Your opinion counts!

Is it an infringement on free speech? Is it necessary, in order to ensure that children are not exposed to pornography? Who needs to be held responsible?  Express your opinion and send a clear message to the decision makers.

Do you need to protect YOURSELF from online pornography and Gambling?  This is an embarrassing question. But sadly, one more and more adults today need to ask themselves. That’s the “bad” the Internet has brought along with all its good. The instant and free access we all have to so much problem content.

If you once had to drive a several miles to the bad part of town to rent some xxx movies, today, it’s literally as easy as a click of the mouse in the middle of your work day. And Internet gambling? Think of how many people would have never ventured inside a casino but may try their luck on a bingo, poker or other gambling site offering a $50 coupon just for trying them out. It’s not that the casino sites are generous. They base it all on statistics. Give away a certain number of those $50 promotions and a certain percentage of the takers are going to get hooked  . . .

So if you are addicted to online porn or can’t stop gambling online, at least you should know – -you are not alone. Now, it’s time to do something about it. The question is what? After all, it’s no longer realistic to avoid computers, smartphones and Internet access overall. You may need the Internet for school, for work, to do your banking, make doctor’s appointment . . . It’s a part of life today as much as driving a car. So how can you stay away from online sex and gambling when it’s right there in front of you?

Truth be told, it won’t be easy.  And don’t fool yourself. It’s not about whether you are a strong enough person to resist. Once you have developed a compulsive tendency, going cold turkey usually backfires and can even make an addiction worse.

At Optenet, we discovered that many adults were buying parental controls to install on their own computers. But then those adults realized that if they installed the web filter software themselves, they would know the password and every time they felt tempted, they could simply use the password to turn the filter off. That made the web filter useless for truly blocking porn, gambling and other content adults have trouble with (shopping, Facebook and general Internet overuse).

Alternately, we started suggesting that adults who need to block specific  Internet sites and content should choose a trusted sponsor to set up the web filter for them and guard the password. We still think this is ideal. But let’s be realistic. Not everyone has someone that they feel comfortable to let in on what is probably a well kept secret — porn use and gambling. Most people seem to prefer to try to manage it themselves without involving others. This is perfectly understandable.

So we developed a new service for safeguarding your web filter password. You use our random password generator to choose your password. Watch our video on how to set and forget the password  for detailed instructions. Then we instruct you on how to set up the web filter and designate  our professional staff  as your accountability partner.

If you think you could benefit from using a web filter to block pornography, filter gambling sites, keep off of shopping sites or just general better control of your Internet use, contact us and let us know you need help. We’ll be hapy to include you in our accountability program!

According to a survey by Christianity Today 40% of Christian pastors are struggling with an addiction to pornography. On one hand, this will sound like a shocking piece of information to most people. Of all people, those who lead their churches should be the last ones to give in to such a temptation. On the other hand, it makes sad sense.

A website and forum dedicated solely to supporting Pastor Wives with support in their roles as Pastor wives, pastorwives.org,  even provides a complete section dedicated to the problem of pornography among Church pastors. It is being called the fastest growing problem facing the Church.

It can start completely unintentionally. Landing accidentally on a porn site today is not only unusual, few of us have not had the experience. The images are strong, powerful and hard to ignore. Before you manage to close the site, the image is already solidly implanted in your head. You feel something not because something is wrong with you or you are immoral, but because you are human, and it is a natural feeling — just not elicited in a natural way.

For some, the temptation to view more pornography is too hard to resist and too easy to access. It’s like a constant reminder to someone to “not think of a pink elephant”.  His brain than feels compelled to fight against thinking of a pink elephant and in the end, it’s the only thing he can think of!

Today, many programs exist for helping Church leaders and Church goers who are struggling with porn use. It’s a complicated addiction that is destroying people’s lives. Of course, without serious prevention programs, there will only be a need for more and more porn addiction  treatment and support groups. More Pastors will be the young men who grew up watching porn on their computers at home. In general, exposure to pornography at young ages is only increasing and the type of porn content is only getting more extreme and aggressive. Hopefully, the cries for help that are emanating out of even the most sacred institutions, will be a wake up call to those who can have some impact on how digital  pornography is permitted to seep into our lives without any sensor.

Loneliness, boredom and a computer — a recipe for a porn addiction.

Here the story of one young man who explains that pornography addiction is not something he wanted. The easy access to porn became too tempting for him as he struggled with feelings of loneliness.

“It built up on a daily basis to the point when I would not want to do anything else and really it just gets to the point when it’s not even fun like any other addiction, it just becomes something you do..you feel like a robot you don’t know why you do it, you don’t want to do it..it’s what you go to.”

Porn addiction is literally ruining people’s lives and in many ways, more dangerous than drugs and alcohol because so many people hide it and are too embarrassed to seek help. Today, via the Internet, it is far more accessible than drugs and alcohol and it’s effects can be long lasting, stuck inside someone’s mind where they can replay it over and over even when they don’t have Internet access.

It’s important to educate and let people know about the danger as well as the fact that this is an epidemic
The fantasy world is powerful and can take over a person’s sexual mind.

Teen Porn Addiction on the Rise: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

We wanted to take a look at where porn is most frequently searched – which countries are searching for porn and porno and which countries are searching for porn filter. The findings are quite surprising.

Web Searches for: “porn”
These numbers are relative. The higher the number, the greater the percentage of overall search in the country is made up searches for “porn”.
1. Papua New Guinea 100
2. Trinidad and Tobago 85
3. Ireland 81
4. United Kingdom 80
5. Pakistan 75
6. Canada 69
7. United States 69
8. India 68
9. Greece 67
10. Kenya 66

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Web Searches for: “porno”
These numbers are relative. The higher the number, the greater the percentage of overall search in the country is made up searches for “porno”.
1. Armenia 100
2. Albania 77
3. Turkey 73
4. Romania 66
5. Peru 65
6. Georgia 64
7. Colombia 61
8. Congo 56
9. Mongolia 53
10. Italy 52

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Web Searches for “Porn Filter”
These numbers are relative. The higher the number, the greater the percentage of overall search in the country is made up searches for “porn filter”.
1. Australia 100
2. Indonesia 87
3. India 71
4. United States 65
5. United Kingdom 59
6. Canada 55
7. Turkey 32
8. Netherlands 32
9. Germany 19
10. Italy 14

Based on Google Insights searches from 2004 to present

My first reaction when the story about Representative Anthony Weiner came out was, “How could someone be so stupid?” First of all, could he possibly have thought for a moment that he was not going to be caught? Second, couldn’t he have done this anonymously and remained under the radar?

None of us will probably ever know the extent of the digital relationships and interactions he was having and the details of his online escapades. He says he made a mistake when he sent the revealing photos from his official “RepWeiner” Twitter account, so apparently, he had a private account he was using for sending the porn. Maybe he uses Hootsuite or some other social media management tool to keep track of everything and clicked the wrong account. An easy to make and honest mistake. But it is going to cost him his career.

So does Anthony Weiner have an Internet addiction problem or is he just a guy, doing regular guy stuff, that got caught with his pants down online, so to speak. This is what guys do on the Internet isn’t it? Look at pornography, chat with women, have cyber sex. In fact, I would not be too surprised if in a last ditch effort, someone does try to downplay it – to say he did not do anything that no other healthy male is doing online today. He just made the mistake of letting it go public, and for a public figure, that is a big mistake.

Well, I would argue that he does have a problem. I don’t care much about whether he resigns or how it effects his party because there are hundreds more just like him in his party and in the Republican party. I care about what we learn from this incident. Here was a successful politician, a rising star in the Democratic party. He risked all that for some sexting and cyber sex. He completely humiliated himself in front of the entire world.

But it’s a lot like cockroaches. They say if one crawls out into the open light of your kitchen, you’ve got thousands hidden away under the floor boards and in the plumbing. Yuck!

He is not the first politician to get caught like this and he won’t be the last. But I am wondering about all of those who have not been caught and never will be. And for every one of those respectable, educated, caring, ethical politicians, how many regular guys are just like them? I am not judging anyone. I am not even interested in anyone catching them — there are too many I fear. I am just really worried. This is what they have become — a bunch of creeps sending naked pictures to strangers online. This is what the Internet is for many people. And not because they are bad, not because they don’t care.

Anthony Weiner did not need to do this. He had an brilliant career, is surrounded by interesting people, married, etc. He must have realized the risk he was taking. But he apparently had some compulsive need that he was unable to control. And it’s only the public humiliation that has forced him into seeking help for his problem.

Imagine all the regular people out there who will never be forced to seek help.

He forgets to turn his computer off and you can’t resist a peek. But what you find, may change your relationship forever. So be prepared. More women are taken by surprise than you can imagine. Here are the five things you never want to find on your husband’s computer:

1. Personal Email from women you don’t know.
Let’s be straight here. If he is corresponding with someone by email and it’s not for work and you don’t know the person, it immediately becomes suspect. If it is a woman, you can’t tell me that this is not going to (understandably) get you wondering why he is in touch with a strange woman by email. It’s going to be very tempting to look at the contents, but maybe you want to try to talk about it first before such an invasion of privacy.
2. Visits to Gambling sites and evidence he’s been spending money.
If you look at his browser history, depending on how it is set, you can see the sites he has recently visited. Many people gamble online and keep it completely secret. If he’s been on gambling sites and you have some credit card charges you can’t identify, put 2 and 2 together. He’s been gambling and if he is not telling you, he may have an online gambling problem.

3. Visits to porn sites.
This is the first thing you thought of when you read the title of this article right? It’s every wife’s fear. He’s going to compare me to the women in those movies; he is going to want me to be like them, etc. But it is more than that. Sure, it is hurtful to know your husband looks at pornography. It makes you feel you are not enough. But if he spends a lot of time with porn and you notice some changes in his behavior, he may have a very serious porn addiction problem. You’ve got to bring this out in the open no matter how embarrassing or upsetting it is. Don’t buy the common excuse – “Every healthy man looks at porn”.

4. The Facebook account he never told you he had.
You believed him when he told you he is not interested in connecting with old friends on Facebook and never opened an account but suddenly you see it. His visits to Facebook, his hundreds of friends, wall posts from old girlfriends. And he kept you out of this circle. It’s only some innocent social networking, but he kept it secret and it’s going to drive you mad until you confront him.

5. A clean history in his browser.
Here is the one place you don’t necessarily want your husband to clean up after himself. Most people have no reason to clean their browsing history. Certainly not on a regular basis, unless they want to make sure they are hiding where they have been visiting online. So if you look, the cache is empty and you know he spends time browsing the Internet, now would be the time to start being worried about what he is doing there. Talk to him.

Masturbation starts at young age and is a part of healthy sexual behavior for most men and women throughout their lives (See table below). However, for some, masturbation may get out of hand, become an obsessive behavior and negatively affect their life.
How can you tell if you or someone else is masturbating too much? Is there a number of times it is acceptable or healthy to masturbate in a given period of time? When is it time to to do something about a masturbation habit?
These are controversial questions and the answers are not the same for everyone. In general, masturbating should be considered a problem when it takes preference over participating in healthy social or sexual activities and in general, when it starts to interfere with every day life. In some cases too much masturbation may indicate compulsive behavior or a sexual addiction.

Noted CBT psychotherapist, Noam Gordon has shared these 5 tips with us on how to stop masturbating too much. He has helped many patients overcome their obsession and compulsive need to masturbate and identifies these 5 important steps towards recovery.

Tip 1 Recognition
As is common with addicts, you may be denying you have a problem. After all, masturbating is normal sexual behavior. But denying you have an excessive masturbation problem will only prolong and deepen the problem. You need to accept that there is a problem and recognize that the habit has a real and negative impact on your life.

Tip 2 Education
Educate yourself. Read, find information and literature about compulsive masturbation. You will quickly find that you are not alone and many others are suffering. But you will also learn that there are ways to overcome the problem.

Tip 3 Identify the trigger
Make a list of all of the stimulations that trigger your compulsive masturbation behavior. For many people

The world has changed faster than we could have ever imagine. The internet is part of everyone’s life and it is rare for a home to be without it. But as fast as technology has changed our lives, policies to protect us from being exploited and exposed by technology has not kept pace. One big problem the Internet has introduced is the easy accessibility to porn. Continue Reading

More people than ever before are exposed to pornography and at younger ages. And it is having tremendous effects on people and their relationships.
First of all, people who use pornography on a regular basis often are embarrassed or feel a need to hide it. So they are already setting their relationship or marriage up for a potential problem. They hide it, perhaps lie about it and they are often struggling with strong feelings that they feel a need to suppress. Continue Reading

لا تدع إدمان المواقع الخليعة يُدمّر علاقاتك الأُسريّة

إنّ اعتياد زيارة المواقع الإباحيّة يُؤدّي إلى الإدمان ويصبح هاجسا. إنّك بإدمان هاته المواقع تفقد السيطرة على نفسك ويصبح التوقّف صعبا. ولكنّ التوقّف مُمكن، ساعد نفسك بفضل هذا البرنامج.

أوقف الإدمان على المواقع الإباحيّة الآن !

إنّ النظر إلى الإباحة هو عمل محفوف بالمخاطر. فسهولة الدخول إلى المواقع الإباحيّة وتوفّرها على الإنترنت تؤدّي إلى إدمانها بسرعة. واليوم يزداد تعرّض الأطفال والمراهقين والفتيات وحتى الرجال إلى المواقع الخليعة أكثر من السابق. فالتعرّض للإباحة بالنسبة للأطفال مثلا يُؤدّي إلى نتائج كارثيّة وتعرّضهم لمثل هذه المواقع يؤدّي حتما إلى الإدمان وتعلّقهم بها. كلّ يوم يزداد عدد المواقع الإباحيّة، فالإباحة قد تغلغلت حتّى في المواقع التي ليست مواقع إباحة في الأصل مثل فايس بوك، فليكر، شات رولات، يوتوب وغيرها ممّا يجعل تجنّبها بدون استعمال فلتر واب أمرا مستحيلا.

فلترالمواقع الإباحيّة أپتينيت هو من أفضل البرامج التي تقوم بصدّ هذه المواقع. وإذا كنت تعتقد أنّ أحدا من أقربائك أو أحبّتك يمكن أن يكون عُرضة لإدمان المواقع الإباحيّة فإنّ بإمكانه الإستفادة من برنامج أپتينيت لحجب المواقع الإباحيّة الذي يمكّنه حتّى من تحديد المساحة الزمنيّة للإبحار على الإنترنت.

Web filter and porn filter are two terms that are  frequently searched on Internet search engines. WE were interested to learn more about the geographic differences in how people search for these terms and you may find the results surprising, depending on where you live. We have used Google Insights to identify in which states the most searches are done for  web filter and porn filter .

Take a look at the map below. Continue Reading

How to stop looking at porn

Looking at porn is as easy as checking the weather online. A Google search, a click and you are there. It is easy to access porn, it is available from anywhere at anytime, and it is easy to look at pornography without anyone knowing – at school, at home, at work, anywhere. Continue Reading

Addiction to pornography may be one of the more problematic addictions to treat. Usually, when someone has a porn addiction, they hide it well. Unlike an alcoholic who the family may actually see drink, by the sheer nature of the addiction, the porn addict is compelled to try to hide his problem.
He may surf porn at work in the privacy of his office, he may wait until everyone goes to bed and sit at the computer late at night, he may live alone and simply avoid social interaction to stay home and view porn. Continue Reading

Putting morality and religious issues aside is there a real reason that the average person should make an effort to block porn from their computers?

Yes! Continue Reading

If you answer YES to any of the following questions, you may have an addiction to pornography. But basically, if a porn habit interrupts with leading a healthy, normal life, it’s a problem and it requires attention. Continue Reading

We track the trends of what people are searching for in order to keep pace with problems or new issues that are cropping up online . By examining where particular terms are being searched most, we can learn a lot about a region. For example,  a search for “Koran” reveals that it is most searched in Indonesia and Morocco. While a search for “baptist church” reveals most searches are in the US, in English. This is not surprising.

But we find many surprises when it comes to terms that indicate a potential problem with porn addiction Continue Reading

A search on Yahoo Answers for “Porn Addiction” brings up 3000+ results. Think about what that means. “Alcohol addiction” brings a similar number of results. For someone to seek advice on Yahoo Answers, they need to be very desperate. The level of advice varies – from bored people posting silly answers to wannabe advisors dishing out advice they really are not qualified for, to the occasional professional giving good and useful advice.

But for Porn Addiction, I am not so surprised people turn to a place like Yahoo Answers — and thousands of other public forums where you can post questions anonymously. Most people who are addicted to porn or suspect they have a problem related to viewing porn, think they are alone and that it is a unique problem. Talking about it with friends or loved ones is probably not an option for most. It is too embarrassing. So for an initial search for information, many go to places like Yahoo Answers, hoping that someone just might answer their question with some valuable information they can use.

Searching online for help with such a delicate matter can be confusing. Who can you trust? What will really help? By taking time to research and reading a wide variety of articles, websites about the issue, you can learn a lot. For some people, finding a therapist who has specific experience in porn addiction may be the best way to get started on recovery. A good therapist should be able to help.

For others, they simply need some assistance to remove the constant temptation of pornography on the Internet. A porn filter can do the job and prevent their problem from turning into a full fledged addiction.

Others may find a spiritual solution more helpful. The Church and other religious groups are conducting many activities to help with porn addiction.

If you are seeking help to recover from a porn addiction, you have already taken a major step in recognizing you have a problem. Read as much as you can and you will find the help that is right for you. Learn more about the problem of Internet Addiction and how technology plays a role in the growing addiction problem in our culture.