I'm back with some new advice after too much idle time led me to sin after a 12 day abstinence over a personal tragedy in May that led to a 40 day run into June that was broken due to vacation time at the beginning of July. In the previous 2 runs I didn't cleanly abstain from temptation, I was able to stay away from self-abuse until the end of both but I was still tempted by pornography. I gave in despite having experienced positive effects like increased energy and time management and concern for other people, and since I had a taste of what continence can bring by the grace of God I'd like even more of it. In May and June I had reasons for despising porn, such as that the gap between myself and the actors which now participate in it was now to an extent where I could see it was just young people being abused, and also because the productions have gotten so much more sordid over the past decade that it just evoked as much disgust if not moreso than arousal in me. It's disappointing to see that it seems like just about every attractive young person these days is participating in selling themselves, they may have a photo or two in which they reflect the inherent beauty that they hold in being a reflection of the image of God in the prime of their vigor only for it to be among dozens where they're engaging in extensive acts of lechery.
I tried to restart my run in the 2 weeks after breaking it in the first week of July unsuccessfully, even though I had a duty of faith that I had begun in May which I continued to perform into June, which I had been hoping to use the vacation time to accomplish, but instead just fell into sin. That week was just completely wasted. I wasn't able to complete anything either spiritually or secularly. I'd began a conversation with someone in June, who had discussed her personal experiences with encountering porn addicts among men, even some who claimed to be religious, that I felt had been fruitful, and planned on following up with her in that free week, but a scheduling conflict prevented me from doing so in a timely manner and since then she's disappeared. I can't help but feel that it was all connected, that that connection was cut off as a consequence of my temptation, that in my grieving of the Spirit He secreted away this woman to save her innocence. Elsewhere, I had even sent a message to a personal friend in anticipation of finishing my work in faith, as I was hoping to commemorate it with a charitable action for a cause in which my friend is personally invested, but so far since my stumbling that message only stands to condemn me in my trespass with that completion of that work having been withheld for 3 weeks. Sin makes you fail to do things you plan to do, it makes you break promises, it causes you to lose opportunities and connections.
After making a serious commitment again at the end of last week, and essentially getting a new pair of eyes after replacing a set of broken glasses, I have been able to go on a clean streak, avoiding the entire process of PMO for a week, and consciously too, not just because I'm too busy. After fits and starts from July 6 until July 17 where I was only able to dodge temptation for 2 to 3 days at a time before giving in, I feel that I'm finally reconciling by grace with the Spirit in the way I had in May and June, and resumed my biblical endeavors without feeling like a hypocrite. This is despite being plagued by the same stresses, and frustrations, and fatigue which in those past two weeks inclined me towards sin as a false escape from those challenges. Before I get to the core of my insight, I'd like to remark that getting the new pair of glasses after having continued to use the broken pair for some time, was literally an eye-opening experience because seeing creation in the full summer bloom of nature, and also seeing people at a significantly enhanced level of accuracy, was a spectacular revelation of the art with which God has made all things, and that anyone should take it for granted, or be deprived of the opportunity to consider it in its majesty, and not be able to give unending thanks towards the Creator which devised it all is a terrible loss.
Now, the insight which I received. Whilst I was trying to garner more knowledge about continence and retention, I learned that many, MANY porn and masturbation addicts are married or partnered men, and not in meager numbers, or innocent acts either, but to such extent that they comprise the majority of porn and masturbation support groups, and these individuals who are in committed relationships, and even with children, engaged in such obscene activities in which they were caught by their spouse after hiding it for months if not years. Activities such as downloading gigabytes of pornography, paying for camgirls to the extent that it strains their household finances, having secret accounts on dating apps with which to get lewd photos or cheat on their wives, having sexual fantasies with AI chatbots, having lewd photographs of their friends or even their relatives, using AI to make lewd fantasy imagery or fake sexual imagery of people they know, the list is endless, and so too is the list of how they hide those activities: using opportunistic timing when they're apart from their families, doing it at work, using VPNs, etc. Also about how they'd relapse into their habits after weeks or months despite having made apparent progress in the eyes of their spouses for a while, not to mention the betrayal and the accompanying destruction of trust, and the destruction of marriages wholesale. Learning this was just absolutely disgusting. It never even occurred to me that anyone in a committed relationship, especially a marital covenant, would be apt to violate it so flagrantly and brazenly. I always thought that my tendency towards self-abuse arose out of the perennial loneliness in my life, and that a committed partnership would be able to resolve that need and banish my sin, and so further develop my sanctification.
Yet these examples show, NOT SO: if I had ever entered into a committed relationship or a marriage with a pornography / masturbation addiction, IT WOULD NOT HAVE SOLVED IT. I would have just learned how to hide my behavior from the person and the people that I love most until it was inevitably revealed and destroyed our lives. Habitual sin doesn't go away unless you confront it head on with the consequences of its evil. Every time I have had any inkling of temptation in the past week, instead of looking up porn I have been looking up stories of relationships and families DESTROYED by porn addiction. And it's working; I'm just absolutely disgusted by what sin can do to people, and how they can justify continuing in their sin, EVEN WHILE IT IS ACTIVELY HURTING PEOPLE THEY LOVE (or so they claim to love), how they are able to tune out anything their spouses say just so they can crank out another worthless coom. It's evil, it's just plain evil, that men, with souls, creating in the image of God, in the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, can be hypnotized by lust and pornography into being unthinking cretins, like a dog trained for a treat, just automatons for a goon.
I don't care what the world says now, all the nonsense that gets peddled about how masturbation and pornography is supposedly healthy or empowering for this or that other group. I simply want to eschew all lust unless it's under the seal of marriage. I need to defy the world and its waywardness, its insanity, I cannot give any quarter to this treachery in members. By the grace of God if I do end up married, and even if I do not get married, I want no participation in that awfulness. May God grant me the strength to persevere and to maintain the trust of and to lead towards edification either the woman He sees fit to bring upon me, or the flock and the duties He sees fit to commit to my care. The world is going mad, prostitution is turning billions online from the unsaved and the unsanctified, robots are running rampant and causing psychological break downs in children of men, the highest offices of power across the whole civilized world are held by tyrants and sex traffickers. He has put me here, he has put US here, whoever should read this and be convinced of sin, because He needs saints, He needs holy ones, to lead His church in this desperate and discordant hour, to be light in the darkness, to be hope in hopelessness, to salt the earth. May the light of the Cross and the Gospel reach into every corner of creation. All glory be to Jesus Christ, the one true God and Savior;
MARANATHA, ALLELUIA
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
Feel free to republish this whereever you like, nobody will hear of this anyway.