Having my son cured me of my addiction to pornography

So…Pornography eh?

Yes, well…apparently, women can be addicted to pornography too. Believe it or not, women are sexual beings as well.

For me, sex has always been an uncomfortable subject. Chuck it up to the shroud of secrecy my parents surrounded it with. And the countless number of times that I was told that sex was for marriage and having sex outside marriage was something akin to murder, or worse.

But, I was a rather curious child.

This meant that by the time I was eight years old, I had gone through my mother’s box of Mills and Boons novels and had devoured every single novel and reader’s digest collection from the 80’s on my father’s book shelf.

It also meant I read about things that would have horrified my parents.

Like the book that talked about sex.

I think once my father figured out that my appetite for reading was similar to a vampire’s appetite for blood, it was too late.

I can’t remember the title of the book now, but I never forgot the graphic pictures of the various sex positions. It was enough to stimulate the wildest of imaginations and it did! And therein began my foray into sex education by sources other than my parents.

Even before I stumbled into the internet world of pornography, my imaginations were my first inkling that something was probably wrong with me.

They always started off with an independent girl going out to have some fun and getting violently gang-raped by a bunch of men dressed in hoods. There were variances; the colour of the girl’s hair, the activity for the night, the room where this act of violence would take place, but two things remained constant; the girl’s free spirit and the men’s facelessness.

When I discovered a whole new world of pornography online, I was hooked.

Watching normal sex bored me, even irritated me.

It was not uncommon to me to search words like “gang raped”, “rough sex”, or “group sex”. If the girl was suffering, and the men were enjoying her pain, it was perfect for me.

Things went to a hundred-real quick once I discovered anime pornography. That was an absolute landmine for me. Every other type of pornography was child’s play compared to this. I had literally found my niche.

You would think that would set off an alarm yes?

Not really. Africans, in general, are not big on talking about things. Years of issues gets stuffed down under duty and service and we thrive on autopilot. Rarely does one get to dig deep enough to question what is norm and what is not.

Did I feel bad about it? Occasionally. When my parents’ voices would ring in my head or when my catholic upbringing kicked in.

However, becoming a born-again Christian set the stage for the unravelling that would take place.

I was of the ilk that becoming born-again would cure me of this addiction. And it did. For a while. But like any addiction, because I was not starving it and replacing it with wholesome information, it was still a beast I had to feed. The difference this time was that I was racked with so much guilt and despair afterwards that it became hard for me to talk to God about anything else.

When I found out I was pregnant, it was the most terrifyingly exciting news of my life. I was already afraid that I would fail as a mother because like all new mothers, I did not have a clue about how to be a good mother.

Part of me secretly longed for a girl because somewhere at the back of my mind existed a bias against boys. Mothering myths have it that boys are usually a difficult first-time experience and I wanted my first-time mumming experience to be a walk in the park.

The second I found out I was having a boy however, something in me shifted.

It was a shift that came in the middle of a crumbling marriage, a season of intense depression and self-critiquing.

Knowing that I was going to have a son made me begin to ask questions. The kind I had never thought about before.

“What kind of man was I going to raise being addicted to the kind of pornography that I was addicted to?”

“How was I going to teach my son to respect women when it was obvious from my viewing choices that I had a problem respecting women? “

Eventually, I came down to the most important question of all: “why was I addicted to this kind of pornography in the first place?”

To be honest, I had never taken a hard look at the reasons for my choice. I had simply assumed that it was a matter of taste, albeit bad taste in my case.

But knowing that I was going to have a son and be responsible for either contributing an amazing human being or another asshole to the teeming numbers of men jolted me hard enough to ask the questions I should have been asking a long time ago.

Here is what I found out

I loathed myself; on a deep level, I did not love who I was, I did not love the fact that I was a woman. Being sexually molested several times growing up made me wish I was invisible. Asking myself this question uncovered the facades that I had constructed to deal with the fact that I blamed myself for being a victim. There must have been something I did, said or a way I behaved that planted the thought in the minds of these men that I was something to be used. It didn’t help that all of them were men that I trusted on a deep level. 

I was punishing myself: it did not take me too long to get to the next realization, which was the fact that my taste in pornography reflected my blame mentality. It was my fault, and I deserved to be punished. I was the girl in each of the scenarios, in each of those videos. Sex was meant to be enjoyable for men, but it was meant to be hell for the women. I am no psychologist, but I reckon that making the men faceless in my imaginations and not attaching real human faces to the men in the porn videos was my way of detaching from the pain caused by the people I had known and trusted. 

Pornography numbed me: watching this type of pornography reinforced negative stereotypes about men and women for me, but it also numbed me. Addictions are a funny thing. You turn to them for comfort and they give the illusion of giving you some reprieve but in reality, they only serve to increase your pain. Because when all is said and done, what you do not want to face and deal with squarely still waits for you down the slippery corner on the road of your life.

Once I understood that my reasons for my viewing choices came from a place of deep self-loathing and pain, I was able to go back to God and ask for his help. I stopped watching pornography immediately and have not gone back to it since. It literally was the sort of deliverance that would be described as “suddenly” except it wasn’t. It’s been more than two years and when I think about it, I am so grateful for the progress I have made.

Understanding the why of my addiction led to my freedom.

I have my son to thank for that. He doesn’t know it yet, but he saved my life and he keeps doing that. Every. Beautiful. Day.