What porn gives vs. what it takes from you in return? - by Halfpint

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This article is part of the June Writing Challenge on the topic "What porn gives vs. what it takes from you in return?" The winner will be announced the first week of July. Members may submit entries up till July 1st!
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What porn gives vs. what it takes from you in return?
by Halfpint (PA)

We as people seek certain fulfillments, things to make us whole, things to fulfill a destiny, so to speak. In our journey to achieve wholeness we may try things to fill our void. In doing so we may get a temporary filling but then make the void bigger. In my lifetime I have sought many things to fill a void created by parents being vocally abusive and having other people be physically and sexually abusive to me. Some people are able to fill this void with positive things, such as sports, a job, helping other people out, but me, I was different. I turned to porn.


Now, porn can give us something, but at the same time porn takes away. In trying to find something to fill my emptiness, porn was a welcome sight. It made me feel no different than anyone else, it helped me escape, it helped me find a hide away, so to speak. I was able to release stress through porn and it was something that I had all to myself. Whenever I would come home from school, come home from the bullying from the name calling, I would be welcomed home to parents who were more interested in yelling at each other, getting in the last word, and making sure that their point was heard, no matter how loud they had to get. I needed a refuge, I needed somewhere to turn. Being that I live out in the country, hanging out at an after school program was no option. I was turning into a geek and was very interested in computers, so thats where I turned. I turned to my computer to release my tension and to be my refuge. On my computer I could open up, I could be something that school and my parents never knew about. Eventually that interest turned into something of a more explicit nature. I was introduced to porn at the early age of 12, and it was something that never said no, it was something that never yelled at me, it was something that never made me feel unwanted, it was something that let me just “curl up in myself” and be who I wanted to be. That is what porn gave me.


Porn may give to us, but it is not something that goes away without taking something as well. Sure porn allowed me to have less stress, and allowed me a certain freedom, but those came at a price. All of the stuff that porn gave me was quite temporary. The fulfillment that porn gave me, to my displeasure, took away even more. The easiest way to explain what porn did to me is to take a rock, drill a hole in it, poor water into it and freeze it. My life is like that rock. You take a rock, or any hard material for that, and put water into it and freeze it, what is it going to do? The water will freeze, and when water freezes it expands, filling a void. That ice then melts and then you need to fill the void again, so you fill it with water yet again and freeze it yet again. The ice expands, making the hole even bigger. Eventually if you're not looking at porn you feel like a hollow shell of nothing. You walk around wishing you were in front of a computer screen looking at your porn. Each time you do it, it fulfills less and less, taking away more and more each time.


Porn not only took away from me, however. I have taken something away from each of the women I looked at online. My eyes have invaded them, in ways they never should have. In supporting porn I have taken away something that was never mine from every women I have ever looked at online. Also, since looking at porn, it has caused me to look upon women with lust, and it as caused me to look upon them as objects. Objects put here for my sexual pleasure and fulfillment, which is exactly NOT what they are for. Women are people to and they deserve love, hey deserve someone to be there, to hold them, to love them, and to cherish them. Not to look at them, want their body and then want to get rid of them If I could go back, go up to every woman I ever lusted and apologize for doing so I could. Porn has left this burden on my back, it has left an emptiness inside that no amount of words could ever fill. All porn ended up doing for me in the end is turn me into a mindless zomby, wandering around for “more”, always hungry, always empty, always eating, looking for more. It wasn't until my attempts at quitting porn that I started to see that the way to fill the emptiness, was to stop trying so hard to fill it, and to look to my friends and positive things to keep me going.