Beyond Eye Bouncing

How Christians are Missing the Point on Pornography Recovery

You may or may not know, but last year I developed a sex education curriculum for my teenagers and released it to the public.1 I don’t make a big deal about it for several reasons. First, regardless of the books I have published (including Sasha and the Dragon, The Lion and the Saint, Patterns for Life), I primarily consider myself a writer of literary fiction. Second, I’m not pretending to be a sex expert, let alone some kind of Orthodox sex guru. In the parlance of the IndieWeb, I cook what I want and I eat what I cook. I made the materials for my own homeschool, and decided to share them.

Third—and this is something very important to understand—the curriculum is for a very specific audience: Orthodox Christians looking to develop an integrated understanding of biology with the teachings of the Orthodox Church. The material is not neutral; it pertains to a very specific world view. It’s also not meant to proselytize that world view. The material is there for people who have already chosen a certain spiritual path, so that they can think deeply about the reasons behind, and implications of, church teaching. I don’t expect that people who do not share this world view will be impressed by it, though I do hope they will understand that sincere practice of one’s faith does not also imply judgment or condemnation of others on different paths.

Finally, one of the points I make in my introductory materials is that sex ed is personal. Any material you use has to be tailored to the student in front of you, preferably with the attentive care of a loving and discerning parent, or at the very least, a trustworthy adult capable of vulnerability.

One of the questions that has come up about the curriculum is why I didn’t spend more time teaching students and parents how to avoid pornography. The reason behind this is very simple, but its implications are so large, they can make people uncomfortable: I believe that avoiding pornography is largely a matter of teaching right beliefs about honoring and respecting icons of God, and subsequently living those beliefs. When you see every human in front of you as a little Christ, when you take seriously the injunction that “whatsoever you do to these little ones, you do to me”2, the implications are just really obvious. You can’t lust after them or treat them like objects.

Here’s what I know: If you are a parent, and you and your spouse don’t truly believe this with all of the integrity and commitment of your lives, there’s no curriculum in the world that’s going to teach your kid to avoid pornography. It’s a losing battle.

A few pieces of generalized advice about overcoming pornography “addiction” will help me illustrate what’s wrong with how Christians typically approach this issue. Some advice emphasizes technical solutions like accountability software, which any teen with a normal amount of tech-savviness will be able to thwart somehow. There’s also the ubiquitous evangelical advice to “bounce the eyes” away from provocative imagery, which seems to be a go-to technique for struggling people. Least helpful is the idea that getting married and having regular sex with a spouse will solve the problem of temptation. While many people offer these pieces of advice sincerely, these approaches actually reveal fundamental misconceptions about sexuality, personal responsibility, and how we relate to other human beings. Further, our approaches to pornography recovery often reinforce the very problems they claim to solve, by reinforcing beliefs that one’s sexual behavior is at least somewhat uncontrollable.

The Technical Solution Fallacy

The most glaring issue with mainstream pornography recovery advice is its focus on behavioral management rather than belief transformation. While protection software is absolutely useful for preventing accidental porn exposure, it’s not going to teach your kids why they shouldn’t go looking for it in the first place.

Further, the behavioral technique of “bouncing the eyes” treats women’s bodies as inherently problematic. It assumes that women’s bodies are dangerous objects that must be avoided rather than allowing people to grapple with how and why human beings might choose to view each other in a sexual manner.

This approach fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the problem. Healthcare workers see nudity constantly without sexual arousal because they see patients as whole human beings in need of care, not as sexual objects. The difference isn’t in their superior willpower or special training in “eye bouncing”; it’s in their fundamental understanding of context and purpose. Let me repeat this for the kids in the back: Preserving someone’s dignity and privacy is not a skill anyone needs to practice. It’s as simple as not looking. Have you ever accidentally opened the door on an occupied bathroom? What do you do? You don’t look. See? Everyone knows this already.

When we teach men to “bounce their eyes,” we’re essentially telling them that they’re powerless victims of their biology, forever at the mercy of whatever visual stimuli cross their path. This infantilizes adult men while simultaneously positioning women’s bodies as weapons of temptation. It’s a worldview that serves no one well.

The Belief System at the Root

The real issue isn’t biological drives or even bad habits. It’s belief systems. Consider this: normal, healthy people don’t struggle with sexual arousal when watching animals mate, regardless of how many nature documentaries they’ve seen. They don’t find eight-year-old children in swimsuits “provocative,” no matter how much skin is showing. The reason is simple: they don’t categorize these scenarios as sexual because their belief systems exclude them from sexual consideration.

This reveals something crucial about human sexuality: what we find “provocative” or sexually arousing is largely constructed through our beliefs and cultural conditioning, not hardwired biological responses. I once knew a man who was an elder in a local Mennonite church, who led a schism in his own congregation over requiring women to wear black stockings. This Mennonite man who found a glimpse of ankle in white stockings scandalous demonstrates my point perfectly: “provocative” comes from inside the person, not from any inherent quality of the imagery itself.

If we accept that sexual response is primarily cognitive and interpretive, then the solution becomes clear. We need to examine and change the underlying beliefs that categorize other human beings as sexual objects for our consumption rather than complete persons deserving of respect, dignity, and love.

The Addiction Model Critique

Some of contemporary pornography recovery relies heavily on addiction models borrowed from substance abuse treatment. While there are some useful parallels, this framework often obscures more than it reveals. Chemical dependencies like alcoholism involve actual physical withdrawal symptoms that can be life-threatening. The delirium tremens from alcohol withdrawal has killed people. Not having an orgasm when one wants one has never caused anyone to sicken, let alone die.

This distinction matters because it speaks to questions of choice and agency. When someone in Alcoholics Anonymous shows up for their first meeting, they’re expected to stop drinking immediately—not cut down, not plan to stop, not give themselves a break while they work on underlying issues. Yes, people fail, but the key to AA’s approach is that participants stop making excuses about alcohol. And in many cases (though not all—alcohol abuse need not always or even frequently develop into chemical dependency), this is an actual, physical addiction, requiring medical supervision during detox.

If quitting completely is what is expected from people battling chemical dependency, then pornography use has to be held to an even higher standard. There’s no backsliding allowed. If you believe it’s wrong to look at another person with objectifying lust, then you won’t do it. You don’t have to convince yourself not to lust after dogs or children—you simply extend the same courtesy to the rest of humanity.

The Harm We’re Actually Talking About

Here’s what gets lost in discussions focused on a person’s struggle with temptation: this isn’t primarily about his (or her) internal battle. It’s about choosing to interact with other humans in a demonic, malicious fashion that intends them harm.

When we frame pornography use as merely a personal struggle with temptation—like struggling to be patient or kind—we flatten the moral reality of what’s actually happening. Objectification isn’t a victimless internal experience; it’s a way of relating to others that treats them as less than fully human. It reduces complex, complete persons to a collection of body parts arranged for someone else’s gratification. Our Lord explicitly taught us this, people. “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”3 Further, when we reduce other people to objects, we reduce ourselves to consumers, to devourers.

Our spiritual development is explicitly tied to our ethical responsibility towards others. Other people’s humanity, their iconicity, doesn’t change. It isn’t contingent on a person’s ability to manage his desires. Human dignity exists independently of the stunted spiritual state of people who struggle to see icons of Christ in the faces of others.

The Christian Response and Its Limitations

Much of what passes for pornography recovery in Christian circles amounts to elaborate systems of avoidance. Don’t look, don’t think, don’t engage—just bounce those eyes and pray harder. This approach treats adults as fundamentally unable to control their responses while positioning bodies as inherently dangerous.

The result is a kind of spiritual and psychological infantilization. Instead of developing mature, integrated approaches to sexuality that honor both desire and restraint, both attraction and respect, men and women are taught to live in perpetual fear of their own responses and others’ bodies.

This connects to broader patterns I’ve observed in men’s rights movements and certain reactions to feminism. When masculinity is defined by lack of control—whether sexual, emotional, or otherwise—it becomes a prison rather than a strength. Men end up as victims of their own biology, forever needing external management and control rather than developing internal wisdom and character. This is one way manosphere content hurts the very men who turn to it for help, reifying patterns that end up dehumanizing both men and women, and ultimately only increasing loneliness.

In contrast, certain feminist movements have long pointed out how capitalism commodifies women’s bodies and sexuality, and how pornography often reinforces racist and classist stereotypes alongside sexist ones. But you don’t need to embrace any kind of sociological framework to recognize the basic ethical and spiritual principle at stake: other people deserve to be seen and treated as complete human beings rather than objects for consumption. This isn’t a partisan political position, it’s basic human decency.

What Real Recovery Might Look Like

Genuine recovery from pornography use would require something much more comprehensive than behavioral management. In addition to serious spiritual guidance that treats any recidivism as completely unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian who wishes to commune, the penitent would benefit from considering these things:

Examining Gender Beliefs: What messages did you receive about masculinity, femininity, and sexuality growing up? How do these shape your current attitudes toward men, women and relationships? Friendships as well as romantic?

Developing Empathy: Can you see the people in pornography—and people in general—as complete persons with their own agency, struggles, dreams, and dignity? Or do they exist primarily as objects for your consumption?

Understanding Consent and Context: What’s the difference between mutual sexual expression between equal partners and the commodified sexuality of pornography? How does context shape meaning?

Building Emotional Regulation: Rather than outsourcing control to accountability software and avoidance strategies, how can you develop internal resources for managing desire in healthy ways?

Addressing Underlying Issues: What needs is pornography actually meeting? Connection? Stress relief? Escape? How can these needs be met in ways that don’t harm others?

Beyond Individual Recovery

While individual change is crucial, we also need to recognize the broader cultural currents that make pornography so pervasive and problematic. These include economic systems that profit from commodifying sexuality, cultural messages that define sexuality through consumption and conquest, and educational approaches that teach technical management rather than ethical and spiritual reflection. On the parish level, issues include religious frameworks that emphasize shame and avoidance rather than integration and wisdom as well as the fact that many communities are not even directly addressing this issue with their parishioners at all.

Real change will require addressing these systemic issues alongside individual transformation, and individual transformation will need to be scaffolded by transparency, honesty, and integrity among practicing Christians. It’s no good pretending that “good people like us don’t do this”: just look up statistics on porn use among Christians, and you’ll see that that’s a bourgeois lie.

The truth is that the best thing we can do to teach our young people and protect our children is by practicing the very sexual integrity the Church has asked of us since apostolic times.

The Path Forward

The goal isn’t to eliminate sexual desire or pretend that attraction doesn’t exist. It’s to develop mature, integrated approaches to sexuality that honor both our desires and others’ dignity. We can do this by diving deep into understanding our God-given power of eros and its proper ordering, by understanding that respect and desire can coexist without desire leading us around by the nose, and by building relationships based on spiritual mutuality rather than consumption. We can all use practice remembering that how we look at and behave with others reflects on our character, not their behavior.

Most fundamentally, it means believing that we are capable of taking responsibility for and controlling our responses to others. We can choose to see them as complete persons worthy of respect, as icons of the Living God, rather than as objects for our use.

Boots-on-the-ground practically? I’d like to see more parish communities seriously study ’ book, The Ethics of Beauty.

The conversation about pornography recovery reveals deeper questions about human nature, moral responsibility, and how we should relate to one another. Too often, our approaches reinforce harmful stereotypes about uncontrollable sexuality and dangerous bodies while avoiding the real work of character development, ethical reflection, and spiritual growth.

Real freedom—for both men and women—requires something more than technical solutions and behavioral management. It requires examining our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and others, taking responsibility for how we choose to see and treat people, and developing the internal resources necessary for healthy relationships.

The stakes are higher than individual spiritual journeys or personal struggles with temptation. They’re about creating a culture where all people can exist as complete persons rather than objects for others’ consumption, where sexuality serves communion rather than conquest, and where dignity is non-negotiable regardless of what anyone else chooses to wear, do, or be.

Until we’re willing to have these deeper conversations about belief, responsibility, and human dignity, we’ll continue to offer technical solutions to spiritual problems while wondering why the techniques never seem to produce lasting transformation. The path forward requires something both simpler and more demanding: seeing others as they actually are—complete, complex, worthy persons—and acting accordingly.

If this kind of thinking appeals to you take a look at my sex ed curriculum, Sex Ed For Sane People. This approach is reflected in my writing, but more importantly, it has informed how I’ve talked to my kids about human beings from the very beginning.

On its one year anniversary, I am relaunching Sex Ed For Sane People, now with additional companion materials:

• A teaching guide that walks you through how using the curriculum might work, including discussion questions

• A student workbook I’m using with my second student

• A “Sexual Sobriety Self-Examination” workbook I developed from the audio material Turning Venom Into Medicine. This one in particular was really exciting to make, because it forced me to rethink my beliefs very carefully. It also helped prepare me for another project that I’m working on for launch later this year, an expansion of my guided journal Know Thyself into a full-length course.

To reflect the additional materials, the price will be increasing ever so slightly at the end of the Dormition Fast. But for now, all of the materials remain at the introductory sale price.