Feeling ashamed of my past unhealthy sexual habits

[Hi :)]

I’ve struggled with unhealthy sexual habits in the past and I’m feeling really guilty and ashamed of them now.

I started watching porn at a very young age (around 10) and I used porn compulsively for years. I think I developed a dependency of porn because after a while it became difficult for me to become aroused, idk if porn was the cause of this, but it might’ve been.

As i got older I started learning more about porn and realized the content I had consumed was unethical. I used mainstream porn sites, like pornhub and it’s related sites, which I now know have a history of exploitation and abuse. Once learning about this I tried my best to only watch porn that was ethical and I think i did an okay job avoiding certain categories or tropes in porn (stuff like racial stereotypes in porn or “barely legal” categories). But, even though I had gotten a hang of identifying which specific types of videos or tropes in porn were bad and avoiding them to the best of my abilities, as well as specific sites I knew I shouldn’t use, sometimes I would accidentally come across videos reposted to from pornhub and I still used sites that probably weren’t the best to use.(I don’t know if they were necessarily bad, but I also don’t know if they were necessarily good)

So, I ended up using sites that probably weren’t ethical even when I knew there was a possibility that content was unethical.

I feel really guilty and ashamed of myself now. Recently, I’ve started watching porn again after not watching it at all for about 4 months. This time I’ve only been using one site because i know it’s one of the best alternatives to mainstream porn and I’m feeling much better because of it, but I still feel guilty about the content I’ve consumed in the past. How do I move on from this?

[Sam W]

Hi Hi ,

So, I think a helpful starting point would be to remind yourself that learning what ethical porn production and consumption involves is just that: it's a learning process. From your description, I very clearly see you trying to integrate the information you got once you had it, even if you had some missteps along the way. Too, sometimes guilt can be an indicator to us that we need to evaluate and change our actions, and it seems like that's something you've done. So it could also help to remind yourself that you've done the useful thing you could with the guilt, and that continuing to beat yourself up with it doesn't help you or anyone else.