By Eric J Engel
Any man struggling with pornography addiction is going to go through some amount of failure. Sometimes it's a big failure, sometimes it's minor. But it always leaves the man wondering why he can't hack it. "Why can't I get this under control? Why do I keep failing? Is it just part of being a man or am I fundamentally flawed... a perverted monster?"
The answer is two-part, one dealing with the fact that every man struggles with sexual temptations, the second that any man who has escalated to the point of addiction has somewhat warped the way he sees and reacts to women.
As a man, we are tempted (or enticed, if that word is too religious for you) by any image of the female body. It attracts us physically... sexually. This is the norm... from a Christian standpoint, it's the way God made us. There's nothing wrong with it.
But we're attracted to women more than just physically. We thirst for a deeper relationship with women, emotionally and mentally. A man failing in that relationship will often try to use sex (or in this case, pornography) to make up for his failures. When he does this, he stops putting emphasis on making the relationship better. He's now more concerned with his own physical gratification.
This behavior becomes a habit first, and eventually a dependency. As that happens, he stops seeing the true value of women, both in terms of his relationship to them and in terms of their value in society. He 'objectifies' them whether he wants to or not. He might truly appreciate all his wife/partner/girlfriend has to offer, in a purely theoretical sense. But in practical life, his body and mind does what it's trained to do-it sees women as sexual objects.
The only way for a man to overcome this mindset, is to retrain his very outlook. And that starts with no longer seeing women as purely sexual objects. That means reacting to the female body differently than he has been doing. Not just the naked bodies he's been looking at, but every women he sees or meets.
On the street, in the home, or in the office, he must look away from the female figure. He must control his eyes and his mind, telling himself that the person in front of him is not something to be ogled.
If a man can stop himself from staring at women (even the ones who are dressed in a way to attract men's glances), he will eventually be able to fight the temptation to look at pornography.
The answer is two-part, one dealing with the fact that every man struggles with sexual temptations, the second that any man who has escalated to the point of addiction has somewhat warped the way he sees and reacts to women.
As a man, we are tempted (or enticed, if that word is too religious for you) by any image of the female body. It attracts us physically... sexually. This is the norm... from a Christian standpoint, it's the way God made us. There's nothing wrong with it.
But we're attracted to women more than just physically. We thirst for a deeper relationship with women, emotionally and mentally. A man failing in that relationship will often try to use sex (or in this case, pornography) to make up for his failures. When he does this, he stops putting emphasis on making the relationship better. He's now more concerned with his own physical gratification.
This behavior becomes a habit first, and eventually a dependency. As that happens, he stops seeing the true value of women, both in terms of his relationship to them and in terms of their value in society. He 'objectifies' them whether he wants to or not. He might truly appreciate all his wife/partner/girlfriend has to offer, in a purely theoretical sense. But in practical life, his body and mind does what it's trained to do-it sees women as sexual objects.
The only way for a man to overcome this mindset, is to retrain his very outlook. And that starts with no longer seeing women as purely sexual objects. That means reacting to the female body differently than he has been doing. Not just the naked bodies he's been looking at, but every women he sees or meets.
On the street, in the home, or in the office, he must look away from the female figure. He must control his eyes and his mind, telling himself that the person in front of him is not something to be ogled.
If a man can stop himself from staring at women (even the ones who are dressed in a way to attract men's glances), he will eventually be able to fight the temptation to look at pornography.
Eric Engel runs The Catholic Letter, with a specific section on how to deal with and overcome Pornography Addiction. More information can be found at http://TheCatholicLetter.com/pornography-addiction.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_J_Engel 
No comments:
Post a Comment