornography would have on my own self-image and my relationship with my wife. I thought I would be free from my addiction to pornography forever once I got married, despite consistent warnings I’ve heard all my life.

I didn’t relapse for nearly a year after we got married, but then I gave into pornography again. I struggled with it by myself for over a year. She couldn’t put a name on it, but I know that Crystal was struggling with my addiction too. I didn’t have the courage to tell her about it.

It ate at me. It devoured me. I’ve never felt more miserable in my life. Day after day I struggled to keep myself in check, promising myself after every relapse that it was the last time, that I would tell her tomorrow. I read and read and read about new studies explaining just how addictive pornography was to a person. Posting articles on Facebook somehow convinced me that I would be redeemed. Being open about my past, but cementing off the present, made me feel less worse about my active addiction.

Then Claire was born on October 18, 2013. Surely, I thought to myself, this would be my catalyst for purging my addiction. For a week, it was. Less than a month after she was born, I was deeper than ever. I could feel myself spiraling into an all-too-familiar isolated abyss.

One day, I broke down. I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to tell Crystal, and through a tear soaked pillow, I did. For a long time I’ve thought the unconditional love from my parents could not be surpassed. I doubted how much Crystal could love me, but when I told her I knew I could never doubt her love again.

Crystal’s empathy and love for me made me feel again. She understood me. She didn’t show the disgust I felt I deserved. She held me, and she cried with me. Since then she has supported me and helped me to talk openly about how much pornography warped me. I’d like to say that I have been clean since I told her, but I haven’t. I relapsed once, but she knows, and she still loves me.

I hate pornography.

I hate how pornography crushes my self-confidence about being a good husband.

I hate how pornography crushes my self-confidence about being a good dad.

I hate how pornography bolsters my confidence in my own intelligence, which only makes me think I can get through it alone.

I hate how pornography isolates me.

I hate how pornography warps what it means for me to be a man.

I hate how pornography warps how I view women.

I hate how pornography cost me years of healthy development in relationships, self-image, and spirituality.

I hate how pornography makes me constantly aware of all my failures.

I hate how pornography makes me feel guilty every time I receive a compliment.

I hate how pornography makes me feel guilty every time I kiss my wife.

I hate how pornography makes me feel completely unworthy to hold my daughter.

I do know this, though: I know that the only way to cope with my addiction to pornography is to be open and honest.

Here I am: my name is Eric James Stephens. I’ve had my addiction to pornography since I was 13—more than half of my life—and pornography has had a vice-like grip on my life for far too long.

I will always have my addiction to pornography, but there are two things that will always help me to cope: love and honesty.

I know my family loves me.

I know my wife loves me.

I know my daughter loves me.

I know that I love them.

I know that I need to love myself, and one day, maybe not today, that will happen again.