How do you avoid impurity when it’s everywhere?

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If you use social media a lot, examine how you take in and respond to social norms (what it seems like everyone else is saying, thinking, or doing) and peer pressure (friends telling you what they think is normal). If you see things on social media that are impure, risky, demeaning, or unjust, don’t let it define your behavior or your way of thinking.

In high school, it might be difficult to be different because at this stage you are trying to figure out what is normal and acceptable, and one of the ways teens do that is by watching and learning from other teens. If the other teens are posting good things, you are more likely to become good. If they are posting bad things, well, it can influence you the wrong way. Try to be aware of that, look for and absorb the good, and avoid or reject the bad.

It is very important also to watch and learn from good adult role models, which might include your parents. (I say “might” because I know nothing about your parents. It could be other trusted adults.)

When you get 5 or 10 years older, it will be easier to be different from the crowd, and your friends may actually come to appreciate and respect you for it. In the mean time, be strong!

I am praying for you, as I often pray for teens and young adults (and my own children ages 12 to 18). May the Holy Spirit assist and guide you always toward faith, virtue, love, and hope.
 
Wow thank you for your thought-filled advice RandomAlias. I really appreciate you and your prayers! God bless!
 
Kei said:
I like to picture the blood and water from the side of Christ washing me as He is crucified.
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I guess I have a long way to go on my faith journey then if I am to reach this level.
Irishmom2 said:
So you are saying that you are thinking of sinful things all day every day?
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I knew someone would say this. As long as I’ve piqued your curiosity, I’ll be happy. 🙂
 
Someboy113 said:
avoiding the thoughts and temptations that come with these impure things is seemingly impossible.
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While avoiding can be useful, one must be mindful that one does not banish darkness by trying to avoid a dark room. Darkness is banished by the presence of light! Purity requires that one cultivate spiritual disciplines that will bring light into the darkness. Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, fellowship with others seeking purity and chastity.

You are right, it is difficult to avoid the deluge of impurity. One must actively fight back by engaging in life giving activities. Glad you are here at CAF!
 
Some short remarks about myself and what I wrote: First, FYI, I am a man, but it seems like nothing I wrote is really male-specific. Second, my advice is rather general and not entirely based on my own experience. When I was a teen, I didn’t have good control over my lustful/impure thoughts, and that was when TV was relatively clean (1970s), there was no internet, and porn was just magazines. You face much greater challenges, and since I’m older, I can’t totally relate to what you’re going through. I worry a lot, pray, teach Confirmation students, bring up my own children, work to build my own faith, and try to trust in God.

A different prayer this time, for our society. O Lord, pour out your graces upon our society. Open our eyes to see what is true and right and holy. Soften our hearts so that we desire the good. Give us strength to do what is right. Help the faithless to be receptive to your gift of faith. And lead us all closer to you and to our salvation. Amen.
 
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I can relate to what you’re going through. Sexual temptation can, at times, feel like a compulsion. Images are everywhere. I can be at Wal-Mart buying something and all of a sudden I happen to glance at a magazine cover with a half-naked woman on it. Once you are in Christ, you are a conqueror and you must remember that. Peter said “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11)

The implication being that you can abstain from the passions of the flesh. You’re going to have to train yourself to think on other things so that, when temptation comes, you are fully prepared to deal with it in an appropriate manner. You have to set your mind on things above, as it says in Colossians 3.

Think about something in the Bible that inspires you. Once you find yourself in temptation where you’ve got a picture of a woman in your mind, think of that thing that inspires you. Let’s say that I’m sitting in a hot tub and a woman happens to be walking by, I look away and think about Christ suffering in the garden of Gethsemane. That image is so powerful that it easily cuts through my desire to lust after that woman. I know that you can do it because you have that authority in Christ. You may fall a hundred times, but you’ll get up and you’ll gain ground. Think about something inspiring from the Bible and it will kill impure images.
 
Kei if you have had no formal training in counselling or spiritual direction I suggest it better not to provide advice.
 
Why? Surely helping each other is a good thing? I got the advice from saintly writings and attest to its effectiveness.
 
Saints from the past are such because of their love not for their accurate or effective psychological or counselling advice.
Nor as far as I know has ancient “aversion therapy” advice (rolling in thornbushes) been proven effective or wise for most people (it doesnt for homosexual urges so not sure why it would for heterosexuals).
As I say, simplistic, uncritical and pious, one size fits all advice is not the advice we amateurs are to provide on CAF.

Have you been trained in counselling and direction to be providing such abhorrent imaging advice as to be literally washed in the blood and water flowing from Christs side to reduce sexual urges.
That smacks of the usual over pious excessiveness of Spanish military religiosity hardly suitable for our contributor who has just told you as much.
 
Did I mention aversion therapy here?

But I don’t view that as overly pious at all, far from it. I also just said the blood and water is what I do, not that he’d have to do that. I did suggest to think of either Christ crucified or the Divine Mercy Image.

I did not say they reduced attraction or whatever. It is to replace your mental imagery after seeing or thinking about something impure, by replacing an unholy image with a holy one. I don’t see how this is at all overly pious.

I trust that saints who overcame sin are helpful in overcoming sin by following their spiritual advice. It is a generalized answer to a generalized question. Is it because I asked why he disagreed with thinking of Christ crucified then offered alternatives that you go against me? I can say it does help from experience.

Are you thinking I’m saying they have to reduce their sexual attraction or something? Because I never said that.
 
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Kei if you have had no formal training in counselling or spiritual direction I suggest it better not to provide such advice.
 
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drac16 said:
I can relate to what you’re going through. Sexual temptation can, at times, feel like a compulsion. Images are everywhere. I can be at Wal-Mart buying something and all of a sudden I happen to glance at a magazine cover with a half-naked woman on it. Once you are in Christ, you are a conqueror and you must remember that. Peter said “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11)
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I think this is what Jesus meant when He said it was better to poke out your eye than to go to hell.

If your hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. Matt. 8;18

I know he did not mean LITERALLY separate yourself from your body parts, but it is a testimony that God knows we are sensual beings. He created us with the capacity for such feelings and inclinations. He also gives us the grace to surmount them. Sometimes we must literally put on blinders, turning our faces and bodies the other direction. I find that fast short prayers also work, oddly (in this context) these are traditionally called “ejaculations”. One sort of spits them out of ones’ mouth, like Jesus I trust in you. Many have also said that praying the Rosary helps, and carry one of those short rosaries in the pocket or otherwise on the person. The Rosary is harder for me, but Hail Mary’s work well!
 
The OP asked for general advice just from men, most likely from men living in the world. He did not ask for spiritual direction.

I then gave geneal advice from saints (ie you can’t avoid seeing but you can avoid looking back, and imagery), as that is what helped me, a fellow man, in this area.

Then someone said they wouldn’t want to think of Christ Crucified all day, I asked why he wouldn’t want to do that and provided alternatives.

Then you started asking me if I was trained in spiritual direction, but not others who also posted for whatever reason. I think this is because you thought I was saying you’d have to try to lower your attraction to attractive people or something? And found my imagery bad? I don’t apologize for it, though, because by golly I know it works.

If I can cause some self reflection over Jesus’ great suffering, then I would be glad.

Are you saying my posts are trying to be spiritual direction?
 
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Kei if you have had no formal training in counselling or spiritual direction I suggest it better not to provide such advice.
 
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Whether people had formal training or not, as long as somebody knows some way that helped them overcome lust, I am satisfied with their advice.
 
The OP didn’t ask for spiritual direction, but advice from men specifically. He did not ask for trained spiritual direction.

Don’t just repeat the same thing again, please. Look, OP agrees with my understanding.
 
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