Endeavourer
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- Aug 30, 2017
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Hi Megan,
I agree with Dave W that inappropriate content and masturbation are two separate topics. I'll address a post to you about each separately.
There is much said in the Bible that would identify inappropriate content as a sin - you are probably very aware of the various verses that would condemn inappropriate content. However, as is often the case, the Bible warns us away from something but doesn't give all of the pragmatic reasons why something is bad. If it did, I think our Bibles would be so thick we couldn't finish them in a lifetime!
So, here is a brief overview of why inappropriate content is an addiction that will harm your future, and a few suggestions to get yourself down the road of eliminating it from your life.
inappropriate content creates images in your head that someday your husband will be competing with. It creates a contrast effect and will diminish your husband's beautiful gift of sexuality that he will be offering you in marriage.
inappropriate content also tarnishes your sexuality in that it distorts your sexual appetites. Let me explain. Once you start viewing inappropriate content, eventually the tame stuff becomes same old same old and you want something just a little differently stimulating. And then a little more different, and so on. Eventually your appetite for sexual gratification can grow to become quite unusual, if not perverted. This situation raises the thresh hold of what you will be hoping for/"needing" from your husband and he may not be interested. So with some silliness on your part in your youth, you may caused a life long sexual dysfunction in your marriage.
Sexual dysfunctions are some of the more frustrating situations a marriage will encounter and often cause a significant amount of distress to husbands, especially. You want to be able to offer a marriage to a young man without including this kind of baggage and problems for him. If you maintain this addiction, it would only be fair to let someone who is pursuing you for marriage know and it will GREATLY diminish the pool of men who are interested, as many of the best candidates will take themselves out of consideration.
As you are aware, however, an addiction to inappropriate content can be pernicious. The best way to break an addiction is to expose it (scary, I know!) and then to remove your avenues of access.
Your mom sounds like a very understanding person. Here's what I suggest you do:
a) tell your mom about your struggle with inappropriate content, and tell her about all the different means you use to access it.
b) install teensafe (teensafe.com) on your phone and route the access to your mom's email. It will cost $15 per month, but this is the best $15 you'll ever spend. Give her the password and ask her to change it so you don't know what it is. This will keep you off inappropriate content on your phone because who wants their mom seeing their inappropriate content activity! Yuck, right?
c) If you have a laptop, can you stop using it for now and just use a family computer that's in a main area? If so, give the laptop to your mom for a few months. If not, install an accountability software on your laptop and again, route the reports to your mom, give her the password and ask her to change it.
d) Close off all of the other routes you use to access inappropriate content with your mom.
e) Plan out other things you'll deflect to doing every time the desire strikes you to view inappropriate content. Can you divert yourself to a hobby instead? If you are a reader, buy a bunch of books you'd love to read and deflect to reading, etc etc.
f) Deflect your thoughts quickly when your mind goes to the inappropriate content you've already seen. You can research tactics for this, but one is to tap your heart and repeat a Bible verse until you can think about something else. When I needed to stop thinking about a painful situation in my life, I used "Lord, heal my broken heart", a paraphrase of a verse in Psalms, while I was tapping. If you stop tapping and your mind still goes back to inappropriate content, resume tapping. Some people use a rubber band to gently snap. Research techniques to see which one would work the best for you.
Within three months of not viewing inappropriate content, much of the addictive nature of it will have faded and your cravings for it will become easier and easier to overcome.
After you have not viewed inappropriate content for 12 to 18 months, and feel you are free from its pull, you can remove the accountability to your mom. From then on, be sure to never take another "dip" into this. Recovering alcoholics and smokers know that the first drink or cigarette they enjoy will plunge them right back into their addiction.
Once you are married, you want to give your husband full digital transparency to all of your devices. You don't necessarily need to tie it back to this old inappropriate content situation, which hopefully will be long gone by then, but when you marry you both deserve to know everything about each other.
I pray that you will set yourself to conquering this very harmful habit. Conquer it because it hurts you, your future husband and therefore your future family.
Most things that God designated as sins are really just behaviors that hurt us and/or others so he told us not to do them. Look at it as something that will hurt you and your future marriage and husband, not just as a sin that "thou shalt not".
Don't get me wrong; they're still sins. Many of us are taught that avoiding sins shows gratitude to the Lord, which is true. However, a practical reason to avoiding sins is to avoid harm to yourself and others.
I agree with Dave W that inappropriate content and masturbation are two separate topics. I'll address a post to you about each separately.
There is much said in the Bible that would identify inappropriate content as a sin - you are probably very aware of the various verses that would condemn inappropriate content. However, as is often the case, the Bible warns us away from something but doesn't give all of the pragmatic reasons why something is bad. If it did, I think our Bibles would be so thick we couldn't finish them in a lifetime!
So, here is a brief overview of why inappropriate content is an addiction that will harm your future, and a few suggestions to get yourself down the road of eliminating it from your life.
inappropriate content creates images in your head that someday your husband will be competing with. It creates a contrast effect and will diminish your husband's beautiful gift of sexuality that he will be offering you in marriage.
inappropriate content also tarnishes your sexuality in that it distorts your sexual appetites. Let me explain. Once you start viewing inappropriate content, eventually the tame stuff becomes same old same old and you want something just a little differently stimulating. And then a little more different, and so on. Eventually your appetite for sexual gratification can grow to become quite unusual, if not perverted. This situation raises the thresh hold of what you will be hoping for/"needing" from your husband and he may not be interested. So with some silliness on your part in your youth, you may caused a life long sexual dysfunction in your marriage.
Sexual dysfunctions are some of the more frustrating situations a marriage will encounter and often cause a significant amount of distress to husbands, especially. You want to be able to offer a marriage to a young man without including this kind of baggage and problems for him. If you maintain this addiction, it would only be fair to let someone who is pursuing you for marriage know and it will GREATLY diminish the pool of men who are interested, as many of the best candidates will take themselves out of consideration.
As you are aware, however, an addiction to inappropriate content can be pernicious. The best way to break an addiction is to expose it (scary, I know!) and then to remove your avenues of access.
Your mom sounds like a very understanding person. Here's what I suggest you do:
a) tell your mom about your struggle with inappropriate content, and tell her about all the different means you use to access it.
b) install teensafe (teensafe.com) on your phone and route the access to your mom's email. It will cost $15 per month, but this is the best $15 you'll ever spend. Give her the password and ask her to change it so you don't know what it is. This will keep you off inappropriate content on your phone because who wants their mom seeing their inappropriate content activity! Yuck, right?
c) If you have a laptop, can you stop using it for now and just use a family computer that's in a main area? If so, give the laptop to your mom for a few months. If not, install an accountability software on your laptop and again, route the reports to your mom, give her the password and ask her to change it.
d) Close off all of the other routes you use to access inappropriate content with your mom.
e) Plan out other things you'll deflect to doing every time the desire strikes you to view inappropriate content. Can you divert yourself to a hobby instead? If you are a reader, buy a bunch of books you'd love to read and deflect to reading, etc etc.
f) Deflect your thoughts quickly when your mind goes to the inappropriate content you've already seen. You can research tactics for this, but one is to tap your heart and repeat a Bible verse until you can think about something else. When I needed to stop thinking about a painful situation in my life, I used "Lord, heal my broken heart", a paraphrase of a verse in Psalms, while I was tapping. If you stop tapping and your mind still goes back to inappropriate content, resume tapping. Some people use a rubber band to gently snap. Research techniques to see which one would work the best for you.
Within three months of not viewing inappropriate content, much of the addictive nature of it will have faded and your cravings for it will become easier and easier to overcome.
After you have not viewed inappropriate content for 12 to 18 months, and feel you are free from its pull, you can remove the accountability to your mom. From then on, be sure to never take another "dip" into this. Recovering alcoholics and smokers know that the first drink or cigarette they enjoy will plunge them right back into their addiction.
Once you are married, you want to give your husband full digital transparency to all of your devices. You don't necessarily need to tie it back to this old inappropriate content situation, which hopefully will be long gone by then, but when you marry you both deserve to know everything about each other.
I pray that you will set yourself to conquering this very harmful habit. Conquer it because it hurts you, your future husband and therefore your future family.
Most things that God designated as sins are really just behaviors that hurt us and/or others so he told us not to do them. Look at it as something that will hurt you and your future marriage and husband, not just as a sin that "thou shalt not".
Don't get me wrong; they're still sins. Many of us are taught that avoiding sins shows gratitude to the Lord, which is true. However, a practical reason to avoiding sins is to avoid harm to yourself and others.
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