CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

meeting

By

[Revealed] How Porn Affects Marriages

[Revealed] How Porn Affects Marriages
by evictrapeafrica
http://evictrapeafrica.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/revealed-how-porn-affects-marriages/

Hello buddies! It’s another great time to share some drinks over some real issues. As i said in one of my previous posts, the purpose of discussing pornography on this blog is because it’s been postulated to have links with the unbridled sexual passion that drive many men crazy.

You can check up our archives to catch up with the posts issues on this series. I remember hearing a married man say that he has bought a couple of porn videos to watch with his wife so as to boost her declining libido. Is this really a remedy? Does porn really help to spice up the sex life of couples? We will find out right now. Just as I have been doing so far on this series, I will show you empirical data obtained from thorough research and surveys:

According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, prolonged exposure to pornography leads to:

  • An exaggerated perception of sexual activity in society
  • Diminished trust between intimate couples
  • The abandonment of the hope of sexual monogamy
  • Belief that promiscuity is the natural state
  • Belief that abstinence and sexual inactivity are unhealthy
  • Cynicism about love or the need for affection between sexual partners
  • Belief that marriage is sexually confining
  • Lack of attraction to family and child-raising

According to sociologist Jill Manning, the research indicates pornography consumption is associated with the following six trends, among others:

1. Increased marital distress, and risk of separation and divorce 2. Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction 3. Infidelity 4. Increased appetite for more graphic types of pornography and sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal or unsafe practices 5. Devaluation of monogamy, marriage and child rearing 6. An increasing number of people struggling with compulsive and addictive sexual behavior

A press release from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (divorce lawyers) reported that the most salient factors present in divorce cases are as follows:

68% of the divorces involved one party meeting a new lover over the Internet. 56% involved one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” 47% involved spending excessive time on the computer. 33% involved excessive time spent speaking in chat rooms. In 2003, a Focus on the Family poll showed 47% percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home.

In 2004, 42% of surveyed adults indicated that their partner’s use of pornography made them feel insecure, and 41% admitted that they felt less attractive due to their partner’s pornography use.

A brief survey on the effects of cybersex shows how wives of porn users develop deep psychological wounds, reporting feelings of betrayal, loss, depression, mistrust, devastation, anger, and sexual inadequacy. The same survey shows more than half of those engaged in cybersex lost interest in sexual intercourse, and one third of their partners lost interest as well

“I have also seen in my clinical experience that pornography damages the sexual performance of the viewers. Pornography viewers tend to have problems with premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction. Having spent so much time in unnatural sexual experiences with paper, celluloid and cyberspace, they seem to find it difficult to have sex with a real human being. Pornography is raising their expectation and demand for types and amounts of sexual experiences; at the same time it is reducing their ability to experience sex.” (Dr. MaryAnne Layden)

“Should pornography sufficiently arouse a biologically determined male predisposition for polygamy, then its informational system may be contributing to contemporary male frustration and even aggressiveness toward the female in general and monogamous patterns of sexuality in particular. It may be argued that if the visual data of pornography encourages distrust of female sexual fidelity and a distorted perception of female personhood, such data could encourage disdain and/or animosity toward heterosexual comradeship and the value of such comradeship for individual and social solvency.”

MY THOUGHTS:

I guess you read through the statistics very well. Apparently, porn hasn’t helped any marriage neither in sexual performance nor in companionship. It rather impedes sexual performance and destroys the marital union. Porn makes its users burn with so much sexual passion but when it gets to the time to ‘do the thing’, their performance is almost equal to zero.

As we have seen also, pornography has been found to be connected to the high divorce rate observed in our times.

Pornography obviously has not done us much good. Don’t you think? Share your thoughts with me if you have a contrary view or an additional point to add.

We still have alot more to share on this series. We will definitely share some helpful tips with people who wanna break free from porn.

QUESTION: What suggestions would you offer a woman whose husband is hooked to porn and online sex merchants that he no more enjoys sex with her and this has left their matrimony at the verge of a break up?

I will be expecting your answers. Thank you for stopping by.

For a better world,

TeeKay

By

I Lied to My Wife, Now What?

I Lied to My Wife, Now What?
by Jeff Fisher on October 21, 2012
http://porntopurity.com/blog/2012/10/21/i-lied-to-my-wife-now-what/

So what are you going to do now?

What do you think you ought to do?  Do you feel bad about it?  Are you trying to avoid the thought about it and put it in the past?

Maybe you think, “I’ll feel bad about it today, but I’m going to do some good things for my wife and make up for it.  Then I won’t feel so bad.”

Or you think if you push it away you’ll feel less guilty about it tomorrow.  Has that been your strategy?

Maybe you don’t think it really matters.  It’s not that big of a deal.  She probably lied about things too.  I’ve done a lot worse things in the past.

Or the most popular thought:  “I know if I tell the truth it’s going to make things worse.  It’s better to lie and not tell her.”

These are all rationalizations.

WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT LYING ISN’T THAT IMPORTANT Your beliefs about lying and experiences are not nearly as important as what God’s Word says.

Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

Proverbs 12:22 The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.

Psalm 51:6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Can you see the simplicity of these?  Telling the truth is even the goal of one of the 10 Commandments:

Exodus 20:16 You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Eliminate the question of “Does God think it’s OK?”  The answer:  no.

God wants you to be truthful.  He is Truth.  Any lie or cover-up is an affront to God’s standards, as well as your covenant with your wife.

WHAT DO I DO NOW?

I can’t tell you exactly how you need to confess to your wife, but here are some good principles:

  1. Have THAT conversation with your spouse – Confess.  Be truthful.  It sucks, it’s hard, but it’s necessary for intimacy, closeness, connection and knowing each other.  Stop rationalizing.  Man up and own it!
  2. Or have THAT conversation with a counselor first – If there are patterns of lying, deep sexual sin, or adultery involved you probably need to talk to a counselor first.  They’re wise and have tools to help you.
  3. Work toward full disclosure – You might think it’s easier to share a part, let your wife recover, then share more.  Not wise!  A friend of mine calls this “Death by 1000 Needles”.  It’s better to have one big disclosure than 60 mini disclosures.  Your wife will wonder, “What else is he not telling me about?” so it’s best to get it all out. (The leaders of Castimonia recommend a full disclosure through a 3-day intensive program. – See links to the left for two programs approved by the leaders of Castimonia.)
  4. Don’t be defensive – Don’t rationalize your lies or push the blame on your wife.  Take responsibility and own it.
  5. Answer your wife’s questions – It’s her turn to understand and make sense out of this.  She needs to know how much you were involved in (breath) and how deeply were you involved in your sins (depth). It’s not usually necessary or productive to share the “nitty gritty details”, but let a counselor help with this.
  6. Give her space to be angry – To most wives, the deception and the hiding are worse than the actions themselves.  Give her room and time to process her feelings.
  7. Don’t school your wife on how she needs to react and feel – You’re best bet is to shut up, listen and pray.  Any feelings that come out now are good.  If they don’t come out, they will be bottled up and explode later in your relationship.
  8. Work on your part – You can control your actions and your reactions.  Stick to these.  It’s one way you can show love to your wife.
  9. Follow-up – Be a man and lead the way in rebuilding trust and building your relationship.  She may have other feelings to get out.  You and she may need to see the counselor together.  There is always follow up to a confession.

–

Jeff Fisher is a blogger and podcaster living in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He and his wife run www.porntopurity.com.  Jeff’s podcast Top Tips For Sexual Purity Podcast (I-Tunes) is one of the more popular podcasts on sexual addiction recovery.

You can reach Jeff at jeff@porntopurity.com

By

A Few Real Statistics About the Adult/Porn Entertainment Industry

There was a time in my life, deep in my addiction, that I glamorized the pornography / adult entertainment industry.  I am very grateful that I entered recovery and that God opened my eyes to the reality of the porn industry and the truth about how horrible and evil it truly is.  If you have any thoughts or fantasies about the porn industry or the actors in that industry, I hope these facts and statistics open your eyes.

  • Only 17% of performers use condoms in heterosexual adult films; in 2004, only two of the 200 adult film companies required the use of condoms
  • One male pornographic performer, R**** (600 films and 3,000 women), said: “Every professional in the porn-world has herpes, male or female.”
  • Dr. S***** M******* confirms the STD prevalence in an interview with Court TV, in which she states: “66% of porn performers have Herpes, 12-28% have sexually transmitted diseases, and 7% have HIV.”
  • Porn actress E*** M**** admits, “the drugs we binged on were Ecstasy, Cocaine, Marijuana, Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and alcohol.”
  • T**** B*******, formerly known as J***** J****, says, “Guys are punching you in the face. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. You’re viewed as an object—not as a human with a spirit. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.”
  • In 2004, Dr. Mary Anne Layden reported before a Senate subcommittee: “Once [the pornography actresses] are in the industry they have high rates of substance abuse, typically alcohol and cocaine, depression, borderline personality disorder. . . . The experience I find most common among the performers is that they have to be drunk, high or dissociated in order to go to work. Their work environment is particularly toxic. . . . The terrible work life of the pornography performer is often followed by an equally terrible home life. They have an increased risk of sexually transmitted disease including HIV, domestic violence and have about a 25% chance of making a marriage that lasts as long as 3 years.”
  • In 1997, Eric Schlosser reported, “The highest-paid performers, the actresses with exclusive contracts, earn between $80,000 and $100,000 a year for doing about 20 sex scenes and making a dozen or so personal appearances. Only a handful of actresses—perhaps 10 to 15—are signed to such contracts. Other leading stars are paid roughly $1,000 per scene. The vast majority of porn actresses are ‘B girls,’ who earn about $300 a scene. They typically try to do two scenes a day, four or five times a week. At the moment, there is an oversupply of women in Southern California hoping to enter the porn industry. Overtime is a thing of the past, and some newcomers will work for $150 a scene.”

Human beings being reduced to nothing more than sexual parts for the pleasure of those that drive the pornography industry – the consumers/viewers of pornography.  Although I would like for the government to place regulations on pornography including filters on all computers, it is up to the rest of us to educate our friends, family, and children on the ills of pornography.  It is my mission, as a leader of Castimonia, to help cut the demand for pornography, one man at a time, with the hope to reduce the supply.

By

On The Days You Don’t Care

On The Days You Don’t Care
by Intentional Warriors

Over on xxxchurch last week Jeff Fisher wrote a blog post that tells it like it is.

There are days when Jeff doesn’t care.  There are lots of men at all stages of dealing with their addiction to porn and masturbation who have days like those Jeff is describing.

Jeff says:

Sometimes I feel that all I want to do is masturbate or look at sensual material on the computer.  I don’t want to turn to other guys, talk to my wife, or spend time with God.  I want my favorite drug of choice to make me feel better.

i have had some days like that since The Confession years ago.  But fortunately, by God’s powerful Grace, there have been very few. And when i have had those days, God has been quick to remind me of the death it would lead to if i returned to my old ways. i had such a heavy dose of fear and panic in the early years of my journey that the thought of returning caused me to break out in a sweat.

But that is not true for everyone. And there have been days when that fear was not as strong; therefore, it was not — alone — enough to prevent a relapse.  There haven’t been any relapses, but Temptation doesn’t rest.

Jeff’s thoughts are the sorts of things i hear from guys i work with in my men’s group.  Sometimes they just want it. They don’t care about purity or anything else.

The thing that’s great about Jeff’s blog post is not so much his candor, but his description of what happens next on those days when he wants it.

Jeff says:

These are the days I have to make myself take steps of obedience. I don’t feel like reaching out to guys, but I make myself because I know it’s the right direction to go.  I don’t feel like reading the Bible, but I make myself do it.  I don’t feel like writing my feelings down in a journal and praying it out to God, but I make myself.

One of the things that we must all come to terms with as men with this addiction who have undertaken this journey is the simple fact that sometimes it comes down to Doing the Work. Nike had the slogan years ago: Just Do It. There is something to that as it relates to this battle.

One of the reasons for Intentional Warriors is to call on the truth that as men we are warriors and, as warriors we train ourselves in how to fight.  A warrior will train; he will — in Jeff’s words – make himself do what needs to be done for the sake of mission.

Our mission is clear:  purity and freedom, even when purity is a more distant want than the immediate appeal of illicit sexual pleasure.

By

My Time with an Ex-Porn Star

At the suggestion from sex addiction recovery experts, I have removed the name (both real and actress) of the female mentioned in this post as to not trigger recovering sex addicts into “searching” for “more information” about her which could lead to them sexually acting out with pornography.

My Time with an Ex-Porn Star
By Frank Park
Originally posted at The Resurgence

For Mars Hill’s Real Marriage sermon “The Porn Path,” we flew up C****, a former porn star who’s since become a Christian, as a special guest to be interviewed in a Q&A with Pastor Mark and Grace as part of the sermon. After the event, I chauffered C***** and her friend to the airport to catch their flight home to LA. Due to the severe snowstorm that hit Seattle this winter, her friend was able to get on a last-minute flight, but C***** missed her flight altogether. This meant that I ended up spending a few more hours with her. Little did I know that my time with her would be life-changing.

As we waited to be sure her friend’s flight successfully took off, C***** began to share her story, much of which she did not tell at the event. Her words brought all that I had learned about the effects of porn to a completely different level. It suddenly became very real. There was a real face behind the facts, a real voice behind the statistics.

I took away three major things from our conversation that will forever remain with me.

1. Women Are Extra-Special

1 Peter 3:7 tells men, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”

When I read the words “weaker vessel,” I don’t see it as saying women are the weaker sex or unequal to men, but rather that women are extra-special, especially your wife.

C*****’s story helped me to see that being a man means treating women (and in the future, my wife) with extra special care, love, and respect. I am to treat them as I would the most delicate vessel in my pottery collection—not because it is prone to break, but because it is invaluable.

2. Porn Is Real

I know firsthand how addicting porn can be. During my college years, I was serving the church and watching porn. I was leading worship and watching porn. I was a leader in the church and watching porn. It was a love-hate relationship. No professing Christian, after watching porn says, “I’m glad I did that.” We know it is wrong by conviction from the Holy Spirit and regret it after the fact—but we keep going back.

If you’re looking at porn, know this: real people are involved and real damage is done. When you watch porn, you are supporting and encouraging the sexual, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse of real women, not just actors.

Talking with C*****, my disgust over my history of watching porn and my gratitude to Jesus for redeeming me from that horrid habit simultaneously reached new highs. I wish every guy could sit down with C***** for five minutes and just talk to her. If that doesn’t convict him, I don’t know what will.

3. Jesus Can Redeem Anyone’s Story

What stood out the most to me as C***** shared—despite all that she had been through over the years with guys (not men) treating her as a commodity rather than a person and disrespecting her entirely—was that she told her story with a smile on her face.

C***** knows without a doubt that her past does not define her—Jesus does. She knows that in Christ, she is righteous and spotless without blemish. She has hope for the future because of Jesus. She knows that Jesus is using her past to redeem others in the present. She now works for a non-profit organization called Treasures, which aims to reach out to women in the sex industry with the message that they are loved, valued, and purposed by Christ.

For those of you struggling with porn, know this:

  • There’s no such thing as “free porn” —it’s a lie.
  • Real women are being hurt in the porn industry.
  • Porn promises what only Jesus can fulfill.
  • Because Jesus conquered sin and death, this sin can be put to death once and for all in your life. You are fighting a battle that has already been won through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Jesus really can and will redeem anyone’s story.