The following story is the winner of the 2024 Kenneth Bowen Scholarship award. For more information on Covenant Eyes scholarships and how you can apply, see here.
Dark room, bright computer screen.
Shameful sins, burning lust.
This is the story of so many men today. Sexual sin has always been a temptation, but never in all history has it been so available. Gone are the days of walking into a store or discovering a hidden stash of magazines beneath a relative’s bed. Within thirty seconds, images of naked women are available for instant gratification. I once thought it was impossible to be free from pornography in today’s technological world. As the Psalmist once asked, “how can a young person stay on the path of purity?” (Psalm 119:9).
This essay is a story of the Lord’s kindness to a depressed porn-addicted teenager who is now a year and a half porn-free. I hope to show you through my story that it is indeed possible, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, with the help of godly community and Covenant Eyes, to be free from pornography and live with sexual integrity on technology. I will begin with my early story, discuss what it means to pursue Christian sexual integrity, and tell you today how I came to be free from pornography.
Dark Room, Bright Computer Screen: My Early Days
I started looking at pornography as a freshman in high school. My father, a strong Christian man, warned me about the dangers of pornography years earlier. But when I discovered that images of scantily clad women were easily accessible on the internet, and I rationalized that it wasn’t porn if they weren’t fully naked, Pandora’s box was opened.
Science tells us that compulsive pornography viewing releases dopamine, a pleasure-inducing chemical, and changes the brain such that the individual desires more porn and more explicit porn.1 ADHD, when present, further compounds the problem, because the ADHD brain lacks dopamine more than the normal brain, so something like porn that provides a boost is even more addicting for people like me than the average person.2 As someone with severe ADHD, I saw this play out over the next four years of my life.
Night after night I slid further down the hole. The entire time I knew what I was doing was disrespectful towards women and did not honor God. I was frustrated and angry with myself for it and I wanted to stop, so I confessed my struggle to my parents. This began a cycle that lasted all through high school: for every restriction my parents placed on my devices, I found new ways to bypass the filters. I hated the consequences of pornography. I hated how much shame I felt. I hated how it was distorting my view of women. I was afraid of harming the women in my life, so I banished myself from interacting with them. This did even more damage and resulted in depression, which fed the addiction even more. There were times I was so low I contemplated suicide. And yet, I could not break the spiral of pornography. I thought freedom and sexual integrity were impossible.
What is Sexual Integrity?
Before continuing my story, I want to explain sexual integrity. Pornography—which I define as any physical or digital media pursued for the sake of lustful savoring—is against God’s sexual economy, demeaning toward women, and worst of all shockingly accessible. Without understanding why we fight pornography, we will fail over and over again to do so successfully. We who believe in Jesus and profess him Lord over our lives are already saved by faith through his grace. We do not have to try to be good enough, because we cannot. But when we were saved, we made him Lord over “every square inch” of our lives, as Abraham Kuyper put it, so we are to worship him and glorify him in every area of our lives. The journey toward becoming the kind of person who lives in right relationship with God and in the way God intended, toward true human flourishing, might be called “virtue.”
Virtue is inherently valuable in itself. We should seek to live virtuously because this is inherently valuable, not for reward or fear of consequence (which may or may not include perception by others). This is how I define integrity. The internet is the ultimate proving ground for integrity: all consequences, identity, and limits on content are (seemingly) wiped away. Accountability like Covenant Eyes provides guardrails and consequences to help guide a man on his journey, but ultimately it is for the end of developing true integrity. We want to be the kind of people who choose not to look at pornography because we are the kind of people who respect God’s sexual economy, not merely because we fear the consequences.
I spend this time discussing the importance of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and how it relates to sexual integrity because this is the turning point in my story.
The Bright Light of Christ, Featuring Covenant Eyes: My Turning Point
I found Covenant Eyes as I was entering my freshman year of college. By this point, I had bypassed dozens of different restrictions. I found ways around every one of them, but Covenant Eyes was different. Particularly helpful was the periodic screenshots feature on Covenant Eyes. My accountability partners could see me attempting to bypass the content filters before I did so, which helped prevent me from trying to look. Covenant Eyes is the only restriction I never found a way to bypass.
Covenant Eyes was a necessary part of my journey, but it was not sufficient. Ultimately, the true reason I am now graduating from college porn-free is the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. There is a God who sent his one and only son to die for my sins, including every time I ever looked at pornography (Rom. 5:1-2). This same God looks at me and does not condemn me for my sins (Rom. 8:1), though I justly deserve it, and instead looks on me with the favor won by Jesus on the cross (Rom. 5:9). A major turning point came when I quit fighting porn because of the consequences or benefits of being free, but for the sake of true integrity. I desired to be free because I wanted to reflect Christ. I asked him for his help, and he gave me grace to change, but it didn’t come in a day. It took many years of labor and many humble confessions at the feet of God. There were many lost battles along the way, but over time there were more wins than losses until one day I realized I was truly free. While accountability, godly community, and Covenant Eyes were necessary for the journey, they were not sufficient to bring freedom alone: this comes through the forgiving and transforming grace found in Jesus Christ.
Because of the grace of God through Jesus Christ, with the help of Covenant Eyes and godly community, I have achieved the impossible: freedom from pornography. My greatest hope and prayer is that all men who read this will know that it is possible to be free.
There is no one too far gone for God.
0 comments.