More Women Are Addicted to Pornography Than Ever
On Huffington Post’s website, I came across a great article by Lauren Dubinsky, a woman who became addicted to pornography. She writes about what she wish she had known before she first started watching pornography. Here is her article:
What I Wish I’d Known Before Watching Porn
by Lauren Dubinsky
Pornography is a charged subject, and it’s a word that rarely crosses the lips of most women. Yes, there are now breeds of the modern woman who watch, talk and joke about it regularly, but most of us still stay farther away from speaking the word than we actually stay away from it.
Over the last couple of years, men have begun to enter the discussion, but women have remained primarily silent. For most of us, it’s still the men’s world, but statistics show that, at least in Australia, more than one-third of pornography viewers are women. Just last week, I received an email from a girl who leads a small women’s group; they’d just discovered that every single one of them were watching porn.
When I was in high school, pornography was on the long list of “bad things” that I didn’t know much about — and unfortunately also on the list of things I had participated in. Nevermind why I was watching it, the how is the same for nearly all of us: We stumbled upon it because of someone else. And none of us knew what to expect, or how to handle it.
Later in life, I caught myself remembering how I used to watch it for a few minutes here or there, and wondered strictly out of boredom if it would fill the big, empty […]
Creative Excuses
Can You Be Creative With Your Excuses?
Yesterday I wrote about the marvel and uniqueness of human creativity, especially in the last century.
Yet, in the face of so much creativity, information, and technology, we can easily lose sight of our own potential for creativity. Just because you enjoy the fruits of someone else’s creativity doesn’t mean you are necessarily being creative. The best creativity stems from the true desires of your personality.
But it can be easy to channel your “creativity” into making excuses for not being creative. It is easy to lose sight of your creative desires, or perhaps to never even discover them, because the world around you is more likely to tell you what you can’t do, instead of what you can do. We are constantly exposed to people trying to keep us down to earth, so to speak. It seems that the people who dream the most are the ones who get ridiculed or discouraged by others the most. We see how toxic shame can rear its head even to fight against creativity: if you doubt your own worth and value, you will definitely not value the things you can create…and if you don’t value them, why would you bother to ever create anything?
Because you are human, I can tell you with certainty that you have not lived up to your fullest potential. This applies to me, too. Human potential knows no bounds yet, for we see things continuing to move forward at an increasing rate. Your personality equips you with a completely unique set of skills, emotions, and perspectives that enable you to accomplish things that nobody else can in the same way.
But even as I discuss this, I am willing […]
Creativity Makes You Human
Human Creativity Is One of the Noblest Traits We Have
What is it that makes you human? What separates you from other forms of life? Is it your intellect? Perhaps, but other animals have a degree of intelligence, too. We may be more intelligent than other forms of life, but it is still only a matter of degree. Perhaps it is self-awareness, though how self-aware other forms of life are is uncertain. We have already discussed emotions and how they make us human, but there is certainly a lower grade of emotion within animals, such as how excited a dog can be when his master comes home. While humans experience each of these things in a more powerful and complex way than other life forms, yet these other life forms still experience some degree of these attributes. However, when we discuss creativity, we are discussing something that is profoundly and uniquely human.
I have heard many people, and no doubt you have too, say that they are not the “creative type.” But if you are human, then you cannot get away with such a statement. To be human is to be creative. This is an attribute that other forms of life do not share. Sure, birds can create nests and sing beautiful songs; beavers can build dams and chimpanzees can make rudimentary tools. But this is not the type of creativity I am talking about. There is a difference between making something out of instinct for the purpose of survival, and creating something that did not previously exist.
I want you to take a moment and look around the room or environment you are currently in. Examine the objects around you. Even if you are in raw […]
Excuse of the Day: It Will Be Difficult
December is Excuse Free Month!
I have recently been reading a book by Wayne Dyer titled Excuses Begone! In this book, Dr. Dyer outlines the most common excuses that we use in response to our fears. Throughout the month of December, I will be featuring each of these excuses and why they are based on lies that keep us from growing.
Today, we are going to break down one of our favorite excuses: It will be difficult.
When something ahead of us seems difficult, we often use this as an excuse to not even try. How many times just in the last month have you chosen not to do something because it seemed hard?
Have people throughout your life taught you that there are certain things you just can’t do, because of how hard they would be? Does the “it’s difficult” excuse ever rob you of accomplishing things that you used to dream of?
Let’s face it, plenty of things in life are difficult. But Wayne Dyer poses this question to each of us: Would you rather go through useless suffering or useful suffering? Chances are, choosing to not do something is just as difficult, if not more so, than the difficulty associated with making a change. Useless suffering seems to never end. It serves no purpose. It keeps us stuck.
But useful suffering is like the sore muscle after you exercise: you know something better will come later. The excuses of bad habits, unrealized dreams, lost potential, boring routine, and numbing comfort keep you stuck. Here’s the fact of the matter: the large majority of the time, the fear that you can’t do something is more difficult to endure than the actual work of […]
Watch Out for Post Election Shame
Have You Been a Victim of Post-Election Shame?
Did you vote for the right side or the wrong side in this election? Is the nation doomed because of who we elected? Or, were we saved from catastrophe because of who was elected? After all, we just got done with a real war, right?
There are few things that demonstrate national toxic shame better than our political system. I am amazed at how many doomsday predictions I have already read today on Facebook or the Internet. Extreme black and white thinking runs rampant when it comes to politics.
It is a fairly reliable sign of how much internalized shame someone has by watching how rigid or extreme they are in their political ideas. “Your” party or “your” candidate becomes a representation of you knowing “the truth.” The election becomes a way to uplift all of your perfect ideas, while completely condemning every idea of the opponents.
If a person is shame-based about politics and elections, you will see this same person get quite upset and close-minded when his or her ideas are challenged. This same type of denial shows up when addicts are faced with the truth, for example.
Shame does not like to be challenged.
Shame does not like the truth unless it upholds the agenda and the denial.
Shame assumes any other ideas are wrong.
Shame cannot stand being wrong.
Shame likes black and white thinking, because it’s simple and prevents accountability.
Shame keeps you always in the right, while laying all blame at others’ feet
Shame lets you avoid complexities or those pesky facts
Doesn’t shame sound like our political system? Watch out for post-election […]
I Did Not Have a Choice
But I Didn’t Have a Choice…I Had to Make that Decision!
This is a quick post. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever used the phrase, “I didn’t have a choice”? Certainly we make choices at times because there seems to be no other alternative.
But even in such cases, you have made a decision. You just decided that the other alternative was not worth it.
If someone holds a gun to your head and demands your money, you will probably give it to that person. Later, you might say, “I had to give him my money. I didn’t have a choice.”
But you did choose. The other alternative was to risk getting killed. You decided it was better to give up the money than risk your life.
Sometimes we claim we didn’t have a choice because we are trying to avoid accountability. This isn’t good for you or anyone else. As a human being, you can always choose. Own your choices. Don’t hand them away.
When You Have Bad Days
Don’t Lose Perspective When You Have Bad Days
Bad days. We all have them. Some are worse than others. Sometimes you know why you are having a bad day. Other times there doesn’t seem much to blame it on besides the side of the bed you used this morning. Either way, bad days aren’t much fun. Here is some encouragement when you feel this way.
I can’t take away your bad days, but there are ways we can make them worse if we aren’t careful. Here are 2 tips for making them a little better:
Avoid “Murphy’s Law” thinking
If you don’t know what Murphy’s Law is, it is the belief that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Not a very optimistic belief to say the least. If Murphy’s Law were true, the entire earth would have blown up long ago. You would be dead. Your family would be dead. Everything would go wrong.
Since we can all agree that Murphy’s Law is completely bogus, don’t allow yourself to start thinking this way when you have a not-so-good day. It can be easy to believe that things never work out for you when things aren’t working out. This type of distorted thinking isn’t good for you. There are always things going well and not well at the same time in this world.
People tend to think this way either because: 1) they think the world revolves around them and is therefore out to get them or that it owes them, or 2) they have toxic shame […]
Be Aware of Internet Porn Statistics
We All Need to Be Aware of Internet Porn Statistics
This is my last post on internet porn statistics. I am covering the rest of the pornography statistics that haven’t been mentioned yet. The more aware you are of these statistics, the better prepared you will be. All of us, if we haven’t already, will be affected by this growing epidemic.
The Rest of the Internet Porn Statistics
Pornographic websites: 4.2 million
Pornographic pages: 372 million
Daily pornographic search engine requests: 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Daily pornographic emails: 2.5 billion (8% of total emails)
Average daily pornographic emails/user: 4.5 per Internet user
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer): 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)
Daily Gnutella “child pornography” requests: 116 thousand
Websites offering illegal child pornography: 100 thousand
Sexual solicitations of youth made in chat rooms: 89%
Youths who received sexual solicitation: 20%
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites: 72 million annually
Men admitting to accessing pornography at work: 20%
US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites: 40 million
Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week: 53%
Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%
Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction: 10%
Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 72% male – 28% female
Important points from these internet porn statistics:
Think about it: 1 out of every 4 internet engine searches is for pornography. How many are going on right now in your neighborhood? Pornographic emails are a large percentage of total emails being sent. A huge portion of bandwidth is being used for sex.
There are more people downloading porn every month than live in the entire nation […]
Sex and Pornography Industry Statistics Exposed
Sex and Pornography Industry Statistics Are Mind-Blowing
Sex and pornography industry statistics show us that much of the world is obsessed with getting as much sexual activity as possible. The pornography industry overshadows so many other industries. There is money to be made in the porn world. Too bad the cost of all this money is lost intimacy, lack of control, and destroyed relationships.
Sex and Pornography Industry Statistics
Size of the Industry: $57.0 billion world-wide / $12.0 billion US
-Adult Videos: $20.0 billion
-Escort Services: $11.0 billion
-Magazines: $7.5 billion
-Sex Clubs: $5.0 billion
-Phone Sex: $4.5 billion
-Cable & Pay Per View: $2.5 billion
-Internet: $2.5 billion
-CD-Rom: $1.5 billion
-Novelties: $1.0 billion
-Other: $1.5 billion
Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion)
Child pornography generates $3 billion annually
Let’s talk briefly about some of these pornography industry statistics:
The world loves sports. We pay millions and millions of dollars to individual athletes. Professional sports organizations are huge. We build stadiums that look like temples to the gods. We fill these stadiums with 60,000 people or more. Yet all of these franchises combined are not as large as the industry of consuming sex experiences on-demand.
We buy more sex than we watch news and TV. People spend as much money photographing and watching naked children than the entire state of Pennsylvania (almost 13 million people) spends on getting rid of trash.
How did the most private and personal aspects of our individual bodies become one of the largest commodities the world has ever seen?
Pornography Statistics for Children
The Reality of Pornography Statistics for Children
Pornography statistics for children are the most alarming of all. If you think that adult pornography addiction is a major problem, the current generation of kids are heading for a future porn addiction epidemic. Whether you like it or not, the youth of our day live in a world of technology and internet. They are connected to the massive information web and that isn’t going to change. Are we prepared to guide them?
Pornography Statistics for Children
Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography: 12-17 age group
15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures: 80%
8-16 year olds having viewed porn online: 90% (most while doing homework)
7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address: 29%
7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address: 14%
Children’s characters linked to thousands of porn links: 26% (including Pokemon and Action Man)
Let’s talk briefly about some of these pornography statistics for children:
I have already written before about kids being exposed to porn at a young age. But did you know that more kids consume porn than adults? 15 years ago, this was not the case. If the majority of pornography consumers are children now, what will the future of sex addiction look like when these kids are adults?
8 out of 10 children 15 and older are having multiple exposures to hard-core pornography. The large majority of our high school students are repeatedly watching graphic sexual intercourse or other sexual behaviors online. How does this affect how they view […]