I wasn’t some guy hanging out in bars, or a bum. I wasn’t a pervert in the sense that people look at somebody and say, “I know there’s something wrong with him.” I was a normal person. I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close to myself. Those of us who have been so influenced by violence in the media, particularly pornographic violence, are not some kind of inherent monsters. We are your sons and husbands. We grew up in regular families. Pornography can reach in and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my home 20 or 30 years ago. As diligent as my parents were, and they were diligent in protecting their children, and as good a Christian home as we had, there is no protection against the kinds of influences that are loose in a society that tolerates…

– Ted Bundy, serial killer and rapist, estimated to have raped and murdered over a hundred women.

Okay gentlemen, today I’m going to talk about something that is not spoken about enough. An aspect of pornography addiction that is only discussed in detail behind closed doors with therapists and not enough in the media.

Pornography eventually makes its abusers rapists. Yes. You’re a rapist.

If you’re aroused by any part of this article, it doesn’t make you a rapist, a pedophile or gay. It just means that there is a high chance that you have used pornography or one of those genres recently or currently. It also means that you should stop.

Its a well known fact that as your brain gets used to the regular porn you watch due to your dopamine receptors being abused, you need more variety to get off. You may not have got to this point yet- not every man will-but most will certainly go beyond it.

A common example are the millions of straight men who watch transsexual sex scenes, then eventually sail their porn ship to the shores of gay porn. Their brain rewires itself as they expose themselves continuously to this “taboo” porn. They are suddenly confused about their sexual orientation and wonder if they are really gay. A good number of them eventually end up acting out their fantasies with transgender escorts and seeking casual sex with gay men online. In fact, most transgender escorts make the majority of their income from porn addicts looking for a “first time”.

Gay men who have casual sex with multiple partners and cruise for sex will readily attest that there are many “curious” straight compulsive porn viewers who approach them for sex.

If this is you- rest assured, you’re not gay and for the record, fantasizing about having sex with another man or actually having sex with him doesn’t make you gay either. You know what makes you gay? When you don’t quit your fantasizing, when you don’t quit cruising for gay and transgender sex,when you don’t quit masturbating to gay porn. One day your brain will rewire itself so solidly, that the only way out is to convince yourself that you are secretly gay or bisexual.

Lets break it down like this:

• Stage one:Compulsive viewing of transexual or gay porn
• Stage two: Looking to experience this in real life via compulsive browsing/searching for experiences-usually online.
• Stage three: Actually having sex with a transexual/ gay man. Usually oral sex first then full penetrative sex.

That’s one example. The example relevant to this post is when your Stage One is: Violent Porn

By rough sex, I mean gonzo-including rape simulation. Gonzo is basically hardcore porn from the beginning to end- violence, spanking, anal fisting and choking female pornstars ,wearing pounds of mascara for effect, among other actions.

1. “But Chris, its just a fantasy!”
2. “I know my limits – I watch rape themed porn, but only sick perverts really rape women.”
3. “ Alot of women have fantasies of being raped, you know?”
4. “Women like it rough too.”
5. “Its human nature to be sometimes turned on by rape, Chris. Research shows that women actually get aroused by stories and incidences of rape.”

If any of this shit went through your head just now, then you need smack yourself upside the head and PAY ATTENTION.

• Stage one: Gonzo Pornography.
• Stage two: Having rough and violent sex with partners/searching for erotica that describes non consensual scenes more graphically/ getting turned on by stories of rape.
• Stage three: Graduating to violence that accompanies rape and violent porn. I’m not talking about spanking. I’m talking about masturbating to real rape scenes, real gore and rape.
• Stage four: Raping your friend, your cousin, or some random girl in you extended college social circle.

The same is true for pedophilia, or having sex with children.

The above stages are not conjecture – they are absolutely real and happen every single day all over the world. They are not widely reported, and will not be widely reported-but it happens. Most men who consume alot of porn will rape a woman if they feel they could get away with it.

In a study, 356 male students were asked: “If you could be assured that no one would know and that you could in no way be punished for engaging in the following acts, how likely, if at all, would you be to commit such acts?” (Briere and Malamuth, 1983). Among the sexual acts listed were the two of interest to these researchers: “forcing a female to do something she really didn’t want to do” and “rape” (Briere and Malamuth, 1983). Sixty percent of the sample indicated that under the right circumstances, there was some likelihood that they would rape,use force, or do both.

Here’s more:

In a study of high school males, 50‰ of those interviewed believed it acceptable “for a guy to hold a girl down and force her to have sexual intercourse in instances such as when ‘she gets him sexually excited’ or ‘she says she’s going to have sex with him and then changes her mind’” (Goodchilds and Zellman, 1984).

Say what? These studies were conducted over 30 years ago. Can you imagine what kids think today now that the average age of exposure to pornography is 8-years-old?

The No. 1 reason why most men are not running around raping every women they fancy is social inhibition. If society was to fall apart in 2014, the rape that would follow would be the most endemic in the history of the world- thanks to pornography.

There is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the pain. But there are lots of other kids playing in streets around the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today. – Ted Bundy

Serial rapists and killers overwhelmingly have porn addictions:

1. John Xydias pleaded guilty to 25 counts of rape and 61 counts of indecent assault against 11 women between 1991 and 2006. He was said to see himself as some sort of porn star – video recording all his rapes.
2. Convicted kidnapper Ariel Castro Castro, who kidnapped Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight between 2002 and 2004 and fathered a child with Berry, told his sentencing judge that sexual problems and porn addiction had “taken a toll on his mind.”
3. Ted Bundy, one of Americas most notorious serial killers had a very early addiction to pornography. Most of his estimated over 100 victims were raped before they were murdered.

Facts:

• A high percentage of non-incarcerated rapists and child molesters have said that they have been incited by pornography to commit crimes;
• Pre-selected normal healthy male students say they are more likely to rape a woman after just one exposure to violent pornography;
• A high percentage of male junior high students, high school students, and adults in a non-laboratory survey report imitating X-rated movies within a few days of exposure;
• Many prostitutes report that they have experienced pornography-related sexual assault (Silbert and Pines, 1984; Everywoman, 1988; and Russell, 1993a)

Your Thoughts and Actions

Just as a seed planted eventually ripens as a fruit on a tree, your thoughts eventually end up becoming your reality. Rape, does not happen suddenly and without thought, just as consensual sex does not happen without much forethought. It is always as a result of growth, germination over time, till finally, the thought ripens as a fruit.

Never underestimate the power of what you put into your mind. A building which has its foundations slowly eroded by water damage over time will eventually collapse, and the mind of a man who lets pornography seep in in greater and greater amounts will lose all its values.

Whatever you are in life today is a direct result of your thoughts and actions. When you quit pornography and replace it with positive and empowering thoughts about women and sex, eventually, your life will reflect these thoughts. As a strong man, you must have discipline and guard your mind against bullshit like pornography.

The thoughts you have in secret will eventually have an opportunity to become actions.

I leave you with a quote from James Allen’s book, As a Man Thinketh:

The falling was merely the end, the outworking, and the finished result of what commenced in the mind probably years before.The man had allowed a wrong thought to enter his mind;and a second and a third time he had welcomed it, and allowed it to nestle in his heart. Gradually he became accustomed to it, and cherished and fondled, and tended it; and so it grew, until at last it attained such strength and force that it attracted to itself the opportunity which enabled it to burst forth and ripen into act.

If you’re out there reading this article and know that your porn use is spiraling out of control; if you’re slowly but surely beginning to act out your darkest fantasies or finding it harder to control your urges, it’s time for you to take back control of your life.

If you found this post helpful, I’d be very grateful if you would share it with the world using the buttons below. Somewhere out there, there is a man who is about to lose it all to porn by crossing the line and hurting someone vulnerable.  A man off pornography is a much happier man.

Sources: Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm September 2004, Diana E. H. Russell, Ph.D.

This post originally appeared at Quit Porn Get Girls.