Many of the men who have issues with sex addiction or porn addiction are dealing with the destructive effects of a childhood filled with degrading emotional abuse from parents, siblings, friends, teachers. Below is an email I received from one of these men who we'll refer to here as "Bob."

Bob has been married to "Joan" for twenty-something years and, as you will see, he's still struggling with having the courage to move toward her sexually. Instead of being able to be intimate with his wife, he uses pornographic thoughts, images, humiliation scenarios and masturbation to attempt to satisfy his need for connection.

Bob has come a long way from where he started. With his permission I'm sharing his homework check-in below, with the hope that others who have similar wounds will be comforted and inspired by the fact that he is having the courage to confront his old negative stories—that he has the deep desire, the guidance, and the methods to achieve the intimate contact that is his birthright.

Here I am, in reality, standing alone, with no love and no intimacy!  In my mind I have thoughts of what it would be like to be with my wife Joan. The truth is that they are JUST thoughts. I do have thoughts of being with her and I have not yet taken the risk and reached out to her and held her hand. I have not yet put my arm around her and told her that I love her. I have not opened up to her about my true inner feelings and express to her how I feel and how I would like to move closer to her yet I am afraid of something that keeps me from moving closer.

The truth is that if I do not take the risk and open up about my inner feelings then I will never be able to move closer to Joan. I will be alone jacking-off to my pathetic stories. How many times can I jack-off imagining myself being humiliated, degraded, and emasculated while I am trying to feel loved and appreciated?  What sort of insanity do I need to keep myself suffering in order to feel loved?  What kind of love is it when I have to create thoughts and images in my mind of being humiliated and pleasing some woman who is more powerful than me so that I can be sexually satisfied? How many times can I keep asking myself the same questions and know the answers to the questions that I ask and then still make the wrong choice? 

 The truth is that my mind is afraid of what real love and intimacy will feel like because all I have ever known and all I have ever experienced is the story of being emasculated by beautiful and powerful women. By allowing myself to be so disrespected as I was pleasing them in the end I am rewarded with a very special prize—an "orgasm!"

 The other jacking-off fantasy I use is one of a beautiful woman who is always unattainable. This is simply the flip side of the degrading story. This is side of the story also confirms that I am not good enough to be with a woman who will love me without humiliating me. When I see this woman the story comes alive in my head and it screams that I need to allow it to take over my entire life. It masquerades as the promise of being loved and feeling intimacy. It drives the urge beyond words only to leave the real me feeling empty, disappointed and used when I'm done jacking off! Once again this is my mind confirming that I do not deserve to be loved.

 This is not a truth; this is a lie!  The promise of the prize keeps my mind holding onto the deception that I know simply does not exist. There is no love in these stories. There can never be any love in the story. All they contain is more pain and more suffering with the promise of love at the end—but all that is waiting when I am done is the same pain and suffering!

The truth is that I need to find the courage to move closer to Joan, which will allow me to move away from the story. The time has come for me to take the chance and feel the discomfort of not allowing these stories to dictate my sexual relief. The time has come for me to reach out to Joan and feel what real love is like.