Katheryn (Katy) Kirk spent ten years doing everything she was taught would work: daily scripture study, journaling, fasting, temple service, callings, honest conversations with a string of bishops, the ARP program, accountability texts with a friend. She was a temple worker and a Relief Society president — and she was privately fighting pornography and shame the entire time.
In this interview, Katy tells her own story: why the traditional approaches kept failing, what it was like to be a woman with this struggle in a church culture that treats pornography as a men’s problem, and the counterintuitive clinical approach we used together — built on agency, tracking, and dismantling shame rather than white-knuckle avoidance — that finally ended the cycle. This is the same territory I write about in How Can I Resist Pornography? and work through with couples in pornography conflict and trust repair.
A note before you read: Katy shares her experience publicly by her own choice, because she wants other women to know they aren’t alone and that change is possible. Her story describes a clinical approach developed for her specific situation under the care of a licensed therapist — it is not a prescription. If her story resonates, the right starting point is a conversation with a qualified clinician about your own circumstances.
In her words
It was a dark day in my life when I finally admitted I couldn’t do it alone and that I needed help. I am very fortunate that I came across Daniel in my search for a therapist. He immediately responded to my inquiry, and he hasn’t stopped caring since. As I started meeting with Daniel, it didn’t take long for him to gain my complete trust. He seemed to quickly understand me as a person as well as what I was going through. I always felt safe with Daniel, which made it easy to talk about very personal things that I typically don’t share with others. He also helped me think outside of the box I was stuck in. And, because of the trust I had in him, he was able to stretch me to try new things, which helped to create the changes I needed in my life. Daniel has been there for me every step of the way, and I’m sending him anyone I come across who needs a therapist, as well as some who don’t. I think everyone would benefit from working with Daniel. —Katheryn Kirk
Full interview transcript
Lightly edited for readability; audio-gap markers preserved from the original transcription.
Dan: We want to do something just very comfortable, casual. Put a face to the name. A lot of people have actually reached out and wanted to know how Katy did it and what the experience was like for her. And instead of going through me I wanted to bring her on and have her share her personal experience. Because as close as I am to it, I think it would be better to hear it from her; and you guys are welcome to ask her questions. I scheduled it for an hour and a half but I don’t think we’re going to go that long. However long you guys want to go. But the intent is just to be more casual and to explore what you feel is important to explore. Katy, do you want to start?
Katy: Sure.
Dan: Maybe let me prompt you, before you met me you were struggling with porn and some variation – you could talk about it however detailed you want that – porn and masturbation for about how long before you met me?
Katy: I would say probably tenish years? Maybe a little more?
Dan: Ten years, and at what age did you start?
Katy: I started when I was 18 and I, yeah, I was kind of just in a miserable time of my life and somehow I was kind of involved with some people that led me to that. So that’s when it got started and then yeah for the next 10 years it was –
Dan: Do you mean it was uh –
Katy: Actually, so it was actually online… there was actually an LDS online chatroom-something.
Dan: They’re dangerous.
Katy: Yeah. I was lonely, I was in a new place I had never been and I was miserable and so I was okay I’ll try this like LDS thing and I’m definitely not letting anyone because I definitely sought out probably inappropriate attention. But eventually that led to pornography, and that’s what stuck. Yeah, so then I had 10 years of ups and downs and “I got this, I’m free of this” and then it comes crashing down again…
Dan: Share with them what you attempted to do in the ten years; how did you address it, what support did you seek?
Katy: So, I was pretty good about talking to bishops when I felt like that was necessary. Since I moved around a lot I talked to lots of different bishops about it. None of them gave me anything really that was helpful.
Dan: Were they supportive in any way?
Katy: Uhm, I think a lot of them didn’t know how to handle it, I think.
Dan: I think that’s important to… I know why, but what was it that was difficult for the bishops in your… Because of who you are. Lead into it…
Katy: Because I’m a woman?
Dan: Yes.
Katy: Yes, and that’s what I was going to say is pornography especially, well I mean it’s still that way, but you know let’s rewind 15 years… pornography is a man’s thing. And here I was, a woman, who has these… am drawn to this, and I think bishops were kind of like, “What? What do I even do with this?” Even so much that I was in a ward… This was maybe a year or two before I met you… we were at some ward fireside that my bishop was giving and he said that he had never talked to a woman about pornography. And I was like, “That means that women aren’t talking to you. Because I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this.” But that just goes to show that in the church, it’s a man’s thing. And bishops I don’t think knew how to-
Dan: Well, and I think it was, based on what we’ve talked about, and correct me at any point if I’m misrepresenting… If I remember right you were sharing… it seemed like they may have had solutions or ideas but they didn’t… maybe they were awkward in how to offer it and how are they going to discuss this with a woman, alone in the room? Am I remembering that correctly?
Katy: Yeah, any counsel that I was given was maybe, “Oh let me read you a verse from scripture,” or you know something like that. Like, it was never a helpful thing. Which, you know I don’t know that it’s a bishop’s role to be a therapist. And to really…
Dan: So give them a little bit of background about what you were doing. Were you struggling with reading scriptures? Or was that… so this is in no way disparaging the bishops. They were doing exactly what they should have been doing. Uhm, but it was difficult for you because you were looking for something more… so share a little bit of what your life routine was.
Katy: Yeah, so I love routines. I love routines. I, when I was 11 I started writing my journal and I’d write in my journal every single day. Every single day I had a journal entry. Scriptures – every single day. Read my scriptures. Maybe like the variability on how well I studied them, you know that probably ebbed and flowed. But this is something that’s always been important to me. It’s always been a part of me and my life. And so, you know, through these ten years there’s a lot of scripture study, a lot of prayer, a lot of fasting. There’s a lot of trying to do the best I knew how to do. And unfortunately that’s not always…or, really, it didn’t end up making an impact. Like, sure, it helped me have the Spirit in my life, but as far as helping me overcome this trial – uhm, it actually wasn’t… that wasn’t what was beneficial for me.
Dan: And how long were you working in the temple? So the Oakland temple is closed for a year, so you haven’t been there for a couple of weeks. But prior to that, how long had you…?
Katy: I was a temple worker for five years. So right, shortly after I moved to California I started working in the temple and, yeah, I did that for five years. Loved it.
Dan: So you were doing everything, quote on quote ‘right’.
Katy: Yeah, I mean if you want to like… I was Relief Society President, I was doing my callings, I was serving in the temple, talking to my bishop, reading my scriptures… yeah if you want to check off the checklist things – I love lists, so I check them off.
Dan: So it wasn’t so much checking off, although routines were/are good for you. But your heart and soul were into it.
Katy: Yeah.
Dan: And the struggle of trying to be more faithful.
Katy: Yeah.
Dan: Uhm, so that led up to… what made you finally come to call me?
Katy: So patterns of binging and purging, and there was one night where both of them had hit hard, and I was thinking of what else to try, like I’ve, you know, talked to friends, I’ve tried all these different things and what I’d kind of realized, later on what I kinda realized, the things I was trying – it was just suppressing or distracting. And it wasn’t actually dealing with what I was feeling or going through. So, you know, I would call a friend if I was, you know, tempted… and that’s just distracting me, you know, like, whatever it was.
Dan: You had a texting thing, right? Like anytime you-
Katy: Yeah. I had a friend who I would text every, any time I felt something. We would check in every day and I would send her an update. I’d just send her a smiley face if it was a good day or a frowny face if it was a bad day and sometimes we’d talk more, sometimes we’d talk less. So I felt like I had good support. That was probably – me having that kind of support with a friend was probably important for me feeling comfortable to reach out to a therapist. Uhm, I think, there’s so much shame that was involved with this for me and I’m sure, I know others are dealing with that too. But when I shared with her the ugliest parts of me, I felt nothing but love in return from her. And that taught me so much of my Savior’s love and it helped me start breaking out of that shame. So it was a very, very important piece in my journey: was feeling unconditional love from someone, even after they found out. That’s the first person I told that was not a bishop. And so having such a positive experience, really sent me on a course where I was able to reach out and contact a therapist.
Dan: Do you remember that call? That Saturday afternoon when you called me?
Katy: Yeah.
Dan: Do you remember the questions you asked me?
Katy: Oh I don’t remember the questions.
Dan: She wanted to make sure I was married.
Katy: Oh interesting.
Dan: And that I was not a single therapist. I thought that was important. That was awesome. She had a very specific set of questions that she put me through. Which, that’s an important thing. I think that anyone going in and seeking help from hopefully a trained individual…
[Indistinct audio]
Katy: For me I did want to talk to a man, and you’re right it was important that you were married.
Dan: That was interesting. So I think this is where, now, she called me, we set something up… and this was actually interesting, because it was right at the beginning of my clinics. I had just started practicing as a therapist, I was what we call an intern therapist at a clinic and she had found me through ldscounselors.org or whatever that is. So it was interesting because she was actually, I had seen a few others struggling – male and female – with pornography, but they had not tried anything. Totally, uh, other than going to the bishop and working out confessing sins, they really hadn’t tried anything in their life. But Katy was a unique case because she was doing everything I knew how to do at that point, and it became immediately curious for me because she was doing all the right things. And by the way for those who know me, at this point in my life I was actually a big believer in the traditional way of approaching that. But as soon as Katy and I started discussions, we were kind of just repeating the same thing that you were doing, except that it was with me and not a bishop. It was with me and not with a friend. The beginning phase, the first couple weeks, month, is that what you remember?
Katy: Yeah.
Dan: And so I didn’t feel… it wasn’t, it would go through maybe a week or so of improvement and then it was kind of just repeating again. So this was very frustrating. Because what more can we do? And so that really pushed me, as maybe a beginning therapist, and it was perfect timing because I was ambitious was like “We’re going to solve this!” And I don’t believe I’m going to spend the next 20, 30, 40 years as a therapist seeing somebody not succeed when they’re trying so hard. This is kind of your ideal client, as a therapist. So I wasn’t going to fail her, on my end, so we started… were you surprised with kinda how we started to approach this? What are some things, I don’t want to predispose you, I want this to be real and anything you recall from those first sessions that you felt was valuable, different, maybe even shocking?
Katy: Yeah, so for some reason I feel like talking about this is kinda not where you were going, but yeah, like I think when I first started working with Daniel, again it was kind of a lot of the traditional stuff and I know, like, for a while we were even exploring like body image issues. Like, trying to, I think, trying to uncover what’s down there at the core.
Dan: That was because of the binge eating too. Right?
Katy: Oh, maybe that was the binge eating. Okay, okay, but it was like I felt like wherever we went it was just like we were hitting these walls and I was like “This isn’t helping me get anywhere,” right? So, Daniel, I thought he was crazy. I was like, “This is the most crazy thing.” But, well first of all he… did you have me schedule time for pornography? Or was that just masturbation?
Dan: That’s a good question, I’d have to go back to those… uhm, yes, we eventually did the scheduling of pornography.
Katy: Yeah, so he started – and I don’t know I might be getting the order of all of this wrong – but he’d throw out this idea, schedule time to view pornography.
Dan: Let me give a little context, because I think a lot of people read my blog and as a therapist I tend not to explain because it’s kind of second nature. There is an idea in family systems therapy and strategic therapy specifically, those are actually modules of therapy, that you regain control in your life by actually creating control over a specific habit. That could be smoking, that could be any kind of behavior you want to get a mastery over – is you intentionally do it. A perfect example of this, and it’s a famous case with family systems and strategic family therapy is scheduling time to argue with your spouse. And that was the first thing – it kept coming back to my mind. I was like, “okay, okay, I can’t. There’s no way I could propose this to Katy.” But I’m like everything in good psychology says if you tell a couple to – and I had seen this work over and over as I work with couples up until that point, meeting her – okay, schedule 5:30 tomorrow to argue with your spouse and this is what you’re going to argue. In every case, the couple would probably either end up laughing or say this is dumb. They couldn’t argue with each other. So I said, “Kay, what are we going to lose? You keep repeating the pornography use, so why don’t we try to give you some power back, and you get to choose actually when you do it – as opposed to…” So this wasn’t just, the reason for explaining it, this wasn’t just some crazy dude coming in and saying, “Alright, we’re just gonna do whatever,” this was, there was actually a plan and a strategic approach to this. And I remember, you were nervous.
Katy: Yeah, I was nervous. But I think…
Dan: Rightfully so.
Katy: But, and I’ve actually tried to explain this to – I have a good friend who struggles with masturbation, uhm, we have different views on things, but anyway – what it comes down to for me is pornography was making me an object that was acted upon. Right? So it was this thing that would all of a sudden come in and it was like boom, okay, there I am. Right? Like, and so I had lost my agency in that sense. And so that’s where I think this whole idea, and that’s how I’ve kind of wrapped my head around this idea of planning a time to do it; it’s like why in the world would I plan a time to sin? Right? Or do this thing, like this makes no sense! But in some ways it was helping me regain my agency. And being an agent that acted rather than this object that was acted upon by this pornography thing. Does that make sense to people? I don’t, uhm…
Dan: Uncomfortable, but make sense?
Katy: Uhm, and so I believe it may have started with pornography. Schedule a time, however so often, once a week, twice a week, every day – whatever is going to help you so that if that urge comes, or that temptation or whatever you want to call it, that you can say “Okay, that’s great, thanks for being here, I’m going to take care of you at 5:30 tonight.” Or tomorrow at 7. Or whenever it is that you’ve had your time scheduled.
Dan: And at this point we had actually started – talk about routines – she’s kept… maybe five years now? 4 years, 5 years?
Katy: Is it that long?
Dan: You keep a spreadsheet of daily activity.
Katy: I told you I like routines. I do them every day.
Dan: It’s not complex or anything, but she’s tracked how much pornography use and frequency of masturbation – including time in the gospel: reading scriptures, prayers, and temple attendance, and working out – so it’s about six columns of information, very basic. So we could always go back and we could track this if there’s any specific questions, but if I’m remembering right we wanted to create a baseline of what your usage was; because at this point when you were seeing me, again correct me if you’re remembering it differently, but it was kind of all over the place. You were sheer will power, and then something would happen… where you were even discovering menstrual cycles may have had an impact… boredom at work, right, these were starting to…
Katy: diagnose triggers
Dan: But then it would appear out of control… so this was a tool to get you back in control. As opposed to blowing it through a weekend, this was now a strategic use of pornography and then you, you know instead of three hours of – that’s an exaggeration, I don’t know if that’s really what it was – but, instead of three hours over a weekend it was thirty minutes. And then we saw that as a success! As opposed to a setback. Is that what you’re remembering?
Katy: Yeah and I think this whole idea of tracking minutes, because I was pretty good at tracking days, but the idea of tracking minutes I think was actually helpful for me because often it would be like I’d view pornography some time in the morning and then it’s like, “Ah this day’s screwed,” right? And so then it got me into this negative cycle, and so then I might three or four times throughout the day go back to it. Because that day was already lost, right? But tracking minutes… then, you know, okay, so I had an hour this morning like, well, I don’t want to make that four hours or, you know, whatever your numbers are. So I think that was also helpful and again like Daniel said, helping to start to see some trends and to celebrate those successes; and to be able to say, “Oh, yeah we went from five hours last month to like half an hour this month.” And that was awesome. That was very good to see.
Dan: So the ultimate goal was to get you off of pornography, and even though you were taking back control, it would still occur. Reoccur. And that was frustrating. And so what we did was we started to discover what – how did you get away from pornography?
Katy: So, how I got away from pornography… what a great question.
Dan: What, what made you – let me clarify that question – if you found yourself looking at pornography how did you end or how did you stop it at that point.
Katy: Well, so… usually with pornography I would get like going and then I don’t know what, something would happen and it was just like, “ugh, too much.” Like, “Dang it, I’ve done it” Like too far, and something would stop. But one of the things I realized was that somehow in my mindset, my pornography viewing was worse if I masturbated while viewing pornography. Like, it was a smaller slip if I wasn’t masturbating but if it led to masturbation then it was like a bigger slide for me. So starting to kind of examine that and figure why that was… and I realized that in my mind pornography was not as bad as masturbation. Like masturbating was the thing I was trying to avoid. So badly. And so one of the things Daniel suggested is that I start masturbating. And again I was like, “What??” Like how, like it didn’t make sense to me, I didn’t know… A part of it was, well I was kind of out of other ideas, right? Like I had tried everything else, and so I wasn’t sure about it, but a part of me was kind of like “Okay.”
Dan: So let me reemphasize this, this wasn’t just to add something else pleasurable into her life, it was how do we finally get rid – is there a way to finally get rid of the desire for pornography. And what was pornography doing to you? It was creating these negative feelings, these negative perspectives, oh – you might want to also, yeah we could do – I don’t want to convolute the conversation… there was also something you were discovering in pornography and it was the type of pornography that you were looking at that I think was making you feel, “Oh, is there something wrong with me?” And you’d never had an opportunity to explore that, because that’s not necessarily really something… we’ll leave it probably there, there’s no – I don’t think any need, because everyone has their own passions and desires… but there was a certain, I think it’s important to address this first because there was a certain belief system that if this was interesting to you – I remember, I think, that conversation a couple of times – that there must be something wrong with you. And you kept going to it, and we noticed that this was also a stressor, a trigger. But who are you going to talk to about this desire? So what was the response you had? Again, it was a suppressing of it. You’re not going to go to your bishop and say, “yeah, I actually pursue this type of pornography and this is why.” Which is not appropriate. And so we actually took – do you remember that, the first time I had you actually explore…?
Katy: Yeah.
Dan: What was that like for you?
Katy: It, it was.. It was interesting. It was a little scary to allow myself to… I think, taking a step back, my first real sexual experiences were with pornography. And so, again, being a woman in the church – blah blah blah, shame shame shame shame shame. So from that point on, every single, anything related to sex for me was shrouded in shame. And whether it was a feeling I had while, whatever, listening to a song that, whatever, like – if it brought up, it was shame. Which I think was actually driving me more back towards pornography. And I was in this cycle. And I had again shamed and suppressed my sexuality. My whole life pretty much. I never allowed myself to experience that. And so starting to dive in there and to start learning, or to start being open to the fact, that “Oh, I have sexual desires. Oh and maybe that’s not a bad thing. What are they? I don’t know.” And a lot of this was breaking the shame. Separating myself from the shame of my sexuality. Or of the fact that we as humans are sexual beings, right? Like, it’s part of our divine nature.
Dan: What was it like to actually verbalize it? For you?
Katy: To verbalize…?
Dan: Your desires. Your sexuality.
Katy: Uhm, it was kind of liberating. A little bit of, to be able to… it’s self validating. It’s like, oh actually this is who I am and I can say that? That feels good.
Dan: Did it make your behavior worse?
Katy: Uhm, my pornography behavior? No. Absolutely not. And I think that’s another good point is I was living my life in fear, in a lot of ways. Right? I was afraid that if I heard an inappropriate song, that it was going to lead me to pornography. That if I watched an inappropriate movie, it was going to lead me to pornography. If I was at a bridal shower and they got lingerie and started talking about sex, it was going to lead me to pornography. Like, anything sex = fear. Fear that that’s where it would lead. And, uhm, exploring my own sexuality and coming to terms and starting to love myself as a sexual human being, allowed me to take those things that used to cause me fear and like, no longer. I was not afraid of them. Turns out they didn’t lead me to porn.
Dan: And I like what you said at the beginning, how did you say it exactly… it was your porn… porn was making you the object.
Katy: Yeah, I was an object that was acted upon.
Dan: Yes, and you were taking back control, you weren’t being afraid of your thoughts anymore, and your sexual desires… so this led to this idea of kay, how do we separate these ten years of negative sexual thoughts and ideas from pornography and make your sexuality beautiful again. And get the porn out of there. And so we said, “Okay, we scheduled the pornography, you have some control over this. How do we even prevent that?” Not only prevent it, but make your sexuality beautiful again, or beautiful first of all. I don’t know if it was before. At least how you experienced it. And so, we explored, “At what point does it finally end?” And sometimes it ended in masturbation. So the thought was, “Why don’t we reclaim our sexuality?” And if we know we won’t look at porn after we masturbate, after we have an orgasm or whatever, and we can move on – why don’t we do that first? And keep the porn out of it, so that we can reclaim. Is that, uh, you tell me. What was that experience like for you?
Katy: Yeah, I mean, honestly like when I started masturbating, it was kind of difficult. Because, again, I was so used to this other stimulus kind of moving me along that progression towards an orgasm. But… I forgot your question.
Dan: So we’re getting rid of the pornography; so we’re now scheduling the masturbation in place of the pornography. And so you started to discover, actually, you weren’t even in touch with your body.
Katy: Yes, uhm, I was not in touch with my body. At all. So, learning that and starting to discover myself, what I liked, what I didn’t like… once I really started going down that path and started really learning about this God-given desire that we have all been blessed with, and understanding that in a much different way. Daniel, he was like, “Involve the Lord in this process. Pray before and after you masturbate.” And I was like, “This is so weird! Like, this is SO weird!” But God cares about our sexuality, He absolutely cares about our sexuality. And I had some really spiritual experiences while masturbating. And it seems so strange, but when you really think about it, it’s not that strange. Because it’s such a sacred thing that we have been given, that has been turned into this very shameful thing. And when we can, like Daniel was saying, reclaim that for ourselves and be okay with ourselves as a sexual being… and you know I started exploring some of my desires and like Daniel said, some of these different types of pornography that I was seeking out… Really exploring that within myself, and for a while it’s what I was desiring. But after I allowed myself to desire that, and to not shame myself because I was desiring that, it’s totally fallen off. And I think I’ve found more who I am rather than who I was afraid I was.
Dan: So let me give a timeline. A little bit cleared on the timeline. Because after about… it was about three months or so after you saw me that you felt like you had a pretty good control of your porn use. And a few months after that, it was pretty well controlled. It would keep coming up, maybe… we’d have to go back to the spreadsheet, but maybe once a month? It would come back.
Katy: Yeah there would be some little thing, like it was just kind of nagging… that little thing that just stays around long enough.
Dan: And after about a year or so of this, because you were in a much better place…
Katy: Oh much much better.
Dan: SO so so good. And so we were like, “Great! Continue on. You know what to do, you have the tools to take control of that.” So for about a year, year and a half… what was it, I think it was about a year ago you called me up and we couldn’t make sense of the data. There wasn’t any… I was here graphing it in the background… so I’m a data analysis guy. I’ve spent 20 years in business, and so I’m-I seriously I wanna understand. There’s gotta be a solution here. I think data is important, and I started graphing it. I keep saying, “Is this it? No that’s not consistent.” There wasn’t a pattern that we could clearly see, and then we added in… we started to say, “okay, I want you to start taking comments on the day. How was your mood?” Uhm, but it was frustrating because… I think you called me up and said, “Will this EVER just go away??” Uhm. And so I put my thoughts in gear again and started figuring out “What can we do?” And, uhm, seeing no clear pattern we started to discuss sex drive again. And what we started to notice is that you had one.
Katy: Haha yes, yes I do, true.
Dan: And that was probably the only consistent factor. And that was when, and again if you remember the conversation differently – I repeated, I think, because culturally… I’ve said this from the beginning in one way or another, but it took until I think last year, we had that phone conversation and I said, “Are you scheduling masturbation?” And you had this reaction like, “Why am I doing that?” Are you recalling the conversation?
Katy: Yeah I think am… I’m not exactly the conversation but yeah.
Dan: And then I reemphasized, “include the Lord in on this, understand what your sex drive is. For you to be completely abstinent, just like the other, asexual person next to you isn’t really a good measurement. I mean, somebody who doesn’t have a sex drive… and how do you know what your sex drive is? And so we’re tracking that data and since then, so I think I bounced around there. So after about three months of seeing me, you were in an awesome place. A place you hadn’t been for a while, if at ever in the ten years consistently. And then for about a year after that you were pretty consistent, with an occasional repeat, but it wasn’t like it was before.
Katy: Right.
Dan: So about three years into our relationship is when you called me again, so that was about a year ago, so hopefully that helps the listeners. So about a year ago we reemphasized this. And you had like a lightbulb moment, like “Oh, this is what you said to do.” And since then, I think there’s only been like five minutes of pornography?
Katy: Yeah, it’s been… very very little.
Dan: It was like… I keep going through the spreadsheet and it’s just blank.
Katy: Gone.
Dan: Blank. And I have to laugh because she will put like a minute of pornography, and I’m like, “Okay, you popped a browser open and then you shut it down?” She’s like, “yeah, pretty much,” and I go, “you’re so honest. This is great.” This is uh, I’m glad you keep that data. So I guess in summary… and you’re welcome to ask questions… so Katy’s never shared this like this before, so I’m really proud of her she’s doing really good here, but feel free to ask her any questions. But in summary, that’s what we discovered with her; she’d been fighting, actually, her own sexuality for so long. Introduced to these urges, interests, desires, and somehow – and I’ve noticed this both in men and women, oddly enough, it’s… they don’t ever vocalize it this way – the belief becomes that it’s better to view pornography than it is to actually understand your sexual urges. And that was a hard one for you to wrap your head around. Rightfully so.
Katy: Yeah, it was.
Dan: But since doing that, you have been pretty consistent with your understanding your body. And mastering your body. Oh, let me ask, is the masturbation worse or better than it was before?
Katy: Worse in what way or better in what way? Haha
Dan: Good clarification. I realized this is kind of predisposing the answer here, but it’s uh, out of control? Does it feel out of control?
Katy: Oh I get what you’re saying. No I, like it… and I think that was one of my fears, like, “Oh my gosh if I start masturbating I’m just going to do it all the time, and then this is going to be something that, again, creates me as this object that’s acted upon.” But I think the whole point of this is self-mastery. To be an agent who acts, who is in control, who understands and is governing this body that we have been blessed with. So, yeah, my masturbation has not felt out of control. In fact, there’s some times where I’ll go quite a while and I think Daniel’s kinda like, oh, like…
Dan: I get a little nervous, not in a… I guess a little cautious, because looking at the data, because I think I saw the 5 minutes of porn use or whatever, I’m like, “Oh my goodness you haven’t actually masturbated in like weeks” or whatever it was. And it was very telling. That was… I was getting concerned that she was… you were getting caught up at work, you’d get caught up with friendships, relationships, and that it would happen again. And so sometimes I was like, “Hey what’s going on over there.” And then what’s the feedback? What’s usually happening?
Katy: Well, so, this is more recent – I’ve kind of gone back to scheduling masturbation again. Once a week I masturbate. And it’s been, that alone has actually been very helpful, again, to kind of refocus on this and again keeping God very involved in this whole process, right? Like, including Him in this, using it as an opportunity to understand myself, to understand my desires, to understand my wants and my needs, and how He’s involved in it. And I also remember there was one time, I don’t know if you remember this, but I was talking to Daniel after whatever masturbation experience and I was like, “It was awesome, but at the end it felt like something was missing.” Right? And he was like, “Yeah, exactly, the point of this is not to replace sex.” Right? And I don’t know who’s married, who’s single on this call, I’m single. But I honestly feel like this self discovery, if I ever should get married, is going to be so beneficial in that marriage relationship. Where I can then become one with my spouse, because I understand myself. Because if I can’t understand myself, and I’m not… I don’t know what I want, what my desires are, what my fantasies are, anything like that… it’s, we’re going to have a much harder road, like, getting to that oneness and me being able to share myself with him if I don’t know who I am. And that’s one of the big things I’ve taken away from this, is I’ve come to know myself, and really even God in a way that I never had before.
Dan: And that’s the experience that I’ve seen, and it’s interesting because I make sure I never ask this question, because I want to hear it from them whether it’s happening or not, but in every case that I’ve worked with, and similar cases, the person will come back and say something similar. “This is actually,” for those who are married, “making me crave my husband more.” Those who are single will say, “Wow, this really makes me want to have a partner.” So this fear, there is this concern that “If I can do this, and if I can do it really well, why-“
Katy: Who needs men??
Dan: But yet you were finding something quite opposite. And when you were including the Lord, when you were doing this in a healthy way, stripping the pornography usage out of it – and I think that’s an important factor in understanding this, is getting the polluted version of sex out of your head…
Katy: Coming to a more pure version, a more pure understanding of what sex is and what my sexuality is, yeah.
Dan: It’s connecting. By getting rid of the pornography, this desire started to grow in a healthier way. Is that fair to say?
Katy: Absolutely.
Dan: Any questions? We kind of dumped a lot on you guys. Any questions for Katy? You think we’re nuts?
Katy: I got some headshakes, no. Anything anyone wants to share, or yeah questions…
Woman 1: Well I’m interested to know if you, like, have any resources or books or things that helped you in like creating and discovering more of your healthy sexuality. Or was it really just you and God together somehow discovering it? You know? You have the pornography version, but then was it really just you and God creating this other version for yourself?
Katy: Thank you for asking that. No, actually Daniel gave me some resources. What is that one called? OMGyes?
Dan: Yeah, that’s a pretty shocking one. Uhm, yeah. If that was helpful for you, then share it.
Katy: So basically, it’s some website I guess, and I don’t know was it made for married couples?
Dan: No, it’s for women. Just for women to understand their bodies.
Katy: Yeah, so it’s different women and they’ll have a little video of them talking about some sort of, something that they find pleasurable. Like something sexual, whether it’s a stroking technique or whatever else.
Dan: It’s essentially, it’s a training on how to – female masturbation.
Katy: Yeah. And if you do it on your phone, there’s actually a picture and you can practice on your phone. Which was a little weird, but I feel like those videos and hearing other women just talk about what was what they like and what was helpful for them, and so that gave me something to try. And again, it wasn’t in a pornographic way, like obviously you’re talking about your body in a very open way, but it wasn’t pornographic.
Dan: I think to your point there, it’s – for me as a male to tell you, “Understand your sexual desires,” I don’t know how to do that. I can tell you what my wife experienced, but then that’s kinda not appropriate in a therapeutic relationship, especially. So I was struggling for resources, what do I give her? For somebody who’s been resisting physical touch, sexuality… it’s not like you can go to your mom and say, “I don’t understand how to actually have an orgasm in a healthy way, and how does my body work?” And so, again it was one of those things where it was like this seems to be a tool that is geared towards your need, and happened to work. And I think I threw quite a few things at you.
Katy: Yeah there was another one that was actually very helpful. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, she’s kind of known as the LDS sex therapist, and one of her courses is called the Art of Desire. And that was very helpful for me. Again, discovering what my desires are – because I had suppressed, shamed, whatever, like, everything everything everything… and so when you start off on this journey you’re like, “I don’t even know. I don’t even know how to get there.” And so going through that course was also something that was beneficial.
Dan: Katy and that’s I think, and maybe that’s implied already and people are following this, but I think that’s important. This wasn’t just about orgasm, it wasn’t about just masturbating and orgasming and getting away from porn. In fact, that I’ve found to be – people have come back and.. It’s a little confusing. Because now I’m just using that tool to get away from something else. But the goal here was to actually learn and to discover, to embrace who you are. And so that’s why I really did like Jennifer, at least from a man’s point of view, I really liked hers because it helped you not just explore your sexual desires, but every desire.
Katy: Every desire, yeah. Dang I had a really good comment while you were talking and it left me.
Dan: Sorry.
Katy: Uhm, yeah I don’t think it’s coming back. Sorry guys you missed out. Haha. But yeah that was very important to start discovering myself and who I am.
Woman 2: How’d you get away from the shame of it? The feelings of shame around it?
Katy: That’s a good question. Uhm, I think – oh remember your question because I just remembered what I was going to say. So, uhm, I think when Daniel was talking I realized that masturbating was not to just like replace pornography. It wasn’t like taking that out and putting this in and this is my substitute for it. Because that’s what I tried to do forever, right? Is substitute other things in my life, other good things in my life, to try to get this out. And that never worked, right? But, again, reiterating what Daniel was saying – this was about learning. Discovering myself. And once I discovered truth, truth has a light to it. And that darkness just started falling away. And I think that actually plays into your question, like, how do you get rid of… are you talking about the shame of masturbation or pornography or what?
Woman 2: Uhm, just the idea of discovering your sexuality primarily. But masturbation. If you’re growing up under the mindset of it’s shameful, everything around sexuality – discovering it, understanding yourself, talking about it – to go from years, decades, of that to discovering, “Oh this is something that’s actually really good for me and educational, and positive about me,” but then at the same time you still have this, story behind-
Katy: in the back of your mind, just, “this is wrong” right? Yeah, so it is tough, right? Because when something is so ingrained in the back of your mind, you always – that’s always how it’s been, right? There’s never been anything else. And I don’t know that I have like, oh here’s my you know like, hop on one foot three times and this will like cure your shame. But it really was more, I think, allowing myself to be open. Allowing myself to be open to this idea. Because, again, when I started I was like, “This is a bad idea. This isn’t going to work.” But I was kind of out of other options, and was like “Okay, well, we’ll just try this.” And I don’t know how to explain it, but the closeness that I felt with God and the light that came into my life when I really opened my heart to this and gave it an honest shot – I don’t know. The shame was gone. Like it just was like this is – for me it was truth. It was right. And it’s now become something I think some people, I love talking about it now. I love talking to people about sex! I bring it up, I was in Texas this week and I brought it up with some friends. And, I love having those open dialogues because in the church it’s not talked about. It’s not discussed, it’s this taboo topic, and I think that perpetuates the shameful idea. So I don’t know if that answers your question at all…
Dan: I want to say something, in case wives who watch this or individuals who struggle with this have husbands or male people who struggle with this, is I noticed something interesting. Women, and I realize this is a stereotype, but the majority of women – and I guess it’s an accurate stereotype, at least in my experience – is the majority of women actually approach it in a very mature, spiritual way like you have. If they’re going to do it, that’s how they do it. I find something interesting that happens with men, when I approach this. A lot of them will say, “that makes sense!” But then they go a 13 year old boy, and in that it becomes a silly thing or a repulsive thing, or no no no no. They have this very, it’s still kind of this black and white… and when they do attempt it it’s so foreign to them that they sometimes struggle with it. Not because it’s right or wrong, but because they’re not including the Lord in it. They struggle with seeing that this is something they need to include the Lord in, because for so long in their life… maybe it’s because of the responsibility of the Priesthood or…. I mean, you look at in Conference, Priesthood Sessions…. I went through 30 years of Relief Society Conferences and broadcasts, I think there was one reference to pornography. And it was more of just kind of in general avoid it. Whereas men have gotten it quite literally slammed down, I mean I was scared to death. And so I’ve experienced this, I think a lot of men – it takes a little bit more work for men with me, oddly enough – it seems like me being a man I could kind of coach them along… but once they can understand they can include the Lord in this process, they start to move towards what Katy is experiencing. It’s this bondness, this self-mastery. It’s when they don’t do that that sometimes you’ll see more of an out of control behavior, like “oh yeah yeah yeah, this is now okay for me to do this,” kind of thing, but you’re still not including the Lord. You’re still in the same situation you were before. And even with Katy I was like, I never told her what to do. That’s good therapy; I never tell her what to do. I always said, “This is an option, take it to-” you know if she wasn’t LDS I’d say take it to your higher power or whatever… but you figure out if this is the right thing for you. And so for men I see that they actually have a harder time allowing the Lord into that process. Because so long their prayers have been, “remove this desire from me,” but the prayers are now changing from “remove this desire” to “help me understand. Help me embrace this. Why, Heavenly Father, would I have such a powerful urge and how can I make this a beautiful thing?” I can’t remember if I’ve shared this in my blog or not, but there was a 14 year old boy – this is a perfect example of this, and this is in no way an exaggeration – he came in, he started off with two to five minute prayers, he would literally go into his backyard and find a little place he would kneel and pray for his erection to go away. He wanted, he had to get these thoughts and desires out of his head, and he would pray. And by the time his mom brought him into me, it was 90 minutes. He didn’t want to go to church anymore, didn’t want to pass the sacrament… he was 14-15 years old by the time he came to me. And he was depressed. And when I started introducing this idea that you could pray and actually change your prayers, ask the Lord, “How? How is this desire good?” It was such – it hurt his head, at first, he thought that just thinking that was going to be a sin. But once he was able to get away from that, his mom said he was night and day difference. Just a glowing young man. No longer struggling with pornography, and they have no reason to lie to me, plus you could see it in their countenance. So I thought I throw that in there, just for those who might have men in their life who are struggling with this. Anyway, I didn’t mean to divert from you-
Katy: No, you’re good.
Dan: Any other questions or thoughts?
Woman 1: I have a question. A lot of, like, porn recovery focuses on like that porn use is emotionally driven, so it’s like a way of coping with emotions… but it seems like you’re almost saying that for you it was more like the way that your suppressed sexuality was like trying to get out or get some expression or some attention. Do you feel like that’s accurate or did you like see that it correlated with like trying to cope with your life through a release that felt good.
Dan: That’s a great question.
Katy: Yeah that is a great question. Uhm, I definitely used pornography as a coping mechanism. Right? Whether it was me being bored, me being stressed, big changes in my life…I think those cause stress and I would see my porn usage increase then. So those things might not necessarily be tied to your sex drive, right? And your sexuality. Those are more of those emotional things. So yeah, I think I definitely was using pornography for those emotional reasons, right? To make me feel better about whatever was going on. But I think in some of this discovery, well number one – the release through masturbation, I think, in some ways helps with that. But I think also just understanding myself better, I have been able to cope better with the things that life throws at me. Because I – one of the things that I have discovered through masturbation is how completely vulnerable we have to be with ourselves in order to have a positive sexual experience. My masturbation, if I was feeling bad about something or like – I don’t even know – but like it just wasn’t there. But if I was kind of at one with myself, and okay with my faults and my flaws and whatever else, that’s when I was having these much more positive experiences. And I think that just, I guess it’s played into my overall emotional health as well. Right? And it’s allowed me to have healthier coping mechanisms – like strategies for those things. You know whether it’s talking to someone rather than turning to porn, or going for a run instead of turning to porn. Or sometimes it’s masturbating instead of turning to porn. You know, these different things that used to trigger trigger trigger – they, that’s not where I turn anymore. It’s changed my focus. I don’t know if that helps. If you have anything to add Daniel?
Dan: No.
Katy: Does that make sense?
Woman 1: Yes.
Katy: Okay, awesome.
Woman 1: I do kind of have a question with that too, because like for women the process of masturbation and reaching orgasm tends to be more of like a long kind of deal, whereas for men it’s like ten seconds like it could be pretty fast. So I guess, Daniel, have you seen like with men that that kind of healing through the self exploration of masturbation, does that correlate with a male experience?
Dan: Yeah, that’s a beautiful, brilliant question – because there is a misconception. Ejaculation is not orgasm. Men can, you’re absolutely right, very quickly. But that doesn’t mean they’re having a positive sexual experience. In fact a lot of men will say they feel empty afterwards. Much like a woman will after having a long orgasm without connection. Men actually need more connection than they realize. And this is part of the process. They never learn, in fact the fact that they can ejaculate quickly is in one way – maybe this isn’t the best choice of words – detrimental; because 1) they confuse it as an orgasm and 2) they don’t learn how to have a connection that increases the depth of their orgasm. So even though men will turn to – so that was why I was emphasizing that earlier, that if we’re just using masturbation to avoid something we’re actually not learning what it’s like to have a good sexual experience. And so I’m finding, to your point – to answer your question – is men are a little bit more like women than we give them credit for. Than they give themselves credit for. And there’s techniques and ways for them to learn how to do this, and to extend their sexual experience in marriage as well as with themselves. Does that answer your question? Or does it open up a bunch more questions?
Woman 1: Yeah it opens a bunch more questions, but you know that can be for another day.
Dan: It’s a wonderful question, and it’s one that’s really hard for men to understand. Yes, I think maybe I need to do this one for men too. Because women get it. They know that they need a connection. And some women can orgasm as fast as a man can ejaculate, but that therein doesn’t make connection or a positive sexual experience.
Katy: Yeah, I like that – the positive sexual experience. Just because you’re orgasming doesn’t mean it’s a positive sexual experience.
Dan: Gosh and I think that’s what confuses a lot of men.
Katy: Yeah, probably.
Dan: Big time. Good questions my goodness.
Katy: Yeah, awesome. Any other ones?
Woman 1: Well I have one more short, easy one. Did you join any support groups during the ten years when you were trying to manage porn traditionally? Did you like attend ARP or any of those?
Katy: Yeah I did; I did do the ARP program, and that was probably shortly before I actually ended up reaching out to Daniel. There was one in my area. It wasn’t a women specific one; I’ve heard better feedback from women specific ones, uhm, mine was kind of a general addiction anyone can come. I personally didn’t find it very helpful. It felt kind of like a Sunday school class, right, where you’re just kind of learning gospel whatever and then, “ok how does this actually help me?” So yeah, I did try that. It didn’t get me anywhere really.
Woman 2: So I have a question about when, at what point did masturbation come as a sexual drive versus an avoidance of pornography? Or maybe I’m not understanding that it came that way?
Katy: Are you asking, uh…
Woman 2: Yeah I know it sounds confusing, uhm, at what point was masturbation like part of your sexual drive, and you think – oh that’s what I’m saying – so you’re thinking about masturbation comes before thinking about pornography?
Dan: Oh. What’s driving what. Is that you’re asking?
Woman 2: Yeah.
Dan: What’s driving what?
Katy: Mm.
Woman 2: Or has that changed?
Dan: Okay that’s the clarification I was looking for.
Katy: Yeah, so in the beginning, you know when I had started scheduling masturbation – it was definitely a pornography thought that I was then delaying a little bit until I was at my scheduled masturbation time. Right? So that was kind of what was getting me through those temptations. Because those were still coming. At this point, I really have zero desire for pornography. It’s kind of incredible to me. And in fact Daniel was saying that I had like five minutes of pornography, and I think that actually came one day while I was masturbating. And all of a sudden I was desiring some, whatever, and anyway ended up with a little bit of pornography. And, anyway, that one started with masturbation which had never happened before. Right? So there has definitely been a shift. And I’m really no longer drawn to pornography.
Woman 2: Well, and so this kind of makes you define pornography, which I think is up in the air, for me.
Woman 1: That’s exactly what I was thinking! Like, what is pornography in your definition?
Woman 2: Like what about pornography is not educational to discovering your sexuality and different techniques and understanding yourself?
Katy: And I think I probably have a pretty strict definition of pornography.
Dan: Yes, she does.
Katy: And Daniel has kind of helped me to see that.
Dan: Sorry I don’t want to give anybody watching this like I’m minimizing pornography. Because I see such a spectrum of pornography usage, that’s why I’m saying she falls in the more traditionally strict. That’s what I’m referring to there. So I’m not intending to minimize anybody’s usage of pornography. But yeah, you definitely fall into a more strict…
Katy: And I’m starting to see that maybe some of the stuff that I thought was pornographic, I think actually I think a lot of my draw to it is from an educational standpoint. Right? It’s not that I’m actually seeking out this pornographic thing, I’m actually trying to understand and trying to…
Woman 2: Yeah, because if you don’t have another resource to learn about your body and sex, I mean where- I mean you get to this point where you fear this part of your body and understanding it. And you’re told to, basically. Or you’re felt to shame it. So you don’t have anyone else to reach out to, so then… but then at the same time… so pornography is there, but at the same time you think you’re going to get… the way that it’s taught is that it is going to just take you and hold you, and that you just can’t get away and that it just overpowers you. And then you’re just not learning about yourself, so there’s a fear base for sure.
Katy: Yeah and I think, so again maybe understanding my backstory a little bit more… uhm, I think that my pornography back way back when it started kind of from a curiosity standpoint, right? I was trying to learn more and then my searching for more led into pornographic material, but a not strict definition. And what I would find myself doing, is sometimes I would start with a probably pretty innocent education curiosity, and it would just – I think because I kind of got into this habit where that would end up leading to more pornographic things. And so then I think I started defining anything as pornographic because it would-
Dan: Trigger
Katy: yeah, lead me there. Right? And so that is probably where my strict definition came from. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of more educational things out there that would not be considered pornographic. Yeah. You guys have awesome questions. Anything else?
Woman 2: SO many, but…
Katy: We’ll have to do this again then.
Dan: How do you like being in the hot seat?
Katy: I kind of like it. Like I said, it’s become something that I love talking about. Because I see the freedom that it has brought into my life and I find the more people I talk to, they’re like oh yeah – it’s like this breath of fresh air-
Woman 2: Yes!
Katy: -That they haven’t known how to find or where, or that it was even available to them. So yeah, I like it, thanks.
Dan: That’s what you paid me to do.
Katy: Haha yeah, well you did your job. So yeah if any of you have questions that you wanna like to talk with me offline, feel free to reach out through the group.
Dan: Look at that, amazing resource!
Woman 2: Thanks for sharing.
Dan: Thank you everyone.
Woman 1: Yeah thanks so much.
Dan: Have a good night.
Katy: Alright, take care!
If Katy’s story sounds familiar
Katy’s ten years of white-knuckle effort, bishop visits, and shame spirals are the most common story I hear — from women and men alike. If you’re living some version of it, the approach that helped her is part of how I work in pornography conflict and trust repair and sexual health therapy. Therapy is available online in California and Utah; coaching, courses, and the Inner Circle community are available worldwide.
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