What people told me about 50 Shades

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on the 50 Shades Boycott. I also blogged ALOT on the subject. The second movie in the Series, 50 Shades Darker, came out a few weeks ago and I wondered:


How do people really feel about these movies?


So, I interviewed people on the street and asked them. I got some very interesting responses, and ended up doing some looking around to see how the responses compared to the research on the franchise.


You should go check out my article published by Deseret News HERE. Or paste this link into your browser:

  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865674797/Jenelle-Stone-I-asked-people-on-the-street-how-they-feel-about-Fifty-Shades-Darker-Here7s-what.html

 The article has a link to the video I made from the responses and research.

What gifts really matter to you?

A few days ago I had an article publish on familyshare.com titled:

"8 gifts that your husband wants but would never say out loud"

Follow the link to find the article.

Actually, you might be surprised to find what gifts made the list. Jewelry? A new bed set? Toiletries? What?!!!!! Jenelle, have you gone crazy? 

No. 

Read the article, you'll see what I mean. But what it all comes down to is that everyone likes to feel that their wishes and likes, and the things that they need to live are being respected if at all possible. People need to know that they are cared about. 

Some of my favorite gifts have been the small things that I needed anyway. Elaborate gifts can be amazing, of course, but those won't mean much in the end if you feel like you aren't cared about on a basic level.

I know that not all women are like that, but I am. If there was only enough money to get me one gift, I would rather that gift be something I need than something I don't need, no matter how nice it is.

Like... I would choose a new set of kitchen pans over jewelry.

But keeping someone's interests and the things they actually need in mind is a great way to start looking for gifts. Don't be one of these people that buys something for a gift just because. Make it count!!!!! Put some thought into it!!!!!!

Are you like me or do you disagree? How do you feel about gifts you need versus gifts that you may want but don't need?

If you needed pans, would you choose the jewelry anyway?



Also...... I am so excited for this Friday! Come join me here at Get 2 the Gist for a chance to win an ebook written by L.G. Rollins, "Shadows of Angels." She will also join us for a guest blog post titled, "Desperate Love: True Love's Counterfeit." You won't want to miss this!

A small look at how pornography/sex addiction affects the spouse

WARNING: This post is full of potential triggers for the spouse.

Finding out that your spouse is a pornography/sex addict messes with your entire life.

For starters, many feel like they loose the "safe place" that they thought their marriage was. Physical safety is complicated, since your spouse is going outside of your marriage for sexual activity. Yes, that is what viewing pornography is. Many people just don't understand the whole pornography-sexual gratification connection. But, in blunt words, the whole point of pornography viewing is to get your system going and experience a perverted version of the reaction that many feel should be kept within a marriage. This is not simply looking at pictures. If that were the case, we'd have Picasso addicts.

And we haven't even started talking about the side effects of affairs.

How is the wife or husband supposed to react to that? That their spouse, for whatever reason, is going outside of their relationship.

It's hard. Seriously hard.

Mental Safety is out the window. Addiction is greatly made up of lies. Lies that grow as the addiction grows. How do you trust your spouse that has been lying to you for months, years, decades? How do you confide in them when you know that they have a very serious second life? There are addicts that view pornography, go to massage parlors, chat rooms, strippers, hookers, sex phone lines, "work wives," etc. etc. etc. And how do they generally do all of this? Through lies. And it makes their spouse question everything in the past. They question happy memories, family pictures, vacations. Because these things now symbolize mementos from a time when they didn't know they were being lied to. "At the time this picture was taken, he was actually seeing this other woman..." that kind of thing.

And, speaking of mental safety, there is nothing like a porn addiction to make a wife feel like she is inadequate. Intimately, physically, she questions her looks and body figure. Lots of women start thinking "If only I was a better..." Housekeeper, wife, listener, mother, etc. etc. etc. Your self esteem plummets. Strong, strong women get pummeled under the crushing blows of a partner's pornography and sex addiction, and it is all they can do to not grimace at themselves when they walk past a mirror. Sometimes a woman will feel that their reflection symbolizes what their husband rejected, what they feel their husband thought wasn't good enough. Because that is how they feel. Rejected. Not good enough.

And then you get the addicts who outright tell their spouses that the addiction is their fault. That they aren't good enough. That they aren't satisfying. That if they could only give them what they want then there wouldn't be an issue.

Not all addicts are like that. But lots of them are.

They don't get that they could be having intercourse with a different woman every day and they would STILL have the addiction. Because the addiction is NOT about the spouse. It's about the addict being caught up in this never ending, addictive cycle where the addict has to keep climbing the steps and trying to find "the next best thing."

Addictions are a cycle. They go round and round, up and down, up and down. It's tiring. Lies, followed by lies, followed by admission (sometimes), followed by lies. The addict's anger, followed by moodiness, followed by a brief moment of peace, followed by anger, followed by moodiness, followed by a brief moment of peace.

And addiction builds upon itself. Once one kind of pornography doesn't work for an addict anymore, he or she will move on to another, worse type of pornography. Before long, the addict is into some really disturbing, unnerving things to be able to get his or her fix. These kinds of addictions lead to acting out, going deeper into the addiction, etc.

And then, at some point, it may all stop working. These stories of addicts who have to watch porn while they are having intercourse with their spouse to be able to get roused are unfortunately very common. Addicts often lose their sense of empathy. They lose their ability to see humans as humans. People become un-unique, dis-enchanting, things.

Pornography is a crash course in learning how to view people as objects.

And then you get the addicts who want their spouses to reenact what the addict saw in the porn.

The whole 50 shades thing... people have died from those types of addictive relationships.

Pedophelia? From what I have been told, you don't come back from that. It isn't the same type of addiction. There are some lines that, once crossed, cannot be crossed back over.

There are different levels of sex addiction. Pray that no one in your family ever has to experience them. From either the side of the spouse or the side of the addict or the side of the kids.

There was a visitor at my church who once described the addict's admission as throwing up. The addict tells all of these details, things they are into, and then after they throw it all up they feel better. But all of that throw up has to go somewhere, and it ends up all over the wife.

Some addicts are really bad about things. They can be aggressive, abusive, mean. And some addicts seem to hit a point where they turn a new leaf. Not that they can let down their guard. Addicts can relapse after years of sobriety.

There are so many things I can write here. So many things I haven't even touched base on. But lots of people just don't get and understand all of this until they've gone through it or been close enough to watch someone else go through it.

And, I know this was a post of doom and gloom, but there really is hope for many marriages. Lots of marriages come back stronger for working through this. And some REALLY great guys and girls have this awful addiction. The addict is in pain, too. They aren't happy, they aren't fulfilled, they aren't getting anywhere good. I feel for them. Luckily there are places, therapists, church leaders who can help them figure it out.

But don't forget these spouses. One thing I tell any spouse of an addict that I meet is that they are very strong. Even if I don't know them I know that they must be a strong, super-hero type person. Because no one can go through the Hell (literally applied here) of a partner's sex addiction and retain even the smallest ounce of normalcy without them being anything less than a warrior.

Lots of spouses hide their addict spouse's activities. They are embarrassed, afraid of it reflecting on them. But really they need support. Support from people who understand what the spouse goes through.

A while back I wrote an article called,

"Your spouse has a pornography addiction, now what?"

check it out here on KSL.com: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=32810176&nid=1010&title=your-spouse-has-a-pornography-addiction-now-what

It goes into this topic a little bit more.

I also wrote a sister piece for the addict, which you can find here: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=32628307&nid=1010&title=you-have-a-pornography-addiction-now-what&s_cid=queue-1

My article: 5 Lies About Pornography Addiction

My newest article was published this morning by Family Share!

Go check it out:

http://familyshare.com/5-lies-about-pornography-addiction

In it I talk about some of the lies and deceptions that a couple has to deal with when one of them has a pornography addiction. So, this week I am going to be focusing my blog posts on those lies. One lie per day and by the end of the week we will have covered the lies discussed in my article.

The first lie is . . . drum roll . . .

"You are not good enough"

I think both addicts and their spouses have to deal with this lie. Pornography gives the viewer a hefty dose of an alternate reality where everything is desirable and acceptable. How does an addict deal with that? How do they get through the constant barrage of fake disirability? And when they don't measure up to this fake reality they can get down on themselves. Recipe for Bad self esteem!

And then the spouse, well that's a recipe for bad self esteem to an intense degree. Feeling like the love of your life is choosing anything over you can massively stunt your ability to see the good in yourself.

But it is a LIE!

Religion aside (which really isn't possible), beliefs aside (again, not possible), there is no way that an outside influence can change your worth. On that same subject, YOU can't even change your worth.

Absolutely no way. Not possible. Whether you believe in God's creation, a big bang, or something else, there is no disputing the fact that every person on this earth is their own, unique, miraculous, being with uncapped potential. Whether or not anyone else or you can see it, you are exploading with worth. Just the fact that you have a place on this earth means that you have the ability to grow, the ablity to change, and the ability to learn.

Now, I do believe in God's creation. And as such I believe he created us. Can anyone even attempt to claim that they can deminish the worth of God's creation. Ha! Fat chance.

Your worth isn't up to you or anyone else. You can decide what to do with your life, people can hurt you, you can let opportunities slip away, others can judge you (whether correctly or not), you can choose your own path.

But your worth is given to you. And it isn't something that can be taken away.

Take a certain silver dollar for example. It's worth is 1 dollar. And it will stay 1 dollar. You can choose what you buy with that dollar. It could purchase a small sandwhich on the dollar menu. It could purchase a discount movie ticket. It could purchase a 99 cent book on amazon. It could be donated to charity.

The life that silver dollar leads could be very different from all of the other silver dollars out there. But, even if the products it buys are dissapointing, it cannot change it's worth.

A silver dollar is a silver dollar, whether or not the discount movie you saw was a blockbuster or not.

You worth is infinite, whether or not the world (or you) (or your spouse) decides to see it.

It's not about being the bad guy

I love to read the comments that people make on my articles. Whether or not the person who commented liked my article, what their thoughts are, comments about their experiences. All that Jazz.

That being said, there are a couple of common misconceptions that frequently pop up in the comments. Today I am going to address one of these. The misconception that every time someone mentions an addict, they must be demonizing the addict and assuming they're a bad guy.

This is ridiculous. Seriously. Just because you mention that someone is an addict does not mean that you are making them out to be awful. Just because you say that they need to get help does not mean you are demonizing them. And just because you tell the honest truth and say that their decisions have led to traumatic consequences and have affected everyone else around them does not mean you are calling them a bad guy.

Now, there definitely are bad guys out there. Guys that do awful things on purpose. I am not saying that everyone is a good guy. I wish that everyone was a good guy, but unfortunately there are some bad news bad guys out there.

But, there are also good guys that have made some very bad choices and that suddenly realize they've tripped up somewhere. Choices that they now have to own up to and do some diligent work to try and counteract.

Basically, it is what it is. You may be a good guy, you may be a bad guy, I don't know. I am not saying you are either one. What I am saying is that there are some issues (like addiction) in which you need help to get through.

Speaking about the spouse of an addict and the trauma that they go through doesn't change a thing. The spouse's of addicts get torn apart and have unfathomable hardships thrown at them. Because of their spouse's addiction they suffer very unfair things. Is that to say that their spouse is a bad guy? Not necessarily. But they have made some very bad decisions which have undoubtedly led to some very bad consequences and those have to be addressed.

Here is a link to drive home the point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RntRKQpuodw

10 Things You Should Know About Your Mate

Ok, so before I stared this blog, I wrote an article for KSL.com called "10 Things You Should Know About Your Mate." The response was crazy! I got people who loved it, people who ripped into it, people who agreed, people who disagreed. The readers were all over the place on that article.

The link to the article is Here:  http://www.ksl.com/?sid=19940242

Lots of people thought I was telling them not to marry people with certain attributes. Really though, It's none of my business who you marry or don't. Whatever the case, whoever you marry, there are certain conversations you should have with each other before you tie the knot. I'm not a therapist or anything, but I think it's good for you to know some of these things before getting hitched.


It's like the quote from Downton Abby:

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: "One way or another, everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden." Thank you IMBD :)

Though don't you think that it's our job to learn as much of the story as we can?

Morality In Media

A couple months ago I wrote an article for ksl.com about the organization Morality in Media (Porn Harms). It was so interesting to talk to them and research their site. All I can say is this: The world is nuts! The world is nuts and thank goodness there are people and organizations like Morality in Media out there trying to fight the sexual exploitation.

One of the most interesting things on their site is their Dirty Dozen List. It lists 12 leading contributors of sexual exploitation. (Read the description on their site, they describe it better). 50 shades of Gray, Facebook and Eric Holder are a few examples of things on the list. 

Have I peaked your interest? Go check out my article here:
 Morality in Media: waging war against pornography since 1962

Or you could check out the article here on their website before you go check out the rest of what they are doing: http://pornharms.com/morality-media-waging-war-pornography-since-1962-ksl/