My struggle with pornography is not an uncommon one. It's very common. It started at age 11ish. It was all curiosity at first. I just wanted to look at sexy pictures of girls. I think my first lustful google was "hot girls". After that it just escalated. I ashamedly thank God that it hasn't come to any thing illegal or publicly humiliating. Like I said I'm not going through anything uncommon. What I'm going through now is mainly just a annoying pervasive fantasy of women taking of their clothes and me masturbating. After which I swear to God and myself that I will never do it again. It is all in vain though. I have learned the hard way like every other human being before me. righteousness is not a choice that I can choose for my self, it is a matter of giving up and letting the Holy Spirit work in you and me. Being noble takes a great amount of courage. It's a courage that I don't think has quite consumed me yet. But I think writing this down in a public forum will help somewhat. I don't want this to sound like a pitty party so I'll try not to come across that way. I am a very good student, son, friend, athlete, artist and thinker... but above all I am extremely modest. :) All my friends love me and think I'm hilarious. And I would also like to add that I'm extremely good-looking. (I'm being sarcastic but these things are all true) So now you are all probably wondering "what the hell is this charming and precocious young mans problem?" To which I respond: "Porn, you curious reader of stuff that people post on the internet, or fellow guilty Christian masturbater." That is my problem and it is a problem indeed. What it comes right down to is a matter of want and need. I want and deserve lots of hot sex. Deserve in the standards of our own secular culture. I'm proud and somewhat disappointed to say that I'm a virgin. But hold on! nor have I ever kissed a girls, or told one that she is beautiful to her beautiful face. I've never had a girlfriend... I'm 19. Which is still really young but also kind of old. Recently I've been having these hints and glimmers and a sense of urgency to slap porn in the face and never see it again. I've also had a big sense of urgency to jack-off with the help of that infamous magazine, that unfortunately we know way too much about. This issue is serious. and a tissue is only going to make it worse. .. In all seriousness, I'm young and I have a lot of life ahead of me. I'm pretty confident that I'm going to have a wonderful life and an awesome beautiful wife. The only thing stopping me is a guilty conscious and a fear of what my life could look like if I don't get my sporadic fits of lust under control. My professor said that Bonhoffer said that he does the right thing because he wants to be better. I want to be better too, but I'm nowhere near as cool as Bonhoffer. And everyone wants to be better. To make decision upon, decision upon decision upon decision upon decision upon decision.... that takes them to the right path of success and personal fulfillment. That is exhausting and also incredibly impossible. You can never have a goal to be happy. You just have to life and let happiness find you. Because the act of looking for happiness is in itself self, a pursuit that contradicts. I will never pursue happiness. I will only pursue the word, because the word is with God. The word is as infinite as it is redemptive. Time is really all that I have. It's only what any human has. What I do with my time is up to me. I may have strokes of genius, but my vision is very blurry. And my thought are very vague. I want people to realize that pornography is not only a terrible waste of time. It is a drug changes a humans mind and alters the way see the reality of the world. It changes friends, families, lovers, entertainers, writers, artists... It changes the way humans think, feel, and act. Is it a change that we are proud of? oooookay but I may have gotten a bit carried away, but I meant every word. Porn is about sex, sex is about relationships, relationships are about life. And life is about relationships. I was most harmed by porn when I was an adolescent. It was a period in my life that that I went to 6 different schools in 5 years in 3 different states. I have no idea who would be the groomsmen at my wedding... let alone who I would marry. Learning to make friends is an imperative skill. They are the ones that make life worth living. Porn is not a friend. It's an empty feeling, a depressing vision. I pray that all of those who are on this site going through the same struggles I am will find friends. Friends to laugh, sing, dance, and talk to- about everything. I would appreciate everyone else's prayers too. God bless everyone, E.M.