Today, I’ve transcribed the story of a woman named Stephanie Hu who overcame a porn/masturbation addiction. Hu stumbled across pornography for the first time when she was very young. A few years later, curiosity while surfing the web home-alone led her to seek out explicit content again. Over time, images turned to videos, and she discovered masturbation, which became a second area of struggle. While Hu was a Christian at the time, she describes her porn/masturbation habit as a source of shame and something that created separation between her and God.
Fast-forward to her sophomore year of college, Hu was invited by her small group leader to share her testimony. Despite her initial reluctance, Hu attributes her decision to include her private struggles in the sexual area to the Holy Spirit’s nudging. While she experienced some success after this pivotal event, she eventually fell into a state of relapse. Hu identifies 1-) A lack of accountability; and 2-) A self-centered mindset about her recovery, as causal factors in this outcome.
Hu recounts that once she established accountability, put God at the center of her recovery, and started reading the Bible more, she “hasn’t had a desire to watch porn or masturbate since.” Hu, however, expresses her ongoing need to rely on God and be consistent with her spiritual disciplines as keys to success.
Check out the complete video and transcript below!
A stereotype that a lot of people assume about porn and masturbation is that it’s primarily a guy-thing. And maybe the statistics are true on that, but I think that lack of awareness or lack of exposure of porn and masturbation, as it pertains to girls, really prevented me from wanting to speak out or wanting to reach out or wanting to seek help.
Stephanie Hu
For more, check out the testimonies section.
Transcript of God Saved Me From A Porn + Masturbation Addiction (Christian Woman Testimony)
Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. I am so happy you’re here, that you clicked on this video. As you can probably tell from the title, it is going to be a very shocking, out-of-character type of video today. But I’m very, very excited and thankful to share this story of how God has help me overcome my porn and masturbation addiction.
I’m actually so thankful to people who share this because, originally, I was going to get my wisdom teeth out, and then I wouldn’t have been able to speak for a few days and then I was going to fly to Germany, and all of this, and so I was really sad when my surgery was going to happen. But then it actually got postponed because there was a short staff, so this was actually a blessing, that I can be able to talk and share this video with you before I leave. Some of you may have differing opinions on this subject, so please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, but this is just what my journey has been.
Essentially, I came across porn for the first time when I was pretty young. I had never seen this type of content before, and it was hidden, so I knew it was something secret. A few years go by and I was at a time when basically nobody was home with me. I was by myself. My parents were out — you know, that kind of deal — and so I just had a lot of opportunities to go online and explore things on my own. Because I was so curious of what I had seen years prior, I began to look up, like, images of, you know, porn, and I basically opened a gate, right? I opened the box.
Soon after, the images became videos, and I would just go through all this content. I even played — I don’t know if you know, naughty games — that was a thing. Wow. I was young. I was very young, but I was engrossed in this. Eventually, all that porn-watching kind of led me to find out what masturbation was. So that was another box on its own, and so now suddenly it wasn’t just porn-watching, it was porn + masturbation. So it was like 2 acts together.
Since I was little, I always considered myself a Christian, but I think this was something that I willingly did to separate myself from God. I didn’t characterize it as that when I was younger and doing it, but I realize now how much that separated me from wanting to be closer to God. I always felt like this was a source of shame for me. I went to church every Sunday, and I maybe sometimes would hear sermons about porn, but very little. Very little to begin with. And if they were about porn, it was more directed toward the boys.
So I’m not blaming. I don’t want to blame anybody or any organization or any church for this, but I think that’s just like a stereotype that a lot of people assume about porn and masturbation — that it’s primarily a guy-thing. And maybe the statistics are true on that, but I think that lack of awareness or lack of exposure of porn and masturbation, as it pertains to girls, really prevented me from wanting to speak out or wanting to reach out or wanting to seek help.
Fast-forward to sophomore year of college, I was asked by my small group leader to share my testimony. At first, I was writing down my script, like okay, “I’m going to talk about my family issues, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, how I grew as a Christian, blah, blah, blah.” But I was missing a huge part of my life, and that was my porn and masturbation addiction. I purposefully left that out because I didn’t want to share that part of myself. And I want to say that you don’t have to feel pressure to share anything you don’t want to share, but I think at that time it was more myself. It was myself not wanting to be perceived as unlikable or gross or a fake Christian — things like that. I didn’t want to be perceived negatively by other people, so I left that part out.
But it was definitely the Spirit — because again, I could never do this on my own — who encouraged me, really pulled on my heart strings, like really did, to include that part into my testimony. And so God helped me and I was able to share my testimony, my full honest testimony, including the porn and masturbation things, with my small group. I’ve always heard “God uses the bad for good,” or “God is the light,” but I never understood until after I shared this. That was the time I realized the devil, Satan, uses these things against us. Uses them to shame us or to feel like we can’t bring it up to the light.
It could be different, right. For you it might not be porn or masturbation, it might be other things. But I realized he purposefully uses these things to make us feel like we’re trapped in it, and that we can’t be saved anymore. Or that we’re damaged goods. Or that we can never really be loved by God because we have this sin or sins that we’re dealing with, and that they become addictions.
God can do anything, and it just amazes me how God was able to transform me as someone who was a huge people-pleaser. Like I still struggle with that sometimes. A huge people-pleaser, would never want to be perceived in any sort of negative way. And suddenly encouraging me and reminding me that I am loved by him, and that he does forgive, and that he is a light. And that he can bring these sins out of the darkness, put them to light, and overcome the devil.
Later on, I think it was like junior year or something, I was able to share this same testimony with my entire fellowship. And I think it just felt so freeing to know that, like, the devil really has no hold on us with God on our side.
But the story does not end here. So after I shared my testimony with my fellowship, I felt like “Wow. This is done. I have overcome the battle.” And I didn’t watch porn or masturbate for a few months. But I did relapse in a way, if that’s a word you can say for this. Yeah, I guess so. I did relapse, and I felt like so defeated. I felt so hypocritical, that I had shared this stuff with my fellowship, but then fell back into the same sin.
Once I fell back into the same sin, it was so easy for me just to think, “Okay, well I already screwed up. Why not just keep…” — I kind of just like couldn’t believe I screwed up. Even after that big spiritual high, which is what it felt like for me, I just kept watching porn and masturbating for another few months just because I felt so defeated.
Now looking back, I realize there were two main things that caused this to happen.
The first one was not seeking accountability or help for this.
I essentially just shared my story, and that was it. For any type of issue, for any type of sin, for any type of thing that you’re struggling with, it’s so important — and I realize this now, and I should have done this before. You seek accountability. Have an accountability partner. Essentially, I was relying on my own strength. And I wasn’t even going back to the Bible. I was relying on my own strength, not even God’s strength. How could I have ever expected for me to overcome this, just on my own? No, no. Now I know. No way. I wasn’t even relying on the Bible. I wasn’t relying on God. I wasn’t praying to him about this. I just felt like I did this. I overcame this.
And the second thing I did wrong was putting myself in the center of it instead of God.
Honestly speaking, the reason I stopped watching porn and masturbating at this time was because it made me feel bad. It made me feel shameful. I didn’t quite understand at the time how much it hurts God. And how God is the one that we should strive to be more like. It was a me-thing and not a God-thing.
Fast-forward a couple months to this past summer, summer 2022, I was alone in my apartment. And so I was working, I was doing an internship. I had a lot of free time. I don’t know, maybe it was the boredom — so thank goodness I was bored — that finally led me to become curious about God and Christianity. I did rely on God and I did believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but I never actually read the Bible. This past summer was the first time I just opened the Bible. I think it was to a random chapter or book in the New Testament. And I just started to read the Bible out of curiosity. My goodness gracious — how that changed me.
And I began to actively look up Christian content on YouTube. Questions about the Bible. Questions about God. I was questioning things, not because I didn’t believe but because I wanted to further my belief even more. There were so many questions I had, but I didn’t take time to investigate further just because I was lazy, and I didn’t want to learn. And I just kind of blindly went with it. So, with anything, you want to do your research, and you want to learn more and more and more.
So, by reading the Bible and looking online and watching, you know, YouTube videos of people debating religious topics, religious questions, I became more and more engrossed. I just felt refreshed. And I felt excited to learn more. And so by reading the Bible I got more and more insight into who God really is and why He does the things He does. I became more and more engrossed in him. And I think because of that, there was just one day when I was just like over it. I don’t know how to describe it other than that I was over it. Over the sin that I was dealing with still. I was sad. I was sad that I was doing it because, as I was learning more and more about God, I realized that he has better plans for us.
We as his children, as humans, we have so much more potential than to be sucked into this sin, to be sucked into this addiction and to let the devil hold this against us. So instead of putting myself in the middle of it, it became God. As I was reading the Bible and learning more about him, I wanted to be closer to him. I wanted to be more like him. To be more like him, I realized, “Yeah, I can overcome this. And I want to.” It was a desire to overcome it.
After that realization that one night, I was like, “Wow. I’m actually over it.” And so I just stopped. It was God’s grace, of course, because I would never have been able to have the strength to do that. Thank you God so much for reminding me that it’s not about me. It’s not about me. It’s about him. I think that really turned a switch in my brain and I haven’t had a desire to watch porn or masturbate since, since I know how much it hurts God.
Moral of the story: The Bible. The Bible has literally transformed me into a completely new person. So I encourage you if you have a Bible nearby or online or on an app, just please start reading, just for fun. I cannot tell you how much your life will transform because of reading the Bible. Long story short, it is life-changing, and it helped me overcome my porn and masturbation addiction.
Of course, this overcoming is not because of me, it’s because of God. So I need to make sure that I’m consistently praying about my temptation. I’m consistently praying that he continues to support me and encourage me to read the Bible, so I don’t fall back into that same thing. But God is great. God is powerful. And he’s changed me in so many ways, and I know he can change you, too.
Don’t feel that you’re too this or that or unlovable or too broken or too gross to be loved by God. That is false. That is a lie. You are loved and you are already loved by God. And you can always — I don’t know how to explain it in words, oh my goodness. But you’re already loved. You are his child. And you can learn more about him and accept him as your Savior.
