\n<\/p>\n
Ben Lennard would make jokes with his friends about pornography, the kind of banter men in their mid-20s often share.<\/p>\n
But in hindsight, he understands the humour was a deflection tool to mask a problem that was destroying his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of banter with friends and people around me, I have a humorous side,\u201d he said. \u201cSo for me, when I was watching it, even if I was out in public or there were people around, I\u2019d just be humorous about it. But no one knew the addiction. I\u2019d try to hide it as best I could. I just saw the funny side to it that no one would think to question it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the jokes, porn had become a huge problem, interfering in his relationships and demolishing his self-esteem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst days my head would be racing at 100 miles per hour. All that will be in my head is porn, sex, everything. There would be a time where I\u2019d just absolutely crave everything I\u2019ve seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I watched porn it didn\u2019t necessarily mean that I was masturbating. I would literally watch it like you would pull your phone out and watch videos on YouTube or TikTok, Instagram or something. That was me but with porn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lennard began watching pornography as a child, after first seeing sexually explicit scenes at the age of 10 or 11 and seeking out more content.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re young, you are curious about all that kind of stuff, and I guess at first it seemed normal to me because I\u2019m young, it\u2019s porn. And it wasn\u2019t until \u2026 I started realising that there was an issue when it became so addictive that it was taking up my time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt interfered with my life because I was always questioning why I was so addicted with it. Growing up, I became worse through school, in my personal life. And it wasn\u2019t until the recent years in my 20s that things just got a bit out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he found it hard to resist the \u201curge\u201d or \u201ccraving\u201d he would have.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was addictive for me and at that time I didn\u2019t really understand what was wrong with me so I kind of just compressed my feelings towards it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was left with a \u201cguilty conscience\u201d when in relationships, \u201cbecause you think, \u2018Oh, I should be loving my partner, respecting my partner and loving her and her body\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had that guilty side to me where [I was thinking], \u2018Why should I be watching porn? Why should I be watching other people have sex when I should be loving my partner?\u2019 and you know it kind of headboggled me a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watching porn would also give him unrealistic expectations of himself. He added: \u201cIt can very badly ruin your mental health. Where I\u2019d been watching it for so long and so much, it kind of fed in my brain [that] I have to be like that. I\u2019d compare myself, and it is very soul destroying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that people realise that it\u2019s fake. [The performers] take so much medication and have surgeries and all this stuff to make it look good. People feed that into their heads that\u2019s the reality of it, when it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
An ADHD diagnosis in 2024 helped Lennard understand that his brain was wired more towards impulsive behaviour \u2013 especially around thrill and pleasure seeking \u2013 than a typical person.<\/p>\n
He has since gone \u201ccold turkey\u201d, assisted in part by the Online Safety Act, he said, because putting his personal details into porn websites was something he did not want to do.<\/p>\n
He said he \u201cnever in a million years\u201d thought he would speak publicly about it but that now he felt as if \u201ca massive weight\u201d has been lifted from his shoulders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben Lennard would make jokes with his friends about pornography, the kind of banter men in their mid-20s often share. But in hindsight, he understands the humour was a deflection tool to mask a problem that was destroying his life. \u201cI have a lot of banter with friends and people around me, I have a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3151,5420,1541,6000,6867,6734],"class_list":{"0":"post-40191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-addiction","9":"tag-hide","10":"tag-man","11":"tag-porn","12":"tag-pornography","13":"tag-struggle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}