Today I share the story of why and how I quit watching porn, and the surprising discoveries that has lead to. Watch the video, listen to the audio-only version, or read the full transcript below.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome everybody. Today we're talking about stopping watching pornography - my personal experience, why I did it, how I did it, and what happened. It's been a surprisingly significant and fascinating experience - - I didn't realize that it was so significant and that it would be as shocking and strange as it has been.
The story that I have to share begins a few years ago really, when I began a daily ritual of going for walks in the forest every morning. I started going for walks during the 2020, everything shutting down period, and it quickly became a fundamental daily ritual. Every morning I've been going for a walk in the forest, sometimes for an hour, sometimes times for 2 or 3 hours. And it's a meditation - - it feels therapeutic. It's good physically - on so many levels it has brought a lot of richness and beauty into my life.
And very early in the practice of going on these walks, they became these meditative experiences. Reflective. Silent. Just being in silence in nature - it's really conducive to feeling what's going on inside, and feeling the beauty of the natural world - - I would find myself in a very pure, wholesome, intimate state - with my feelings, with the environment. And it felt like a very sacred an a very spiritual experience every day. Which is kind of why I latched on to it and started doing it every day.
Quite a while into practicing this ritual, I had an experience that was jarring. It was during one of my walks - and often during my walks it might start with me feeling whatever conflict was going on in my life. I might feel a bunch of sadness negativity frustration etc. I might feel like crap at the beginning of my walk, and then after having those feelings come roaring to the surface - because I'm not distracting myself, I'm not looking at my phone, I'm just out in the forest - after walking with those feelings and maybe talking them out and just feeling and moving for an hour, I often felt really different and a lot better.
So I was used to stuff coming up on my walks. And one day, something really surprising came up: I'm out in nature - alone in the forest in silence, and kind of in a meditative state. Then all of a sudden, I hear this voice in the back of my head - kind of echoing through my head. And it just says one word over and over. And the word is porn - just this one word repeats. Porn, porn, porn - kind of like a repeating voice in my head.
And there was no imagery attached to it. No fantasy. No erotic feelings. No emotional charge. It was just the word repeating in my head: Porn, porn, porn.
it was so strange as strange. And I at first, I'm like: “What's going on? What's with all this porn in my head? I'm not… I don't feel excited about porn. Am I supposed to be watching more porn?”
That thought didn’t make sense, so I didn't go very far with that line of thinking. I just - - initially I was perplexed. I did not know what to make of this, and it didn't just happen once. It started happening every day when I went for my walk. It wouldn't consume the whole walk - it was just this subtle voice that would occasionally be in the back of my head. And it was very strange and unsettling, and kind frustrating almost, because it's like: “Yo, I'm in the forest! This isn't porn time! I don't want to think about porn - I don't even want to hear that word right now. I'm in an ecstatic open state!”
But therein was a clue. Or, I took that feeling in me as a clue as to what might be going on as it continued happening for days - and then weeks.
I started to think: “Wait a minute… maybe the state that now is becoming normal in my daily life of being in nature and this ecstatic feeling of openness - it's so wholesome, it's so sacred and beautiful - it really is different from looking at porn.”
When I look at porn (because I was looking at porn - - I was consuming porn during this) - - I just realized what a jarring contradiction these two realities were. And this isn't me judging, it's just me acknowledging that whatever reality I was regularly entering during my daily walks was very, very different from the door I was opening up and looking into when I looked at pornography. Because that was a completely different reality. And this voice that was bouncing around in my head - - I didn't understand what was going on still, but it was getting me to consider: “What's going on with with porn, Miles?”
Like, you need to take a look at this. I just kind of assumed that in the same way that going and being alone in silence in a nature might bring up some feelings of sadness or inner conflict that would be healthy to feel and look into and acknowledge, it was now time for me to look into and acknowledge some feelings around pornography.
I never felt particularly excited about porn. I was never someone who was terribly enthusiastic about it. But it had kind of snuck into my life because of its ease of accessibility - - crazy ease of accessibility - - and I’d had some friends over the years for whom pornography was more normal. And I think that helped normalize it a little bit for me. But more than anything, I just kind of rationalized that I never felt that porn had a deep psychological impact on me, because whenever I was with a woman in a relationship, I didn't watch it. I didn't feel like watching it, because that part of me was being filled up through a real life experience with a woman. And I never felt like I took on any of the stuff I watched in porn - - like it didn't affect my imagination or my behavior. And I was always surprised that it didn't seem to affect me more emotionally, but I kind of just rationalized that it doesn't seem to really affect me, so I guess it's fine.
And I would only consume it during periods when I had been alone and that part of my life just wasn't filled with any real experience. So this extremely easily attainable virtual thing would fill that space.
But now walking through the woods having that word bump around in my head, I was starting to question how much it really was affecting me, and how deep it really was getting in.
The second thing that I rationalized about consuming porn - and this is some pretty crazy logic but at some point I think I actually thought it - during a period of singlehood I thought: I guess pornography is kind of good because it'll help me from just going and messing around with somebody in a way that could be just messy.
I think that's a really really troubling line of reasoning because, essentially, my reasoning was: Take this virtual experience and fill yourself with that, instead of going out into the vulnerability of real life and living and having real experiences that enrich you and that you learn from and that you grow from and that you develop relationships out of.
And, yeah, once I started looking at my rationalizations for watching pornography, they didn't stand up very well - especially that second one. As soon as I started looking looking at that I was like: That's crazy. Honestly, I think I would be better off to go and have messy real life experiences (that of course are respectful and consensual and kind) - - I'd be much better off to have those experiences no matter how awkward they are than to just live vicariously through a grim virtual world that really doesn't represent anything that feels natural to me.
So all of this is to say that I reflected a bunch and I decided to stop watching porn.
I was able to stop for probably a couple of weeks - and then I would invariaby have a day where I just was kind of low, or forgot my reasoning. I would just be like: “Ah, you know what - it doesn't really affect me…” And I'd be back watching. And that would happen - - that happened several times, where I would stop, and then not really stick to my guns and just cave in to the short-term, temporary gratification of watching something so stimulating and so accessible.
What finally got me to be able to stand in some conviction around it, was when I started watching and listening to a bunch of interviews with women who were either former pornographic performers, or had been actually trafficked into experiences that were video taped and distributed as pornography.
The stories that these incredibly courageous women told were so heartbreaking and savage, that I knew I needed to listen and let it all in. I know this was the thing that would like keep me from clicking for some temporary gratification.
There were stories - - just heartbreaking stories - - of women who were signed up to do, for example, a modelling job that had nothing to do with nudity or sexuality, and suddenly found themselves in a very dangerous, scary situation with big men who forced them into things, videotaped it, and then their life was just blown apart.
There were stories I heard -- women talking about experiences that I guess are called revenge porn, where they had been with somebody who non-consensually filmed them, and then after they broke up that person blackmailed them and uploaded all these videos to porn sites. And once they got uploaded, they were quickly re-uploaded by random people to various different sites. And so it’s almost impossible to get these videos taken down - and millions of people see these videos of the most traumatic moment of somebody's life.
Just hearing these stories again and again from women shook me. And some of the content that was the product of these terrifying experiences made it onto extremely mainstream channels - the most popular channels on the most popular adult streaming site featured content that had these horror stories behind it.
Once I started watching these interviews, I didn’t want to stop. I felt like I needed to listen to these stories, because somehow pornography had become normalized in my mind and in my world. And now I wanted to hear the grim reality behind it describe so clearly by these women. It was like I needed to take their words and experiences in deeply, because I wanted it to counteract the rationalization or the normalization of something where I could just say: “Ah, this doesn't really have any consequence - doesn't really affect me..” Because it does.
So I went into a period that wasn't very long - - it was just a week or two - - of watching a lot of interviews with former performers or people who had been trafficked by the porn industry. It was just so heartbreaking.
I would go from my my morning walks, and I started to realize that the reason that word, porn, had been bouncing around in my head, wasn't just because it was so incongruous with this sacred part of my life. It was because it was a complete betrayal of my deepest values as a person. One of my deepest values is that people are sacred. And women are sacred. And women's bodies are sacred. Everyone's body is sacred. And sex is sacred.
And the the whole sea of content that I had been consuming was - - after hearing all of those stories, I saw how it goes against of my values in the most heartbreaking, savage way. And really letting that in was what gave me the conviction to say: “Okay, no. This isn't going to be in my life anymore. When I feel that tinge of desire or whatever, the response is no. I’m not watching that, because the women whose stories I've heard, I hold them close to my heart and I think of them like they could be my sister or my daughter or my wife. And I don't have a sister or a daughter or a wife, but I think in those terms.
I have many close friends who are women who I love and I respect, and just imagining that something like this could happen to them as an innocent young woman is completely devastating. And the idea that I would not just consume that content, but by consuming it - - I mean I would be clicking on a video that generates some amount of ad revenue, so it's actually economically feeding something that is completely at odds with my soul.
Now, I want to be clear that there's a lot about that industry I don't understand, and there is a spectrum of content. I don't want to shame or pathologize people who are, you know, performers in that industry. That's not my place. That's not my intention. My intention is just to share my experience - I'm not here to shame anybody. I mean I've watched that content, so I'm not in a position to shame anybody.
But it was hearing the women’s stories that gave me the conviction to be like: “Okay I want that out!” So then, after stopping in in a more solid way, that voice actually got louder. That voice in my head saying porn, porn, porn, it actually got louder for a while. And I started to wonder: “Oh, is this like some detoxification? Like, if I go without this stimulus for long enough, this voice gets louder?”
And what I also experienced, other than just that strange voice in the back of my head in moments of silence, um - - I felt that I had been filling some fundamental place in me by consuming that content. And when I stopped for long enough there started to be this pain - this feeling of: Ah! There's this part of me that's now like inescapably empty - because now I'm not distracting myself from the cold reality of my sexless life. And that feels like a very uncomfortable thing, especially because I'm not the kind of person that just jumps out there and hooks up with somebody.
That is a path that I could have gone down (casual sex), but instead what happened was - there's this thing that the spiritual philosopher Krishnamurti called ‘Creative Discontent’ - I'm going to paraphrase here, I forget exactly how he described it, but as I understand it, ‘Creative Discontent’ is when you have a certain kind of inner conflict or unrest that's actually a very creative, productive, and healthy, life-giving force. And I feel like that's what happened in me after I went long enough without filling a void in me with that temporary or instant gratification.
And in the absence of that gratification was all this discomfort, and these feelings of longing. And strangely, instead of making me just want to reach for another instant gratification - to just like hook up with somebody - it made me start really reflecting like on the type of relationship that I want, and I started dreaming big. In a sense I started thinking: Man, I don't really want to do that (casual sex). What I want is a partner. Like I want to really be with somebody. And I want it to feel like this deeply committed connected thing the same way that when I'm in the forest it feels like this deeply connected intimate thing. I feel like taking away that influence (porn) - - um yeah it started to get me really thinking about where I'm at with what makes sense to me on a level of intimacy in relationships, and that's been a really beautiful thing.
Just a door to open and look through and be like: Okay, what I want feels really amazing and big and it's not something that I can just go and grab instantly. So I want to work on myself and build the life that would be suitable for that kind of relationship.
There's been this fire lit in me There's a pain and a hunger that was revealed by not giving myself instant gratification. And that feels like a very productive, positive, healthy thing. It's made me reexamine all sorts of areas in my life and have some really healthy conversations with friends and with myself. The levels of positivity that have come out of it are shocking. I feel like I've gotten a part of myself back, and I know that sounds probably kind of cliche, but it feels really true.
This fundamental part of myself - it gets to really come back now, because I'm not jumping into a sick world in a very intimate way that doesn't match with my values, what I desire, what I want to create, and what feels true to me.
And again, this isn't to shame or judge anybody who has a different way of being. It's just to share my experience.
That's all I wanted to share today you guys - just my personal experience. I totally understand if a lot of people watching or listening have a different perspective. Some of you might be able to relate though. if you enjoyed this uh if it brought up any thoughts for you, I'd love to hear. You can comment down below, you can like, you can subscribe if you haven't already.
I'm also an author. If you didn't know I've got a couple books you can check out - if you enjoyed this, you'll probably enjoy them. They're both autobiographical stories about vulnerability, inner power, personal experiences in relationships - all the messy, juicy, beautiful stuff.
You'll find links to those in the show notes or in the description below. There's audiobook versions narrated by me, paperback versions, and ebook versions.
Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this and, until next time, take care.