This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
This article contains explicit discussion about sexuality
1. Give Your Hands Something To Do – Masturbation is a big part of the pornography addiction, because it physically simulates sexual behavior, involves motor function as an interactive experience, and produces a sexual climax. To curb masturbation, keep hands away from genitals. Cigarette addicts I have talked to say the physical habit of holding a cigarette isimportant, and it helps to hold something else like a pencil between their fingers. Try doing something with your hands while at the computer–playing with silly putty, twirling a pen, etc. For more effectiveness, give your hands an interactive experience with simple phone games. Games that work on a basic instinctual level, such as Temple Run, are helpful because porn operates on that instinctual survival level. These hand games should be quick activities that replace the hand’s habit of fapping. But keep in mind this is a temporary crutch and the goal is to eventually reduce the need to keep hands occupied.
2. Reduce Severity Of Porn – Cut out all porn completely. If you have tried to cut porn cold-turkey but were unsuccessful, it helps to gear down the severity of porn. Cut out the most extreme material with the most unnatural and novel content. Reduce the content of the porn until it is nothing. The dopamine rush that porn elicits feeds off unexpected content, so the more you can eliminate that, the better handle you can get on the addiction and eliminate the urge completely. Emotionally as well, watching another person achieve sexual interaction with partners or masturbation tools damages self-esteem because it is not you performing the act. It’s like watching someone having a great time eating chocolate cake and not having access to any. Why watch someone else enjoying chocolate cake? The best thing you can do is stop looking at porn completely as soon as you can.
3. Replace Porn Habits With Skills – Most people have a certain time, place, and media they always use, and that repetition makes it more addicting. The brain’s neuroplasticity builds stronger mental connections through repetition, kind of like practicing the piano in the same room every day. The intensity of the practicing and repetition of settings makes mental pathways greater, and this is how we can learn to do complex tasks like playing a concerto on the piano–but this is also why porn is harder to break. So, make the porn less intense and less repetitious. In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray repeats the same day over and over, and it is when he changes up his routine and dedicates every second to helping others that he breaks free. He also learns to play the piano well, because he was building mental pathways with each repetition to develop this advanced skill, instead of developing licentiousness like he started out doing. Engage in daily hobbies like learning the piano so that your brain builds those connections instead of a porn addiction. Like Bill Murray’s character, repeat habits that show concern for other people instead of for yourself.
4. Remove Porn From Your Environment – Porn will always be easily available over the internet, but deleting it from your hard drive is an important step. Get rid of all videos, images, movies, subscriptions, magazines, posters, or anything else that is sexually arousing. Don’t make exceptions for “artistic value” or popular movies. Anything that sexually arouses you. Cancel Netflix if you ever watching sexuality on there (actually, just cancel Netflix.) This makes it harder to access the porn, like an alcoholic who has to drive to the local store rather than pull a bottle from the fridge. Importantly, it also sets up an environment free of porn.
The danger with this is having to search for porn will make it more novel and thus more addictive, but it is worth it to keep a clean environment, because that eventually makes you clean as well. This is not to say you should avoid the opposite sex or romantic interaction. On the contrary, the more you can replace porn with real-life interaction, the better–as this will create healthy expectations of them. Sexuality is a basic human need that needs to be realized somehow, and if it isn’t through healthy, realistic means it will be through degrading porn. Avoid places that have sexually explicit content that might trigger inappropriate behavior, such as clubs, parties, strip clubs, etc. Let positive, healthy interactions rewire the brain to get pleasure from appropriate experiences, and then as you become romantic with a real-life person it will not have to be a pornographic experience in order to be pleasurable.
5. Remember Real Events Instead – Porn gets stored in the memory and messes with fantasy creativity. Fantasy is supposed to serve a function and that is to motivate a person to excel in life. We fantasize about being the boss of a company, going to a great vacation, or scoring the winning shot in a game in order to gain the vision to work hard at achievement. But porn does the opposite–it removes motivation. That’s because porn is an imaginary world nobody could ever achieve, not even the most powerful billionaire. Like Isaiah said: “And all the nations that fight against Zion, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision; yea, it shall be unto them, even as unto a hungry man which dreameth, and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soul is empty; or like unto a thirsty man which dreameth, and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint, and his soul hath appetite; yea, even so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.” (2 Nephi 27:3 or Isaiah 29)
Good fantasy is like the spiritual creation before the physical creation in Genesis, where God designed how it would be before He physically manifested it. But porn is a replacement for reality, and it makes people embittered with reality when they consider the fantasy a superior alternative. This leads people to conjure up other fantasies in their head that they reason to be superior alternatives, as we see with Antimormonism. To get back to reality, it helps at first to inject memories of real events, with realistic partners and behaviors, when porn cravings creep in (unless these memories are of depraved, unnatural events.) Try to avoid sexual content of memories–like, remember the time you asked out that gorgeous person and they said yes.
6. Eliminate Video Porn – Studies show video porn is much more arousing and addictive. This is probably why several of the top ten ranked websites are video porn. These videos are highly accessible and quick to view. Think about this: Why is all of this free? Many millions of people are using their bandwidth, and that costs money. They have to pay their performers, presumably. Why are these one of the only sites that still don’t have annoying popup ads? How do they have hundreds of millions of dollars to rename the Miami stadium “Bang Bros Stadium”? Where does that money come from? Movie studies are highly protective of cinematic films, yet porn companies put it out there for free and somehow make huge profits. Anyone who knows about economics knows that something is going on here, because nothing is really free. The corporations are putting free content out there as a drug dealer hands out free cocaine, and then the addicts have to pay for more. Porn always escalates. The sad guys who tip cam girls and buy bath water from Instagram girls thought at first they were just getting some free sex videos. They never thought they would need more than that. As for people who pay nothing for porn, they are still being exploited in ways they can’t see because of how porn affects their behavior as a consumer in general (which I will explain more below.)
7. Date & Be Busy – This is the most frustrating thing to hear when lack of dating is the reason many turn to porn. It’s like telling a thirsty person to drink water. But porn has never helped a single person get a date, and you would be much better off focusing on improving yourself instead. As a missionary, I kept a minute by minute schedule folded up in my back pocket that always kept me busy. Besides achieving a lot, this helped me avoid idlness. Why not keep a schedule of the steps you are taking to quit porn and replace it with healthy relationships? Does that sound pathetic? Well, it’s a whole lot less pathetic than looking at porn! Visualizing and planning a strategy will make it much easier. Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Include steps toward dating, such as going to events to meet people, tracking the number of people you talk to and ask out, reading material on how to date, and steps toward appearing more attractive. Create a serious strategy that influences your daily behavior. Replace idle time with time for building healthy relationships. If you already have a partner, set goals and strategies for strengthening that relationship.
8. Reduce Other Addictive Behavior – Secondary addictions are part of the problem, and even if you don’t think you are addicted to things like coffee, caffeine, aspartame, sugar, and nicotine, it is wise to cut out all addictive substances. Also avoid addictive behaviors such as social media, gaming, trash television, etc. Such dependencies emotionally fool us into “loving” things with a false sense of love. “I love this pie! No, you are just addicted to sugar. Love for hang-gliding, painting, and time with family is nothing like sugar addiction. The more we reduce addictive dependencies, the more we realize our true love of life’s enjoyments.
9. Exercise & Eat Well – I think it helps to cook for yourself, and take pride in what you make–salad’s with more than four ingredients, pasta dishes made from recipes, etc. The ancient primitive who roasted meat from that day’s hunt over the fire got much more enjoyment from his meals than the modern man who receives the finest ingredients from around the globe, because he performed the entire process of preparing it. Take the time to toil over the food you consume. Experiencing the processing of what feeds into your body will help you value the other things your body takes in. If what you eat is fake junk food, you will be more likely to view fake junk for pleasure as well.
Many porn addicts engage in little physical activity and have no outlet for anxiety and stress. They feel low energy and have a tough time making it to the gym. It starts by eating right. Cut out the sugar, eat more vegetables, avoid processed foods. To regain an exercise routine, start with stretches a few times a day and add a new exercise each week. A few more pushups each week. Get a partner to go with to the gym. When the urge for porn comes, immediately stop what you are doing, put on some sneakers, and go for a run or punch a punching bag. Better yet, grab a hammer and build something.
10. Pursue Marriage With Full Heart – God put dopamine in our brains for a reason. When you see a beautiful person and become aroused, that instinct happens for a reason and that is not something to be ashamed of. Dopamine enables us to anticipate and want potential rewards. It is near impossible to comprehend the joy of being married and having kids until you do it–especially with the false portrayals filling the mainstream media warping your expectations. Dopamine gives us a small taste at a very physical, primitive level. This is supposed to motivate us to move out of our parents’ house, approach the opposite sex and risk social humiliation, and commit to making a family. This is an extremely brave and difficult thing to do, and we need strong motivation to want to do it. Dopamine is not there for us to repress. Let it do its job! Give yourself something to want! But dopamine can be perverted. The problem is porn literally rewires the brain to anticipate something other than a potential spouse and we start to need further exposure to fake images. The need for further viewing is on a primitive level, and we feel like survival depends on it. What can you do when dopamine is rewarding the wrong things? To rewire the brain back to normal takes time and patience, so immerse your focus on marriage through constant reminders, exposure to the joys of marriage, and a written schedule of behaviors getting you closer to achieving marriage. It will take time. When you see a beautiful person, avoid dirty thoughts–but also avoid looking away. Instead, think of positive things that would happen if you were to pursue a life-long commitment. Remember, the physical and spiritual needs that are fulfilled through marriage will always outweigh the worst porn addiction–we just have no way to anticipate it. So let an obsession with getting married fill you on the most survival-based level.
11. Reduce Stimulus Sources – Growing up in the city, my favorite hours were the pre-dawn stillness when the silence of night transitioned to daytime bustle. The streetlamps switched off, the streets started to fill with cars, and I could take stock of all the things that generated the hum of life around me. Bad things happen when we lose track of it all. Studies have shown that the introduction of supernormal stimuli manipulate animals into unhealthy sexual obsessions. Mice will try to mate with cardboard images of attractive mates even if less-attractive real female mice are in the same cage. Humans are no different. We are constantly surrounded with these powerful stimuli, and we don’t even notice the difference because we have grown up with them. But the frequent introduction of new stimuli is becoming too much, and we can’t handle it–people are going crazy. We have lost track of the sources of life’s hum, and in the confusion we mate with whatever image our lustful bodies draw us to. It’s not just porn, but our instinctive nature to provide for and protect the opposite sex is being constantly manipulated, and once you disassociate with the fake cardboard porn maybe you will start to see the other ways people are constantly manipulated with stimuli.
Probably the number one supernormal stimulus in society is food. As children, we grew up watching endless hours of television commercials with cartoon characters convincing us how fun it is to eat a certain breakfast cereal or yogurt brand. This intense programming turned food, in general, into a source for pleasure rather than a source of nutrition, and this is why our entire generation is obsessed with eating sugar. I think that is why it is so hard to find food at the grocery store that isn’t processed with added sugar and salt, because this is what we have been programmed to define as “food.” With relationships, likewise, endless hours of television, public schooling, and government/corporate influence has programmed us to define it unnaturally. Sexual stimulus is like the sugar drug that controls our human needs for relationship and romance. We are like mice in a cage being toyed with by scientists who introduce cardboard images of superior female mice which we choose over actual females. Remove the these stimulus sources from your life. Do not give the scientists access. Detox your life completely and then re-introduce things like phones, computers, movies, music, etc. one by one like the morning awakening of a city so you can take stock of it all. I think you will find that much of the city you live in will turn out to be like one of those 1950’s fake nuclear test site towns with fake grass and cardboard people, and this will be a harsh realization, but it will allow you to recognize those few people who are down to earth and real.
Can you guess why? (Science daily)
12. Reject ‘Sexual Liberation’ – Over the last several decades, many technological achievements have altered our lifestyle, but none so profoundly as pornography. It is hard for most to imagine a world without pornography, yet only 50 years ago few ever encountered porn. Porn was something that creepy guy a few blocks over looked at in the bushes behind Sears. By some strange coincidence, people also entered into relationships more easily in those pornless days. The divorce rate was much lower. Children grew up with fathers. Prices were low because half of the workforce was at home taking care of children. Men and women easily found interested partners, and starting a family was natural. Now, a modern ice age of division between sexes has made loneliness the norm, and we turn to porn to satiate our primal desires. This industrializing of sex binds us to a cosmopolitan world devoid of dreams, as we drink in the dopamine hits like water from a bottle attached to the side of our cage. Like lab rats, we receive the basic necessities of life in a controlled daily dosage, and we go to work each day to provide labor for our economic masters. But this is not the first time men have found themselves trapped in cages, and men have broken free before in history. By recognizing the chains that bind us, the encompassing modern lifestyle that traps us in metal bars–I’m not talking only about porn–by identifying who is behind this system and how it operates, and why, and by looking for weaknesses in their prefabricated cage, and by searching for power within ourselves to break free, we can totally shift away from this empty life and find true relationships. Sometimes we feel like the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, bred to be zoo attractions, with awesome capabilities that are stunted to keep everyone safe. The security men surround us with electrified wiring, and some go nuts in a fit of rage because their primal instincts were not meant to be repressed this way. But life always finds a way. Divine nature was not meant to be engineered by a scientist.
The conditioning for many started at a very young age, profoundly altering the sexual arousal template. Even brief viewing has a profound effect that stays around forever, and it is near impossible for a person today to avoid exposure. Sensitization leads to certain cues which would otherwise be innocuous that can now be used to control us because they now provide strong arousal. It’s all about the way it is treated in context which alters our perception. The conditioning controls what sex is to us and what arouses us. Unfortunately, our knee-jerk reaction is to avoid sexual content completely, and that just makes the effect worse, as the human need is not to be denied. Sexual desire needs to be presented and accepted as a relevant healthy living condition. The added confusion of the “sexual revolution” has made it impossible to figure out.
The sexual liberation movement is an engineering effort of our primal nature, and contrary to what the history books, this started long before the 1960’s. The modern movement got started when the federal government inserted itself into the business of private relationships and regulated marriage in order to stomp out Latter-day Saint polygamy in the 19th century. Local governments had laws before this, but the persecution of our church literally was the main genesis for the modern sexual liberation front as perpetuated by big controlling powers. When you consider it from this perspective, a disturbing picture takes shape of social sexual control. In those days, the powers in charge tried to “liberate” us by jailing men who had two wives and seizing their property. Today, the powers that be “liberate” us by flooding us with stimuli that erode our desire to marry in the first place. They broaden definitions and pull everything down to the same level so that there is no delineated path to follow. You just “love.” That’s progress! And then they blame our traditional values for the trouble that results from their engineering. By tearing us away from the “oppressive” natural family structure and classic marriage values, they claim to be “liberating” us, but this is a farce because you can’t be liberated from sexuality. There must be an alternative specific definition for love and relationships, and in every single case the alternative is a laboratory cage to live as a test subject to some scientist. We naturally sense this cage around us, but the mistake many make is to look to this phony “liberation” path handed to us by the same people who erected the cage. Instead of marriage they party, sleep around, or use porn, and that only brings them further into the cage because they are following the stimuli. The heightened cues programmed into us will always be there, and we just have to deal with it the best we can. But in the struggle for liberation from the cage the key is to seek more traditional structure, not less. Like the mouse’s natural state running around in a field, ours is the traditional religious family. The laboratory is not liberation. Our natural state–the arrangement enjoyed by all of our ancestors leading down to us–is liberation.
13. Cope With Anxiety – Repeated porn usage confuses feelings of anxiety with sexual arousal, and this turns it into a convenient way to cope with stress. Marital problems often result in a porn problem because porn transfers that anxiety to a dopamine rush. Anxiety, shame, shock, and surprise increase the immediate need for dopamine, so if they can be eliminated then the need for porn reduces, and the way to reduce anxiety is to confront the problem. Deal with the marital issues, or whatever the problem may be, and find a way to cope with the anxiety. A corrected vision for what marriage is, what the relationship is for, and a new sense of control will help you realize you are not such a terrible person after all. You’ve just been going about it wrong. If you see the designs of corporations that have conditioned you since the day you were born, you will start to see societal efforts to split you apart from your loved ones. You can feel at peace when you recognize your rightful place and stop chasing cardboard images.
When you involve God and religious principles appropriately in your relationships, prayers will gain efficacy for healing animosity. The inability to cope with life’s anxieties is what’s keeping most of our generation hooked, and the refusal to place God at the center of interpersonal communication is what’s behind it–truly seeing people as children of God. This was how Bill Murray was able to break free from the Groundhog Day cycle. Defining marriage as a religious institution is just the very first step. Our relationships and interactions need to transition to eternity-based functions, and anything that does not serve that function needs to be scrapped.
Much of what we feel anxious about are simply misplaced priorities. The great sin of our generation is putting personal satisfaction above our spiritual responsibilities. Narcissism obscures our vision of posterity, and then we don’t see the function of relationships. There is only so much we can do about others’ narcissism, but as for ourselves, we can be at peace from anxiety if we know we have done all we can do to serve our spiritual purpose, and we put the rest in God’s hands. If we truly dedicate our lives to fulfilling the high commandments of God and trust in God’s grace, peace will fill our souls and reduce the need to sin with porn. Most likely, this peace is something only God can produce.
14. Do Not Seek Novelty – A big part of the Coolidge effect that causes test mice to choose cardboard cutouts over real mates is novelty. It is ironic that the more we are surrounded by people the harder it is to settle on a mate. Societies in small villages have a much easier time landing marriages than big cities do. But that’s human nature. It’s like trying to catch a bucket of potatoes poured over your hands–you will end up with zero. The false abundance perception prevents us from being happy with anyone. The rapidity and prodigy of options makes it harder to appreciate any single potato. We also have a false scarcity perception, where because so many people are portrayed one way it is impossible to find anyone different. We grew up watching the Disney Channel shows where everyone was terribly rude to each other, popularity-obsessed, and selfish, and we think that’s what to expect. That’s all we see. We feel limited in what we can be as well. We overcome the scarcity and abundance perceptions by disregarding novelty.
Novelty is one of the stimuli that produces dopamine, and this is why porn introduces a huge diversity of content in a short amount of time. The search for unexpected content is a big part of it. They set out bread crumbs for us to follow to make us search, as the act of seeking the dopamine reward enhances the rush. In a healthy brain, this is the joy of the hunt and it is meant to motivate us to endure the awful process of trying to get dates. Healthy people learn to enjoy the “hunt” for dates. It’s awful at first but soon the dopamine kicks in. But porn squashes any motivation to seek the real thing and advance further toward healthy relationships, because there’s no fear of rejection when it comes to porn. The simple solution is to replace the need for novelty in porn with the novelty in approaching people for dates, and it is simply a matter of overcome the hurdle of social rejection. If you are already in a relationship, well, the function of novelty is no longer required, so stop going after novelty until you need it.
Our novelty obsession extend far, far beyond porn. It’s in daily behavior. It’s in all TV commercials. It extends to the guy in charge of anti-trust investigations telling Congress that big corporations should not be restricted as public utilities because that would hamper “innovation.” Yes, he actually said that. Is novelty the cause of corporacracy that now rules American society at the expense of true democracy? This leads to all sorts of potential problems, like tax avoidance, preferential treatment, censorship, and privacy violation. All because of our need for novelty–the newest i-phone. If you think about it, our novelty crazy is responsible for much harm and it’s gotten to the point where anything that isn’t packaged in a shiny new image is outright rejected. This is why products at the store are presented in packaging that sometimes costs almost as much as the product itself. You are paying double for your need for novelty. But despite the packaging, nothing is more mundane than porn. It’s all the same! The face and camera angles may change around but it’s the same cardboard material after all. It’s just dots on a computer screen.
We have been trained to value the fake image and disregard the actual material. This focus on the wrong thing makes us think our novelty desire is being satiated, but it isn’t. We are drinking water in a dream and waking up thirsty. So we want more. This escalates to desensitization, where we are seeking for greater variety and extreme content and becoming unaffected by what used to stimulate us. The porn needs to be more extreme, more perverse, more degrading, more violent. We lose more self-respect, lose more impulse control, and the ability to recognize consequences malfunctions. With drugs, this means the nice guy turns into a cold criminal in order to get another hit. With porn, this means the guy falls away from his belief in God in order to justify to himself what he is doing. He turns to progressive ideologies to desperately try to value women for who they are and achieve the impossible–make his warped pornographic outlook match ideal reality. Basic logical functions give way to raw emotion, because the sense of consequences are muddled. The minus and plus signs disappear and all you are left with is the equals sign. Thus, you become obsessed with base desires which take over rational thought. Porn is one of many interlocking facets that warps our view of life. As I pointed out, this extends to our basic national government. It’s everywhere. In internet-meme terms we live in a “clown world.”
The dopamine wears out and the image fades, and we are outraged to see the same cardboard underneath. So we take a more extreme hit, but it all leads to the same dead end. We are like children in a toy store searching for the newest item, as we have been programmed to do by TV commercials. But we hit a dead end because each hit takes its toll and we have only a limited supply. We have only been given so much allowance by our parents and at some point we can’t afford anymore novelty. Then, we become like the prodigal son, and we must give up the cosmopolitan big city lifestyle and return back home to the father to beg his forgiveness. Study the important parable of the prodigal son and apply it to your value for novelty. Not just with porn. You need to completely overturn this need–for new technology, new friends, new romance, new clothes, new cars, new games, new toys, etc. Go live off the grid for a while if you have to.
15. Oppose Consumption Culture – Contrary to “conservative” economists who tell us “greed is good,” a foundational principle of Christianity is the greed is not good, and this applies to economics as much as it does to anything else. Brigham Young taught men to “handle the gold and silver of the whole earth without having a desire for it.” He wondered, “Why do men set their hearts upon them in their present organized state? Why not lay a sure foundation to control” earth’s resources as a righteous resurrected being instead? Isn’t it idolatry to value material wealth? Hugh Nibley said we must not hoard natural resources: “We may take all we need, because it’s the Lord’s, but wo to him who dares to take more–for it is the Lord’s! This is the exact reverse of the world’s economy.” Indeed, anyone who has played Warcraft knows you win by controlling resources. The big corporations are all about consolidating power and they start by building fences around resources. You dig mines, clear-cut forests, and catch all the fish you can until the resource is run out. But the problem is the resources become desolate and the rivers polluted with by-products. Controlling powers have built fences around societal resources as well, and it creates the same problem of environmental waste. Just look at the obesity problem in America, for example.
The waste from exploitative media corporations clogs our society and poisons our intellectual drinking water. Degrading porn and its effects are one part of this economic consumer culture. We must oppose this culture if we are to be free of porn, and we must lay our hearts upon principles of exaltation instead of material goods. We must actively oppose the artifice of production and consumption through advocacy for legal restrictions and by actively spreading rhetoric against it. Just as you would oppose smoke-belching machines clear-cutting a pristine ancient forest, fight against the exploitative corporations.
Brigham Young taught that this culture produces an image of diversity but really it’s all the same: “Man’s machinery makes things alike; God’s machinery gives to things which appear alike a pleasing difference. . . . Endless variety is stamped upon the works of God’s hands. There are no two productions of nature, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, that are exactly alike and all are crowned with a degree of polish and perfection that cannot be obtained by ignorant man in his most exquisite mechanical productions.” (Journal of Discourses 9:369-70)
This goes for the corporate/government intervention into the natural state of personal relationships as well. For all their rhetoric about diversity and spectrums, the end product is a cookie-cutter template, and the byproduct is filth. The plastic fake porn images are all the same. Perversions away from traditional family being hyped in popular culture turn out much the same. To oppose this consumption culture and engineering away from what’s natural, reduce the amount of garbage you produce; reduce your consumption of natural resources, and as you do this environmentally you will reduce consumption of porn as well. Part of the porn appeal is the newness, the virgin being corrupted–like a forest waiting to be chopped down and transformed into lumber. Instead, grow the forest. Do not be ashamed to be the down-to-earth goofy Ned Flanders that everyone makes fun of, for such men are the creators of a society.
16. Take Control Of Your Environment – One reason people use porn is because it is an easy and convenient outlet. Embracing nature’s state does not mean letting weeds fill your garden, because predatory corporations step all over lazy people, and that is why they are stuck with porn instead of rewarding relationships. Taking control of your environment does not mean chopping down forests, but maintaining and beautifying it, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden.
Start by going somewhere beautiful and gain some perspective. Somewhere away from people. Soak in the beauty of it and remind yourself that this is what real beauty looks like. Beauty is the form of something following a positive function. What is beauty? A well crafted motorcycle is sculpted perfectly for speed and performance, and its beauty is the result of the engineering. Human behavior likewise results in beauty if we are following a holy function, as the glow of our righteous faces result from what we have made ourselves. Love is the function at play. The love of God redeems us from our sins, resurrects us from death, and lifts us to heaven to live with Him if we are worthy. Our love likewise serves a function that positively affects others, and the value of that love can be measured by the good the function serves. By this definition, porn results in hatred, not love, because the performance that results is negative toward others. Always consider the function of things. Consider how natural beauty results from the spheres of creation serving their natural functions, and what function you need to serve to fit into this circle of beauty.
Porn addictions are a constant state of hyper-sexuality which is supposed to be reserved for short periods, called binging. Like a bear engorging to store fat for the winter, intense sexual behavior is naturally supposed to be momentary, but frequent porn viewing makes it constant. You become like a cow daily being milked–and what does that make you? A barn animal. The consumer culture is consuming you and you don’t even know it. Remind yourself of the consequences so that you can finally see the chain they have around you. Remind yourself how it is preventing you from finding love and fulfilling family enjoyments; the time wasted, the energy drained, the betrayal of your spouse, the pain inflicted on your family, and your motivation destroyed. Well did President Gordon B. Hickley declare back in the 90’s: “Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly.” That’s exactly what porn is, a disease. Remind yourself what sex is, as an imperative function serving society, family, and your own needs. Turn your lifestyle to nature so you can start to have realistic expectations, not the plastic fakery of porn.
Take pride in your appearance. Your appearance should convey your function and contribute to a beautiful environment. It is harder to look at degrading porn if you work toward a sincerely beautiful countenance in yourself.
We think sexual issues are taboo because of church and traditional culture, but the truth is such taboos are the result of modern progressivism. They make it taboo, with their degrading films being pumped from Hollywood, their attacks on traditional social structures, and their attempts to engineer the natural human state to something unnatural. Our reaction to this infiltration has been to lock down the hatches and push anything sexual away, but instead now it is time to talk about sexual matters in a healthy way. Do not portray it as dirty or shameful, but as something wonderful and holy, for it is the means of producing life. The urge for porn will turn into a turning of the stomach in utter disgust when we fully realize the holiness of our sexual nature. It is not coincidence that the more Latter-day Saints get hooked on porn the more shame they feel for our polygamous history. Once we purge ourselves of porn, I believe the polygamy taboo won’t even be an issue anymore. Many of the things that fill us with shame, doubt, and fear will be gone. Prayerfully take control of your life, and act for yourself and do not be acted upon, and then you can repent in the most glorious and positive sense of the word.