#2 – Thoughts on Pornography
Comment below what you gained from this episode.
This episode’s topic is pornography. It offers perspectives on what can lie beyond porn addiction… “How can you actually create a life according to your own standards and stop settling for any false substitutes?”
Join Andrew and Sammy, two people who have given porn A LOT of thought and who have quit it for good reasons, as they share about porn’s effects on their lives and what it’s like being porn free.
They discuss the reality of being porn-addicted; in relation to other people and in relation to our self-worth. They also share about the AMAZING positive changes that have happened for them after having walked away from porn.
What this show is about:
- What lies beyond porn addiction?
- What perspective can you have other than scare tactics to stay away?
- What are things to look forward to when porn is out of your life?
- How does looking at porn affect how you see other people and women in particular?
- What is so rewarding about relationships beyond porn?
- How does being porn-sober affect self-value, self-confidence and how you feel?
- Other benefits of life after breaking away from porn. On marriage, on intimacy etc.
- How mastery over sexuality affects your whole life.
- How can High Noon as an Organization can help you in the process?
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love: Welcome to another episode of love life legacy. This is Andrew Love. Today, we’re going to be talking about pornography. And this is a topic that you probably know something about. But we always try to go where your brain hasn’t gone to inform you and your journey so that you can make the best possible decisions to have a life according to your own standards. And that you stop settling for any false substitute. So let’s get into it. Welcome back, everybody. My name is Andrew Love, and I’m with…
Sammy Uyama: Sammy Uyama.
Andrew Love: Today, we’re going to talk about porn. Are you guys ready? Are you ready, Sammy to talk about porn?
Sammy Uyama: Porn. Whoa, hold on, let me… Don’t just go and say it. You got to let me warm up to it. You gotta want warn people when you’re gonna talk about stuff like that.
Andrew Love: One time I was on an airplane and somebody was like… she’s asked me, “So what is it that you do?” And I was like, “Oh, you know, sex” “Sex? Yeah.” I was like, yeah, I do that for a living. And she’s like “What?”And like, yeah, talk about porn and stuff, which is why… Anyway, I’m not always great at describing what I do. It always catches people when you say the word porn. So we’ve caught your attention. And the reason we’re talking about this issue is because it matters. It’s something that’s happening, and most people haven’t really given it a lot of thought. But specifically, today we are going to talk about what it’s like to live a life after porn. After… after you have graduated from porn. Let’s just say it that way. What does it look like? What does it the smell like? What do the leaves look like on the ground? Is anything any different? And you’re talking to two people who have really quit and left it in the dust. So we’re gonna get into today. Yeah, we want to talk from personal experience. And I guess that’s the reason why we talked about porn to begin with is, you know, this is a show about sex and, and you can’t talk about sex without discussing the topic of pornography. It’s so prevalent and touches everybody, if not directly, at least indirectly. And it’s such a huge element to what the show is meant to be about. And there are already a lot of resources talking about how pornography affects people. Know what the what the focus of this topic of pornography would be. And we felt that, you know, there’s already a lot of material out there and a lot of people so eloquently described how pornography affects people. And what we wanted to focus on was more of the experiential side of what does life look like after pornography and what opens up for… what opened up for us, what’s opened up to other people and in their lives that we’ve seen. So in order to… we need to contrast, right? So we will touch on, just from our own personal experiences, how we’ve seen pornography affect us and how other people have shared with us how it’s affected them. And I want to contrast that to like how great life is after that and why it’s something that none of us have any interest in ever going back to. Now actually,just to know let you guys know how much we care about getting this information out to you guys. Andrew and I are in Zoom right now, having, recording this conversation, and he is pacing back and forth his kitchen, holding a microphone in one arm and his one year old son and the other trying to get him to fall asleep. And he is just a real champ. Not letting anything get in the way of recording this session for you guys.
Andrew Love: People don’t know, it looks exactly like a man recording a podcast with a sleeping baby. And he’s ever-growing tired and more muscular right now. I really want to emphasize the point that this, what we’re discussing – life after porn – and all that. This is not Sammy and I bragging at all. We’re not proud of ourselves in an arrogant way. We’re proud of the work that we’ve invested in. But the reason why we’re focusing on life after porn is because we’ve seen after discussing with so many people that a much greater incentive for humanity is not running away from a demon. It’s running towards an angel. It’s like having a clear vision. And that compels you, is always stronger ammunition. It’s better ammunition than all the potential disasters that you might be running away from. Right? So like, scare tactics. Oh porn will do this, yada, yada, yada. It’s good to know your facts. But at the end of the day, what really helps you graduate to a higher level of existence is knowing what you want. And so, Sammy and I are coming from a place where we just decided someday… someday… different days for both of us many years ago, that we want to be a certain type of person. That doesn’t mean… So we went into high gear and decided to kick it out of our lives. So we’re coming from that place, just so you know.
Sammy Uyama: Yes. Yes. of And just so something you can expect from this podcast is that we’re, we’re done and we’re over the whole fear, motivated, model and way of living. It’s something Andrew and I have no interest in. And that’s what this show is. This show is never going to be about that. This show is absolutely about what is available. What getting sex right has to offer. What’s the exciting things to look forward to. And then based on that, what is all this other stuff that gets in the way of that? And what is all this other stuff that you need to get right in order to experience that and experience the goodness and the juicy things that comes with getting sex right?
Andrew Love: So let’s get into that point specifically. I’d like to hear from you. When you were on porn, when you were injecting porn into your system, how was it holding you back in what way was it holding you back? And then since you graduated, what are the benefits?
Sammy Uyama: One thing for me is that I’m… clearly porn really affected how I related with people. And so I get like, I think one, many people experiences the way I looked at and I treated women. Pornography really objectifies and kind of trains or wires your brain in that way to to see people as body parts. And so yeah, there’s that. But something else I experienced is it made me more selfish in all of my relationships with men and with women. And the way I related to people became all about what can I get from this person? Because really, because that’s what the… porn is so self centric, right? It’s all about me getting what I want. And me, you know… it’s like, I’m the center of everything. You know? As a porn user, like when you’re in, you’re in your own world, and you’re the king of all of it. And so all of my relationships became like, that, is all. And that’s kind of how I wired my mind was that everything exists to serve me. And if I saw something benefiting me, then I was interested in that. And if I saw it… if I didn’t see any immediate benefit from relating with someone, I always is not interested in that person at all. And so it was all everything was a calculation everything was like a negotiation. And it was such a, it was really a tiring way to relate with people for me personally. So since breaking away from pornography, I’ve become much more generous in my relationships with people. I’ve become much more generous in my relationships with people and less concerned about always just what’s in it for me, what’s in it for me and more about who do I want to be in my life. And as I want to be someone who can contribute and give to other people. And it’s such a much more rewarding way of living, thinking about you know, what’s the what’s the, how can I be a giver to others rather than a taker?
Andrew Love: Yeah, so let’s let’s stay on the negatives I’ll go into my negative and then we can go into the positives after. Because you know, it’s been a while. It’s been over 10 years since I’ve intentionally sought out porn because of the landscape of the internet, these pop ups and now. I remember the last time a pop up came up, and I just looked at it with sheeting judgments, like you suck, you know? It wasn’t, it didn’t affect me that way. But about, you know, about a decade ago, when I when I was wrapping up my relationship, I really, I couldn’t see it when I was trapped underneath its thumb, you know. What it was doing to me. But afterwards, I could really see how much it was zapping my soul It was like this cancerous body that was taking over my confidence, my ability to connect with my power, my internal power. It really messed me up and in such a clear way because I remember feeling so crappy afterwards. And it wouldn’t necessarily be right after. Usually that would just exacerbate my loneliness, because I watched it last minute and I just feel lonely. But then the next day, too. It just got into me. I’d wake up kind of foggy, just like drinking, you know? You wake up with a hangover sandwich. With masturbation, I would wake up with this kind of spiritual hangover. Before I knew what anything of that nature was, I just crappy and it lingered. And it lingered into how I left my apartment. How I spoke with people. Whether I looked people in the eyes. And I swear… So since then I could see it more clearly once I was off, I get off porn for a while, then I could really see the difference. It’s really hard to see, you know, from other people’s testimonies, but when you experience it yourself, it becomes crystal clear the difference. You have to be able to have both sides of the story in order to juxtapose them. But you know anyway, it was really a confidence killer in terms of my ability to love myself. Because a part of me hated myself for going back to it. It felt like I was in an abusive relationship. I don’t know if you’ve ever had really crappy friends… don’t look at me.
Sammy Uyama: Ever have or if I have currently? I mean, what are we talking about here?
Andrew Love: Just for example. Because I had definitely one in high school that I was kind of a bad kid and I brought in a kid into my world and he became an even worse kid than me. And then he was, he would steal my stuff. We shared a locker and he would just steal all my stuff, like, and then use it in front of me. Like, I had a boombox and he just like, stole it, and then used it in front of me. It’s the weirdest thing, right? But for some reason, I just wanted him to like me, or I don’t know what it was, but I kept doing wrong. And every time I was around him, I felt like garbage. But for some reason, I just couldn’t push them away immediately. It took a while, and then eventually, his life just spiraled. But the same goes for porn. It really feels the same way where people try to push it away, and then somehow they end up back with it. And they feel like crap after but they keep on coming back. And it’s so similar to a personified version of abusive relationships, you know? Again, hard to see how you’re being manipulated and abused when you’re inside the relationship, going a step outside and live for a while with a silver mind. It becomes more clear. Holy crap, how did I endure this? How did I allow myself to live like this? So?
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, well just to emphasize that point, you know, contrasting how crappy you feel using pornography. One of the things I experienced after porn was what I call, I don’t have a proper, like, cool name for it, but looking yourself in the merriness. And just when you are able to look yourself in the eye, when you look in the mirror and actually like who you are, what different feeling that is, which I never experienced when I was using pornography. And just, I mean, if whether pornography affects that or not, or just like just me knowing that there is something I hated having in my life, that I was chained down by, and felt controlled by. When I was in that, when I was in that time of my life, looking myself in the mirror, versus afterwards looking myself in the mirror, and really being proud of who I was, and having the strength and the discipline and the determination to, and the courage to break away from something that I saw was harming me. And everything that took for me to get to that point. And also this being, having the level of integrity that I felt in my life and that I wasn’t, I wasn’t hiding things from anybody. And that people, you know, what they saw was what, you know, was the real deal. I didn’t, I wasn’t faking anything, and I wasn’t worried about, you know, people freaking out, what a loser I really was. And that is such a liberating and it’s an amazing, amazing thing.
Andrew Love: Sammy, I just love the fact that you’re so open about how much of a loser you really are now there’s no hiding it.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, I’ve given up. When I was, when I was young I really want to be one of the cool kids. And I just got to a point in my life when I realized that it’s just not in my DNA. I am just… the cool kids do not like all the things I like.
Andrew Love: We got Urkel DNA. Urkel, yeah, for anybody in the 90s out there. So Sam, would you say that that was the biggest kind of bonus to life after porn, was that, is that you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I love this guy that’s looking back at me or at least I don’t hate him? Is that that the main benefit?
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, well, yeah. I guess bonus is the right word. It’s probably one of the biggest benefits but unexpected benefits. That was not something I was really looking for when working on my porn habit. But it’s something that, I, when I deal with other people who struggle with porn, how it affects their confidence, how it affects their self-image and their self-worth. It’s really something I’m grateful for that. Just yeah, just filled with my… and actually look myself in the eye and smile and be like, yeah, you’re at least a little bit cool.
Andrew Love: You are a little bit cool. Yeah, well, that’s fantastic. And I mean, that’s something worth thinking about, everybody out there to think about how, how come how your confidence is being affected by porn. And look at yourself because I, you know, it’s smart to take a scientific approach to life, especially in the areas that really matter to you. And that means if you’re still struggling with porn, in the mirror look at yourself immediately after watching porn. How do you feel? And then how do you feel the next day and then the next day and so on and so forth? I’m not, I don’t recommend watching porn if you don’t watch porn. That’s a dumb experiment, like a bad experiment is injecting heroin into your body to see if you’re… that’s terrible. I’m not recommending that, just a huge disclaimer. What I’m recommending, though is observing yourself more clearly. Why do you go to porn and things like this? That self awareness is your ticket to paradise, it’s your ticket to a better life. So to be able to also see how you feel when you choose not to watch porn, because that’s a huge confidence builder that we’ve seen in people that we’ve helped is when they start to reclaim their hands and their minds and they start to subjugate themselves to take over control of their ship. It’s such a confidence builder. It’s such a coup for them, that they’re just taking back the reins of their psyche. It’s so amazing to behold for anybody. So please consider it. If you haven’t, if you haven’t really subscribed; if you haven’t clicked the subscribe button to your own porn-free life, I really encourage you to do so.
Sammy Uyama: While you’re in the subscribing mode, go ahead and hit subscribe, smash that subscribe button to this podcast. So, another point I want to touch on is life after porn is basically, life is fresh. And you have a new sense of aliveness that you don’t have when you’re inundated with pornography. Porn makes you so jaded about life as a whole. I mean, especially in the area of sexuality. It’s for me whenever I would… oh, yeah, I talked about this in the masturbation episode. Yeah, whenever I would masturbate, I look you know, of course it was always preceded by pornography. Whenever I look at porn and masturbate, when I was done, there’s always this feeling of like, you know, is that it? Is that really it? And just you know, kind of resigned myself to the fact though, I guess this is what sex is all about. And it really doesn’t get better than this. And actually having a satisfying and fulfilling connection and sexual relationship with my wife. How you know like, it’s like the lid is pulled off know what sex can be like, and it’s amazing. And it’s something about, yeah, it’s something… I don’t know. Maybe Andrew, you can touch on that more. Yeah, there’s something about pornography that… and so that’s the area of sex. But porn just makes you jaded and like you feel you know, you have an idea like what, how everything’s gonna turn out, what to expect. And maybe it’s something about just clicking and clicking, clicking through things and not really cherishing anything. And consuming and consuming and disposing. And something about that, it really affects your life.
Andrew Love: Absolutely. So there’s a couple points. Yeah, that, one is it takes the nuance out of relationships. Porn is never about, you know, what happens before or after sex is just about the physical act of sex. But that’s, that’s a really crappy way of looking at sex because sexuality, if you consider people, actual people and not just objects for your sexual pleasure, have a lot of emotions that they’re dealing with. They have a lot of complexities to their life that need to be considered prior to sex and then after sex. And if you have trained yourself, to negate your obligation to the human being that you’re in a relationship with, you’re going to hurt that person’s feelings, right. But the the other thing is the magnetic pole that sex has over humans. Nobody is exempt from that – it’s the most powerful force out there. And once you’re in the tractor beams of sex, you are captivated and all of your senses start getting getting pulled in. And if you don’t know how to snap out of that comma… it’s not comma – on that possessed state. When you see a man or a woman who’s possessed by sex, they’re they’ve lost control. It’s really gross to see when you see somebody in public and they’re possessed by sex or in a club or something, it’s really you know, such a powerful thing. But porn really exercises that because there’s no, there’s no filters, it’s just straight to the desert, right? And so all of your senses are like whoa, and it’s so hard to contain yourself. But when you start to break away and you can disassociate yourself from emotionless sex; you say I don’t want any part of that, and you choose not to? Then all of a sudden, you become a master of that force that once used to control you. That’s crazy. Because that is the most powerful force in the universe. Imagine presidents can overcome this. It’s so powerful. The people who can take over an entire world cannot take over sex. Martin Luther King Jr. – I love that guy so much. He couldn’t overcome his sexual stuff. He had, he had issues, right. There’s documented problems that he had outside of his marriage to do a sex like, and he was the strongest mentally in the strongest guy, but he was captivated by sex. So imagine that when you start exercising this and in this era, you absolutely can. Because no era in history has been so oversexed. But that is also giving us the opportunity of a lifetime to overcome sex. This era is giving us the opportunity to control the powers that have controlled history up until this point. Because we have all these emotional tools, all these mental tools that humanity never had access to, and they’re all culminating in a way where we can regain control of our sexuality. And that’s super exciting. And it means that you choose where you invest your sexual energy. So let me just end by saying that I’m sure if you’re a human being, and you’re old enough to be listening to this, you found a way online, you found this, then chances are that you’ve experienced how powerful forces that can be the most powerful and connecting force in the universe. It can also be the most destructive force in the universe. If you know how to use that energy, to connect yourself to God, to your ideals, to your hopes and your dreams, you will be on the path to living your best life imaginable. If you cannot control that and most people cannot because they’ve never even tried it, you know, it is possible, then you are a walking liability. It’s really a dangerous situation. And at any point, you might fall into a trap that’s been set by somebody else. And the internet is filled with traps, you know. So I just really want to understand. The benefit for me was being able to really control my sexuality and choose when to participate and when not to.
Sammy Uyama: Right. Thank you, Andrew. So one more point I want to touch on with all of you guys is life after porn in relationships, and specifically marriage and how the different, well the difference that breaking away from pornography has made and my relationship with my wife, with Andrew and his relationship with his wife. And so for each of us, we’re in a different situation in that, you know, we can’t really compare marriage before and after, who’s important; because we both stopped using pornography before we got married. But I can speculate. And one thing I can personally tell is that after being married, one of the things I was surprised by was how complicated marriages is. So surprise, surprise. It’s really a complex relationship. And when as simple as things can get when you’re by yourself, it’s like, it’s vastly different when there’s another person in the equation and you’re really committed to being a team together, coming to decisions together and having clear communication. There’s a lot of moving pieces in that case. And so already marriage is amazing, right? But it’s definitely more complicated than being alone, a unit, a,lone entity. And so in hindsight, I’m just… that’s one of the things I’m most grateful for is having dealt with pornography before being married. Because as complicated as marriage can get, I am just like, it just blows my mind how like, unworkable it is. And like if porn is in the mix, then you just don’t stand a chance. Because that just makes everything that much more difficult and it’s that much more of a wedge between you and your spouse. Yeah, and you know, looking at the statistics for divorce and the statistics for porn use. And you know, there’s no study that directly relates these two. But I mean, if we’re going to draw a correlation and these are both very high. And you know, I empathize for a lot of the marriages out there that are not you know, many of the unresolved things that people carry in their lives and pornography being a really big one that a lot of people just you know, from the get go, they just didn’t have a chance. And just pornography really gives you a losing hand when you bring them to marriage. And in hindsight, not having pornography in the mix. It’s, you know, who cares about like, what, well if other people are impressed with me. And when I can look in the mirror and be proud of who I am and know that I have integrity; that extends to my relationship with my spouse. And we’re able to discuss things and to have, you know, to know things off topics and you know, I don’t have this wedge that’s getting in the way of my relationship with her, is one, you know. It’s like for those that keep pornography a secret, that’s one huge, just a huge thing. But even pornography, it just, it gives itself to comparison, right and to contract. And know when you’re looking at porn all the time, it’s so inevitable to be like, oh, if my wife was a little bit more like this, you know, like all these other women and this kind of stuff. And just have none of that there and just have like a clean slate to make my relationship with my wife, you know, it’s unique. It’s something we created, and it’s unlike any other relationship are out there. Because we made it, we made it up ourselves. We’re not trying to be like something else or imitate anything. I love it.
Andrew Love: Yeah, that’s a huge point. That’s a huge one because comparison is the beginning of the end. It’s like it is such a cancerous element in a relationship is trying to force the person that you know to be somebody that they can never be. You can never win. There’s no, there’s no winning because they will never be that. They are them. So instead of, it’s like when I meet somebody who wants me to fit God into their little brains. Like well, you know, how much you’re willing to open your mind. Like I’m not. Just make it work, make it fit. Same with, you know, trying to change a person so that they fit into your fantasy, even if, even if you’re somehow able to manipulate them, or coerce them or even just convince them to do something or to fit into your fantasy in some way. They’re being less themselves and not allowing them to be as beautiful as it could be. That goes both way for men and woman. If you try to be… the more you try to control somebody, the less them they’re able to be. And the less you actually love and appreciate. Every time you shrink somebody, you actually love them, appreciate them. So you’re getting the reverse net feeling when we choose porn over people, then we choose to shrink people to fit our fantasy. But when we choose people over porn, we allow them to be them. And we love them for who they are. And that’s one huge advantage and I can really see that because when my wife and I are struggling, and we do. She’s from a country where nothing makes sense to me. She’s from Mongolia, and I don’t get, I wasn’t there. I don’t get it. I think it’s very confusing. I’m trying. I try, I try. But there are definitely moments where I just want to rip out… I want to rip off my leg and throw it. Rip off my face. And it’s so frustrating. And in those moments, I don’t run away and shrink into my little happy fantasy place. And I’m so glad because when you crawl into your little hole, it becomes harder and harder to crawl back out. And so when I have issues that pop up, I can just deal with them right there instead of running away. And porn, really, I really feel like it causes you to run back to the cellar and chain yourself back up. Because even though it’s painful, at least, it’s familiar pain, you know. So really choosing freedom is a lifelong decision. And this is just one area we’re talking about. But this area definitely impacts every area. Sexuality impacts every aspect of your life, you know. So it’s really, it’s such a… if you can gain control and subjectivity and mastery over your sexual life, then you can absolutely transfer that into every other area.
Sammy Uyama: Absolutely. And, you know, that’s the whole point of making an entire podcast about this topic. Because what Andrew’s just saying is that there’s so many directions we can go. And so we want to take the time to dive deep and really get into each point. So we’re going to be bringing up this topic a lot and the topic of sex and how it proliferates into every aspect of our lives. Hmm. So you know, we’re just starting strong, you know, getting one of the biggest table topics out of the way first. And even solid pornography. There’s a lot for us to talk about, this topic. And this is just a starter, like a sampler for you guys. So stay tuned tomorrow, and you know, we’d love to hear what you guys think. If there’s any questions you have about the topic of pornography and you want to know, we are so eager to hear what you guys are interested in hearing about. And also getting us to think about what are our ideas and thoughts on various topics to do with pornography. So please let us know. And so, before I want to thank you, anything else, Andrew? Or we can start wrapping up.
Andrew Love: So High Noon, what we promote is a lifestyle based on, centered on honesty, accountability, grace, and integrity and courage. Because courage facilitates all the aforementioned virtues. And so these are not just slogans. These are like, you know, practice honesty by sharing with people that you care about, about what you’re going through, and accountability and we’re going to get into all this stuff, but I’m promoting this so that you can feel free to reach out to us. We’re always as open and honest as we possibly can be. But don’t troll us. If you’re going to troll us then, you know, troll somebody else. If you sincerely have some serious trouble with any of this content, let us know. If you stuck with a concept, let us know. If you love something we said, let us know. It’s all really valuable. So we can’t wait to talk to you again. Please reach out to us on our website, highnoon.org. Reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram. And we’ll reach out back to you.
Sammy Uyama: Thank you everybody so much for listening. It is a real joy and pleasure to spend this time with you. As a reminder, you can go to highnoon.org. We have our podcast section where you can find show notes for this episode. And please, if you like what you’re hearing, go to iTunes, leave us a five-star review. This always helps the most for getting a podcast out and for people to know about it. So if this is an interesting conversation for you, please let us know. Help us spread the word. Leave a review. And we’ll see you next time on the Love, Life and Legacy podcast.
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