Dear Woman In The Photo – An Apology For Using Porn
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is Anonymous. And nothing more needs to be said. BUT – we just launched our sister Spanish site this week! If you have friends in Latin America, please pass it along: www.proyectomujeresbuenas.com! – Lauren
Dear woman in the photo,
You don’t know me. I’m a guy who found pictures of you online and masturbated while looking at them. That sure is a creepy opening line for a letter, but please do read on.
I’m writing because I need you to know I’m sorry, and I would like to ask your forgiveness. Maybe I’m doing this more for my own benefit – to remind myself that you are a real person – someone’s daughter, sister, girlfriend, mother maybe. An aspiring actress, a hockey fan, a secret poet… I’m not doing this out of some kind of pressured guilt; I just need to say this.
I want to tell you that you are far too valuable for me to use your body like that, even as an image, and for that I am so sorry. I don’t know how much you got paid for those photos, if anything, but however much it was, you are worth more. More than any amount of money anyone could ever pay. More than any image could ever convey.
I used that image of you to get what I wanted without having to give anything, and I now realize that is unhealthy for me as a man. Here’s why:
You are worth more than any man could ever give, which is why when you give yourself to a man it is a gift he should spend the rest of his life even trying to match with his love, understanding, support, and anything else you might need.
As a man, I believe the very highest life I can lead is to live in gratitude for what I have been given and to really give something to the world. I believe I was born to make a difference, to care for people, and to be the best father, brother, son, friend, husband, colleague, that I can be to the people in my life. When it comes to sex, pornography allows me to act out my desires and get what I want without giving anything.
Everyone knows sex is powerful, and I don’t want that power to be harnessed toward my getting what I want like a spoiled brat. I want the emotional, spiritual, physiological, and physical power of sex to be an expression of my desire to give – that very real desire in me to love one woman with total commitment and without conditions. I don’t want to enjoy any woman’s body until I have first given her my heart, as to do so is to deny my highest purpose and to lower a woman’s value to that of an object to be used and thrown away.
I want to give sex the place of intimacy and respect I’m convinced it needs.
I’m sorry I used your image to attempt to satisfy my desires. I’m deeply sorry that guys like me create a demand for pictures of girls like you, and I need you to know that you have a purpose and a destiny so much bigger than how outwardly attractive you are. I don’t know why you posed for those photos – maybe you needed the money, maybe you were forced, maybe you enjoyed it – really, it doesn’t matter.
Just please believe me when I tell you that you were made to be cherished, protected and loved; that kind of love really does exist no matter how dark this world seems at times. I’m working toward living out that kind of love, and I hope somehow this letter can help both of us discover more of it in some small way.
In my heart of hearts I apologize to you – you unfortunately being just one of many unique expressions of beauty I have reduced to a thrilling image and a one-time experience.
You are worth more. I am worth more. Let’s never settle for less.
Yours sincerely,
Guy who just realized there’s a woman in the photo
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It warms my heart so much to read about a guy who actually sees and believes in the worth of a woman, no matter what she has done. I love this whole apology. He writes about how he wants to give a woman his heart before his needs are met. When I read those words, a smile came up onto my face as I realized that I was just privy to a special, holy moment where we realize how things are supposed to be and one day will again be.
March 5, 2012 at 7:59 am
So brazen.
Honestly, I don't know if many of us women know how to take this. This is a first – a guy APOLOGIZING to us? I don't think I've ever seen a man come and just throw their words out like that.
Brave.
I would trust this man so much more than someone who had never struggled with porn.
Thank YOU, Sir, for your integrity and courage to write this.
March 5, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Awwe! This is SO beautiful. Thank God there are men rising up! I was smiling at the end of it. So touching.
March 5, 2012 at 11:53 am
This is very beautiful… I truly wish more guys would understand what this gentleman discovered.
March 5, 2012 at 12:11 pm
"…you unfortunately being just one of many unique expressions of beauty I have reduced to a thrilling image and a one-time experience."
Whoa. Bravo, my friend. Bravo!
March 5, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Crying, and crying hard. Beautiful.
March 5, 2012 at 7:56 pm
The letter is really beautiful. Brother, you did a great job. I felt really warm and touching and it made me smile:))Wish you all the best.
March 6, 2012 at 6:11 am
Thank you so muchfor your open heart and honest vulnerability. I respect you so much because of this. May your wife be blesssed!
–divinedating.org
March 6, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Thank you so much….
As a woman who once worked in that industry and has felt unworthy and degraded long before I went into the industry I truly appreciate this. I still struggle to feel valued by men in a positive light and not as a object of pleasure. I needed this…..
The man who raped me and the men who have sexually assaulted me and the men who have viewed me as an object have never and likely will never apologize……nor see that they hurt me.
Thank you so much for your honesty…..
June 24, 2012 at 10:17 pm
This took guts. Wow. Anon – Thank you being willing to share this.
June 25, 2012 at 5:48 pm
I have worked in the industry for years. There are probably thousands of photos of me on the Internet, videos too, and I have answered my fan mail with lots of "thank you, I LOVE doing this!' Sometimes it is nice to get attention and have someone say positive things about me, even if the "positive" things are degrading and objectifying. But that's a shallow sort of approval, and it hurts deep down. I started doing porn before I came to love God, because porn seemed like a normal way to get attention and no one told me not to. Then for a while I felt like I could be a Christian, but for various reasons (long story) I felt isolated and unwanted in Christian churches and community, so I decided that God wasn't for me, and I got "back into porn" where at least I was getting approving feedback from other people. Now I'm not sure how to be a Christian again or if I ever could. I have quit "most" of my porn activities, but not all. I don't even care about the paltry amount of money I get from keeping my video site and alter-ego social network profiles up and running. It's more like – if I stop doing this, stop reading and answering fan mail about how great my body looks, what will I have left? It would seem empty. And I don't think I'd be worth much as a Christian, so I might as well keep doing what I am good for. But knowing that at least one person can see that this way of thinking isn't necessarily the truth, and can see that we, the women in the pictures, are human beings.. it does help. I don't know what will happen next, but thank you, anonymous.
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