It’s unfortunate but many parents still do not realize that their children may be struggling with pornography use. Today, I am telling Jamie’s story—a sixteen-year-old girl (whose name has been changed), and how her struggle began and where she is now.
Jamie’s Story
I was pretty shocked, devastated and ashamed when my parents discovered my porn addiction. I was a straight-A student; I was involved in my youth group; I was a good athlete. Overall, my parents thought I was on the right track, and I mostly was, which is why I wanted to keep my struggle buried from everyone around me.
I had been exposed to pornography when I was twelve. I was working on a school assignment, and when I went to watch an educational video on YouTube, there was a sex video included in the related video content on the left side, even though sex had nothing to do with what I was looking up. I don’t really know why I first clicked on the video, but I did, and it was short clip of two girls kind of hooking up. It didn’t show very much, but it had information about where I could go to see more. I felt a little like I shouldn’t look up more videos, but I did, and I looked at a lot that day – maybe thirty videos. None of them showed anything too explicit, but there were no actual body parts or anything, but you could see girls in thongs and lots of suggestive actions and lots of making out.
I didn’t look anything else more that week, but later, I wanted to. For about a few months, I looked at lots of videos on sites like YouTube. I have my own laptop that my parents gave me to use for schoolwork, and so I just would take it into my room and watch whatever I wanted to or when my parents were out.
At some point, I took my watching to other sites, and on those sites, I could see a lot. There are tons of sites where you can see tons of body parts, lots of close ups and videos of girls touching themselves of guys having sex with girls. I would watch and honestly, it would turn me on. Whenever I had the chance, I started touching myself. At night, I would sneak my computer into my room after my parents went to bed and go online and touch myself and watch porn.
It was one of the most embarrassing, awful moments of my whole life. Since then, my parents found a counselor for me to talk to about my porn use, and it has gotten better. They also put filters and controls on all of our Internet devices. It’s still hard because [sometimes] I still want to look.
If you’re a parent reading this blog now, it’s critical to realize that even girls can struggle with pornography. It’s imperative that you use strong parental controls and filters on all Internet-enabled devices that your kids use; make it a policy not to allow your kids to use their computers or Internet-connected phones in their room or behind closed doors, and get ahead of the issue by talking to your son or daughter about healthy sexuality and the harmful impact pornography can have. Also, visit iParent.TV for tons of resources that will help keep you informed when it comes to tech tools, trends, and all the stuff your kids are using every day.