Husband Material

Why Porn Is A Pacifier

May 11, 2020 Drew Boa
Husband Material
Why Porn Is A Pacifier
Show Notes Transcript

Learn how porn functions as a pacifier, and how to outgrow it without fighting the battle.

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http://www.sexualfantasyframework.com/


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the husband material podcast where we help Christian men quit pornography so you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is drew boa and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Today we are talking about why porn is a pacifier. Think about it. Most of us got exposed to pornography when we were young, when we were little kids, and as time went on, it was always there for us. It provided relief when we felt stressed. It provided a sense of power and control when we felt like life was horrible and hard. So porn provided some emotional relief. It was the secret way that we soothed ourselves. It was like this pacifier and we could always have it in our pocket and take it out in the bedroom or in the bathroom when we just want it to escape the world. So most people don't view porn this way. They don't realize how this all works. They think either, Oh, porn, that's not a big deal. That's not really affecting me. Or porn is this horrible monster. So I need to fight with all my might. And I want to give you a different perspective today to see porn as your pacifier means yes, it's still a problem. It's stunting your sexual development. You're never going to grow up and mature into a sexual adult who can love somebody in a real relationship with nothing getting in the way. If you're still struggling with porn, and on the other hand fighting, it does not help. You know, trying to destroy your pacifier, join a pacifier recovery group that doesn't really work for many of us. There's this love hate relationship with porn and it's like, Oh gosh, I hate this pacifier, but I don't love it, but I hate it. But it's always there for me and it helps me feel better, but it makes me feel worse. And so until you can understand exactly how you're using it as a pacifier to cope with your childhood pain, you're never going to get free. So porn was my pacifier and it was how I dealt with the abandonment that I experienced with the anger that I didn't even understand that I had. And it became my go-to. It was my secret way of soothing myself. And I fought that for so long and ultimately it's a battle you can never win. Even if you get hundreds of victories in this battle, all it takes is one defeat to make you feel like you're back there at the beginning and when we do this, the only option that most of us have is to take on what's called the military mindset. I call it the military mindset. It's when you think, okay, I need to fight pornography like it's a battle, so I'm going to try to overpower it or I can't find it, so I'm going to flee it. I'm going to run away, and ultimately this just intensifies that love, hate relationship. The first step for many of us is to name how pornography has not only been a problem, it has also been our solution. I was going through a training called pastoral sex addiction training with Patrick Carnes, his organization, and it was incredible. When one of my professors, Adrian Hickman said, this horn saved your life. I was like, what? What do you mean by that? What he was trying to say is when we were kids, this pacifier helped us sooth. It helped us deal with the emotional pain that we were experiencing. And in that way, it actually may have prevented us from seeking to sooth ourselves in more destructive ways, more harmful ways, and more risky ways. Maybe I didn't get into drugs because I had porn. Maybe I never had sex with another girl when I was a kid because I had porn available. And so in some ways we need to actually learn how to bless pornography as author Andrew Bauman says it's important to bless pornography in the sense that saying, Hey, my sexuality is good, my emotional needs need to be met. And you know what? Corn played a role. And in some ways it was positive. And until you can see how it was a solution for when life was hard, when you were emotionally struggling, you'll never be able to see how you can find a better solution. So when you see that porn is your pacifier, it's no longer your biggest problem. It's the symptom of deeper problems. So for me that was emotional abandonment, that was feeling rejected, feeling like I had no one to talk to, feeling like no one really understood me feeling like I didn't belong. And so we all turn to porn for different reasons, but we all turn to the same pacifier. Each of us might be using the same pacifier, but we all turn to it for different reasons. So what are the reasons for your porn use? Once you can identify those, then you can see how porn was a solution and you can seek better solutions. This is true freedom where you don't even have to fight the battle anymore. The war is over. You're not fighting, you're not fleeing. You are just putting down your pacifier. Now think about it. If you had a pacifier when you were a kid, did you ever have to get in a pacifier accountability partner? Did you ever have to join a pacifier recovery group? No. As you developed and as you grew, you put down that pacifier because you didn't need it anymore cause you didn't want it anymore and you found better solutions, better ways to soothe yourself, better ways to get your needs met. That is where the healing journey begins. When you stop fighting porn and you stop fleeing porn and you start really understanding your pacifier, and then you choose more powerful solutions to find intimacy, to find connection, to find belonging, to find the self confidence that God has created you for. Listen, my friend, my professor, Adrian Hickman, put it like this. Porn was like a life jacket for you when you were a kid. It helped you survive. It helped you stay afloat when the storms of life were raging all around you. But as you grew up into an adult, that life jacket turned to stone and now it's sinking you to the bottom of the ocean. So in order to stay alive now, in order to be healthy, in order to save your faith, your family and your future, you need to take off that life jacket. But before you can do that, you need to see and name how it helped you when you were younger. That's what understanding your pacifier is all about. If you want to go deeper into understanding why you are drawn to specific types of pornography, watch the sexual fantasy framework. This is a free video series I created with Jay stringer and it will show you how to face your sexual fantasies, see the stories behind them, and stop living in the past. In other words, how to outgrow your pacifier. Always remember my friend, you are God's beloved son and then you, he's well pleased.

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