Young Mormons Built an App to Help Men Quit Gooning

Jamie would meticulously docket his days astir uncovering clip unsocial to ticker porn and masturbate—often up to 5 times a day.

The 32-year-old Michigan engineer, who did not privation to usage his existent sanction owed to privateness concerns, archetypal watched porn astatine the impressionable property of 12, but ne'er realized helium had a occupation until conscionable aft his father’s ceremonial 3 years ago.

“I didn't shed a azygous tear,” helium says. “I didn't cognize however to respond happily oregon sadly to anything.” That’s erstwhile his porn depletion spiraled—combined with stress, anxiety, and depression—and helium locked himself successful his country “all day.” The lone happening that seemed palpable, helium recalls, “was that unreserved of dopamine” delivered by an aggravated league of hardcore porn viewing. But for Jamie, who is Christian, those fleeting moments of porn-fueled transcendance were followed by acold deeper lows, including suicidal ideations.

This past March, Jamie says his spouse angrily confronted him implicit his compulsive porn consumption, accusing him of lying and committing adultery.

Jamie’s “entire satellite came down.” He admitted helium felt that helium was addicted, begged for her forgiveness, temporarily moved backmost successful with his mother, and renounced porn. That’s erstwhile helium recovered Relay, an app created by a brace of Mormon assemblage students that claims it tin assistance radical “take backmost power from porn, 1 time astatine a time.” Jamie promised his spouse helium would ne'er ticker porn again—and she gave him 1 chance.

The app provides a broad program to halt watching porn, with videos by therapists, regular diary prompts, unrecorded radical sharing sessions, and a relation to code superior urges. Users adjacent support way of each other’s porn-free streaks, with a “Live Milestone” ticker. This is each successful an effort to assistance customers, who wage $149 per twelvemonth for afloat access, unpack their underlying issues similar loneliness and trauma to assistance forestall relapse. The app has been downloaded implicit 110,000 times, with institution information showing that 89 percent of its users are male.

This month, Relay has partnered with anti-porn advocacy nonprofit Fight the New Drug for “the November Project”—a caller inaugural to promote radical to abstain from porn—with 28,000 sign-ups truthful far.

The standard of pornography usage represents “a modern epidemic,” claims Relay’s CEO, Chandler Rogers. The 27-year-old was inspired to cofound the app successful August 2021 to supply his Gen Z peers a way to halt watching porn. It followed his ain self-described yearslong addiction to explicit content. Rogers, who attended Brigham Young University successful Utah wherever helium met some his cofounder and main of staff, says helium tried to halt “at slightest 100 times, and could ne'er spell much than a week without turning backmost to pornography.”