Teen Testimonials on
Internet Porn and Recovery

Testimonials by Teens regarding their Experiences with Internet pornography and their recovery message of hope.

Here are some comments from the boys at the House of Hope Orlando. The names have been changed.

One day I was hanging out with a friend when I was 12. My friend showed me some pictures. I looked up websites and things would pop up and lead to other sites. It led me to having sexual intercourse at age 13, trying to do what I saw on the Internet. I got into drugs and wound up at House of Hope, a home for hurting teens. Here I have found a relationship with God and I have learned to immediately start praying scriptures to get the pictures and thoughts out of my mind.

When I was 11 years old I was on AOL and stuff started popping up. I said, "Oh, wow!! What's this?" Oh, I never saw anything like this and my curiosity caused me to go deeper and deeper. I downloaded pornographic pictures and then I started putting into practice some of the weird things I saw. Before that time, I was not sexually active and when I came to House of Hope I found out I gave away part of my heart. I have had prayer for God to heal me so I can be a "born again virgin" and plan to stay pure for the girl I will one day marry. Now I've deleted from my computer all the pornography I've had for five years and I've also thrown away all my floppy disks. I have plenty of friends who were in pornography and some of them are still doing it. I try to think about good things like serving the Lord, but those pictures still sometimes come to my mind. I have a choice. I can go back to the Internet or I can pick up my Bible and read God's word to clear my mind. Pornography got me into masturbating. I haven't in a long time now and plan to stay pure for my wife.

Hosea, 14 years old~

When I was 10, my sister's boyfriend and I opened up a website on pornography. It caused me to be curious. I wanted to see more. My mom wanted to take me to Wet & Wild Water Park. I got on the Internet and typed in "Wet & Wild" to find out how much it cost. When I clicked on the site, it was lesbian pornography; more pop ups came and hours of this went on. I save more than 1,000 pictures on floppy disk and printed them out. It's amazing how the words Wet & Wild can lead you to something entirely different that will get you into bondage. It corrupted my mind. When I would see a girl all I could picture was seeing them naked. I judged girls on their body, and not their personality. Pornography got me into a sexual relationship with a girl.
Those pictures still flash through my mind at times. They can be a hindrance to my relationship with God. It is hard for me to get into praise and worship when my mind is somewhere else. Now, when I get tempted, I pray the Lord's Prayer. I am totally delivered now.

At the age of 7 my mom had Juno and I was surfing around. I saw a bikini contest. I thought, wow, I wonder what "boobs" look like. I discovered Cinemax. They play soft porn late at night. I spent the night with a friend. He popped in a video that had hard-core porn and I saw things I'd never seen before. I was innocent and knew nothing about sex. I was shocked but at the same time I liked it. Then I got a computer of my own and all I wanted to do was to look at pornographic pictures, which I began to download. I spent hours and hours downloading. I burned porn DVDs and began selling them at school for $5.00 each. When you've watched porn, after that when you see a girl it's hard for you not to see her naked. The only thing that I can do to get it off my mind now that I've met Jesus is to say to myself, "girls are not objects." I will no longer look at them in a sinful way. I am through with pornography forever.

Here are some testimonials reported from People Magazine.

"...13-year-old Ryan Cleary...admits to looking at internet porn occasionally as a kind of research tool, so he'll know more about what he's suppose to do with girlfriends."
(Jerome, Richard, Joanne Fowler, Devan Stewart, Joanna Blonska, Pam Grout, and Jason Bane "The Cyberporn Generation." People 26 April 2004: 72-76).

"Troy Busher...says cyberporn skewed his view of women. 'A guy starts treating a girl hike a ho.' he says. 'They're just a piece of meat. Not a person with a name, history, feelings.' "
(Jerome, Richard, Joanne Fowler, Devan Stewart, Joanna Blonska, Pam Grout, and Jason Bane "The Cyberporn Generation." People 26 April 2004: 74).